"You're late Miss McGonagall," he sneered, striding right up to her desk to look down his long nose at her.
It had been a long day; he'd been working with stupid third years and even stupider sixth years, and she had the audacity to be late to his class?
"Yes sir," she said simply, keeping her head down.
"I would think that having so few classes would make it easier to remember what time they started, perhaps I overestimated you." She bristled but didn't respond, he wanted her to. He needed to vent his anger and she had given him the perfect opportunity. "Very well then," he drawled when, still, the girl remained silent. "I suppose I'll have to take twenty points from Gryffindor. And perhaps have a word with Dumbledore about a replacement Head Girl."
"As you wish," she muttered, still looking infuriatingly down at her lap.
He scowled and turned, snapping back at them all over his shoulder, "Get back to work."
From his desk Severus watched Amanda ignore Steven and get started on a potion he knew to be to easy for her.
The silence in the room only lasted for a few minutes before someone banged on the door and a little Ravenclaw poked his head in, a nervous expression on his face.
"What?" Severus barked, when it became apparent the boy was too frightened to speak.
"Please, sir, they want you in the hospital wing, along with Amy," he added, pointing at her as if Severus had no idea who his student was.
Amanda was already on her way out, having started to pack up as soon as the boy so loudly banged on the door.
"There will be no need to talk," he growled, before following her out the door. "I take it you know whats going on?" he asked, when they were well away from the class.
"I have a pretty good idea," she mumbled.
Severus looked at her for the first time that day, finally noticing that her robes were hanging off her haphazardly and they were ripped in a few places. He grabbed her chin and forced her to stop walking and look at him. Her right eye was swollen and her lip was cut.
"You just can't stay out of trouble, can you?"
"Apparently not," she replied, as they started walking again.
"What happened?"
"I decided to hit a fist with my face," she said acidly.
"Why?"
"Because it seemed like a good idea at the time, duh. Seriously, I'm not going to tell you, so why don't you just wait until we get there."
Severus scowled again but fell silent until they got to the hospital wing. Inside waiting for them were Professors Beery, and McGonagall, along with six Gryffindor students, a Hufflepuff and a Slytherin.
Five of the Gryffindors were standing in a group, glaring at the others, with numerous boils and pustules sprouting out on the visible parts of their body. They looked pretty beat up, their robes were torn and several of them sported black eyes, and in one kids case a broken nose.
The remaining Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Slytherin were glaring just as fiercely back at the group, and it was to them that Amanda went to stand by. None of them looked nearly as bad as the others, out of them Amanda looked the worst and she was fine.
"May I ask what has been going on?"
McGonagall, who looked furious with her fists shaking by her side and her lips pressed into a thin line, answered him in a very tight voice, "I don't know exactly, they refuse to speak."
The students, if they had heard her at all, didn't react. They just kept glaring at each other while they waited in silence.
"Minerva, Severus," said the cheerful voice of Dumbledore. "Professor Beery, might I ask why I have been summoned?"
"If they were talking I would tell you," said Minerva quietly, "but as it is…"
As one the nine students in front of them looked down, wearing identical guilty expressions, but none of them said a word.
"We got into an argument and things got a little out of hand," muttered one of the Gryffindors.
"A little!" shouted Amos, "you punched her!"
"She started it," muttered one of the Gryffindor group.
"Oh really?" said the Gryffindor standing next to Amanda, Charlie. "Because I seem to remember you were the ones that couldn't keep your mouths shut!"
"She was asking for it!"
"Oh, so Amy asked you to punch her, is that it?" said Charlie.
"Enough!" shouted Minerva. She rounded on the Gryffindor who had been accused of punching Amanda. "And what, dare I ask, made you think it was a good idea to start a brawl in the middle of the hallway?"
The Gryffindor glared murderously at Amanda but didn't answer.
"It wasn't their fault," Amanda said suddenly, speaking for the first time and gesturing to the group around her. "I got myself into trouble and these guys were just trying to help."
"Mr. Diggory?" questioned Beery, speaking for the first time.
Amos looked down at his feet.
"I don't actually know, I just saw him punch Amy and then I saw Charlie push him off her. I was just trying to even the odds a bit, five on two didn't seem very fair."
"And you?" Severus asked the Slytherin boy.
"Donno, I just saw him," he nodded at the Gryffindor identified as being the one to throw the first punch, "attack and thought it didn't seem fair. Like Amos said."
"It seems to me that we ought to be asking what was said to make the boy attack Miss McGonagall like that."
Amanda lifted her head to look them all in the eye.
"I called him stupid, questioned his gender, and told him he belonged in a zoo and that we should let the pig he replaces fill his spot in here, because I'm sure it would smell much better then he did. I guess he couldn't take it because a moment later there was a fist in my eye."
Her voice was calm but he knew better, on the inside Amanda was terrified.
"Why you little –" The Gryffindor started.
"Allow me to tell you where you went wrong," she said icily, somehow managing to look down at him even though she was a good head taller then the boy. "I can repeat everything I said up to where you punched me, but you, you who went to the teachers, you can't, can you?"
She had nailed it. The Gryffindor boy was helpless under her superior gaze, she was right, she had won, and he was a fool. The boys around Amanda looked smug and Charlie smiled widely.
"Very well then," said Severus, it was clear to him that this was going no further, and even though he was dying to know what the boy had said, he had better things to do. "Mr. Gregory you will serve detention with me tomorrow night, now I suggest you get to you next class."
He followed the Slytherin out, leaving them to their own devices.
The rest of the punishments were divvied out after he had left. Mr. Beery said that he would be writing to Amos's parents but that was all, he knew Amos had had his heart in the right place. Professor McGonagall was a lot harsher; she gave each of the boys, including Charlie, a weekend of detention and took twenty points from each. She then took Amanda up to her office to speak with her privately.
Throughout the whole speech Amanda kept her head down and said not a word, she had learned long ago that it made no difference. Until her mother told her what her punishment would be.
"You will spend every evening of the next two weeks with Mr. Filch, doing whatever task he needs done, and you will no longer be allowed to leave the castle for Hogsmeade weekends."
"You only gave the others two days!" she exclaimed.
"I fit the punishment to the person."
"But that's not fair!" Amanda protested.
"Life's not fair," McGonagall said primly, "a fact that you should be well aware of."
"But you're supposed to be, that's your job!"
Minerva raised an eyebrow at her and Amanda deflated a bit, simmering down.
"Are you a teacher?"
"No."
"Then you are, perhaps, Headmistress?"
"No."
"Then what may I ask makes you think you are qualified to tell me what my job is? I am your mother, not the other way around, and my word is final! I give you harsher punishments because nothing sees to get through to you! You are constantly breaking the rules, and it is an embarrassment to your house, to you, and to me.
"And furthermore, if you continue to embarrass in this way I shall be forced to remove you from this school! Is that clear?"
But Amanda didn't answer. She ran to the door with tears springing up in her eyes and wrenched it open, coming face to face with Severus. She pushed roughly passed him and ran away as fast as she could, trying to get away before her mother could call her back in.
The following weeks seemed to suck the life out of Amanda. She obeyed all the rules; she sat at the proper table for each meal, she came and left at the same time as everyone else, and after her detentions with Filch Amanda went up to her dormitory and closed the curtains around her bed and spent each night studying until her eyes hurt and then just lying as quietly as possible.
Gone was the laughing prankster who had united the houses with her quick wit and charming smile. Instead they were left with a shell of a girl, one who rarely talked and kept her head down.
Potions became the only part of the day Amanda could relax. All she ever had to worry about was Steven and his Potions.
"Which one is the –"
"The brown one," Amanda murmured, not caring enough to look up.
Her potion was finished, she just needed to let it simmer for awhile so Amanda closed her eyes and let her head fall on the desk.
Professor Snape was stalking around the room behind them, coming closer and closer to the already nervous Steven. With the Professor so close Steven couldn't ask Amanda about the ingredients so he had to go with his instincts, never a good idea for him.
Severus stood right in front of Amanda's desk, taking in her closed eyes and even breathing. She was obviously asleep. He picked one of her heavy textbooks from her bag and raised it high above the desk, his lip curling into a snarl before he let it crash to the table with a loud bang.
Amanda shot up in surprise, nearly jumping out of her seat.
"This is not your dormitory, Miss McGonagall, and you will not sleep in my class."
"Of course, sorry, I –"
Steven's potion exploded, knocking them both to the ground and landing in Amanda's potion; it started to simmer ominously behind them. Amanda climbed back into her seat just in time to be knocked off again by her own potion exploding.
"Miss McGonagall, are you alright?" Severus asked, glad the potions weren't anything dangerous, although with Mr. Quirk anything was possible.
Amanda held up her hands, preventing both him and Steven from approaching. She had a murderous look on her face, something none of them had ever seen on her kind face before. With a last vicious glare at the offending potions Amanda walked out, throwing the doors open carelessly as she went.
When Severus had finished berating the poor Ravenclaw Steven had cleaned up both of their potions and packed her bag. But Amanda never came back for it. Severus put the bag behind her desk but she didn't show up later either. He eventually had to go find her.
She was sitting under a tree by the lake, exactly where he'd thought she might be.
"Your friend is worried about you," he said, not really caring what Mr. Quirk was feeling.
Amanda shrugged.
"Have you been here all day?"
She nodded, once again mute. He sat down next to her.
"Will you say something?"
"Sorry," she whispered, "for leaving your class like that, I didn't want to yell at Steven, he didn't mean to do it."
"You seem to be having a bad couple of weeks," he said, hoping she would elaborate.
"Yeah," she said softly.
"I have a deal for you," he said, after waiting for a few minutes. "I will give you top marks for that potion Mr. Quirke exploded on you, and I will forgive you walking out of my class, if you answer a question for me."
"Why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like the question?"
He didn't answer, those were his terms, she could take it or leave.
"Alright, fine, ask away."
"The truth," he warned.
"I always tell the truth," she said, sounding offended, "I just leave things out periodically."
"Leave nothing out," he growled.
"What do you want to know?"
"Tell me why you run yourself to death studying, I know you don't care about your grades that much."
"That's a complicated story," she said.
"I knew that before I asked."
Amanda was silent for a long moment, as if deciding where to start.
"When I was little, and it was just me and mom, she never praised me, she just pushed for perfection. But that was okay, I thought that was just the way she was and I didn't care. But then I came here, and I saw her praising people that were doing so much worse then I was, and only criticizing me. No matter what I did she always found something wrong!
"I guess I'm selfish," she smiled grimly, "I needed to here her praise me, at least once. I decided that if there was absolutely nothing left to criticize she would have to say something, just a small something." Amanda looked unbearably sad for a moment.
"I'm sure she notices how good you are," he said, in a rough attempt to comfort her.
"Everybody notices, Severus."
It was true, both as a student and now as a teacher Severus had heard about Minerva's weird behavior in Amanda's transfiguration class. It had and still was the source of a lot of gossip around the school.
"You remember that fight a few weeks ago, where nobody would tell what the Gryffindors had said?"
He remembered.
"They were talking about me and her, about how she must really hate me and the fact that I was such a horrible daughter. They all say it, and normally I just ignore them, but he wouldn't stop. And I am so tired of it."
She suddenly got up and stalked to the lake, hunching her shoulders against the cold.
"Amy?"
"I'm tired of being pushed around because of how my mother treats me! I'm tired of half my house hating me! I'm so tired of Gryffindor! I'm tired of being tired because I can't sleep, because I'm to busy studying, or practicing, or worrying about my grades! I'm tired of Her! I'm tired… of being an embarrassment." She whispered the last part, crouching down to wrap her arms around her knees and hug them to her chest.
"It's just –"
Not fair? Life isn't fair.
"–Life." She finished quietly. "And there's nothing I can do about it."
"Come here Amy," he said, gesturing for her to sit back beside him.
She walked over slowly, looking as defeated as she had looked for the past couple of weeks.
"So what's your plan, just keep running yourself ragged until she either acknowledges you or you die?"
Amanda smiled softly.
"If that's what it takes."
"And what if neither happens?"
"She has too, I'm just not good enough yet, but I will be. I just have to work harder."
Severus didn't know what to say, it was obvious she wouldn't listen if he told her it was useless. She shivered violently in the cold. Without thinking Severus pulled his coat off and draped it around her shoulders.
"Thank you," she murmured.
Severus felt her forehead, she was burning up.
"You have a fever."
Amanda couldn't help herself; she leaned into his warmth and wrapped her arms around his waist. Severus allowed it, resting his outstretched arms on her shoulder and leaning back so they were lying down.
"It doesn't surprise me, considering the amount of sleep I've been getting."
"Might I suggest more sleep?"
"That would make too much sense; it wouldn't fit with my reputation as a stupid little Gryffindor."
"You should go back to your dormitory," he said, starting to sit back up.
"I would rather stay out here, I sleep better outside."
"You sleep?"
"Ha ha, very funny," she said sarcastically.
"What do you do besides study?" he asked.
"Pull pranks around the school," she said, yawning.
"Really?"
"Do you remember that storm in November, where every time lightening flashed random hats would show up on people's heads?"
He remembered, vividly. He'd been given a large pink hat with singing birds on top. It was hard to forget something like that.
"Your handiwork, I suppose?"
"A joint operation between Slytherin and Ravenclaw, actually."
"Then why were the Hufflepuffs the only ones not wearing hats?"
"We had to have someone to blame," she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"How you made Head Girl I will never know."
"Me neither, I break the rules so often I should probably have been expelled by now."
Severus tried to imagine Hogwarts without Amanda and failed miserably, it just wouldn't be Hogwarts without her. It suddenly dawned on him that she would be leaving at the end of this year and his arm tightened subconsciously around her waist.
"What are you going to do after you graduate?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said, yawning again, "I'm not really good at anything."
"You've been tutoring older students since you were in the third year, have you really not thought about being a teacher?"
"I have thought about it, but there aren't any openings here, so I'd have to go to another school in another country or apprentice to one of the teachers here. With my luck I would end up either under my mother or under you."
"And what would be wrong with that?" he asked, feigning hurt.
"Do you really think you could handle me for that long?" she asked, sounding half asleep.
In all truth he didn't think he would mind. The little Gryffindor girl had grown on him.
"You're right; one of us would surely die before the end of the first semester."
Amanda giggled a little and he raised an eyebrow. He'd never heard her giggle before, it sounded weird from her. He started to sit up but Amanda groaned in protest, snuggling closer to his chest for warmth. She was fast asleep.
Severus lay back down and relaxed. He could let her sleep for a little longer. The sounds of the forest were comforting and before he knew it Severus had drifted off to sleep.
Sorry about the earlier mix up, I hope the rewrite of this chapter turned out alright.