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Author: Musings Story: The New Professor Rating: Teens Setting: AU Status: WIP Reviews: 8 Words: 160,238
For a moment, there was absolute silence. Harry stared at Ginny, who had turned so pale so rapidly that McGonagall put out a steadying hand in case she were to faint. Her freckles, mellowed with age but still sprinkling across the bridge of her nose, were almost black with their prominence. He noticed she was wearing azure blue, the color he had loved for her to wear above all others. Despite her pallor, the color only served to bring out the warmth of her eyes and the fire of her hair. In that moment, Harry recognized the truth of what Sirius had said during their midnight chat two nights before: that every woman he had ever felt drawn to had some bit or piece of the woman who was standing before him now. That woman was the first to speak. "Harry?" Ginny tore her gaze from Harry's eyes to Professor McGonagall's stricken face. "Headmistress, you've offered the positions to… Harry?" Professor McGonagall muttered what had to have been a curse before placing her hand on Ginny's arm. "Perhaps it would be best if we continued this discussion in my office. Severus, will you be joining us?" "Oh, I wouldn't miss this for the world, Headmistress," Snape said, casting a sardonic glance at Harry. The foursome walked in silence to the stone gargoyle which stood in front of the entrance to the Headmistress' office. "Flaming heather," McGonagall said, and the gargoyle began its slow ascent to the tower, a spiraling set of stairs revealed with each turn. At the top of the stairs, she waved her wand impatiently and the door sprang open. She Summoned three seats to form a semi-circle around her desk while she swept around the portrait of a sleeping Albus Dumbledore on the stand next to her seat. "Well? Sit down, everyone!" Harry and Ginny started at McGonagall's command and immediately assumed seats on either end of the semi-circle. Snape, chuckling to himself, sat between the two and grinned. "Now, Mr Potter, would you care to explain why you are here today?" "Oh, headmistress, let me hazard a guess," Snape interrupted. "Could it be that sending an owl was not dramatic enough for you, Mr Potter? Had to show up, unannounced, to grace us with your presence when you declined our generous offer?" Harry reddened. "Hit the nail on the head, haven't I, boy?" Harry's eyes flashed green fire as he turned to Severus Snape. "I am a man, Professor Snape, not a boy. I am a professor in my own right, as bestowed upon me by one of the best universities in the world. As such, I expect to be addressed in a manner appropriate to someone who has earned the title. If that is too much to ask, ‘Mr Potter' will suffice." It was Snape's turn to redden; as Harry spoke, the power radiating from him was palpable. "Gentlemen, really," McGonagall snapped, effectively ending the confrontation. Both men continued to stare at one another. "As I was saying before I was interrupted, Mr Potter, why ARE you here?" "I would prefer if we were able to discuss this in private, Professor McGonagall," Harry said, tilting his gaze in Ginny's direction. "I will be more than happy to wait until Miss Weasley has finished her meeting with you." Ginny faced Harry, the color returning to her face. "I am more than a little curious about your reasons for being here, Harry," she spat. "After all, it has been nine years since you ran from our world, abandoning your friends and the only family who gave a tinker's damn about you! We have been doing fine without you! Why come back NOW?" "I don't need to explain my reasons to you, Ginny," Harry said, his tone soft, yet icy cold. "You will recall I attempted to explain my reasons nine years ago and I will not do so again." Rising from his seat, he turned to Professor McGonagall. "I appreciate your generous offer, Headmistress and, if it still stands, will accept the positions. I will be in contact with you within the week to discuss the details. Good day, Headmistress. Professor Snape." He turned to face Ginny, his gaze heating with an intensity that made her shudder. "Miss Weasley." Turning on his heel, he walked out of the office, slamming the door shut. A sleepy snuffle came from Dumbledore's portrait as he was jarred from his doze, startling everyone remaining in the room. McGonagall shook herself and Summoned the tea tray from the credenza next to the window. She placed a cup in front of Ginny, who appeared to be in a stricken daze. Snape merely arched a brow and added cream and sugar to his tea. "Well, I am shocked and more than a little horrified, especially at you, Severus!" McGonagall tossed a sugar cube into her cup and began to stir her tea with a vengeance. "Baiting Mr Potter like that? It is beneath you and the position you hold." "My apologies, Headmistress," Snape said, the apology not quite reaching his eyes. McGonagall turned her attention to Ginny, who appeared to have come out of her daze and was stirring her tea, albeit a bit mechanically. "Are you all right, Miss Weasley?" "Why, yes, Headmistress," Ginny said, a shade too brightly. "Please accept my apologies for what happened, Miss Weasley," McGonagall added, "I do hope this will not deter you from assuming the Charms post." "Oh no," Ginny said, color rising to her cheeks. "I will not allow my past relationship with…Mr Potter and his reappearance within our world to steer me away from this opportunity." Taking a final sip of tea, she set down her cup, rose to her feet, and fastened her cloak around her neck. "However, I do need to go home. We are having a family dinner at the Burrow this evening and I told Mum I would come early to help with the preparations. I will plan on coming back tomorrow afternoon, as you suggested, Headmistress. Good evening!" The door closed quietly behind her McGonagall blew a sigh, ruffling some of the fine hairs which had escaped her bun. Snape grinned. "Fireworks indeed, Minerva." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Harry muttered to himself as he tried to make a quick exit from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He had made several aborted attempts to make the journey to Hogwarts during the prior two days until Sirius asked "Have you spoken with McGonagall yet because if you aren't going to take the position she's got to know soon" one too many times. "All right!! All right, for god's sake, all right!" Harry had finally shouted that morning as he'd slammed his flue shut and effectively cut off any further bleating from Godric's Hollow. Before heading to Hogwarts, he had returned to his flat in Oxford to rummage around the trunks and boxes he'd packed in preparation for his move to London. Finding a box labeled "storage," he'd pulled out his dress robes from the cedar-lined box he'd purchased to keep it from being annihilated by insects. Given to him by Sirius and Remus for his seventeenth birthday, he assumed they were a little out of date, as far as current wizard fashion was concerned, but they would do. He would wait until after he'd formally accepted the job to go to Diagon Alley for new robes. He smiled sadly – They may be out of date, but at least there's no sign of ruffles anywhere. Upon arrival, his stomach had taken an instantaneous plunge. Images from the past flashed before his eyes. Darkened skies…zombies on horseback thundering through the edge of the Forbidden Forest…banshee screams from next to Hagrid's old hut...the sound of Ginny's scream as her brother Charlie fell from the sky…Racing to the spot near the trees where he fell, their hope for finding him alive dashed as they encountered his body, impaled and broken…his face still and silent forever… He shook himself, his skin felt cold, clammy; his breathing was short and reedy. He felt an almost uncontrollable urge to flee back to the safety of his flat in Oxford; to cram all of the trappings of his wizard life back into those boxes and to throw them into the nearest skip headed towards the garbage dump. Within a few moments, he had regained enough of his composure to grow furious with himself. Nine years and he was still unable to revisit a vital part of his past without feeling weak and cowardly. Some ‘Heir of Gryffindor' I turned out to be, he thought to himself. Suddenly, he recalled a conversation he had had with Dumbledore a few days before the final battle: "Our road will not be an easy one, Harry," Dumbledore said, one night while the two distant cousins sat in front of a roaring fire in the headmaster's office. "We will encounter the most impermeable evil our world has to offer. No doubt that the images we see in the coming days will remain with us until we leave this earth. Truly courageous people are those who recognize their fears, yet persevere through their fears to achieve their goals. Why? Because they have the moral strength to venture beyond their fears to do what needs to be done." Harry had paused. He needed to move beyond this fear. This time. This place. Here lay the challenge and he was willing to finally meet it, head-on. It was with this mindset that he had walked right into Professor Snape an hour earlier. Standing upon the exterior steps of the castle with legs made of water, Harry had to wonder if the fates, if Dumbledore, if Padfoot and Moony, if SOMEONE were having an enormous guffaw at his expense. Running into Snape at the headmistress' office was only the start. For a moment, he felt as though he were back in his second year, being collared by Snape after the Infamous Flying Car Caper. Then, being ushered unceremoniously down the hallway towards the Charms classroom, Snape occasionally uttering a snort of amusement and failing to let Harry in on the joke. Well, the joke was on HIM, all right. Ginny. The memory of her face in those first moments was all it took for his quaking knees to give up their fight and he slumped upon the steps. Looking glorious in new azure blue, her hair a river of red shimmering down to the small of her back. Her eyes – dear God, the deep, brown, velvety softness of them took his breath away until he was reduced to near-panting. Shock, then the razor edge of her tongue, slicing at the last wall he'd wanted to face. Ice and fire. Breathtaking and heartbreaking all at the same time. The hated confrontations. First Snape, cutting him down to size with his condescending tone and manner. Harry had no idea where the calmness in his voice had come from when he fashioned his retort to the man. He'd felt the power surging through him like a mighty beast, and it had startled him. During his studies at Christchurch, there had been a few times where he'd lost his temper. Not often, but often enough for him to be startled by the power which seemed to seep from his very fingertips. A few times he had made things explode, which only served to add credence to his reputation as an eccentric. Then, Ginny. He could hear the temper straining under her control as she spoke to him. ‘Abandoning your friends…family…' Each phrase slapped at him like stinging blows. It had taken every ounce of composure to respond calmly, his goal to escape from McGonagall's office as quickly and as calmly as possible. Still, despite his best intentions, his temper had got the better of him; he recalled the resounding echo of the door slamming shut. Once again, furious with himself, he scrubbed hard at his eyes and climbed to his feet to begin the long walk back to the gates. He was midway between the Whomping Willow and the wrought iron gates when he heard his name on the wind. Turning, he saw Ginny, walking quickly to catch up to him. He sighed and continued walking. "Don't make me do this, Harry James Potter!" Ginny roared. Ignoring her outburst, he picked up his pace. "PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!" came a voice from behind. He gasped as every inch of his body went rigid and he fell face first onto the path, his glasses snapping at the bridge of his nose. "Well, hell," he muttered out of the side of his mouth. He heard the sound of footsteps pounding closer to where he lay. Finally, a swirl of azure blue fabric swept around his left shoulder and he closed his eyes. "'Miss Weasley', eh?" Ginny said, tucking the tip of her shoe under his shoulder and, with a grunt, flipping him over onto his back. She stifled a laugh as his broken glasses slid off to rest at either side of his head. The sun shown in his eyes and he squinted in an effort to see her face. "Yes, ‘Miss Weasley,'" Harry said, his mouth blessedly free of the spell that had the rest of him paralyzed. "Despite my rather dismal childhood, I am well acquainted with proper manners. Now, the question remains, are you acquainted with them as well?" He arched a brow and glanced down at his still form. "I am, but apparently you were in too big of a rush to follow through with them back at the castle, so I am merely doing what needs to be done so that you will remember those manners from this point forward." Harry sighed and, closing his eyes, came free of the spell, much to Ginny's apparent horror. "Wandless magic?" Ginny said, taking several steps backwards. "You can do wandless magic?" Harry dusted off his robes and, plucking his wand from his pocket, proceeded to repair his glasses. "I assume that was a rhetorical question, Miss Weasley?" He placed his glasses back on and crossed his arms across his chest. "Now, as I said only a few moments before, I have already attempted to discuss my leaving with you once before and I do not wish to do so again. Is there is something else that you wished to discuss with me?" Ginny clenched her fists. "Do NOT take that tone with me, Mr Potter! I will NOT allow you to brush me off as if I were that dust on your robes! You and I have to discuss all that there is between us if there is any hope of our surviving within a mile of one another at that school!" Rolling his eyes, he turned and walked through the gates towards the road to town. "I need a pint of butterbeer," Harry muttered to himself, "or, better yet, a shot of Firewhisky." He could hear her voice, shrill and furious, as she continued to berate him, no more than ten paces behind. He cast a glance over his shoulder now and then, only to snort with amusement as he watched her wildly gesticulating with her hands as she yelled at his back. And then he stopped, all traces of amusement draining from him, as he caught his first sight of the Obelisk of Remembrance. Harry stood, shaken and transfixed, as he watched the water cascading down the sides of the obelisk. He felt the blood drain from his face, his cheeks paling beneath its summer tan, his eyes shining with unshed tears as he read the names of those who had died. His eyes stopped at Dumbledore's name and he shuddered anew, more memories swirling painfully into his mind: He heard Dumbledore's voice bellow the spell they'd been practicing for weeks, "Benevolentia Convince Maleficus." Red-golden light bathing the two Gryffindor heirs as the ghastly green and silver light of Avada Kedavra screamed through the air, bursting against Dumbledore's chest; a stray shard slamming against Harry's head, blinding him with pain. In the next moment, Harry looked down into the unseeing eyes and all-too-still countenance of Albus Dumbledore. He stumbled to his feet. Voldemort was clearly shocked to see only his life-long nemesis fall, the other standing to face him. With an anguished shout, Harry chanted the second half of the incantation, and watched with satisfaction as Voldemort splintered into millions of obsidian black shards, each bursting into final flame and ash. Then, only darkness. Ginny appeared in front of him, standing within inches of him for the first time in almost a decade. He could smell the jasmine that scented her hair and see the flecks of amber and green swirling in her eyes. He watched as she opened her mouth to say something – what, he wasn't certain. His reaction was immediate, intense and visceral. Before she could retreat, he captured her lips in a soul-shaking kiss. His hands closed upon her upper arms, dragging her against his body, the softness of her making him quake with need. Ginny. Comfort, acceptance, warmth, love all lay here in the arms of this woman. His mind sailed back in time; back to a night of storm when his heart was aching and she was his salvation. His tongue sought and found entrance to her mouth as she gasped with the shock of his kiss. From what felt like a great distance, he felt her hands press against his chest in an attempt to escape his embrace and the magnitude of his actions struck him like a tidal wave. He wrenched his lips from hers, staggering away until the back of his knees struck the edge of the black marble pool. Ginny gasped, and he watched her hand come up to cover her mouth, her eyes wide with a mixture of shock, fury, sadness, and yearning. Her cheeks flamed and she met his gaze with one full of melancholy. "Why did you leave us, Harry?" Her taste still on his tongue, the press of her breasts against his chest still palpable, his body still aflame with a wild passion he hadn't felt in years, all felt as though it had been dropped into an icy lake as Ginny's words sank into his brain. He gaped at her, wondering if she'd felt nothing in those few moments just past, if she'd ever felt with the same depth as he. That thought alone turned his coldness to heat. "Dammit!" Harry said, running a hand through his hair. "You know why, Ginny. You can't have forgotten that conversation, can you?" "Of course not," she said quietly, "I've re-lived it a thousand times." "Well, apparently you want another review," he said angrily. "I asked you to come with me. I begged you to come with me. I needed you to come with me, and you refused! Not once, but over and over again that horrible night." "Charlie had died, Harry," Ginny interrupted, her eyes shining with tears. "It had been barely more than a month and Mum, Dad, our entire family was still inconsolable with grief over his death! You were there, Harry! You saw it with your own eyes, felt it with your own heart! Not to mention that Hermione was barely out of her coma when you came strolling in, demanding I leave everything I knew behind because you couldn't stay in our world!" Harry winced at her words, lashing out with the pain. "Do you think I didn't take all of that into consideration before I came to you that night? I couldn't eat. I could barely sleep and wasn't about to become addicted to those sleep tonics Sirius and Remus kept trying to foist upon me." Harry's gaze lanced hers. "Gin, the night before the battle in Hogsmeade." Ginny glanced down at her hands. He was certain they were thinking similar thoughts – unbidden images of what had occurred that night, under the stars at the top of the Astronomy Tower. A closer look confirmed Harry's suspicions, for a flush crept up her neck to blossom in her cheeks. "Have you forgotten what we said to one another that night, Gin?" Harry said, grabbing hold of her arm, his eyes pleading with her. "As we lay in one another's arms, promising we'd be together forever?" He watched as tears trembled on Ginny's lashes, as the warmth of her skin beneath his hand seeped in, as the scent that was so unmistakably Ginny swirled around him, bringing to mind memories of dark nights and deep desires. His voice turned icy, shocking her. "Were those words so easily forgotten, faster than our sweat dried off of your flesh?" There was a tremendous crack of flesh on flesh as Ginny slapped Harry across his face. Clasping a hand to his injured cheek, Harry stumbled and fell against the rim of the black marble pool of the memorial. Ginny stood, white faced and trembling above him, a fury unlike any he had seen before streaming from every line of her body. She slowly raised her hand to point at the white marble stone. "Your name should be there," she said, her voice straining with anger. "The man my family and I once knew and loved as Harry Potter died that same day." She stepped away from him slowly, her eyes blazing into his. "That man would have never doubted what I promised to him. You chose to throw those words I said to you back at me without a second thought as to how such a decision might affect my life and my family. I wasn't the only one making promises and you were the one who left, by your own choice. The choice to leave your family wasn't made for you, like it was made for Charlie. As far as I'm concerned, the man I loved is as good as dead." She turned and started to walk towards the town. Stunned into silence, Harry watched as she disappeared from his view, a single tear of frustration and loss edging down his face. A/N: WHEW! I'm exhausted, how about you? : ) This chapter took a long time to come out, and for good reason. Without the help of my pals Aibhinn, Robin and Ahmie, and their support, suggestions, shoulders, hankies I would STILL be working on it and I wouldn't be half as proud of it as I am. Thank you, ladies! Also, to Dr H – thanks for letting me rant about this the other day. It meant all the difference in the world. Finally, thanks to all of you who have reviewed so far. It means more than you can know. I look forward to hearing more so don't be shy! : )
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