Confrontations
Black Lodge, 3rd November 2003
I wake up lying in a bed not of my own. Different feels. Different smells.
Different sounds, too.
Voices. There are voices, too, unfamiliar to my bedroom’s vicinity.
One sounds a little bit like Hermione. A little far. Perhaps by the door.
The other is male and deep. Nearby. Rather high up. Standing? Tall?
The not-Hermione is impatient, also rather angry. The nearby male is… more stoic, and wary.
And neither of them are talking in English.
My. How unpleasant, waking up like this. Can’t I get some respite, please? I feel like somebody transfigured all my cells into heavy metal balls!
But if I don’t move and act now, who knows what’ll happen? Won’t be pleasant, certainly, especially for me. And I’ve got enough unpleasantness in these few days alone for a lifetime.
All right, Potter. Open your eyes, first, then….
Whoa!
I stare wide-eyed at the person standing by the door, which is in line with the foot of the bed. It’s Hermione, frizzy hair and all, but… not. The voice that I heard just now came from her direction, but not entirely Hermione’s.
And I’ve just remembered that Hermione bonded with a parasite similar to what Voldemort accidentally put in my forehead twenty-two years ago.
Damn. Damn. Damn. God – Merlin – whoever – I can’t take this! Zabini and I passed out just now, trying to heal a nearly-catatonic-by-torture man! Now this….
I grit my teeth and turn as slowly as I can to the side, hoping to get up without being noticed by the verbal combatants.
And my eyes meet a black-skinned naked thigh parked beside the bed, in the process.
While there’s only one person currently in this place that I know of possessing black skin, instead of dark brown….
Oh, damn. It’s Teal’c. Facing off against Not-Hermione. Weaponless and clothingless.
Why, why, why must my life be so horrible?
And now, Not-Hermione is coming closer to the bed despite the menacing presence of my guardian angel, perhaps noticing me awake and moving. While I am very much defenceless, since my muscles are still quite stubbornly unresponsive, and my magic likewise.
Damn. The last time I am this helpless against someone who means ill to me, I was tied up on a headstone and my blood was forceably drawn and used in a ritual to resurrect Voldemort, before I got Crucioed twice and had to fight for my own life and Cedric’s body in post-torture state.
Like that time, though, I’m not going down without a fight.
So, gritting my teeth again, I shift my elbow and laboriously prop myself up using that elbow.
Before I can use the elbow to lever myself up further, though, Teal’c barks something at Not-Hermione, which might mean “Stop” in whatever language they’re snapping at each other in.
Well, I’m always finding that problems, troubles and villains never heed that word, buddy. It’s a waste of your breath, honestly, but thank you for the attempt. I was never defended so in my life!
Not until Andy smoothed things over with the goblins for me, Ron and Hermione, maybe, but I think she did that for Lord Black, not Harry Potter, as we weren’t close yet, so it doesn’t count.
Andy…. Damn. Quite a good time for me to reminisce about her! Get hold of yourself, Potter!
The anger that I direct at myself does give me a brief boost of energy, though.
I sit up, swaying drunkenly, just as Not-Hermione reaches out a hand towards me.
And Teal’c swings her away by that hand, only to toss her out of the door.
I flinch.
The man quickly strides towards the said door and closes it, just as Not-Hermione is scrambling onto her hands and knees on the hallway outside. He doesn’t immediately return to his previous post, though, taking some time to lean heavily against the thick wooden plank that makes up the door panel.
Or maybe, he’s guarding the way in while watching the only other way in, namely the single window that sits across the door, near the head of the bed.
I feel torn between gratitude to him for defending me so readily, concern for Hermione and her poor body, and upset with him for flinging away the body of my friend, regardless of whoever is in control of that body at present.
I lean more towards concern for him when the door suddenly vanishes and he falls into the hallway, twisting just at the right time to avoid a punch from… is it still Not-Hermione?
Well, only one way to find out.
“Hermione!”
Damn. My bed-croak is so pathetic.
But she looks at me, anyway, although the light in her eyes is alien to me. Nimbler than I would’ve expected her to be, she leaps over Teal’c and return inside.
“Greetings, Harry Potter. I am Arga, companion of Hermione Granger,” she says in the strange echoing tone from before, while dodging Teal’c’s attempts to subdue her as if she’d been practising martial arts all her life, despite the narrow space available in this bedroom. “Please tell your Jaffa to stand down, or I shall be forced to harm him.”
“My what? – No don’t come closer! Let go of my friend!” I scramble back and away from her, accidentally hitting Zabini’s insensate form in the process, which has somehow been moved from the foot of the bed to Teal’c’s former spot on the bed to my left.
“Hermione would have fared worse than I did,” she argues.
I glower at her. “Let. Go,” I insist. “Let go or I’ll find a way to get you out of her right now.”
She jumps on the bed to evade a leg-swipe from Teal’c. But her eyes, when they meet mine again, definitely belong to Hermione’s once more – terrified out of her mind, confused, but Hermione’s.
“Whoa, Teal’c!” I shout to my new friend and self-assigned bodyguard, with a hand outstretched and palm towards him, fulfilling my bargain.
He freezes on a half-crouch, apparently about to jump on the bed to chase Hermione and her “companion” off of it.
I scramble closer to him, then pat the empty spot in front of me invitingly while motioning at Hermione to get back further, so as not to incite his defensiveness more or bother Zabini.
Well, that last one is sort of a too-late case, since they’re already pulling themself into a seated position, groaning and muttering under their breath all the while, but at least we’re all in a safish distance from each other now, except for me and Teal’c, who’s just taken the offered seat warily… and still naked, and shivering a little.
Damn. I forgot this, in the chaos.
“I need a house-elf, please,” I call to the empty air beyond the bed.
I request warm clothes while motioning at Teal’c as soon as one of the said house-elves pops into being before me. She beams and bobs a courtsy before popping out.
“Thank you!” I smile when the clothes materialise on the bed between me and Teal’c, seemingly out of nowhere.
Well, part of the smile is because the large and powerful Teal’c flinches away like a scalded cat because of some clothes, but I shan’t tell anybody that.
The smile remains as I scoop the clothes – some pretty outdated trousers and tunic and some clearly secondhand pair of socks, but clean-looking and clean-smellin – up and proffer it to him. `You,` I tell him mentally as I look into his wary, wondering eyes.
He takes the small pile with a nod of thanks, which I reciprocate.
And then the moment is broken, by Hermione’s shrill demand of, “What did you tell him about me, Harry? He acted so antagonistic towards me! And I think it’s not because of… that thing! He was afraid of me and now he beat me up!”
I wince. And so does Zabini, apparently, because then they snap out sarcastically, “Maybe your tone, Granger? You mightn’t share the same language, but language isn’t only about words, you know. If that tone grates on me already, I don’t want to imagine how a traumatised person would feel.”
I sigh and throw Teal’c a rueful, apologetic look.
He raises an eyebrow stoicly, while in the process of donning the trousers without leaving the bed. His countenance is unreadable, now, and I unexpectedly miss our silent conversation of blinks, hand-squeezes and facial expressions from before.
I look away, and roll my eyes at the duel of glares that Hermione and Zabini are apparently conducting in my absence of a few seconds.
It’s my turn to break the moment. Looking straight into Hermione’s eyes after calling her name, I say firmly, “I told him nothing about you, Mione, or about anything and anyone else except for myself and some of what I was thinking or feeling at that time. Now, why did you come in here and persist to come to me despite all that? Didn’t he tell your… companion… that I was all right and just sleeping?”
She huffs, flushes, and looks away. “I just meant to check on you, you know,” she grumps. “Do you know that he’s a Jaffa? The First Prime – the leader of the army – of Apophis, no less. And Apophis is a very bad man, Harry, Arga told me. They were around at the same time, in Ancient Egypt. He’s dangerous, Harry. His First Prime must be almost equally dangerous.” She’s looking back into my eyes in earnest, at the end.
I frown. “You sound like you’re regreting saving him from that place, now,” I say quietly.
She flushes and looks away again. “Not really,” she admits in an even quieter voice. “I was just… worried. You and Zabini were suddenly unconscious, and he was suddenly right as rain…. What should we think about, else?”
“We?” I emphasise.
She lets out a louder huff. “Arga and I, Harry. We. She agreed with me that I needed to get you away from the Jaffa, under such circumstance.”
“The Jaffa has a name, you know,” I point out, with a glance towards Teal’c for permission and a mental inquiry of, `Your self answers to word? Word I call you?`
He looks at her with sharp, heavy regard, in turn. He proclaims a few foreign words, then, with “Teal’c” being one of them.
And Hermione glares defiantly back.
“Not this again,” I sigh, and exchange an exasperated look with Zabini, of all people.
“All right!” I clap my hands sharply, thrice in quick succession, to break up the second glaring match, this time between Hermione and Teal’c. “You,” I point a chiding finger at Hermione, “Don’t say anything about Teal’c and his people to anybody except for us, and only when we’re alone, unless you’re really in danger from the knowledge. And you,” I point the same finger at Teal’c, who looks back at me in the same unreadable manner, “I…. No. Angering. Her.” I resort to physical and facial mimicry of the words, in the end. I give him the concepts mentally right after, for added measure.
“I’m not answerable to you,” Hermione snips back without a pause. I cringe inwardly, both from the hurt tone and the biting denial. But Zabini joins in before I can muster a comeback.
“You are in their home, Granger, using their things, eating from their table, meeting their people,” they point out acerbically. “Is it too much for them to ask for your silence on a matter that doesn’t involve you anyway? – No, no running away from this, Granger, not until you promise.”
Hermione glares accusingly at me. I stare calmly back at her – outwardly calm, at least! As I’m thoroughly confused by Zabini defending me, calling me a “they” instead of a “he,” and bringing a rather antiquated rule about lordship into the fray.
“I just want to protect you!” she bursts out at length. I raise an eyebrow, belatedly realising that I’m imitating Teal’c right in front of him.
Well, the mimicry works, nevertheless, after a sufficient time of me not relenting, although I dearly wish to, not liking to stare into her hurt expression for a prolonged moment. She swears her vow, as coached by Zabini, then hops down from the bed and flounces away.
Zabini shakes their head in the wake of her wrathful exit, looking bemused. “Since first year, I never knew what you saw in her, Potter,” they remark dryly.
I train Teal’c® raised eyebrow at them.
They return it, perfectly, with their own small smirk in play for added measure.
They hop down the bed as well, then, without breaking our staring match, and… do a weird form of low courtsy to me, while also bowing low, with both of their hands linked at the small of their back and their head tilted to the side to expose their throat. “By your leave, my liege, I would like to freshen myself up before continuing to serve you.”
Their eyes sparkle with humour – maybe some ironic humour – that lightens up the grey-green colouring in the process, but there’s also sincerity in that light.
“Damn you, Zabini,” I huff tiredly. “This is not the time for one of your twisted jokes.”
But they don’t budge from their weird bow-courtsy, and don’t say anything to confirm or deny my accusation, so I’m forced to wave a hand to dismiss them, with the hasty addition of, “Go, go, go, indulge yourself, Your Twistiness, within reason, and don’t bother me till I bother you.”
They grin to that, before rising up and backing away rapidly through the still-open door. Prat.
Now, I’ve just got to deal with Teal’c.
What a morning.