Minds of Fury


Disclaimer: -rolls eyes- Yes. I definitely own Harry Potter. I'm JK Rowling and I live wherever it is she lives…Well of course I'm not JK Rowling! And of course I don't own Harry Potter! Jeez! You can call off those dogs now...err, I mean lawyers. Ps. I'm taking some of the teaching techniques of my new teacher from the movie Freedom Writers. Also, I'm not very good with writing how Hagrid would sound according to JK Rowling, but I'll try. If any of you would like to help me on that, that would be wonderful. Thank you much!

Summary: 19-yr-old Cascada is the new defense against the dark arts professor. Harboring secrets of the past, she goes up against her old head of house Severus Snape with the help of some of her students who have been planning revenge for some time. The real reason she wants to get back at him? He found out her deepest secret, the one he wasn't supposed to know, and tormented her in front of enough people for it to get around the school before the class had even ended. Then, as if things aren't bad enough for our poor Potions Master, the Ministry passes The Marriage Law and soon the strangest couples you never would have suspected come together...and life for Cascada takes on a whole new meaning. Rated M just in case...SS/OC & SS/HG


Chapter 1: Her Grand Entrance

The Great Hall buzzed with chatter. It was, after all, the Welcome Back Feast. Dinner was being finished up and a lot of students were now waiting for dessert. While Harry, Ron, and Hermione talked about how great their final year at Hogwarts was going to be this year, Dumbledore kept giving worried glances to the entrance door and the staff door. The students hardly realized he hadn't introduced the new Defense Against the Dark Arts (DADA) teacher, especially with Voldemort's rising power. Albus was worried something might have happened to the DADA teacher. The dark-haired man to his left sat brooding; yes I said brooding, in his seat. He couldn't much care less about the presence of the DADA professor. He was just upset that hadn't gotten the job…again.

Albus didn't have to worry much longer as the doors the students usually entered flew open. A twinkle of mirth lit up his eyes as the Hall went silent at who appeared behind the doors. A young woman, looking only about a year or so older than the oldest student in the Hall, strutted into the Great Hall with one foot directly in front of the other like a model as she walked. Waking like a model was indeed her goal as she stopped in the middle of the pathway leading from the doors to the staff table and thrust her left hip towards the staff table. She fashionably pulled off her royal blue coat, which had a tail and that had been opened in the first place, and flung it over her shoulder. She turned her head towards the staff table as Minerva snorted from Albus's right and Severus, obviously the dark-haired man (this author just likes calling him a dark-haired man because it sounds more mysterious) stared unblinkingly at her. What could only be called an official Slytherin smirk, curled onto her face as she suddenly turned back towards the staff table after striking her pose and strutted all the way to it, stopping directly in front of it.

Severus knew her. She had been a student of his just three years previously, having left her schooling the year before she had actually completed it. Though she looked completely different now, somehow older and yet somehow still the same girl he had remembered her. No longer did she have that short, cropped, dark brown hair that had just made her face look positively fat. Her hair was long, almost hip-length. How she had managed to grow it that long in less than three years, he didn't know. But he didn't particularly care. Now only was it long, however, it was also blonde. One of those sickeningly-perfect beach-blonde colors you see on all the perfect female lifeguards on Bay Watch and other TV shows like that. Usually, it didn't actually look good on a person. It just made them look like a fake. A girl who's trying to fit in by using "Daddy's money." But for the young woman that stood before the staff table, it didn't seem to look that way on her at all. It actually looked surprisingly good. Probably because she wasn't trying to fit in with "Daddy's money," but because she just liked the look of it. It also helped that her skin had gotten slightly paler over the years, as if she had spent most of her time inside or as if she had just gotten completely immune to the sun's UV Rays. So the hair went better with the pale skin than the tanned girls you saw with it on TV. The most drastic change in her was the way she carried herself. No longer was she the shy, timid girl that was almost afraid to stand up for herself. She now carried herself with pride and dignity, something she seemed to have lacked for so many years. It was a wonder how Severus recognized her at all. But it was hard to forget those startlingly blue eyes that always made you feel like they knew your every thought as they gazed at you. As if they were really trying to know your every thought. In all his years, those were one pair of eyes, besides those of Lily (Evans) Potter's, that Severus Snape would never forget. Especially since he had caused the great pain and distress those eyes had at one point held.

The young woman turned to face the students, who were staring at her and starting to whisper as Albus stood up to introduce her. She wasn't wearing the normal teaching robes most of the professors wore. Along with the royal blue jacket, which had a tail to it, she had still over her shoulder, she also had on a stylish, silk, hunter green shirt that tucked into her pants and had one long sleeve for her right arm and no sleeve or strap of any sort of her left arm, leaving her left shoulder bare. Wearing dark, blue, hip-hugging, bell-bottom, jean pants and a royal blue belt with a large silver buckle, she also had black designer boots that had three buckles going up the outside of them, though they were just for decoration as they actually zipped closed on the inside, though the zipper wasn't visible at all. Severus had to admit, the woman had definitely gotten some taste in her years of absence from Hogwarts. But what was she doing here now?

'Surely she's not…no! Albus would never hire someone so young…' Severus thought to himself in amazement, though his face remained impassive. He had hardly finished an actual thought when Albus's voice boom across the hall in greeting to the young woman.

"Lovely for you to join us, Miss Delaney," Albus's kind voice greeted her warmly. The young woman turned her head to smile at him before turning her gaze back to the students. She looked at the Slytherin table, her old house, and recognized some faces that had been in school the same time she had been in school before she left in the middle of her sixth year, right after Christmas break, which she had lazily spent at the castle. Gazing around the hall she remembered still more faces. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd like you all to meet your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Cascada Delaney!"

Everyone in the Great Hall, save for Severus of course, applauded their new professor in greeting. Only a few Slytherins seemed to recognize the name as everyone else looked as if they had never seen her in her life. Cascada sighed with relief at this fact, for she had probably had the worst experience ever in front of the entire school before she had decided to just suddenly drop out. The memory of the message she had left for Severus on his chalk board brought a small smile to her face. No one really knew this of course, as Albus had just called upon Dessert. The Great Hall began to once again go back to their chatter as Cascada turned to Albus with a small smile.

"Lovely entrance, Miss Delaney," Albus said, calling her Miss Delaney out of habit. Cascada grinned, though it faltered slightly as she realized the only empty seat was next to the one man she totally and completely despised with an intense passion, the dark-hair man Severus Snape.

"Well, I always wanted to make a grand entrance of such….grandeur," Cascada said as she slowly made her way around the table to the empty seat next to Severus. She walked almost as quietly as he himself. He snorted at her lack of vocabulary as she pulled the seat out.

"You have such a wide range of adjectives, Delaney," Severus sneered sarcastically as Cascada sat down. She just smiled, trying hard to pick up her fork and stick it into his eye. She served herself a very small slice of the chocolate cake. As good as the cake was, she didn't just loose fifty pounds for nothing soon after leaving Hogwarts and expect to gain in back in one night from eating chocolate cake. But it had been so long since she had actually had a dessert, and since she had missed dinner…she figured it couldn't hurt. Lord only knows, the only reason she was one of those girls who watched what she ate was because she had ended up with friends like that after Hogwarts. And she had tried her best to fit in so very much after Hogwarts. Her life had changed drastically and everything had seemed to some together for once.

"Well I try," Cascada said softly, not really wanting to have a conversation with the man. Obviously, she didn't want to have a conversation across him with Albus either so she turned her attention to Hagrid on her other side. "Hello there, Hagrid. How's Care of Magical Creatures going? I never did ever have the chance to take up that class…"

"'Lo, Miss Delaney," Hagrid greeted her warmly. "Care of Magical Creatures is going just swell! In fact, you should come join us if you ever happen to 'ave a free period."

"I'll think about it, Hagrid. That'd be nice," Cascada faked enthusiasm. She liked Hagrid. He was a kind person. She just never understood half of what he said. That had been why she had never token his class. She surely would have failed.

"Still can't believe you were a Slytherin," Hagrid started a totally new conversation and Cascada smiled wearily. "Too shy and nice to be one 'o 'em!"

"Still can't believe you were a Slytherin," Cascada heard Severus mimic on her other side, though Hagrid didn't seem to notice. She glanced at Severus out of the corner of her eyes to see him…sulking. Finding Hagrid had turned his attention to Flitwick, Cascada took this time to relish the fact that Severus was for once actually sulking.

"Professor, are you sulking?" Cascada asked incredulously. He glared at her and scowled.

"I'm not sulking," he sneered angrily at her and Cascada seemed to get it.

"Yes you are! You're upset I got this position, aren't you?"

"I could care less what you do, Delaney!"

"Ooooh, looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. A little early in the year to be so upset with me, isn't it?"

"It's never to early to…to…"

"Hate me. You might as well say it. I pretty got used to it…nine years ago. But enough about me, how have you been all these years? Still the same greasy bat of the dungeons, I see."

Severus stared at her, almost gaping. Almost. When she had been his student, she never would have said something like that to him, let alone anyone else. She couldn't even stick up for herself and fight back! Yet here she was, three years later, actually starting a fight. Well, not exactly, but this author sure hopes the reader gets what she means.

"Yes! I've finally rendered said greasy bat speechless!" Cascada cheered and raised her glass. "A toast!" Severus just leaned back against his seat, scowling as he glared hard at the Gryffindor table. He didn't feel like dealing with Cascada at that moment. He'd deal with her the next morning when he wasn't so upset over not getting the DADA position…again.


End of chapter one! I understand it was just her grand entrance, but did you read the title of this chapter? It is called "Her Grand Entrance" and that was all I planned on putting in this chapter, her grand entrance! Hope you guys liked Cascada and hope she's not too Mary-Sue. If you think she is really Mary-Sue, just wait till next chapter when you find out just how screwed up her life really is. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter anyways. No flames, please, though constructive criticism is very welcome. Nothing too harsh though.

Now review or I'll burn your house down:D Thank you much!