InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Beginnings ❯ Circumstance and Cause ( Chapter 2 )

Hagrid beamed at the children under his care, taking careful note from his seat at the teachers table of his three favorites, well two favorites really: Harry and Neville. Hermione just wormed her way into any teacher's heart by her enthusiasm and curiosity. Hagrid smiled as he remembered overhearing Snape grumbling one day about `curious students' and `damnable know-it-alls' in an affectionate voice.

He looked closer to Harry, reflecting about options that they had no right to take, yet did. Hagrid knew that Harry's aunt from his father's side was angry at them, and rightly so. Because Dumbledore had felt that Harry would be protected more under the muggle roof - due to his mother's protection not his father's - Harry had never even met his aunt.

Personally, Hagrid liked her a lot more. She had scared him at first, with the constantly disheveled hair that covered one eye and the overly powerful single eye, but then she kind of grew on him. He could still remember Snape telling him it had something to do with his wild animal affection syndrome. Harry's aunt reminded everyone of the primal beasts of ancient times, when magic and elements still ruled and the gods had not fled to their havens.

Snape often teased Hagrid about his natural attraction to the wild beasts and animals that ruled their small kingdoms…or large ones, and Hagrid enjoyed teasing the potions master about his broken nose…it was courtesy of one of Hagrid's animals after all.

Hagrid sighed as he watched Harry watch the incoming owls. He knew the feeling, never getting any owls in his short stint at this school before Riddle had happened. He shook his head and shifted a glance to Snape. He watched the potions master catch it and nod with a little flick of his wrist holding the chopsticks.

Hagrid nodded to himself and placed his fork horizontally across his plate before taking a very slow sip of his water, telling Minerva that he was savoring the taste when she inquired to his actions. He was good at that, telling stupid little lies to add to his bumbling persona.

.x.

Snape smiled under the cover of his hair as he brought some sushi up to his lips. He glanced uneasily at the Potter kid, taking in the way he stared morosely at the skylight and the leaving owls. He snorted. As much as he had loathed Black it wasn't worth it. Harry was a special child, and he had a knack for finding the other specials, these children had the power to unlock Hogwarts magic, Severus was sure of it.

He flicked out his wrist, handling the tightly rolled scroll in his hand as he excused himself and passed Hagrid on his way towards his dungeon rooms. No one noticed the suspicious absence of his scroll after he passed the half-giant, just as no one noticed the suspicious scroll when it had been in his hand.

He snorted as he walked down the halls and scowled. Stupid idiots. They followed Dumbledore like sheep, listening to his every word. He sighed then; at least the old wizard tries to work for the best of the wizarding world. He smiled bemusedly at that stray thought in the safety of his realm- the dungeons. The world around, under, and behind the muggle world, this was the wizarding world that Kagome had stumbled into not so many years ago.

He smirked openly now, safely enshrouded by his shadows. He could still remember the open shock and disbelief on the old mans face, quiet unusual in and of itself, but then he had been shocked at her demand, letting Severus experience the only time in his life where he had seen Dumbledore quite so pole-axed.

Kagome had been forbidden from seeing her nephew, even as she rightly deserved it. Dumbledore had the crazy notion that since Lily's spell of protection was with Harry that he would only be protected by her love under her family's roof. But Severus knew better. The late Potter was pain in the arse (an honorable pain in the arse but don't let anyone know he felt that), but he was powerful. He died protecting his family as well- and Snape had a very intriguing theory.

Potter died to protect Harry and Lily, and although Lily was skilled, she lacked the raw power required to cast such a potent charm. Severus believed that Potter's protection and love went to Lily and Harry before Lily gave all of her portion and her own magic to Harry in her death. Technically, Harry would be protected better under the house of his Father's blood. Names were very important in the wizarding world, and Lily had taken on the Potter name and had been repudiated from her household name by her sister. This only added more power to the spell, when it was under a Potter roof.

Snape scoffed at the stupidity of the man in charge, he was good at charms, personal relations, and magical defense…but in permanent protection and potions he was abysmal. Snape cringed as he remembered a particularly revealing conversation he had with the headmaster. Severus knew the headmaster's view was skewed, as he knew the atmosphere at the Dursley's house was all wrong for the protective barrier Dumbledore believed to be in place.

If Harry had been with a loving family, even if they were completely unrelated, the protections would have been such that even Voldemort's memories and thoughts wouldn't have leaked through their bond.

Snape shook his head as he unwove the spells guarding and hiding his lair, and gently encouraged them to snap back into pace behind him after he'd entered. He sighed and settled down for a long wait; Hagrid wouldn't be able to reply for a while. He always got caught up with the other teachers or some needy student.

He had received a scroll from Kagome just a while back, and it was very rare for her to do so. She must have felt a disturbance. Severus shook his head and took out the fire whisky, letting it pour into his shot glass for him to spike it with some of his own concoctions before downing it ion one gulp.

Ah, yes. He loved the weekend.

He grinned at the thought that Kagome would glare and smack him good for even thinking that, the weekend was no excuse to allow one to indulge outrageously she would probably chime in that smooth voice of hers. He grinned even more; he knew she would be pushing him to actually go out under the pretest of fun, but then they would end up discussing the applications of runes and more accessible magic.

Kagome believed that no one should be bereft of a guard spell, no matter the simplicity of it.

It was one of the reasons people were so scandalized…well no, that wasn't true. It was one of the reasons she was considered so odd. People were scandalized by her because she accepted anyone and anything into her fold of what she called friends. Severus Snape laughed as he remembered calling them her mongrels and mutts, to which she had replied that she considered him one of her `mutts'.

He had no reply to that comment then, just as he had no reply to that now, but he would accept it. She was a highly intelligent woman, and she wasn't overwhelming and arrogant with that knowledge- Snape could put up with her. Snape smiled a the thought of what Kagome had written to him in that scroll, and wondered at how Hagrid would react- once he read it and the comments he had placed at the bottom.

Hagrid himself would eventually place his own thoughts at the bottom of that scroll, and one of the special bred animals that Hagrid enjoyed to create would fly it to their darling little spitfire.

Boy would she be annoyed.

She had stayed away from her nephew, only because Dumbledore and most of the order insisted, and the fact that she wasn't exactly what one would call a registered witch. Snape grinned manically, if there was one thing Kagome Higurashi did well, it was surprise people.

She had been placed in a foster home because she had no ability for magic when she was little; the Potters saw no reason to keep a squib in their home, no matter how pure it's bloodline. So Kagome had gone off to Japan, where residual magic in her had reacted with the magic she received form her shrine home…that's as far as Snape figured out.

Kagome was very reticent to talk about her shrine family, and what happened there. One day she had received notice that her brother had gotten engaged, and the letters had started.

Kagome had told him one night, in a fit of despair, that her brother and she had always been close. She had helped him up after he failed father, and he had helped her stand after she had just failed it all. She kept the letters in a locked metal box, making sure that she always carried the shrunken memento in her bag.

He had seen the box open once, and it was teeming with letters; he had wondered at the time, and he still did now, if Lily had been aware of the letters or her sister-in-law. Snape guessed she hadn't, as Sirius Black and Remus Lupin had been just as surprised at her appearance at the funeral as they all had been.

Snape shook his head out of his old worn musings, having never found all the answers before he was sure the only way to get them was to talk to the mystery herself.

Kagome wasn't very inclined to indulge him in his curiosity.

So he sighed and wondered at her reaction t the news they were sending, they hadn't been able to reach her in the summer, as it always was, and now she was just receiving the news that her precious nephews godfather and her brother's best friend was dead.

Quite a nasty surprise he would guess.

In his dungeons safe from the many eyes of Dumbledore and the students, Severus Snape grinned and tilted his shot glass in the air.

“Here's to a bloody scary woman, and the knowledge that someone will come to guide our students.” An aquiline head was slanted back with haste, pouring into the welcoming throat of a relaxing potions master. As sigh escaped those same lips that had welcomed the whisky and a silly smile came onto the mouth. “Because I know she will be coming, and she'd better be bloody mad or all my knowledge of her is bloody wrong.”

He shook his head and smiled, knowing that if she heard that she wouldn't be mad just to annoy him. She was like that…what a little joker. And she liked to push his buttons.

.c.

In Japan, or somewhere close to the pacific and in the eastern hemisphere, a woman with raven and unruly hair looked up to the sky. It was time for her to receive a letter from her mutts.

They would never be able to reach her in the summer, as she spent her time far, far ago. Not hat they would guess. She pace the length of the room she was staying in, the shrine was off limits for another week, just in case the ministry of magic felt her use the portal to the past. It wouldn't do well for them to discover her.

-Unregistered and all that poppycock.

Kagome sighed and leaned onto the window, pressing her bangs to the pane of glass and shaking her head to make sure the one eye was covered. She had to do this, in the magic world of England, it was her magic eye they saw- but here in the hustle and bustle of strangeness, she would show the world her normal eye, her past and her heritage. It was only fair after all.

She grinned insanely; it also helped her escape notice.

She sighed and turned to look out the window again, she really was impatient for this letter; there had been an upset in the balance last term, and there had been no letter. Severus always made sure to at least send a little note in, and Hagrid always made sure to send an end-of-the-year letter to her.

Something had gone wrong.

She sighed and turned to her room, it would be best to wait with patience and the letter would come. Her eyes flashed in the darkness, they knew netter than to arouse her anger by keeping her form her nephew's life.

The letter would come.