"Why would we question food Hagrid gave us? The man is clearly incapable of deceit ..." As Hermione babbled on, Lezard's eyes widened, noticeable even despite the spectacles. Abruptly he scowled -- not angry with Hermione, but in general, with the situation -- and grabbed her arm unceremoniously. With a sudden flash of light, he had teleported the both of them away from public view and into the comparative seclusion of the DADA office.
He let go of her arm then and stepped back. "I apologize. I did not think it offensive, what you were saying, but I did think it possibly damaging to your career! You are a professor now, and a young beautiful female one at that, and it will be difficult enough for you to be taken seriously without making inadvertently damaging revelations in others' hearing. Academia is cutthroat, Hermione! Cutthroat and utterly mercenary!" Perhaps rather more so in Flenceburg than at the Hat's Hogwarts, but Lezard wasn't really thinking in such terms. After all, Lezard was the one who'd killed his intellectual rivals.
Mercifully, that wasn't on his mind, or else he'd have blurted that out too.
Hermione let out an undignified little squeak as she was abruptly returned to the seclusion of her office. She sank onto a chair and buried her face in her hands in a moment of mortification. "Oh, you're right," she said. "I shouldn't have said that where people could hear me. Especially since I do want people to take me seriously. As it is, I'm going to have enough trouble considering one of my least favorite teachers is still here and teaching at Hogwarts, and he doesn't think me qualified to teach. I don't expect he'll do anything about it, though, except sit in the back of my classroom and glare, but I'm sure that'll be enough to unsettle me when the time comes."
Whatever the enchantment was, its insidious effect did not stop at forcing Lezard to say whatever came to mind regardless of the consequences or content. It also dilated and diverted his attention. In normal conversation, he could have listened to a complete monologue and sifted out which parts of it he found most interesting, framing responses and questions accordingly. But under the present enchantment, his attention was drawn to whatever immediately caught it, and then he had to say whatever that brought to mind, to the exclusion of all else that had been said.
Thus he had missed a chance to hit on Hermione. He could have taken her remarks about the unimaginative nameless lover in Sydney, and made all sorts of sly suggestions as to how much more imaginative he could be. (Because that, to Lezard, would have seemed like an acceptable conversation, and not creepy at all.) But by the time she'd given such details, Lezard's attention had already been seized by the fleeting thought that it would be Bad for her Career had someone overheard these indiscreet revelations, and off he went with the teleportation and the lecturing and all.
And now this effect could be seen again, as Lezard completely missed the chance to ask Hermione which teacher she expected to glare at her, and so forth. The words 'least favorite teacher' had quite a different association for him, and he commenced babbling about it without losing a moment. "Like that accursed, confounded entity who calls himself Mister Wednesday? Professor of Ancient Runes indeed, with emphasis on the ancient! Completely incapable of appreciating the modern and the new! Incapable of appreciating achievement, because he cannot credit anyone but himself, and cannot see that his achievements can be and have been exceeded!"
With chagrin, Lezard realized that while his practiced smooth voice lost no whit of its cultivation, all these exclamations completely robbed him of the nonchalant cool he always tried to project.
Hermione let him go on for a while, then shook her head. "I don't think I've met him," she admitted. "But he certainly seems unpleasant. Then, too, so is Professor Snape. He wasn't a fair teacher, and he's got a foul temper, and not very much patience for people he thinks aren't learning. He always said I was a show-off! I can't help it that I catch on to things faster than other people do. But he was always penalizing me for it, and giving me unnecessary flack for being friends with Harry Potter. So I only assume he's going to glare at me and tell me I'm teaching my class wrong."
Lezard began to laugh. "Snape! Dear Snape. I think you may have solved that problem without knowing it. He does seem to have a problem with women who speak their minds, now that you mention it ... the Chatelaine had quite a similar problem with him, though without any academic component ... Perhaps he hates what he desires? Or perhaps he simply hates women. That is his loss, I suppose."
"Ugh," Hermione said, shaking her head. "Please don't mention Snape and desire in the same sentence again. That's just put horrible mental images in my head, and I don't want them. But I suppose you may be right about him. Still doesn't mean I want him scowling at me in the back of my classroom while I'm trying to teach."
"The scowling I may not be able to help," said Lezard, "but he should remain silent, certainly. You see, you've chosen a teaching assistant of whom he cannot disapprove. I healed Dumbledore's withered hand. For Professor Snape, I believe, there is no greater proof of power against the Dark Arts than to remove a curse against which Dumbledore and Snape together could not avail."
"That was you?" That particular statement had genuinely impressed Hermione. "I didn't know that. Dumbledore never told me that was your doing. Not that I was particularly concerned when I first saw him, since he was supposed to be dead and I was worried he might be some kind of advanced inferi. Which only seems a bit foolish now that I think of it."
"Advanced inferi?" Lezard cracked the hell up. By which it is to say, he laughed a laugh that was not quite his Super Crazy Villain laugh. It was more like ... snickering. "Oh my. Oh goodness. That depends on what one means by 'advanced' and what one means by 'inferus'." For inferus, he believed, was the singular form of inferi; he had never reckoned with the messed-up Latin of the Potterverse. "If there is nothing falling off him, you are most likely safe! But no, I can attest from my work on his hand that the former headmaster is very much alive. It is as though the magic of the castle brought him back from a moment just before his passing, so that it only appears he ceased to have been deceased." And this time his laugh was more the crazy variety, since his idiotic quasi-pun amused him inordinately.
Had it not been for the wedding cake's enchantment, he would never have given voice to such lame wordplay.
He let go of her arm then and stepped back. "I apologize. I did not think it offensive, what you were saying, but I did think it possibly damaging to your career! You are a professor now, and a young beautiful female one at that, and it will be difficult enough for you to be taken seriously without making inadvertently damaging revelations in others' hearing. Academia is cutthroat, Hermione! Cutthroat and utterly mercenary!" Perhaps rather more so in Flenceburg than at the Hat's Hogwarts, but Lezard wasn't really thinking in such terms. After all, Lezard was the one who'd killed his intellectual rivals.
Mercifully, that wasn't on his mind, or else he'd have blurted that out too.
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Thus he had missed a chance to hit on Hermione. He could have taken her remarks about the unimaginative nameless lover in Sydney, and made all sorts of sly suggestions as to how much more imaginative he could be. (Because that, to Lezard, would have seemed like an acceptable conversation, and not creepy at all.) But by the time she'd given such details, Lezard's attention had already been seized by the fleeting thought that it would be Bad for her Career had someone overheard these indiscreet revelations, and off he went with the teleportation and the lecturing and all.
And now this effect could be seen again, as Lezard completely missed the chance to ask Hermione which teacher she expected to glare at her, and so forth. The words 'least favorite teacher' had quite a different association for him, and he commenced babbling about it without losing a moment. "Like that accursed, confounded entity who calls himself Mister Wednesday? Professor of Ancient Runes indeed, with emphasis on the ancient! Completely incapable of appreciating the modern and the new! Incapable of appreciating achievement, because he cannot credit anyone but himself, and cannot see that his achievements can be and have been exceeded!"
With chagrin, Lezard realized that while his practiced smooth voice lost no whit of its cultivation, all these exclamations completely robbed him of the nonchalant cool he always tried to project.
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Had it not been for the wedding cake's enchantment, he would never have given voice to such lame wordplay.
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