The Beguiling

For seven years she had watched him, been consumed by him. She allowed her life to be wound around him, threading the spool. He became a center for her and everything she did became defined by that center.

During her first years as a Ravenclaw student, she watched him with awe and respect and endless, protective amounts of admiration. Looking up, up into the face of his kindness, she loved him fiercely and wanted to be held like a child in the circle of his protecting arms. But by her sixth year, puberty opened new eyes and she grew long in limb and deep in emotion and she began to see him as a man, a physical creature who moved with grace and strength. She saw the span of his shoulders, the length of his thigh, watched him walk and listened to him talk, filtered through her developing woman’s senses.

Within the leader she saw the potentialities of leadership. Within the mentor she saw the man, and she desired that man.

From the first moment she had spied the time turner necklace around Hermione Granger’s neck, her quick and dangerous intelligence put two and two together. She seized upon the possibility of making her fantasy a reality. She could have him, then, she could and she would. She had spent months planning it out, thinking of it, obsessing over the details.

She approached the young Gryffindor girl and tantalized her with the generous offer of her copious notes, notes that would lead to solving Vector’s year-long school-challenging arithmancy pro, al, allowing the Gryffindor House the opportunity to win substantial points. She had to discipline her own facial muscles as the longing surface in the young girl’s eyes. Granger wanted it badly enough that she agreed to loan the older girl the necklace for a weekend.

Vivian spent days agonizing over whichkendkend, where she could go, how she could find him in the darkness of the past. She studied, she learned and she watched.

~***~

“Vivian Robinson,” Snape said this clearly. Dumbledore staggered back as though struck.

Minerva brought a shaking hand up to her mouth, her lips forming a perfect oh shape, her breath escaping in a long, low sound, “Miss Granger’s time turner.”

Snape’s head swiveled and he brought a hand up to his own face, his fingers tented over his brow, his eyes fastened on his palm, “Oh, Merlin’s beard.”

“Have I been so lacking in circumspect behavior?” Albus’s voice was stricken, his hooded gaze moving slowly between Severus and Minerva.

“Oh, Albus, it is Miss Robinson, then?” Minerva’s face folded into an expression of empathy and the older wizard was as still as stone. “She has always been a particular favorite of yours.” The witch’s voice was soft, forgiving. “But I am not suggesting, Albus, on any level in any way have you been untoward or guilty of suspect behavior. No, no, not at all.”

He nodded slowly at this, turned and walked around the desk, trailing long fingers across its edge, he settled back down into the chair and Fawkes squawked at him from his perch. He raised his hand, motioning to the phoenix and mumbled, “Yes, yes, Fawkes.”

Severus and Minerva exchanged glances. Severus cleared his throat but it was Minerva who spoke. She leaned forward and gently placed her cup and saucer besides Snape’s on the small tea table. She absentmindedly picked up the sugar tongs and clicked them together, once, twice, then self-consciously dropped them with a silvery clatter and moved up to sit primly on the edge of her seat. “Albus, why are you telling these things to us? Why?”

Severus snorted, “Is it really not obvious, Minerva?”

She looked at him wounded, then narrowed her eyes in thought.

“It isn’t really, perhaps, so obvious, Minerva.” The Headmaster splayed his hands on the desktop and pushed himself to a standing position once more. “You need to understand the subtleties, the subtleties wound into the story.” He sighed and turned his gaze again to the window. “Everything I’ve done from that time on was because of that time, because of her. The things we whispered to one another, the dreams we spoke about, the promises we made into each other’s ears. I defeated Grindelwald because of something Vivian had intimated. I made choices that perhaps I would not have made otherwise…because of omens and signs I interpreted through the looking glass of that time shared. I believe that I am standing here, before you now, ensconced in this place, part of this past present and future because of her.”

Snape leapt to his feet and then went still, fearful of any more movement betraying the panic that flowed through his body like water under the glacial surface. He was frozen by his fear, by the images painted in the Headmaster’s words.

He shook his head and choked out, “No.”

Albus turned to him and raised both eyebrows, nodding, “Yes.”

“Albus,” his voice hissed across the fire lit room.

Albus shook his head and laughed low, “Do not believe for one moment, Severus, that I am unfamiliar with the way you are now feeling. I know of what you fear. I understand the panic of this situation. Who is she? What does it mean? Why me?”

“Could it not be that she is a young woman in love, who made a decision not knowing how it would affect you…us?”

“Of course it could be. And I believe that is what it is. But even with such an innocuous foundation, what has been built upon it is mind staggering in its implications. One act, one decision, forever altering, touching, so many…it is beyond my scope of understanding. But,” he held up a long index finger and said softly, “but, to answer your question Minerva, she has made the decision but has not yet acted upon it.”

Minerva gasped, her face had drained of all color and in her lap she wound the fingers of one hand in and around the fingers of the other. “You are asking us whether or not we should stop this from happening?”

He settled slowly back down into his chair and Snape followed, throwing himself into his own chair.

“I suppose that is exactly what I’m asking.”

Snape exhaled audibly. “Are you,” he hesitated, “involved with her at this time?”

The Headmaster looked over his spectacles at the younger man. He closed his eyes and turned his head, “I am involved with her in all times. But to answer you more directly, no we are not intimately connected now.”

“That hurts you?” Snape’s voice a low hum.

Albus kept his face turned away, “Yes, it hurts me. Can you not imagine it, Severus? I’ve waited decades for her, have had no other since her. And noell,ell, now. I can feel my heart missing beats, I don’t mean this in a sentimental fashion, I mean the physical organ itself. When she is near me, my body betrays me. I have no idea how I will react, what I will be driven to, if she goes,” his voice benedictive, “and then returns. She is no longer a student in my eyes.”

“She is no longer a student,” Severus spoke the words as though he had just understood the meaning of each one. He brought two fingers up to his forehead and with a quick movement motioned behind him. “I fear that I sound like the man who can only see clearly with hindsight. But who protested this use of the time turner from the beginning? Who was it who felt horrified at the suggestion that Miss Granger,” he nearly spit out her name, “should be given such a device? For her classload of all unimaginable reasons?” He was nearly shouting now. “What other mischief will we be prey to because of this allowance?”

~***~

Minerva spoke in hushed tones, “This is what I’ve been able to surmise by perusing records and speaking briefly with both Filius and the girl. Her father is the somewhat eccentric but admittedly powerful wizard, Diones Vavosar. I know, I had no idea, either. Not quite certain how that got by the staff. Albus must know, doesn’t he know everything?”

Snape cleared his throat and McGonagall blushed before continuing, “She does not know her father; her mother left him early into their marriage, before the child was born, even. Yes, he is in Siberia. Vivian’s mother traveled to Wales and raised the child with her sister. Unfortunately, the mother died when Vivian was still quite young and the girl was cared for by the maiden aunt. She returns to the aunt’s home for holidays and between terms, but essentially, Severus this is a young woman who has raised herself. Hers is a brilliant mind, no question, thus her sorting into Ravenclaw, but I consulted the Sorting Hat and the Hat spoke of an internal conflict that amounted to a draw between Ravenclaw and Slytherin. It told me, she’s a cunning one.” Minerva raised her eyebrows and Severus held her gaze. “A motherless child, effectively an orphan, raised by a relative,” she trailed off.

“It would appear that Albus has a soft spot for a certain type of individual.” Snape mused. Minerva inhaled sharply and he raised an eyebrow.

“Vivian turned eighteen over the Winter Holiday, but had already emancipated herself from guardianship when she applied for full legal capacity at the age of sixteen.” Minerva finished

“Cunning, indeed,” Snape looked away.

“Severus,” her voice was soft and tinged with sadness, “what do you think? I mean, of it all, what do you really think?”