The Harder They Fall

Chapter One


The Leaving Feast had turned into an impromptu victory celebration. The tables disappeared, music pulsed from the rafters and everybody danced.

On the perimeter of the dance floor, Professor Minerva McGonagall and Professor Severus Snape observed the writhing mass of celebrating students. She wore a sad half-smile. He glowered and glared.

“The children are being awfully good this evening, don’t you agree, Severus?”

“Many of them are no longer children.” Professor Snape scanned the crowd, his nostrils flaring. “And I can smell trouble brewing.”

McGonagall sighed. “They’ve had to grow up so fast. Now that Voldemort is finally gone, I had rather wished they could enjoy being young for a little longer. But in the morning they’ll all be leaving.”

“It’s hardly the end of the world. Most of them will be back in the fall.” Snape snorted magnificently. “Too soon if you ask me.”

“You know what I mean, Severus. The seventh years are leaving. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville…”

“Yes, yes.” Snape waved a hand dismissively and sneered. “Your precious Griffindors. Well, I won’t miss them. Largest batch of troublemakers we’ve ever had.” He paused. “They were organized,” he said, emphasizing the last word as though it were the worst condemnation he could imagine.

“It’s not just the Griffindor’s I’ll miss.” McGonagall sniffed. “They called themselves Dumbledore’s Army, you know,” she said, wiping her eyes.

Snape looked away, shifting uncomfortably. Finally he turned back to her. “I miss him, too.”

Albus Dumbledore, one of the greatest Wizards of this age, or any other, had fallen in the final battle while giving Harry the chance to fulfill his destiny and eliminate Voldemort from the world forever. Minerva McGonagall was the new Headmistress of Hogwarts and still uncomfortable standing in the great man’s shoes. But the world continued to turn. McGonagall scanned the crowd nervously, looking for her favorites.

The Boy Who Still Lived was at the center of a small knot of frenzied dancers, all ctingtingsee see who could toss their hair more wildly. Ron Weasley and one of the sixth year girls were pressed so closely together, one might have thought they’d been fused by the heat of the room. Snape noticed this and brought it to the Headmistress’ attention. “Shall I go break it up?”

Minerva shook her head. “No, Severus. Leave them be. What’s the harm? Let them grab a little happiness while they can.”

Snape snorted again. “Grab is right.”

“Don’t you remember what it’s like? You were young once, yourself, Severus.”

“Not like that.” Another eloquent snort. It almost sounded like a laugh.

“No, you weren’t at all like that.” Minerva remembered him as a student. “Have you ever been in love?”

The dour man considered his answer. “That’s not love. Those are just hormones.”

“You can’t tell me you’ve never been subject to an overwhelming passion? If not love, then lust? You’re a relatively normal wizard. Haven’t you ever felt…?” The older woman twinkled almost as brightly as Albus Dumbledore in his heyday.

Clearing his throat, Professor Snape answered stiffly. “I have, of course, felt passion such as you describe, but I am not an animal. I am not subject to my lusts. I am a reasoning, thinking being who knows when such things are inappropriate and refrains from exercising my baser instincts in a public forum.”

“Oh, come now, Severus. Have you never groped a girl at a dance?” Minerva enjoyed his discomfort.

“Never.”

“I’m sorry to say that I believe you.” She sighed.

“Sorry?” Snape sneered. “I’ll have you know that I pride myself on my gentlemanly restraint. What woman would appreciate being groped in public?”

Minerva smiled sadly. “A woman in love, perhaps?”

His snort was mirthless. “I rest my case.”

Before Minerva could rebut the man’s assertion that he was unlovable, Hermione Granger lurched out of the crowd, stumbling. As the young woman tripped, she reached out to steady herself, grabbing a fistful of Professor Snape’s robes. Snape reached out to steady the recent graduate, but her momentum carried her forward. She slammed into her former teacher, rocking him back on his heels.

Hermione gripped Snape’s robes in her tight little fists, tugging desperately. “Take it off.” Her voice throbbed, low and urgent. “Take it off, please, get rid of it, I’m going mad!”

Snape gulped, meeting his colleague’s eyes over the young woman’s upswept tangle of wild curls. “Miss Granger, I hardly think…”

“You don’t understand.” Her grip on his clothes was desperate, demanding, as her lithe young body pressed against him with feverish urgency. “I’ve been hexed or something. You have to take it off. Take this hex off of me before I…” She left her threat incomplete, licking her lips hungrily.

“Who hexed you? Who did this?” His eyes promised blood.

Hermione went up on her toes, straining towards a closer union with the Potions Master, panting in his ear. “I don’t know.” Her breathy exhalation tickled the side of his neck. He caught a whiff of some faintly familiar odor, mixed with pumpkin juice and the distinctive tang of vodka.

“Minerva?” Snape looked towards the older woman desperately. He was finding it difficult to pull away from the determined young woman who had hooked one of her legs around his.

“There, there, dear.” The Headmistress took Hermione by the shoulders and peeled her gently away from the disconcerted man. Minerva couldn’t, however, restrain the smirk on her face. The man may never have groped a woman at a dance, but he could not now say that he had never been groped.

“Finite Incantatum.” Professor Snape gestured with his wand.

Hermione backed away from him slowly, only stopping when she bumped into the Headmistress behind her. Minerva thought that would be the end of it. But Hermione shifted, pressing against the older woman and leaning her head back and to one side. “You’ve always been my favorite teacher, Professor McGonagall.” The comment was innocent enough, but the breathy voice delivering it could make angels weep and saints deny their god. “I wonder what lessons I have missed learning from you?”

“Gracious Heavens, Severus. They must have dosed her with something.” It was Minerva’s turn to look nervous, as Hermione closed her eyes and began undulating against her favorite former teacher. Minerva didn’t even particularly like women in that way, and yet she found the experience more arousing than she’d like to admit. “Well, you’re the Potions expert. You take her.” She shoved Hermione forward a little more forcefully than she’d intended. The girl didn’t trip, but wobbled shakily on her own two feet, blinking sadly.

Snape backed away nervously. “It must be some sort of a lust potion. I need some supplies from my storeroom for the antidote. Take her up to the infirmary and I’ll meet you there.”

“But the students, I can’t just leave them.” The headmistress dithered. “Those responsible are still at large.”

Hermione had wrapped her arms around herself and began shivering.

“Fine. Fine. I’ll take her. Find the idiots who did this and send them to bed or something. It’s a shame I can’t give detentions over the hols.” Snape scowled fiercely, clearing a pao tho the door.

“You would, too.”

Minerva watched the sour ex-Death Eater attempt to usher the poor girl out of the Great Hall without letting her cop a feel. Hermione clung to Snape like a determined octopus.

The Headmistress studied the pulsating crowd of teenaged bodies on the dance floor. How had Hermione evaded the lure of that flesh pit while under the influence of a lust potion? And, having maintained control despite the pheromone lure of her peers, what had propelled her into the arms of Severus Snape? Minerva McGonagall stalked the perimeter of the dance floor, frowning. Something was wrong here, and she couldn’t put her finger on it. But she was going to get to the bottom of this, or she wasn’t the Headmistress of Hogwarts.