Lendoren

Disclaimer: Kelokelo is the original writer, Septentrion the translator and Jo Rowling the creator

Thanks to Emma and Tanit for betaing this chapter


Ch.5 Preparing the start of term

Ginny woke Hermione up the next morning:

« Wake up, sleepyhead!” she told her, laughing. “You look like you’d been the one messing around this night”. She pointed Hermione’s twisted sheets.

Hermione blushed and chose not to answer. How to admit than a simple dream had done that to her? How could she have imagined something so precise, felt so real emotions in just a dream? She didn’t have time to think of it, she was late, she still had to pack her things for Hogwarts (which was easy thanks to a packing spell), have her breakfast and get a bit refreshed. Mrs Weasley was hurrying them so that they would be ready when Harry’s escort arrived. The ministry was indeed twice more prudent in matters concerning Harry’s security. When the time came, Lupin, Tonks, Mad-Eye apparated with five Aurors they didn’t know. Mrs Weasley bid them good-bye at the Burrow, she wasn’t to go with them to the station because the escort was just enough for the four of them, or so she said. Two Aurors for each of them? Just enough? They exchanged astonished looks.

They had an uneventful journey to the station and chose the compartment already occupied by Neville and Luna. Ron and Hermione had to go to the Prefect’s compartment, but Harry and Ginny would wait for them there. Harry and Ginny quickly realised things have changed too between Neville and Luna during the summer. They had become joined to the hips so to speak, not unlike themselves.

Nobody had noticed they were discretely watched near the Burrow, on the journey to the station or at King’s Cross station. Ron and Hermione were slowly heading towards the Prefect’s compartment when they met Malfoy:

« The Mudblood and the Weasel », he drawled. « Always hanging around together? People will believe things…unless the Weasel doesn’t know what to do with a girl except for drooling in front of her?”

He was overtly mocking him, and Crabbe and Goyle sniggered. Ron blushed and grapped his wand, he screamed to Malfoy:

« Malfoy ! You… »

« Leave it, Ron, » Hermione was fed up and interrupted him. “We only have one more year to put up with him, then he’ll join his dear master. He’ll screw up his first mission, and with such a lenient master, he’ll be killed on the spot, or maybe after a few ‘Cruciatus’. Anyway, we’ll be rid of him soon.”

Malfoy paled and was ready to throw himself on her when Professor McGonagall intervened:

« Please enter the compartment and stop your childish behaviour.»

« It took us longer than usual to chose the Head Boy and Head Girl of this year.”

When he heard this, Malfoy sat up straight, his face displaying a smug smile.

« Actually, there will be two Head Girls this year, Miss Hannah Abbot of Hufflepuff and Miss Hermione Granger of Gryffindor. They… »

« It’s a shame, » Malfoy interrupted the Deputy Headmistress, « she’s a m…”

« Mister Malfoy, should you interrupt me again to utter such nonsense and I promise you Slytherin will begin the school year in negative figures. Do I make myself clear?”

“But…”

« Would you rather explain yourself to your Head of House, Mister Malfoy? I’m sure Professor Snape would like to begin the year with, say, one hundred points less…”

Malfoy darkened at the idea. To feel Professor Snape’s wrath wasn’t in fashion even for the Slytherin. So he shut up but not without giving a withering look to Hermione and Ron.

« Well », she said calmly, « Miss Granger and Miss Abbot, you’ll have the privilege of private rooms for each of you, so that anyone in the castle can go and see one of you without the other Prefect knowing about it.”

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Meanwhile in the castle Professor Dumbledore was meeting with the teachers including Severus Snape and Arlin Gryffin. The Headmaster looked pensieve to Professors Flitwick and Sprout, and they wondered what could have induced his current mood.

« Well », Dumbledore began the meeting, « this year, our new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher will be Arlin Gryffin. What I’m going to tell you now must stay between us. Even though Hogwarts’s security is at stake, some things cannot reach the Ministry’s ears unless you yearn for…big troubles.”

He looked at Gryffin and Severus while saying so but they both remained impassive under their colleagues’s scrutiny.

“It’s necessary that I speak to you about Professors Gryffin’s and Snape’s nature. To do so, I’ll let you speak, Gryffin.”

“We are Lendoren,” Gryffin said simply. “I don’t think any of you had ever heard of us?”

There was a blank moment and the other teachers shook their head in silence.

He explained them some of their particularities, especially their ability to change their appearance, which Severus materialised in front of them. They were astonished. They had all forgotten he wasn’t even forty. He also spoke about Hogwarts wards, which might need reinforcement through their magic. At least he spoke about the Lendoren companionship, and after a few general explanations, he finished with those words:

« The Lendoren usually remain single for a short period of time. As far as I know, Severus is the one who had been single for the longest time but luckily for him and for us, this situation has come to an end. That should create some problems however with the Ministry and the Board of Governors because his companion is still a student here. I still must reveal to you, even if it’s a bit embarrassing, that the Lendoren companionship isn’t complete if it remains chaste.”

He let time for the teachers to process everything that had been told.

“Who is she? And how to keep that idyll hidden in the castle?” Professor Sprout asked.

“She’s Hermione Granger,” answered Severus.

The name provoked smiles to appear on the Professors’s lips, and Professor Flitwick even chuckled. A love story between the Potions Master, Head of Slytherin, and the most brilliant student in Gryffindor House, who didn’t fear to speak her mind? What a pity all of this had to stay secret. Their relationship would be spicy!

“As for the discretion, Albus was willing to let both of the Head girls to have a private flat. As it is, one of those flats has a secret door which leads to a corridor, and said corridor reaches, as luck would want it, in my private quarters.”

He had an amused smile while he told this. Dumbledore could disagree with this kind of relationship, yet he knew it could tip the scales in favour of them against Voldemort. It was only for a year and that union would be strong. Dumbledore had conceded the point and had proposed this solution himself, which showed how well he knew the castle.

“Two things more,” Severus added. “Hermione still doesn’t know about us and given what our interactions as teacher and student had been, I’m not really in a hurry to inform her.”

He grimaced while talking but all the teachers noticed he used Hermione’s first name and not her family name.

« For now, I have other means to meet her as a woman and not as a student. The last thing, Flitwick,” he turned to the petite professor, “I advise you to be prudent with her this year when you study actions spells. She may have a disconcerting force and she won’t master it at the beginning. Of course I’ll help her as best as I can, that is as long as she lets me do so.”

He ended his speech with a shake of his head.

Thanks a lot to people who have read and reviewed the story. Thanks a lot too to Ezilda and Lust who had proposed to help with the translation. That's why you readers get an early update