“Would anyone care to enlighten our new House members, and remind the select few who seem to have troubles remembering them,” his eyes flickered to the Bulstrode triplets, “of the rules of Slytherin House? Apart from the school rules of course, of which you should all be aware.”
Hmmm… perhaps not, Sophia thought, this seems a bit more like the Snape I’ve heard about.
Mark took a small step forward, hands clasped behind his back, “Lying, above all else, and including lies of omission and half-truths will not be tolerated under any circumstances. The minimum penalty is 500 lines, done here in the Common Room, so that all of your housemates will know that you have violated the most important of the rules and in doing so have violated their trust.”
“Thank you Mr. McKean, it is good to see that my methods have indeed left an impression on you,” Severus barely contained a smirk as he saw a slight blush cover the Head Boy’s cheeks, “would anyone else care to contribute? I know that my Prefects are all aware of the rules, having broken many of them themselves at one time…”
Kay took a small step forward, “school curfew is to be observed at all times, but Common Room curfew is also in effect. All first years are to be in their dorms no later than 9:30, second and third years by 10, fourth and fifth years by 11, and sixth and seventh years are trusted to use their best judgment. There are exceptions of course, including nights when the astronomy classes meet late and for students working on homework.”
Snape nodded, the first rule was the most important, the second was the one that was broken most often. Therefore he always made students recite them. Thank goodness for the Bloody Baron, he was indispensable when it came to enforcing the rules. “There are three more rules you should be aware of, and I sincerely trust that five total should not be too much for you to keep track of. Work hard, I do not tolerate slackers in my House. No matter how difficult your school work, do your best. If it is still too much for your have one of your classmates tutor you. I will not tolerate failures. Show respect to all faculty. If I hear of any back-talking or general lack of respect shown to any of the other professors here, including myself, you will find yourself in my office and a subsequent difficulty in the practice of sitting will immediately follow. And lastly, never harm another Slytherin. As our dear Headmistress is so fond of asserting, this is your family for your duration of schooling at Hogwarts. Treat each other with respect, or you shall be answering to me. Are there any questions?” Severus asked the last in a tone of voice that clearly indicated there should not be any questions and he would be most put out if anyone stepped forward.
Mark bravely stepped forward again.
“Mr. McKean, if you have a question about the rules then I am sorely disappointed that I insisted you be made Head Boy.”
“Not a question about the rules sir, I’ve broken enough of them to know the penalties by heart,” he was grinning slightly, “I was merely wondering if you might be spending a bit more time in the Common Room this year.” He tried to read his Head of House’s face, and failing to do so, plunged right on, “I spent a great amount of time this summer thinking over our House’s atrocious behavior last year and came to the conclusion that it was nothing more than a desperate plea for attention. Perhaps if you spent more time here with us we would not only be intimidated into behaving, but would also receive enough of the attention we so richly desire that we would not feel the need to act out in search of negative attention.”
Snape nearly smiled. Nearly. He settled for cuffing the boy, rather more lightly than he thought was deserve, “Are you certain, Mr. McKean, that more frequent visits on my part will solve the matter? Perhaps instead I need to be a bit more liberal with my corrective measures…” he paused, and saw that every pair of eyes was firmly plastered on him, silently begging that he give them more of his time. He sighed, “very well, I shall strive to check up on you a bit more frequently. Perhaps the promise of surprise visits will help to keep you wretched lot in line.”
“One more thing sir,” Mark tried to look his most angelic.
“Since there is likely no way of stopping you, please proceed.”
“I merely thought you might like to test the improvement of my chess strategy yourself, sir.”
Severus allowed himself to smirk, although it was without malice, “retrieve my set from my office Mr. McKean, and we shall see if you have indeed improved your game.”
“It’s funny really,” Kay told Sophia as they sat off to the side. A perfect vantage point for watching the chess match, but far enough away so that their conversation wouldn’t be heard.
“What is?” Sophia asked.
Kay smiled, “Professor Snape does not offer praise. Occasionally we earn it, but not often. Oh, getting it in class is one thing, but in here… everyone thinks that he favors us, but he’s harder on us than you can imagine. He threatens and scolds for everything, not matter how small the offense.”
Sophia looked at her roommate in confusion.
“And we absolutely adore him for it,” Kay said softly, “you have to be strong to be in Slytherin. The other Houses hate us. Not because of who we are, but because we are Slytherins. I think that in some way Snape is so hard on us because he knows it’s kinder than coddling us and then sending us out to face the rest of the school.”
“It doesn’t sound very… pleasant,” Sophia said at length.
“You’ll love this House,” Kay assured her, “we’re smaller than the rest of the Houses, it makes us closer… Snape visits us here at least twice a week in the evenings. He’s the only Head of House that does that. We know that no matter how much he scolds he really does care about us. Sometimes,” she quickly made sure that their Head of House could not hear their conversation, “sometimes if we feel it’s been too long since he’s been by to see us the boys will stage a fight, that sets off whatever it is that let’s Snape know there’s trouble in the Common Room and he comes down. By the time he gets here everyone is looking as innocent as possible and diligently working on homework. I think he knows that we stage something just to get him down here…”
Sophia watched Mark contemplate his next move as Snape sat back and smirked, “it must be horrible to be shunned by the entire school.”
“Slytherins are the only ones able to hold up under that type of loathing. The rest of the Houses would crumble.”
“I believe I have you in checkmate Mr. McKean,” Snape said tonelessly as he took Mark’s bishop with his knight.
Mark swore under his breath, but it was enough to get him smacked. So he was left ruefully rubbing his ear as he watched his king get taken. “I thought I had gotten better,” he said ruefully as he packed his chess set up.
“It took you much longer to lose,” Kay told him as the girls approached. She smiled at the Head Boy.
Mark snorted, but still managed to look rather pleased with himself and flashed Kay a grin of his own.
Severus watched his two students closely and narrowed his eyes, “if I ever catch or hear of either one of you being in the other’s dorm with the door closed you will find yourselves in more trouble than you can even begin to imagine.”
Kay and Mark both shared a long-suffering look, which didn’t go unnoticed.
“I think I’ll request that the Bloody Baron spend more time down here,” Snape said dryly as he consulted his pocket watch.
The Slytherins knew better than to try and protest.
“It’s 9:30, and since classes begin tomorrow I want you all in bed now,” Snape said as he stood up.
No one moved.
“In bed NOW!” Snape bellowed, smirking to himself as there was a mad dash for the dormitories. The students practically knocked each other over in their haste to get away from the not very pleased looking professor.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Where have you been?”
“The temple.”
“It’s late.”
“I know.”
Remus sighed, “I know you are constantly telling me that you know very well how to take care of yourself, but I do still worry.”
Kalliope nodded silently and moved to stare out the window at the half moon that kept silent silvery watch over the night.
“What’s wrong?”
Kalliope didn’t turn around, but Remus could tell from the stiff way she was holding herself that she was crying and didn’t want him to see it.
“What happened tonight?”
Kalliope turned slowly from the window, her dark hair haloed by the pale moonlight, “it is falling apart Remus… it’s all falling apart.”
“You saw something… a vision?”
Kalliope placed her hands protectively over her stomach, trying to cradle the child there, “so many things… we’ve been wrong about so much…”
“What did you see?” Remus was getting tired of asking questions without receiving any answers, but he did his best to keep his voice low and calm.
“Not what, who.”
Remus studied his wife carefully, but couldn’t quite tell what she was thinking, “who did you see Kalliope?”
“Someone who died, but yet they haven’t died… I don’t think I journeyed that far into the realms of the shades… nothing is what it seems, the line between the two sides in this war are blurred, nothing is certain.”
Remus was worried. And that was an understatement. True, Kalliope had become a bit more emotional and quick to worry herself over small things since she became pregnant. But the way she was acting now… she had always been and still was the most put together, calm and collected, and occasionally cold hearted, woman he had ever known. Something was wrong, and much more so than she was letting on.
“Too many secrets… too much is unknown,” Kalliope was pacing now, seriously threatening to wear a groove in the cool stone floor.
Somehow the room, which seemed a cool refuge during the day and a veritable sanctuary for the meeting of souls and bodies at night, had become cold. The moonlight, which had once seemed to have a warm golden light, was cold. So cold.
“Were we beaten before we even began?” Remus finally asked, staring up at the moon, that pale orb that mocked every night and every moment of his existence.
“I don’t know.”
“We won’t give up without a fight.”
“It may not be enough. Too much is happening. Too much is changing. Too much has gone wrong already. Too much…”
“We won’t give up without a fight.”
~~~~~~~~~~~
“You are going to be late if you remain in bed any longer.”
“Mmmm…” Morgan rolled over onto her stomach and buried her head beneath her pillow.
She only curled up into a little ball when Severus used a quick spell to make the covers she had been hiding under disappear. A variation of the same charm used to divest her of her nightclothes more than motivated her to get out of bed, although it left her looking rather put out while Severus merely smirked
“Stop pouting,” Severus finally told her.
Morgan barely spared her husband a glance as she straightened her robes and quickly tamed her curls into a loose knot at the back of her neck.
“I like it much better when you wear your hair down.”
Morgan rolled her eyes, “you’re hardly in a position to be issuing demands after the way you’ve treated me this morning.”
“I think I am…” Severus stood directly behind his wife and leaned down to whisper exactly what he wanted in her ear.
Damn, damn, damn! Morgan could feel herself melting, he was using that voice on her. The one that was like velvet over steel with the way it made her feel warm all the way through and hard enough that she could do nothing to resist it. That was exactly why she stood completely still as Severus used his long tapered fingers to remove all of her hair pins so that her curls fell, cascading down her back.
“Much better.”
“You’re too obsessed with being in control.”
Severus smirked, but didn’t bother to try and deny it.
“You’re going to be late yourself if you keep hanging over me,” Morgan said as she pushed her husband towards the door, not that it did a lot of good considering her small stature. But she tried.
“Leave me be woman!” but Severus leaned down to kiss Morgan soundly as he threw his robes on and headed out the door. He knew that he had just experience what was probably going to be the best part of his day. It would surely go downhill from here.
His suspicions were quickly confirmed when he arrived at his office and found Eva standing by the door waiting for him.
“Professor, the Headmistress told me that I would be assisting you for most of the morning and the first part of the afternoon, I’ll spend the last class period of the day helping Madam Pince in the library.”
“A very convenient schedule considering how I plan to put your talents to use,” Severus said as he dropped the wards to his office and held the door for Eva to precede him in.
“What will you have me doing?” Eva asked as soon as they were inside and had taken there seats.
Severus leaned back in his desk chair, “I have decided that your best use would be as a tutor for Olivia.”
Eva was too shocked to speak for a moment, “Was?!” and then she was off in a tirade of German, most of which Severus understood, and most of which was not very flattering.
“Are you quite finished?” he asked when she paused for breath.
Eva, glaring daggers at him, dropped back into her seat, “I trust you have an excellent explanation that I am supposed to accept without question.
“You have little choice in the matter,” Severus leafed through a stack of papers on his desk as he spoke, “it’s quite simple really, I have no use for you as a teaching assistant.”
“I could help out with the lower years, I could grade papers for you…”
“No you cannot. I am not questioning your ability girl,” Severus cut Eva off as she tried to protest again, “you are not used to keeping a close eye on an entire class, one mistake and the entire classroom could be destroyed. Not a liability I am willing to pass on to someone else. As for grading papers… that I simply cannot allow.”
“And why not?” Eva sounded truly indignant.
“Simple, it is truly amazing the number of students who attempt to take the easy way out on written assignments. I am able to discern the quality and the amount of copying in my students assignments. I’ll not be able to do that if I had the responsibility of grading over to you.”
Eva hated that she couldn’t come up with an argument strong enough to persuade the potions master otherwise. She decided to try a different tactic, “I know next to nothing about supervising the education of a primary student…”
“Nonsense. I have it on good authority that you have been responsible for your niece’s education since she came to be in your care.”
Eva quickly tried to decide if she could kill Eric and not have it traced back to her. Damn that man for telling everyone everything. “Has the Headmistress…”
“This is none of her concern. I am not changing my mind,” Severus told her as he rose, clearly signaling that this discussion was over. “There is an empty classroom on this level that you may use, third door on the right past the statue of Aeneas. It is already set up with everything you will need, your student will be there in an hour.”
Eva was determined to take this arrangement up with Minerva later. She was the one that had figured out how to brew Quintessence after all! It was a waste of her talents to make her a babysitter.
Severus smirked to himself as Eva slammed the door behind her. He was sure he would be hearing about this again, most likely from Minerva, but his mind was made up, and there wasn’t anyone who was going to change it.
~~~~~~~~~~~
