Dark Defense

Hagrid's Return.

Needless to say, as Vergil let himself out of Dumbledore's office that evening, the blue-clad professor was certain of the fact he wasn't likely to be on any of the Slytherins' Christmas lists this year…unless someone actually sent him a lump of poisoned coal.

The look on Snape's face when he'd learned of the amount of points removed had been nigh apoplectic, but there as nothing he could do as Malfoy HAD broken the rules of sportsmanship by deliberately provoking not only Potter, but three other wizards on the Gryffindor team.

If it had simply been Potter, the Potion's Master could have brushed it under the table with his usual disdain for the boy, but the fact Lucius' spawn had been dense enough to mock not only the Weasleys, in front of their teammates no less, but within earshot of another, less sympathetic professor, meant there was little Snape could to about it.

So not only was Slytherin down 100 points, placing them in a tie for last place with Hufflepuff for the first time in history, but Draco and Crabbe were expected to draft a three foot long apology apiece to Potter and the Weasleys, and had been stripped of their right to play for Slytherin permanently.

No, Vergil had NOT made a friend of Severus Snape that day, though truth be told the Potions Master had never trusted, or liked, the younger man. There was something about him that reminded him FAR too much of Voldemort, back when the man had been, for lack of a better term, human.

On the other hand, Professor McGonagal had been decidedly less formal with him since then, actually acknowledging him with a polite nod whenever they met at the table and in the hallways, and was decidedly more relaxed whenever they spoke. Add to that the excitable acceptance of Professor Flitwick, who despite being older than McGonagal, reminded Vergil of the time Dante had gotten into the sugar as a child, and the generally pleasant Sprout, who as head of Hufflepuff was a generally amiable person, and Vergil often found himself hard pressed to come up with excuses to be on his own, often cursing the manners that his late mother had drilled into his skull.

It was during one such attempt at escape, having narrowly avoided being corralled by Dumbledore, who seemed to want in on the action by inviting Vergil to tea, that the DADA professor found himself walking the Hogwarts grounds, actually hoping that one of the Acromantula would grow daring enough to set foot outside the woods. Unfortunately, or fortunately if you looked at it from the spiders' point of view, it seemed that Aragog's brood, while not as intelligent as their sire, nonetheless possessed good memories and had withdrawn from the extremes of their territory to the deepest, darkest parts of the wood, along with a variety of other forest nasties. The centaurs, however, made a point of appearing, briefly, between every tree trunk, their drawn bows and hard eyes visible even from a distance.

'It would appear my reputation precedes me.' Vergil noted, a smirk forming as he watched the latest of his centaur watchers recede into the shadows of the woods 'Trust the stargazers to be able to tell when something is wrong with the world.'

He half considered marching into the woods and deliberately challenging the centaurs, after all, the treaty between them and Hogwarts prevented them from attacking unless HE attacked, or otherwise provoked them first. But that would have been something Dante would have done, and since Vergil did NOT like being compared to his immature twin, he chose instead to respect the Centaurs understandable 'request' for him to stay the hell away from their borders.

It was at this point, just as he was considering returning to his quarters for the evening, that he espied something a little unusual, namely a nigh imperceptible distortion in the air that was sneaking out of the castle. It wasn't a ghost, for one thing it was leaving footprints in the grass, and unless he missed his guess there were several presences under the distortion, as one was repeatedly haggling the other while a third played peace keeper.