Disclaimer: I'm not Just Kidding when I say that I'm not J.K. (Rowling).

Lovely Ladies

Femme Fatale Number One: Bathsheda Babbling, Ancient Runes

She'd stacked her books on his favorite chair in the teacher's lounge. He stood in front of her, glaring, but to no avail—the weedy Ancient Runes professor was immersed in the unabridged, un-translated Hymns of the Bacchic Nymphs and took no notice of her twitching colleague.

He turned about, deciding that Fate was punishing him yet again, and spitefully quoted aloud the text she was reading. (He had read it before.)

"If Dionysus be there / do not prostrate yourselves before him / but instead seek his honor / by offering him his place at your side".

Of course, being brilliantly well read, he cited it in flawless Nymphish.

This did turn her glassy gray eyes from the page, and she squinted, drawing her glasses from their place on her brow.

"Severus," she said and suddenly giggled. This made her appear younger than her rising thirty-odd. "Hello."

He stared mutely at her, waiting for her to wave away her books and invite him to sit. However, she merely met his gaze, blushing.

Oh, confound it. Irritating bint.

He left the younger woman, who stared wistfully after him. Perhaps it was better that he did not notice the faintest pink of tongue poking from the corner of her lips.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .