Supervising the Owls

by Saelu

Snape is in charge of supervising the self-addressing letters this year, much to his disdain. However two letters catch his eye, he realises that things are about to get a lot more interesting at Hogwarts this year. This is set the summer before Harry's second year. Written as a one-shot based off part of my story "End Of" but can be read as a stand alone.

A/N: This is a one-shot from a behind the scenes of chapter 6 from End Of. I hope you enjoy it.

I don't own the rights to Harry Potter or any of its characters.

"I really hate doing this. I feel like I do this every year. Well no every year. Minerva did it last year," Severus Snape fumed to himself. He was supervising the self-addressing owl letters that got sent out to all the students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry every year, telling the students whether they have been accepted, re-enrolled, or expelled from the school. It was a tedious job but someone had to do it, ever since the incident in 1462 when the Headmaster forgot to assign someone to supervise and half of the students got the wrong letters or the letters said they were expelled. Since that someone always watches to ensure all letters are written and addressed correctly.

"The worst part about this job is that I have to sit in this stuffy room and do nothing for three days!" the Potions Master had the best eyes of all the teachers in the school and could spot an incorrect letter from across the room. The only problem was he hated doing the job. Snape disliked the task because nothing interesting ever happened. Every year was the same. Day one consisted of all pureblooded students' letters being written but not mailed, which proved to interest Snape because he was the first to find out which family had a squib child or a child that was though to be a squib but turned out to have magic; "like Longbottom," he thought. Day two was for the addressing and writing of the halfblood students, although some of those letters were written the day before as pureblood students were a minority in Hogwarts, although they are a loud, outspoken bunch. Finally was the last day. The day all the muggleborn's letters were addressed. Snape was never surprised on the last day as he didn't care about the families or the students' names.

However this year was different. Spying two letters addressed to the same street, which rarely –if ever- happened he walked over. One of the letters read:

' Miss C Polkiss

The Top Bunk in the Room with the Pink Door

7 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey'

The other letter was more a shock to Severus, addressed to:

'Mr D Dursley

The First Bedroom on the Right, Upstairs

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey'

Snape actually smiled at this, after recovering from his initial shock. "This year just got a lot more interesting," he smiled laughing out loud, thinking about the Dursley's disdain for Dumbledore and knowing the boys more than Dumbledore, he knew they would wreck havoc, or at least revolt on the decrepit old man. "Throw in that girl from their street, and I can see this become a superb year."