Tension in the Laboratory

Hermione's spirits ticked up a notch on Saturday, the day of the first Quidditch match of the season. The early autumn sun shone golden and slanting, the air snapped crisp and sweet as an apple. House banners fluttered from the castle ramparts and every conceivable spot on the grounds. Noises of excited voices drifted through the air.

Hermione started off early to the Quidditch field. She was wearing her meter-long red and gold scarf and carrying a little Gryffindor flag for the occasion. She thought she might get some hot butterbeer and watch the teams warm up while she waited for her friends. Filled with these happy thoughts, she turned into a little-known shortcut beneath the stadium.

Her footfalls echoed through the concrete tunnel. All was eerily silent. Hermione picked up her pace.

"Hello, Granger. What have we here?"

Draco Malfoy and his thuggish sidekicks, Crabbe and Goyle, came out from behind a support pillar.

Hermione whipped out her wand without preliminaries. "What are you doing here?" she demanded, concealing her shock and fear.

Malfoy glanced at Crabbe and Goyle, and they all sniggered. "Why? Going to put us in detention?"

"No one is supposed to be loitering under here," Hermione said in her best professorial no-nonsense tone. "Please finish your business and leave."

Malfoy actually laughed. "Granger, you kill me." Then he stopped laughing and took two threatening steps toward her until he loomed above her. "You and that git Harry Potter ruined plenty of schemes I had at Hogwarts. I was planning a little incident here at the game, but I can take some time out to settle some scores with you."

Hermione backed up warily, trying to keep the pillar behind her. Crabbe was crowding on her right, Goyle on her left, and Malfoy was front and center.

"Petri--" she began, but Malfoy flicked the hex away. She spun and Stupefied Goyle, who fell over with a thud. In that second, Malfoy threw his hex, and Hermione barely eluded it. Now they stood panting, coiled. Crabbe was grinning.

"You know what I'm going to do to you, Granger?" Malfoy said, showing all his teeth. "I think I'll Imperius you. Make you do things you've only done to Weasley and Potter. Or is it Snape? You've been spending so much time in his laboratory. I'll bet it's Snape." It was clear from the jibe that he thought no such thing.

Hermione tamped down her spurt of anger and outrage and kept her eyes on Malfoy, wand raised. Crabbe threw a hex, but he had never been good at non-verbal spells, and Hermione slashed it away without averting her gaze.

"Not easily distracted, Granger?" Malfoy taunted. She could see he was enjoying this.

"Not when there's not much to distract me," she retorted.

Malfoy's smile faded, and his wand shot a jet of red light out at her.

"Protego!" she cried and ducked. The red bolt hit the pillar where she had been standing with a shower of sparks. Now she had nothing behind her, and Crabbe, she saw from the corner of her eye, was sidling around behind her.

"How'd you like two, Granger?" Malfoy continued softly. "Bet you might like it. Even three, once Goyle gets up. Bet you'd love to--"

"Draco. Slytherin House is on the other side of the stadium."

Snape strode down the concrete walkway. His face was unreadable but faintly malevolent.

Malfoy lowered his wand as Snape got closer.

"Snape, we--"

"Professor Snape, if you please, Draco." He turned his head and regarded Hermione indifferently. "Taunting the Gryffindors?"

"Something like that," Draco muttered.

"Looks like Goyle didn't duck fast enough. Pity. Draco, I wholeheartedly approve of anything you might do to help Slytherin win today, but I must," here he laced his tone with irony, "object to heavy-handed techniques with the faculty. Also, and I say this as a friend, you might want to watch out for the marching band." Hermione was suddenly conscious of the sounds from down the walkway of trombones being tuned and drum riffs being practiced. "Whatever you had in mind, I rather doubt you wanted to include the trumpet section."

"She--it was--" Malfoy sputtered.

"We have a few plans to share with you in the stands. We have reserved a box seat for you. I'll be with you presently."

"Goyle--"

Half-closing his eyes with boredom, Snape pointed his wand at the prone Goyle, who came life, groaning and rubbing his head. "Go up to Box 66 on our side," Snape told Malfoy. "I want to have a few words with our little friend here."

Malfoy shot Hermione a smile of evil promise and made an obscene gesture at her that Snape couldn't see. Then he, Crabbe, and Goyle sauntered off.

Snape folded his arms and leaned back, regarding Hermione with what she realized must look like contempt. He waited until Malfoy and his friends were several meters away before saying, "Muffliato."

Hermione knew he could have cast the charm silently. It must have been for her benefit that he had said it aloud.

"Anyone can see us," he said in a low, even voice. His cold, black eyes caught her brown ones, and in that second before she could stop it, she saw the events of the past few minutes unspool before her vision. "Come to my office tomorrow at 10," he said after a pause, and stalked back the way he had come, his cloak billowing after him.

Hermione stood for a moment, watching him in shock. Then she scrambled in the opposite direction, toward sunshine and Gryffindor.