“Sorry, I have plans.”
“What plans?”
William gave Kamen a pleading look, “we were going to…”
“Go out…?” Kamen tried.
“Yeah, we’re going out, lots of drinking will be involved, not anything you want Willow to be around. Trust me.”
“Yeah… nice try. You two were just going to lay around here all afternoon, weren’t you?”
Kamen leaned back so far that he almost fell out of his chair, “it’s our day off, why should we do anything that we don’t want to?”
“Just watch her for a couple of hours,” Sirius said as he set Willow down.
“Don’t you wanna play with me?” Willow asked as she pulled on William’s sleeve, pouting as she turned her large blue eyes on him.
“I hate you!” William shouted after Sirius as he left. “I have an idea,” he said, turning back to Willow, “let’s play ‘we’re tired so we’re going to take a nap’, do you like that idea?”
“No.”
“She’s your sister, you entertain her,” Kamen said as he propped his feet up on the coffee table, “I’m going to lay here and go back to sleep.”
“Traitor!” William hissed at him.
“You could always let her play with Anastasia,” Kamen suggested as he closed his eyes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Well, we’re experiencing a number of changes in staff this year,” Minerva began, “I know that I can rely on the four of you to assist me…”
Severus automatically tuned Minerva’s speech out, he’d heard it countless times before, as had Flitwick, who he noticed was also paying no attention whatsoever. He decided instead to work on lesson plans while pretending to take notes, not that he ever really changed his lesson plans from year to year, but it was something to do.
He could feel himself sneering as he glanced at the other Heads of House. Flitwick was apparently doing the same thing he was. Neville… he seriously questioned Minerva’s judgment on that appointment, not that he could blame her. No one else had wanted the job. Potter had declined when asked, as had Charlie Weasley. He only hoped Neville would have what it took to stand up to those hellions in Gryffindor. He barely spared the Head of Hufflepuff, the rather quiet and reserved Muggle Studies Professor, a glance. She had yet to get in his way and in turn he left her alone.
“If you are quite done ignoring me…” he heard Minerva say, which brought him back to the conversation.
“I would never ignore you Minerva,” he assured her smoothly, “unless I felt my time was being wasted…”
Minerva glared at him. It wasn’t surprising that most of the school thought them the bitterest of enemies. It would have shocked them to find out that the headmistress and potions master were in actually the closest of friends, and had been for many years. “We were discussing which students would best be suited for the positions of Head Boy and head girl.”
Severus smirked at her, “we all know that you, with your damnable Gryffindor tendencies are going to make Miss Weasley Head Girl, there’s not point in even discussing that. You will make Mark McKean Head Boy.”
“Issuing demands now Severus?” Minerva gave him an icy stare.
Severus shrugged, “call it whatever you like.” He silently dared any of them to oppose him, and knew that they wouldn’t.
“I would have thought that you would have carried a grudge against him after the way he and Serena carried on last year,” Minerva inserted.
Dammit, Minerva would bring that up… “I have never, nor I will I ever, carry a grudge against one of my Slytherins. You all know he is the best student for the job.”
“Very well,” Minerva made a note of it, although she did not look pleased.
Severus leaned back in his chair as he listened to the discussion of who was to make prefect. He found that this part of the planning hardly concerned him. For years now, even when Voldemort had been at his height of power, Slytherin house had been significantly smaller than the other houses. He currently had, counting the incoming first years if he received the same number as last year, 58 house members. The rest of the school’s student body, just under 1000 in number were fairly evenly spread throughout the other three houses. He had questioned the sorting hat about it once, and it had replied that most students begged not to be placed in Slytherin. They were afraid of the dark arts. It was the most ridiculous thing Snape had ever heard.
His house was also decidedly male dominated. It made picking the female prefects amazingly easy. He listened with little interest as the other Heads of House debated amongst themselves, until something caught his attention.
“With Andromache being made head girl we shall need another 7th year Gryffindor girl to be prefect,” Longbottom was saying, “I was thinking Serena.”
Severus’ eyebrows shot up. He refrained from commenting, but couldn’t help but think that naming one of his twins a prefect was perhaps the worst decision in Gryffindor history. The tower would be burned down within a week.
“The responsibility might be good for her,” Minerva said, as though she had read Severus’ mind, “Perhaps it will give her a bit more direction.”
Perhaps it will give her a bit more regard for the rules, Severus couldn’t help thinking. He was still lost in thought as the meeting broke up and they headed down to the staff room for a meeting with the entire staff.
“You owe me ten galleons,” Minerva said, holding him back for a moment.
Severus looked down at her questioningly.
“I should have known you’d purposely forget that bet.”
Snape swore under his breath as he realized what she was talking about, he had bet Minerva ten galleons when Serena and Dierna started at Hogwarts that neither of them would ever be made a prefect, “if you’ll forgive me,” he said through clenched teeth, “I’ll have to pay up at a latter time.”
“There’s no rush,” Minerva assured him with a self-satisfied smile, “I do know where you will be living come fall.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“Mama!” Willow ran across the courtyard into Elizabeth’s arms. Elizabeth had met Sirius for dinner after his staff meeting and the little girl had been in William’s care for most of the day. “Mama, I learned some new words today!”
“Really?” Elizabeth knelt down next to her daughter, “what did you learn?”
“I learned…”
William quickly clamped a hand over Willow’s mouth, “you don’t want to know.”
Elizabeth gave her son a reproving look.
“It’s not my fault!” William exclaimed, seeing the looks he was getting from both his mother and Sirius, “I left her with Anastasia for two minutes while I helped Mrs. Figg move a planter, when I came back she had an entirely new vocabulary. Blame the fountain, not me.”
“I can’t believe you left her alone,” Elizabeth said as she scooped Willow up off the ground.
“Anastasia was watching her,” William protested.
“So, leaving your little sister with a stone statue sounds safe to you?” Sirius asked, his anger boiling just below the surface.
“It’s safer that it sounds,” William said as he rubbed the back of his neck, “never get that statue angry.”
“William got me ice cream,” Willow said as she pounded on her mother’s shoulder to get her attention, “I like staying with him. Can I stay with him tomorrow please?”
“No!” William and Sirius said at the same time.
“Well at least you two are agreeing on something,” Elizabeth said with an ill-concealed smile, “that’s an improvement.” Her smiled widened at the disgruntled looks she got from both of her men, “why don’t you come up and have some dessert with us William, I worry about you getting enough to eat.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that for much longer. You can expect to be feeding me and Kamen at least once a day from now on.”
~~~~~~~~~~~
Severus did his best to hide behind the Daily Prophet as he ate his breakfast. It wasn’t often that the three girls were all present at breakfast, and it seemed like the only times they came down to eat in the morning were when he was hoping for a few moments alone with Morgan. And they had to be loud about it. It made him long to knock heads together.
“Hey!” Serena tried to grab the piece of toast that Dierna had nicked off of her plate back, “You bloody little…”
“Language…” Severus growled in warning without looking up from his paper.
While Morgan’s attention was focused on the twins’ argument Olivia took the opportunity to help herself to the last of the strawberries, carefully sneaking several of them into her pocket for later.
The fight over the toast ended when a barn owl swooped in the open window and took the piece of toast right out of her hand as it dropped an envelope in her lap. Dierna let out an undignified shriek as the owl nearly took her head off. Once she was sure there was no longer an owl in her hair she picked up the parchment envelope, “Supply lists!” she proclaimed as she opened it and tossed another sealed envelope at Serena, hitting her square in the forehead.
“That wasn’t nice,” Serena glared across the table at her twin as she retrieved her envelope from her eggs.
“But well deserved,” Dierna shot back.
“If you two do not stop this instant,” Severus still did not look at either of them, but kept his attention firmly on his paper, “you will not be going with us to Diagon Alley to retrieve your school supplies.” He was satisfied with the silence that immediately followed that threat.
“Sweet Circe…” Serena’s look was one of complete shock as the prefect’s badge fell into her hand, “someone at that school must be complete off their rocker…”
“That is precisely what I told them,” Severus said in an unreadable voice as he set the paper aside.
“Sev…” Morgan gave him a reproving look, “I’m very proud of you Serena, and I know that your father is too, we are sure that you will do your best to live up to the responsibility.”
“What your mother means to say is that if you don’t take this responsibility seriously you’ll spend the entire year in detention learning responsibility,” Severus said, “I have every intention of leaving for Diagon Alley in exactly one hour, if you’re not ready by then you can stay here.”
~~~~~~~~~~~
“Beautiful yes, but I would advise against touching,” Walden informed his son as they watched Vanth pace back and forth in front of the fireplace.
“Too bad I wasn’t sent to recruit the Lasa,” Connor lamented as he watched the stunning winged creature. “I hope they make them like that in Midgard.”
“There is more to your mission than looking at the female creatures who happen to be attractive. The dark lord expects more than that.”
“I know that!” Connor snapped, “Do you think that if I am successful in my recruitment he will grant me a favor?”
“It is possible, he has done so before,” Walden said.
“Good, because I know exactly what, more specifically who, I am asking for,” he grinned maliciously.
~~~~~~~~~~~
