Ella ○ Harry Potter

Twenty: Are You Serious?

A part of Ella thought that being pressed right next to her favorite adult under a cloak that grants invisibility while in the room of three teenagers, her second favorite teacher, and a convicted murderer would be exhilrating.

But then, in the actual situation, she was getting agitated.

Snape smelled like the dungeons themselves, slightly moldy, and various ingredients of various potions stuck to him, and he had a heavy smell of perchmants about him, and she could smell nothing but.

And to add fuel to the fire, Lupin was telling the students in the room about Snape's adventures as a student, and he was getting more and more upset under to cover of the cloak, actually shaking.

"Severus was very interested in where I went every month." Lupin told Harry, Ron, andHermione. "We were in the same year, you know, and we - er - didn't like each other verymuch. He especially disliked James. Jealous, I think, of James's talent on the Quidditch field...anyway Snape had seen me crossing the grounds with Madam Pomfrey one evening as she ledme toward the Whomping Willow to transform. Sirius thought it would be - er - amusing, totell Snape all he had to do was prod the knot on the tree trunk with a long stick, and he'd be ableto get in after me. Well, of course, Snape tried it - if he'd got as far as this house, he'd have meta fully grown werewolf - but your father, who'd heard what Sirius had done, went after Snapeand pulled him back, at great risk to his life... Snape glimpsed me, though, at the end of thetunnel. He was forbidden by Dumbledore to tell anybody, but from that time on he knew what Iwas..."

"So that's why Snape doesn't like you," said Harry slowly, "because he thought you were in onthe joke?"

"That's right," Snape sneered, taking off the cloak while Ella was in the midst of biting her nails, and the two Slytherins were revealed to the rest of the room.

Hermione screamed, while Black jumped to his feet, and Potter looked like he might piss his pants.

"We found this at the base of the whomping willow," he sneered, throwing the cloak aside but keeping his wand directed at Lupin's chest. Ella blinked in confusion.

"You must be wondering," Snape said breathlessly, as though he was waiting for this moment for years, and it's finally within grasp. "How I knew you were here, Lupin. I've just been to your office,Lupin. You forgot to take your potion tonight, so I took a gobletful along. And very lucky Idid... lucky for me, I mean. Lying on your desk was a certain map. One glance at it told me all Ineeded to know. I saw you running along this passageway and out of sight." Ella scratched her cheek as she looked around her.

The whole situation was more absurd, than anything.

"Severus--"

"I've told the headmaster again and again that you're helping your old friend Black into thecastle, Lupin, and here's the proof. Not even I dreamed you would have the nerve to use this oldplace as your hideout--"

"Severus! You're making a mistake!" Lupin attempted, sending an urgent look at Ella's way, who bit her lips. Could she stop Snape? That would be betraying him. But could she let him hurt Lupin? "Sirius isn't trying to kill Harry, listen--"

"Two more to Azkaban tonight," Snape said in an almost calm voice, like he was in a trance. "I shall beinterested to see how Dumbledore takes this... He was quite convinced you were harmless, youknow, Lupin... a tame werewolf."

"You fool," Lupin said lowly. "Will you let a school-boy grudge to get an innocent man back to Azkaban?"

BANG!

Thin, snakelike cords burst from the end of Snape's wand and twisted themselvesaround Lupin's mouth, wrists, and ankles; he overbalanced and fell to the floor, unable to move.With a roar of rage, Black started toward Snape, but Snape pointed his wand straight betweenBlack's eyes. Ella put a hand over her mouth to keep silent.