Professor Black: A Reader Insert

18. Slithering into Wretched Pastels

January was calmer than (y/n) expected. Granted, Ginny came to her a couple of weeks after term restarted with a shaky voice and darting eyes. Unfortunately, the girl's suffering wasn't over just yet.

"Ms. Black, I got rid of it." She didn't need to go into detail.

"Unfortunately, you didn't. Not really anyway. It's to be a lure for herring now." (y/n) sighed the girl paled, even more, rivaling the skin tone of Draco. 

"What?" She nearly vibrated with nerves.

"It has a hold on you still and there isn't anything I can do to get the git out of your head. Harry and friends found the diary and will be led to their almost death. They'll be fine though. Ron will just be more scared of spiders and they'll find the car."

"You just told me that my brother might be in mortal danger and it's 'fine'." She glared at the woman pouring her a cup of tea.

"Would you rather I tell you the git is leeching your life from you and will try to kill Harry after a teacher tries to erase Harry and Ron's memory and fails gloriously?" (y/n)'s brow quirked as she spoke.

"No, I wouldn't," Ginny mumbled.

"See. I pick and choose what parts to say. The worst ones would do you little good to know about before they happen and the marginally minor ones in the grand scheme can offer some peace of mind." (y/n) said with a small kinda sad chuckle.

"Can you change anything about what you see?" There was a glint of morbid curiosity in the Weasley's eyes.

"Harmlessly, a life here would mean the safety of three others, and a life there would be years of unmitigated joy on my part. Anything else and I'd be setting Mr. Potter's path for failure into motion. Both would be seen as playing favorites even if I wouldn't do the first one out of bitter petty spite. The second is in motion already." The (h/c) didn't see any reason to not to tell the girl so she with held nothing.

"Who's the first?" Ah and the child has been derailed from her quagmire

"My idiot cousin, and he'd keep his remaining best friend, the one of the only other blood relatives that I enjoy being around, and a Weasley of the particularly goofy sort from kicking the bucket. He didn't listen the first time I warned him so who's to say he will this time." (y/n) shrugged.

"The second?" Ginny was holding her teacup in between her hands with her eyes wide in juicy curiosity.

"You'll know when the bells ring." And now the girl has been successfully dragged out of what might've been an encroaoching anxiety spiral at the cost of exploiting the juicy details of her personal life like ew.

"Is that a muggle thing?" Ginny worried at her lip as she thought over something mumbling. "A thing that involves two people and bells is a wedding. But that can't be, Fred and George hadn't made any headway on Bill's behalf."

"You and your family have the oddest notion about the relationship your brother and I had. I was jut an older kid with a sad home life that he took pity on, besides Bill and I don't gel that way. Never have." (y/n) derailed that train immediately.

 "Wait, did you try?! And never told any of us!" Ginny's eyes snapped to hers immediately the haze of scandalized emotions filling the her expression.

"Two years before I left, one year before I became an animagus, and Bill and I are great friends but that's it. Besides like I told your brothers Bill's marital bliss is a veela."

"No way."

"A French one. So I'd invest in lessons from one of those posh kids in Ravenclaw to help her feel more welcome. All else fails have my son make her pass a vibe check."

"Vibe check?"

February felt like a whole cringe-fest was to happen and it did, courtesy of Professor Lockhart. Everything was pink and things only went downhill from there. (y/n) and Ceres were setting fire to the fifteenth bouquet that Lockhart had sent that morning when Ginny came crying into her office and flinging herself on the pillow nest with a wail.

"It was humiliating!"

"I warned you a teen boy wasn't going to like it. A simple quidditch pun on a charmed card would've been better."  

"Bu-but Tom-"

"Is a 50-year-old apparition whose goal is to isolate you and make the perfect prey. Neville and Luna Lovegood are good friends to make." 

"Not after I humiliated myself like that." She huffed.

"You never know."

Then at dinner, as Ceres sat next to Draco glowering at the advances of a certain Miss Parkinson, Lockhart once again, this time with a flourish, gifted (y/n) a large bouquet of red roses before everyone in the hall. All the teachers in her vicinity gave her some space as she glowered at him with a stony face. Everyone in the Great Hall could see how the stems in her hand began to smoke as embers floated up from her indignant rage at the man before her.

"Meadowsweet, orange lilies, foxgloves, yellow carnations, and geraniums and not in the fun way." She hissed quietly enough that only he could hear before the bouquet fell as ashes from her hands.

She then stood and, after sending Lockhart another glare as he tried to stop her from leaving, walked out of the Great Hall followed by Ceres who stuck her tongue out at Lockhart with a hiss calling him a dumb bear who can't catch a fish even if it jumped into his mouth which made Harry choke on his punch in laughter.

The journey into spring should have been less troublesome only for that to get bashed as the discovery of both Miss Granger and Joan petrified in the library put a damper on things.

The next time Harry stopped by for tea he was on edge.

"It wasn't Hagrid." The boy said with a shudder.

"It doesn't take a genius to see that Potter." She calmly stirred her tea as Ceres was napping in the corner. "Riddle me this what affliction do the three of us suffer from that no one else in the school suffers from, save an apparition of a young Voldemort?"

"Parseltongue, but I don't see- wait what did you say?"

"Tom Riddle is the very fool who gave you that scar."

"So he sent us on a wild goose chase to get rid of us?"

"He seems to fail when he tries his hand at it, what two for two now?"

 "So what now?"

"Gregor is a big snake, why do you think you, Ceres, and I can hear him?"  

"The pipes." Harry stood up and dashed out of her office like his robes were on fire.

She needed something stronger than tea to deal with this tomfoolery.