Lucky?

“Anytime you’d like to join me, Ms. Weasley,” Snape’s annoyed voice drifted through the open door.

Ginny readjusted her school bag, straightened her shoulders, and marched into the dim classroom, closing the door softly behind her.

Snape glanced over his shoulder at her, one eyebrow raised, and then turned back to whatever he was doing at his desk. “Ward the door, Ms. Weasley. If you can manage the simple spell, that is.”

Turning back to the door, Ginny fought the blush that rose in her cheeks. “Compingo,” she snapped, and the door seemed to melt into its frame. The charm was meant to make the room within soundproof and undetectable from the outside. As she turned back to Snape, her brow furrowed and she wondered why she’d had to ward the door at all.

As if to answer her question, a loud screeching erupted from the desk. Whatever was making it was concealed by Snape’s tall, dark frame. Ginny jumped and clamped her hands over her ears, sending her school bag to the floor and all of the contents exploding out across the floor under the desks. Snape, who hadn’t even flinched, turned back to her with a baleful expression and jerk his head, motioning for her to join him at the desk.

The screeching cut off as she neared the desk, and Snape spoke without looking at her. “You may be wondering why I asked you to ward the door. This,” he held a small creature up for Ginny to see, “is a caleo-maleficus or, more commonly known as a scelerosus.”

It looked almost like one of the garden gnomes back home, with his bloated, potato-ish body, but something about it was distinctly more evil. Small horns protruded from its tiny head and thorns grew along its naked shoulders and arms. Snape was dangling it from the scruff of its neck and it was flailing its arms around, trying to scratch at his hand with its small, claws and baring pointed teeth.

“They are extremely rare,” Snape continued, depositing the creature back into a small cage on his desk, “but also extremely dangerous. They,” he paused as it let out another deafening shriek, “are capable of speaking human languages and are known to work as spies when they aren’t causing their own brand of…” he seemed to struggle for the right word and gave her a sideways glance, “do you know anything about them?”

Ginny shook her head, flinching involuntarily as the scelerosus seized the bars of the cage and rattled them frantically.

“Of course not,” Snape snapped, “I have yet to meet a Weasley capable of retaining knowledge.” He straightened up to his full height, towering above her and giving her a contemptuous look.

Flushing angrily, Ginny opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by a single look from Snape, whose black eyes seemed to soften slightly as he continued, “then again, they are very rare creatures indeed.” Ginny hesitated, wondering what he meant by that.

He leaned forward and seemed to ponder the furious creature inside the cage for a moment, then lifted his wand in his long fingers and pointed it at the scelerosus. A moment later, it fell stiffly on its side and didn’t move again, and Ginny assumed he’d petrified it. She watched his profile closely, and couldn’t help but take him the curve of his jaw and the silky blackness of his hair. As if he read her mind, he straightened up again and brushed a lock of black hair out of his eyes.

Ginny shook herself slightly, was she crazy? She cleared her throat. “So, what does that,” Ginny pointed, “have to do with me?”

Snape gave her a long look, his face expressionless but his eyes glittering. “Considering where it was found, and the fact that it was without any others of its kind, we are forced to assume it’s here with some evil purpose. We have to find out what that is. The thing about scelerosus, they only talk to witches. ”

Ginny gaped at him for a moment, and then snapped her mouth shut and leaned forward to examine the little beast closer now that it wasn’t shrieking and flailing. How was she supposed to talk to something like that?

Snape leaned forward too, his smell overwhelming her again, and his slender finger only inches from hers on the desktop. “How lucky to find an available witch for the task.”