Cast yourself (you are the spell)

Chapter 29

"Is it done?"

The professors wait with bated breath for Snape's response. It comes, but not with any great pleasure.

"Yes."

Dumbledore smiles with no teeth, his eyes shining faintly. Some other professors do not hold the same sentiment.

"Albus," McGonagall speaks up, her fragile fingers pulling against each other in stress. "Are we handling this correctly?"

Dumbledore knits his white eyebrows together as some of the teachers murmur in agreement.

"I question the ethics as well, Headmaster," Professor Vector adds. Not twenty minutes ago, she had manipulated her star pupil into a romantic trap, and for what? A foolish love prophecy? "Taking advantage of my relationship with a student is not what I signed up for in coming here. It seems...that we are going about this in the wrong way."

"It is for the greater good," Dumbledore says quickly, almost lashing out. But within the next second, his shoulders and facial muscles relax and Professor Vectors wonders if his reaction had only been a figment of her imagination. Another professor knows that he had not imagined anything at all.

"The greater good?" Snape inquires, smirking in distaste. "I essentially condemned Miss Saltzman to..."

He searches for the right words to say, his face uncharacteristically flushing. "...Risk exposure to a known adversary. Surely, the humiliation must be unfathomable."

"I ask you to keep an open mind, Severus," the old man requests. Snape huffs slightly. "All of you bore witness to the day's events, did you not? As unjust as it might appear and-at the risk of sounding vulgar-the pair becoming...intimate...is in our best interest as the protectors of this school."

"You underestimate a Slytherin's tenacity, Albus," Severus says, a line crinkling into his forehead. He did not need to hear the word 'intimate' come from that man's lips ever again. "Quite literally throwing them together in an amorous setting is not enough."

"I could make the same argument that you underestimate an adolescent's inclination towards sexual gratification," Albus says seriously, no smile or crack to his voice.

McGonagall nearly faints.

In the corner, dear Slughorn finds himself nauseous.

-

"What are you doing in here?!"

Hope watches as the muggleborn submerges herself so deeply into the water at an attempt to hide her body that she coughs out bubbles. The pureblood carefully places a lewd smirk onto her face.

"I followed you in to see if I could join you," she husks, smoldering her gaze. Josette pinks and parts her lips, making some weird noise at the back of her throat like she's choking on water before Hope pulls a face and looks at her like she's crazy. "Of course not! I was going to take a bath!"

"In here?!" Josette shrieks again, and Hope rolls her eyes, putting her pants back on and buttoning her shirt. She feels slightly weird doing it in front of the other girl but it's better than feeling exposed.

"No, I clearly took off my clothes here with the intent of doing it somewhere else," she mutters sarcastically, rolling up her sleeves and wiping the soap in her eyes with her robe. She curses the loofah at her feet. "What are you even doing in here? You're not a prefect."

"You aren't either!" Josette retorts, ignoring the girl's sardonic remark. She believes she has every right to question Hope considering the circumstance.

"Snape gave me the password," she gloats, forgetting momentarily that Josette had to know the password to get in. She also forgets how that sentence can be interpreted.