Severus glowered at his grandmother as she prattled at her friend. He spared a glance toward Anne. The girl saw him look at her, and mouthed 'They're both batty' to him. He snorted and nodded.
"What was that, Sevvie Dear?"
"Nothing, Gran," Severus all but snarled, repressing a groan at Camellia's fondness for pet names.
Anne hid a giggle behind her hand and stood up. "Well, Gran, and Mrs. Prince, it was very nice speaking with you, but I suppose you want Severus and I gone now: See you in an hour or two."
Before the dark haired Potions Master could say anything, he was rather rudely thrown out by two old ladies. Turning to Anne, he snapped, "Is there a reason that you did that?"
Anne cocked her hip and said coolly, "Well, if you'd rather stay in a stuffy, perfumed room with two old women prattling away about us getting married - and if your gran is at all like mine, that'll happen within the hour - you're welcome to go back in. I, however, am hungry, and there's a pizzeria across the way. You can come or not, I didn't ask for a blind date anymore than you did." And with that, the woman turned on her heel and walked away with her nose in the air angrily.
"Of course she'd be a redhead, right down to the very temper . . . ." Severus muttered, before striding forward to catch up to the orange-haired girl. He didn't think she'd be any worse than one of the Weasley Clan, though.
Once they reached Stone Pizza, and Anne had ordered for them - Quattro Formaggi for Anne, Diavola for him - they sat and talked a bit. Anne, it turned out, was a social worker, and loved her job as much as he did his potions - though he dislike incompetent brats. When she asked what he did for a living, he told her he taught Chemesrty at a school for the gifted in Scotland.
"Why don't you like children? You teach chemistry, why do so if you don't like children?"
"It is not the children I dislike, per se, it is their arrogance. Many of them are high and mighty and full of themselves, and refuse to listen, then try to blame others when their work blows up in their face. If I could, I would choose to only teach those that actually work hard and pass their exams, but it is the Headmaster's policy to give everyone another chance. Thankfully, after their A-levels, most of my students I can bear to teach. That the older students no longer cringe in terror when I walk past also helps."
Anne shook her head. "Well, why are they afraid of you? What's your teaching style? Why not ask the Headmaster if you can get an assistant or something?"
"Miss Blythe, I was unaware that you were a psychologist. I mist have misheard you when you said you were a social worker.,"
Anne rolled her eyes. "They go hand in hand rather often, actually, but fine. Let's eat our pizza and then we can go to a movie while we hide from out grandmothers."
Severus snorted and took a bite of the Diavola. Hmm, was that basil? It was delicious. Maybe he should ask the House Elves to make him some . . .
They went to see the only movie that still had tickets available - Return to Oz. It was . . . Interesting, to say the least. Not exactly something Severus would ever want to watch again, but decent nonetheless. It didn't quite match the books from when he read them as a child, however.
Finally, it was getting dark, and they were walking back to his grandmother's to see what torture would await them. Anne was prattling away about a case - ranting about thrice-damned child abusers - something about an orphaned child, whose Uncle had been caught beating him half to death, on the front lawn, for pity's sake 'for freakishness,' but somehow the man was able to evade arrest for the time being.
Severus held open the door for her as they walked inside. Let her be accosted by twittering old women, he rather liked what remnants he had of his sanity. Once Anne and her grandmother had left, jhe could go back to Spinners End and get some well-deserved sleep, never to see a Blythe again.
Unfortunately, it was rare to get everything that you wanted.
He had another date with Anne. Bloody old women. They were worse than Albus . . . Hopefully the two would not develp a maddening fondness for sweets.
As they walked back to Diana Blythe's house after Plot of the Granny's Two, as Anne jokingly called it, Anne turned to him and asked, "Why don't we make them happy and let them think their manipulations are working...? Give me a hand with this home visit. If the man turns violent when confronted I could use a witness anyway. That child must be removed from such a household at any rate and we've foster home waiting. It's only just down the road a bit."
She dug in her purse for the address. "The child himself is in hospital with several broken bones and he's yet to regain conciousness or speak, but the aunt and uncle need to be served with a removal notice and there is another child there to be taken out."
He stared at her and sighed, nodding. "Why not. If it will get those interferring busybodies off our backs for a while. What's the address?"
Three little words, 'What's the address.'
And they packed quite the punch, as Severus soon found out.