As it turned out, whether to tell Auntie about the startling behavior of Roger Roundhouse was taken out of Giselle's hands.
Coming down the marble staircase after third period she saw Auntie standing by the doorway to the Great Hall, her hands folded at her waist, her face looking anxious as students passed her hesitantly. They were not sure if they had done something wrong and were about to be scolded. But she waved them through impatiently.
Giselle emerged from the crowd of hungry Hufflepuffs and smiled weakly at Aunt Minerva.
"Come with me to the teachers lounge, Gee. I've a wee bit of talk for you before lunch." Auntie smiled at her, but it was a rather sad one, her eyes a little misty.
Giselle's expression was much the same. She followed Auntie into the lounge off the Entrance Hall, blinking at the bright light from the tall elegant windows. Auntie gestured at the padded bench in the alcove.
Giselle sat down in her prim manner, hands in her lap, facing her Auntie. Through the mullioned window between the alcove shelves she could see the fairgrounds, the last minute to-do of the goblins, and, surprising her, the goblin Quidditch team flying their shiny orange brooms down from over the stadium walls, swerving steeply toward the line of canvas game booths, the pennants luffing in the breeze.
Auntie put a hand consolingly on Giselle's stockinged knee.
"Was there... an incident... between you and Roger Roundhouse during first period?" she asked.
"Oh..." Giselle fluttered her fingers.
"Was he a tad forward with you?"
This made Giselle breathe a laugh that got caught in her aching throat. She didn't know what to say.
"He tried to kiss me!" she blurted out.
Auntie looked thoughtful. Obviously she already knew about the 'incident.' She withdrew her hand and smoothed out her long purple skirt. "That would not be too surprising, considering your attractiveness and Roger's hormonal activity, if it were only a romantic infatuation. But... I'm afraid it's more than that."
Giselle blanched. "Oh?"
"You musn't let this bother you too much, or you'll be sleepwalking all over creation," Auntie said with a degree of sternness. "Professor Flitwick overheard a seventh year Slytherin boy boasting to a house mate about brewing a particular potion, which was done as a favor for a Slytherin sixth year girl."
"Oh... was it Elenore Womblatt?"
Auntie smiled despite herself. "I see your intuition is showing its prowess. Well, yes, then, the favor was done for Miss Womblatt."
"A love potion? For Elenore? Then why was Roger so... forward... with me and not with Elenore? She's awfully fond of him and she says it's her he likes."
Auntie frowned. "Apparently I should be asking YOU for answers. But no, it is not the usual sort of love potion. It's a very aggressive, rather lustful type. I'll be discussing this with Professor Snape after lunch. You have Potions for fifth period? Yes. Well then, Gee, Professor Snape will want to have you stay a wee bit after class. Don't worry about being late for Transfiguration."
Giselle nodded, always a little nervous about the prospect of answering to Snape.
"What's to be done for Roger?" she asked. "It isn't his fault. He won't be expelled, will he?"
"No. But the boy and girl responsible might be packing their trunks in short order. It depends on the circumstances, of course. We'll want to find out what"s behind this silly business. And by the way, yesterday Roger asked to be transferred to Hufflepuff."
"Ah--! DID he?"
"I see it doesn't frighten you," Auntie observed with a crooked grin. "He was to move into Hufflepuff this evening. But I might have to delay the move. I'll see what Severus thinks," she added as an aside to herself.
During lunch Giselle stayed busy nibbling on a cheese stick and watching how the Beauxbaton girls levitated their forks and spoons while they wrote something in big blue notebooks. She forced herself to ignore that feeling of being stared at.
After fourth period Muggle Studies, coming away with confidence that she would do well in Monday's quiz about electric can-openers, flush toilets, and how to work a stick shift, she had to face the thought of the after-class meeting with Snape.
Virtually none of her friends' comments made it into her head. The crowds of students made no impression on her, aside from a jostle and an "Excuse me," here and there.
Every step down the six staircases and seven corridors had her more and more nervous. By the time she and the mix of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were going down the dungeon passage to the Potions classroom, she was breathing like she had run a race.
Professor Snape did not have a class to teach for fourth period. This gave him time to reflect on what Minerva had told him about the suspected lust potion and what might be done to prevent another such occurance. He had listened with his usual dispassionate attitude, as if nothing outside his personal endeavors were of any importance.
But now, in the quiet of the deserted classroom, he sat at his desk reading the latest decision of the Ministry regarding the potion syllabus and the accessibility of ingredients. In truth, the situation Minerva discussed did indeed interest him. And the Ministry paper had a direct bearing on his own private situation.
'Pursuant to the Freedom of Stupid Opinions Act of 1707, potion recipes not on the syllabus may not be lawfully removed from the school library, but be accessible to the inquiring student. However, the ingredients needed for such untaught brews should be kept under lock and key. In particular, love potions should be covertly restricted by keeping the ingredients difficult to obtain. The more aggressive 'love' brews-- those that incite lust and encourage violence-- should have their recipes in the Restricted Section of the library and their ingredients as inaccessible as possible. As regards transfiguring potions...'
Snape left off reading. Dumbledore had let himself into the classroom.
"Headmaster?" Snape said, rising.
Dumbledore came slowly up the center aisle between the tables, their neatly arranged utensils and magic burners reflecting the torchlight. "There is nothing more tranquil, more poignant, than an empty classroom in the middle of the day," he remarked, patting a table in the front row.
"Nor as desireable," Snape added.
Dumbledore smiled. "How like you to say so, Severus. You were not born to be a teacher, but rather an explorer of magical possibilities. My presence here has something to do with that."
He spoke in solemn tones now. "Jon Minnex intends to settle accounts with you. I've no doubts about that, and neither do you, I'm sure. Although the Inquest committee appeared not to give much value to your testimony against Minnex regarding the disappearance of the McGonagalls, it did cast a dark cloud over him. It prompted his resignation from the Auror department. But this intended vengeance against you is not what weighs on me. Nor is the lust potion prank that Minerva informed me of. In the bigger picture, these two things don't rise to a high significance. Minerva can deal with the prank, and you, Severus, can deal with Minnex."
Snape tapped his desk with his fingertips, his jaw muscles flexing. "You wish to know my decision concerning my memory of the horcrux investigation in Egypt, and the Pensieve application to it."
"Yes, the involvement of Minerva's niece and Miss Hermione Granger in treading through the memory."
"And Doris Crockford's involvement?"
"In a more subdued sense, yes. I don't want her involvement to interfere with the intuitive process of Giselle and Miss Granger. Doris will keep a certain psychic distance from the two students. She'll be there to answer any questions they might have."
The two wizards stared at each other for a long moment. In a corner a clock ticked languidly. On the demonstration table by the blackboard a cauldron bubbled softly, whispering little wraiths of steam.
"In respect of Professor McGonagall, I grant you your wish, Headmaster "
Dumbledore sighed through a sympathetic smile.
"Thank you, Severus."
He went over to the demonstration table and sniffed at the cauldron.
"Essence of the optic chameleon," he mused. "An hallucinatory potion. I won't ask what for."
Snape walked up to him, and taking up a curved-handled spoon he stirred the potion counter-clockwise, twice.
"It concerns my plan to rid the wizarding world of a disagreeable half-goblin," he said.
"Are you aware, Severus, that the estranged wife of Jon Minnex is an employee of the Fair?"
Snape did not conceal his surprise. "Caprice is here?"
"Acting the part of a gypsy fortune teller. I've arranged for Hexaba to visit her, in disguise, tomorrow morning when the Fair opens."
A double surprise for the potions master. "I presume she is cooperating out of fear that you will imprison her in Azkaban if she doesn't acquiesce?"
"And her fear is justified. Severus, you know that Narcissa and Bellatrix are Hexaba's step-sisters; that Constantine LeStrange is their common father, but that Hexaba's mother was not Constantine's wife, but an Egyptian snake charmer?"
Snape smiled his grim smile. "I heard of it a few years ago during one of Narcissa's more talkative moods," he said. "Mr LeStrange was never fond of Lucius Malfoy, until Hexaba changed his mind with a little surreptitious magic of the darker sort. She tried the same thing on me, but I had been forewarned."
Dumbledore nodded. "Remain so," he advised. "Hexaba will cooperate until she finds some way to turn the tables on me, or believes she has found a way. You are the obvious choice for any planned connivance of hers. She believes you remain loyal to Voldemort's Death Eaters, which she opposes in favor of Lucius' faction. However, she also believes that you are fond of her, and that you have an ulterior motive for your expressed fondness. Don't disabuse her of this belief. We want her to see you as a possible unintentional ally."
"As you say," Snape replied, and took the cauldron off the low flames.
The bell for fifth period rang as the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw students jostled their way into the cavernous dungeon classroom.
The first thing you did was set your book bag on your table, then go to the back wall where rows of cauldrons hung on pegs, looking for the one with your name on it. In Giselle's case, this was "G. McG." Then you carried it over to the utensils sideboard, dropped the different sized spoons in your cauldron, and filled a large beaker with water from the sinks. If you needed any of the standard ingredients, any that were not in your table drawer or in the small boxes along the table shelf, you got them from the supply cabinets, putting them in one of the little gunny sacks that were piled on three stools under the cabinets. You had only a couple minutes to do all this before Professor Snape got up from his desk and stood by the lectern. By that time you had better be seated at your table or you might lose house points.
Giselle had dropped her cauldron and had to pick up the spoons and wrapped-up herbs scattered around the feet of students who were as desperate as she was to get back to their tables. Her fingers were stepped on more than once, and just as she reached her table, which she shared with Bea and Lori, Luna grabbed her robe sleeve and pulled her across the aisle to the Ravenclaw side, almost causing her to drop her cauldron again.
"I want to tell you--" Luna said, helping to situate things on her table and urging Giselle to sit down beside her. "About what I saw in first period Herbology. We were picking mushrooms near the forest and naturally I wanted to see how your class was doing with the Humming Nose-Peckers, so I wandered over toward Hagrid's hut."
Here Luna stopped to take a breath. Giselle noticed Snape putting away some papers in his desk pidgeonholes, preparatory to standing up. Hurry Luna!
"It was extremely smelly by that time," Luna went on. "And then--! Was that the boy we met on the train? That polite boy, the son of the Assistant Minister? The boy we were so surprised about when he was sorted into Slytherin? Was that the boy you were kissing?"
Giselle shook her head vigorously. "No no! HE was kissing ME!"
The room had become deathly quiet a moment before she spoke, and absolutely everyone heard her say it.
She put a hand to her burning cheek. She just wanted to go someplace and die.
Snape stood by the demonstration table, an open textbook balanced on a palm.
"Although we are all intensely curious about your love life, Miss McGonagall, we do have a lesson to attend to."
He swept the class with a stern look. "Turn to page three hundred and ninety... three."
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