New Ghost on Campus

Author Note: Short, but needed.

He scoffed at her organization, growled as she tossed certain items out, and guffawed at how nonchalant she dismissed his coldness on her shoulders.

“The dungeon air,” she had said to herself time and time again. Had she not noticed? Has she been so preoccupied that she never realized his attendance during the rummaging of ingredients or the cleaning of the labs?

Severus watched from afar as Hermione stepped closer to the one door he didn’t want her to enter. However, protocol dictates as she is the new potions instructor that she also have the potion instructor’s quarters. He waited on baited breath…erm, whatever kind of breath ghosts have anyways.

“What’s in here?” she asked the wind as she turned the knob. What awaited on the other side threw Hermione off. She half expected black on black tapestries and bed clothes, but she found rather normal colors. Slytherin colors, but normal nonetheless. The windows were dressed in forest green with different shades and hues of emerald donning the room. The sheets were palest and made of the finest silk with a down comforter over fluffed and decidedly darker. The walls, however, were not dressed in elegant designs or mosaic green paint, but covered in note paper…Severus’s notes.

Hermione examined the ones closest to the door.

“Increasing aconite by two grams did not show difference in effectiveness. Will add 4 grams to original sample…”

“No change. Same bloody furball.”

“Increased grams to 8. Found mannerisms similar to human form. Still needs to fix hair/fur.”

“Possible attack this evening. Will stasis Wolfsbane for after…debriefing.”

Hermione looked…well, shocked. Severus was still working on the Wolfsbane for Remus right up until the final battle. His true loyalty was to the side of Light. She looked around the room and found a work bench with an aura around it. A stasis spell.

He never had the chance to finish it.

“This makes you a hero, you know,” she said to the memory of Severus Snape. She never did see his reflection in the mirror.

Two hours of delicately moving pictures and personal effects out of the bedroom found Hermione at the closet door. She expected his robes and dress clothes. But she found something else.

The silver skull contrasted eerily with the ebony cloth. She hadn’t meant to pick it up but something told her she needed to do it. And so, the mask and robe were in her hands. She intently looked at them from every angle as if some hidden answers of his life would suddenly appear.

“Why are you holding those?”

The voice in her mind took on his sound and demanded to know why she was rummaging through his personal belongings as if she was still a student and he the teacher.

“I don’t know,” she answered herself. “Perhaps closure? Merlin knows, he didn’t get any.”

*****

“Yes, a quiz. Now, read the next two chapters and we will begin in forty-five minutes.”

It was Hermione’s fourth day teaching. She actually loved it. A lot of the children groaned about the amount of work she was dishing out the first week of school, but they complied with her demands. After all, it was a lot less than Snape ever assigned.

“Professor Granger?” a timid voice came.

“Yes, Mister Graff?”

He looked around the room and felt a bit safer to state his question. “Will he be here today?”

“Will who be here?”

The first year gulped and looked around again. “The man in black.”

Hermione’s brow furrowed trying to decipher about whom the boy was speaking. “I have no idea what you mean, Mister Graff. Please continue to read.”

The students seemed to bristle at the boy’s remarks as if they knew what he was talking about but none of them voiced their concerns. They read their assignment.

“Now that everyone has finished, the ingredients are on the board. One person from each table will retrieve items in sections A and B. A second person will retrieve subsections C and D. Do not continue until everyone has their ingredients at their table and I have given you permission to proceed.”

Class continued normally, with only a small altercation with some fluxweed. Hermione didn’t intend to show them this potion this early but she remembered her own curiosity in second year and felt it best to go ahead and get temptation out of the way.

“Tables four and six have produced adequate formulations. Please come to my desk and pick a hair from the samples I’ve provided. Female on the left, male on the right.”

After all was said and done, there were four Professor McGonagalls, two Professor Flitwicks, six Professor Potters, much to the children’s amusement, and five Professor Grangers, including the real one.

“The effects will wear off before class is over so don’t get any ideas about removing points or assigning essays in the hallways. I want you all to read…”

Something caught her eye. Something that wasn’t right.

“How did you get that hair?”

The children all turned to see who she was speaking to. Some of them gasped and some didn’t even bother to look. They already knew.

“Answer me! Which student are you? And how did you get that hair!?”

There was no answer.

“Twenty points from whichever house you’re in! Now, answer me or it will be fifty more!”

Then she noticed it. The robes weren’t tight or small; they fell perfectly to the ankles, the sleeves came to the wrists.

“Tell me your name this instant,” she said but her words were barely audible. She was afraid of the answer.

And then…

“I’m afraid you cannot take points, Miss Granger. Try as you might.”

There was a loud thud. Thomas Graff was the first to react and flooed to Madam Pompfrey. Hermione had fainted.