A/N: Finally! All done! This chapter took a long time to write, mainly due to a one shot I'm working on (which is *surprise* about Sal's mumma and pappa). That should be posted before the next chapter. A link to my deviantART should also be up on my profile (even if there are only 2 pics relating to this story at the moment). As for now, here's chapter 10!

Enjoy!

Previously:

Rowena is still staring, still blinking, still clutching my arm like an anchor.

"What happened to you?" she almost-whispers, and I notice for the first time that her voice has taken on a ghost-like lilt.

"I don't..." I trailed off, taking in her appearance at last. I almost gasped in shock, "What are you wearing?!"

The woman frowned, somehow managing to still look sheepish.

"Clothes," she replied.

Rowena and Helga were quick to lead me to the underground kitchen, Helga complaining that she was starving, and Rowena blushing fiercely as I continued to giggle at her choice of clothing.

"It's very fashionable!" she hissed, which only sent me into another bout of laughter. The irony of Rowena Ravenclaw strutting around half-naked, in a tiny pair of shorts, and something called a 'tank', simply because it was fashionable would undoubtedly have me crippled for weeks. It looked like she was in her underwear! I was already bent double with laughter, and finding it very hard to move without support.

"Stop laughing!" Ro chastised from within her near non-existent attire. I almost didn't listen to her, but what she said next caught my attention, "It looks like you're laughing at yourself."

"What?" I asked through my laughter.

"Have you gone daft? The students can't see us! It's only you," she replied testily, "I've already told you that! Three times!"

"Hush up, Ro. You're upsetting my stomach!" Helga interrupted, playing peace keeper, as always. I scoffed.

"Everything upsets your stomach, Hel. I'm surprised you're not fat from eating!" I snarked, and the three of us somehow ended up giggling all over one another, before Ro remembered to straighten up and shush us again.

"If anyone sees you, they'll swear you've gone insane!" she insisted. I sighed.

"Alright, alright," I said, "I'll just ignore you, then."

"Don't do that!" Helga pouted morosely, and Rowena slapped her.

"Don't encourage the beast, Hellie. We'll have a real situation on our hands, if you do," she joked.

"You already do, judging from what I've seen," I mentioned, tickling the pear on the portrait that led to the kitchens, "Nothing's working anymore; even the Heart appears to be dying."

Helga huffed out, "I wish," before plopping herself up onto one of the few uncluttered benches in the room. I glared at her for making such a rude comment towards our greatest work, but she didn't seem to catch it as she continued on.

"It's actually sucking the school into a void," she groaned, running a tiny hand through her hair, "Regardless of what we try, it just keeps destroying."

This information made me stand to attention.

"Don't be so dramatic, Helga," Rowena frowned, searching through an overhead cupboard for some unknown ingredient, "We haven't been able to prove that's what is happening so far."

"That's because we can't access the Heart!" she cried, "And wasn't it you who mentioned that as the most logical cause, anyway?"

Rowena turned to the young woman, still frowning, but she did not answer. It was a thoughtful frown, I decided – the one that hooded over the tall witch's face whenever she was contemplating a particularly intriguing conundrum. I looked from one witch to the other, frowning myself.

"Why can't you access the Heart?" I asked, "I managed to."

Rowena laughed abruptly.

"Evidently," she said, but it was Helga who answered my query, her head rising up to explain the problem to me.

"We've tried to before, but..." she trailed off.

"We can't," Ro supplied, now fiddling with a seemingly complex set of knobs attached to the stove she intended to use. They appeared to indicate which individual disc burst into flame. My gaze was sucked in to the fire for a moment, but I quickly regained my train of thought. That was a question for another time.

"Why not?" I questioned, "And where are the house elves?"

I glanced around, suddenly realising that the kitchen was both too quiet and too dark.

"Who knows?" Helga replied, "They're probably out cleaning the castle, about now."

I grimaced.

"What, all of them?" I asked in disbelief.

"I know," Ro agreed, turning to face me from where she stood, "The castle keeps resetting their schedules, and nothing ever gets done. I'm surprised they even manage to feed the kids, much less clean anything. It's bloody annoying."

My eyes widened in surprise.

"I didn't know you swore, Rowena," I teased, and she stuck her tongue out at me.

"I'm a thousand and twenty-three year old woman; I'm allowed to do what I want. And you're in Gryffindor," she reminded me, "Anything can happen."

I raised my brows, taking in her purple nails, and modern turn of speech, "I noticed."

She raised her brows right back at me, "No, really?" she mocked, "I hadn't. I've just been sitting in a dark closet for the past nine hundred and ninety-four years."

"And how was that for you?" Helga joined in. Rowena looked over to the sprightly witch, who was still sitting on the same bench, swinging her legs back and forth.

"Dark," she replied.

"I'll bet," I agreed.

"Yup," she nodded, now focused on pouring peas into a boiling pot, "Speaking of which; what happened to you? I remember you went out to get...something or other, but you never came back."

I balked.

"Do you really not know?" I asked in wonderment, "I tripped on God's stupid transportation rune, and woke up in the Entrance Hall."

"But the rune was in the Entrance Hall," Helga mentioned, her eyes slightly unfocused in remembrance.

"Last week, Helga," I sighed, "I woke up in the Hall last week."

"Oh."

Rowena's eyes narrowed significantly, the ladle in her hand stilling.

"Are you serious?" she asked.

I raised a brow at her unusually crude manner, though she appeared to be prone to such outbursts now.

"No, I've actually been taking a long nap in my quarters. Thought you could survive without me for a few hundred years. I am also currently considering courting one of the house elves. Of course I'm bloody serious," I snapped, rolling my eyes.

Rowena slammed her ladle down on the kitchen counter.

"That bloody git!" she growled, "He told me he cleared that rune up an hour before the kids arrived! How could he lie like that?! He probably knew what happened to you this whole time and -"

"Calm down, Ro," I frowned, "If Godric told you he did something, he wouldn't have been lying. Not on purpose."

Helga nodded in agreement.

"That doesn't sound like a very Godric thing to do," she reasoned, and that seemed to calm the redhead down somewhat.

"I suppose so," she muttered, stirring the ladle absentmindedly through the bubbling contents of her cooking pot, "I'll make sure to ask him later. But back to your question before; we can't access the Heart because whenever we've tried, we get stuck for an indefinite amount of time."

"Usually until the wards reset," Helga piped.

"Which there are significantly fewer of than I would be pleased with," Ro added.

I nodded in assent.

"That's almost exactly what happened to me," I supplied, "I was unconscious, but it felt as if I was drifting further and further away from my body, not just unable to move it because of my physical condition."

"At least you have a physical body," Ro supplied. I started.

"What and you don't?" I scoffed. Helga shook her head, no, and Ro just continued stirring. I blinked several times in disbelief.

"You are jesting, surely?"

"Nope," Helga replied, intently inspecting her swinging shoes.

"Then how are you able to touch things?" I inquired, "A-and eat!"

At this, I looked at Helga in interest. She merely shrugged.

"Don't know," she said, "We think it's because we're bonded with the castle, but that's how we lost our bodies in the first place."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

The witch shrugged again, "When you disappeared, strange things started happening with Hogwarts. She stopped talking-"

"-She started acting melancholy-" Ro supplied.

"-and wouldn't follow some orders-"

"-It was almost as if she couldn't hear us, anymore."

"Then she stopped doing some of the things she should be doing, like keeping up maintenance; that sort of thing," Helga added, "We didn't realise it at the time,but..."

"It was because the School's energy was running out," Ro offered, still stirring through her bubbling concoction, "And when its resources got too low, it began to feed on us."

I gasped.

"You cannot be serious!" I cried.

Ro nodded.

"Unfortunately, we are," she continued, "Our physical bodies deteriorated quickly, and then it began to suck on our magical abilities."

She grinned devilishly.

"I suppose it's a good thing that we're all so strong, or I very much doubt we would have had the chance to meet again, sister," she smirked. I smiled at the affectionate term, but my mind was racing through all the new information I had received, searching for something; anything that could possibly assist us in solving this mystery.

This is terrible... I thought, What kind of idiot mess have I entangled myself in?

Rowena seemed to sense what I was thinking, and sent an intense stare my way.

"Don't even think about doing anything stupid, Sal, or I'll eat you," she warned.

"What kind of threat is that?" I mocked, "And since when have I ever been prone to doing anything illogical?"

Ro sighed with an air of long-suffering.

"Salazar, every time you take a breath, you manage to get yourself entangled in some misguided plot, or other," she stated, as if it were common fact.

I glared at her.

"It is not as if I look for trouble," I sniffed, "It just has a tendency for seeking me out."

"It has the very good sense to seek you out," she corrected, "because you are always willing to react to it."

The woman's gaze suddenly softened considerably.

"Listen, Sal," she said wearily, "I don't want you to interact with the castle any more than is necessary from now on, will you promise me that?"

Sensing the defiance in my heart, she continued, "For us?"

Oh, that was low, sister-witch...

I glared at her; she smiling smugly as one could manage. She knew she had won.

"If you are so intent on it, then I shall have to comply" I sighed, "Now, speak to me. What other oddities have occurred in the castle?"

For the next hour, I found myself being filled in on the most bizarre happenings around the school, from staircases disappearing, to classrooms shrinking in size, but only so slowly as not to be noticeable to the local population.

"And we don't even have any heating!" Helga moaned woefully.

"But this is impossible!" I said through a mouthful of soup, "The spells on this castle are impenetrable! Unbreakable! It just can't happen!"

"They said that about the Titanic, too," Rowena replied tiredly. I raised a brow, but she shook her head.

"Don't worry," she said, "My point is that we were all very young; it was the first time we had ever attempted such advanced casting. What may have seemed to work at the time, certainly isn't now, and that may just be our own faults."

Helga nodded from within her bowl.

"Yerp! Und lock ut isss! Wier stull...aluvvv!" she exclaimed. My other brow raised to meet with its companion.

"Um...can you say that in English, Hellie? I know you're Irish, but I can't speak any Gaelic," I said, as if it was a gentle reminder.

My teasing managed to get the girl's head out of her bowl, even if she was frowning at me.

"I said," she clarified, "We're still alive! Not in the natural sense, of course, but we are still here, and able to move around. We can touch things; we have to use doors-"

"At least until midnight," Rowena added. I frowned at that.

"What do you mean, 'at least until midnight'?" I asked.

Rowena sighed, pouring Helga a third helping into her bowl.

"I have a theory about that," she said, "The wards reset at midnight, right?"

I nodded.

"Well, that's when the castle puts the most drain on our spirits," she continued.

"Yes, I know," I said, "That's why we agreed on such a late hour. If our abilities were ever needed during our sleep, we would regenerate quickly. Not to mention, midnight being the Witching Hour, our powers increase exponentially, and that burst would usually just go to waste."

"And thus, we'd escape having to deal with a foul headache for the rest of the day," Helga added.

"So, what about it?" I asked.

"The castle always needs extra energy at that time, irregardless of everything else, including whether or not there are any wards left. That's just what it has been told to do," Rowena reminded me, "Think about it."

My eyes widened in realisation.

"So, it just sucks the energy right out of you, until you can't even touch anything?" I asked.

Rowena grinned, in spite of the situation.

"And she's got it!" she laughed, tapping my head with her fist, "I'm actually surprised to know there's something up there."

"Ro, if you value your spiritual energy, Id' stop," I warned. Rowena chuckled, and Helga spat into her soup.

"And this is why we've missed you!" Rowena teased, pinching my cheeks. I knocked her away.

"But, in all seriousness," I began, "If it drains you that much, then how are you able to regain a semi-physical form every day? And what happened to me? I was sucked into the Heart, but it hasn't physically affected me. I mean, I don't feel any less powerful."

"Oh, it only takes a little bit of energy at a time, and spits the rest of you back out, so you won't at first," Helga replied grimly, "But I'm supposing that since it pulled you directly into it, it knows who you are, and it's already begun feeding on you."

I shuddered involuntarily. Being eaten by a castle was not a particularly pleasant thought.

Sensing my discomfort, Rowena added, "I would not worry about it, Salazar. Your base element is water, correct? And it is strongest when the moon is high. And your chosen element is the earth, which is the most unwavering of all elements. You have quite some time to escape this fate."

I looked up at the kindly woman, whose hand was now resting on my shoulder, and asked, "Your chosen element was water, Ro. When did you go?"

The witch closed her eyes painfully, tears prickling along her lashes.

"I was the first," she whispered gravely. I swallowed.

"Then how can you tell me things are alright?" I asked, "Do not lie to keep me from fretting about the truth, Rowena. I can handle the possibility of pain, but I will not tolerate deceit. Not from you."

Rowena shook her head quickly.

"No, no!" she begged, "I was not lying! My magic was born from the spirit of air. Air latches on to nothing, and is the most easily destroyed by will. You will have so much longer than I did. You will be fine."

I could tell that she wanted to believe what she was saying, but I shook my head.

"Rowena, if there is anyone here that I want to be fine, it is you, and Helga, and even Godric, that bastard," I said, "If there is anything I can do for anyone, it will be for you all. If I must, and if I can, I shall return to the moment I left this school nine hundred and ninety-four years ago, and ensure that this does not even happen. And if that is impossible, then I shall spend the rest of my time here returning you to the forms you greeted this world in, so you can be allowed to live the lives you were meant to have."

Rowena looked as if she were about to protest, but then she simply smiled.

"I guess I know why you're in Gryffindor now," she said, "You are too loyal and brave for your own good."

I snorted.

"No, I'm too stupid, and pig-headed, and got into a fight with a hat," I disagreed.

"Yes, you are," Rowena tormented me, "But you are still a good friend."

After finishing tea with Helga and Rowena, I had agreed to meet with the two, along with Godric, in the Teachers' Garden on the first floor. Apparently, the area was now all but forgotten, having been stumbled upon a mere three times in the past seven hundred years. We had decided that this made it the ideal place to talk, especially well after-hours, as it was prone to become a very long discussion. Not only did we have to convince Godric that he wasn't hallucinating, mad, drunk, or dead, but I had insisted that we attempt to repair whatever had gone wrong with the castle, even against my companions' protests that every known route had been tried. To prepare for this brainstorming session, however, I had to return once more to my old chambers, and pick up some required reading.

Thankfully, the route to the Slytherin dungeons was blissfully free from students, save for one extremely pale boy who seemed more interested in avoiding others than even me. I remembered him from some of my classes as we passed one another, halting for a mere half second to silently ensure our secret wanderings were safe in each other's hands. I felt momentarily proud that he was in my house, if only because he was sane enough to keep to himself, although his tired appearance had me worried. Student or not, I was still a teacher at heart, and those attending Hogwarts fell under my responsibility.

Perhaps I shall seek him out later? I thought, He might appreciate my help, even if he does not know who is giving it.

Shortly after this, I rounded the corner to my chambers, and I found myself breathing a sigh of relief.

Home, at last.

At the entrance to my chambers, I once again pressed my ear close to the door to assure myself of its vacancy. It was much later in the day than the last time I had entered – dinner was bound to be over very soon – and even then I had been caught out by Professor Snape. I could just imagine the reaction to me being found lurking in Professor Slughorn's bedroom. The uproar it could cause would almost certainly ensure that my continued position at the school would be one secured by force. Frankly, I was not quite feeling up to stealing back my teaching position today; not after the ridiculous lies about Gryffindor and Slytherin: Enemies Extraordinaire, and finding out that my three dearest friends were slowly being tortured out of existence, and had been since the very day I fell into this damned time. I felt I ought to be blamed for their sorry condition, and even though I preferred them 'alive' to rotting in a ditch, I could not bare to see the ones I loved so dearly suffering. I could also not stand and watch as our work fell apart; I refused to allow myself to become so bitter. Despite Rowena's protesting otherwise, I believed the responsibility to end this horror lay with me, and end it was exactly what I intended to do.

That, and I don't want to have to mark any essays again, for a long time, I admitted, rather childishly.

Upon opening the door, I found the room to be significantly cleaner than before, if not entirely spotless. The floor was still littered with parchment, and books, but they were at least now standing in neat little piles, and the dirty plates were gone. I found myself thinking that Professor Slughorn needed to perhaps invest in a bookshelf, or at the very least should eat in the Great Hall more often. I felt a bit sorry for the fellow, that he so obviously was more than often prone to return to his quarters to dine, rather than spend that time with his fellow colleagues.

Perhaps his girth has him feeling self-conscious? I half thought as I made my way to the secret door. The man was quite on the large side, and seemed to be fond of wearing corsets, although they did almost nothing for him. I paused in my step, wondering what it would look like if one of the buttons on his garments were to burst...

Salazar Slytherin, you will not hex your teacher's buttons off! I chastised, reminding myself that it would be somewhat less hilarious for the man in question to catch me in the act of upending what could technically be considered 'his' room.

Entering my own bedroom has become a crime, I snorted, not at all amused by this turn of events, This is turning out to be almost as bad as the time when Godric convinced me to-

"Ouch..." I muttered, having stubbed my toe on the edge of a book pile, causing the top two volumes to collide, first with each other, and then with the floor. I sighed mentally, reaching to place them back on the stack.

Damn...

"Oh! You're back!" an unnecessarily high-pitched voice squealed, causing me to jump, and topple over the stack.

"Oh, dear. Are you alright?" the voice continued in a concerned tone, and I found myself gritting my teeth.

"I was until you tripped me up!" I growled at the dresser, having discerned that was where the voice was coming from.

"Don't be silly, darling!" it chuckled, "I don't have any hands. How could I trip you? And why would I want to, with that pretty little face of yours?" it added gleefully.

Are...are you bloody serious?!

I glowered at the mirror from my spot on the floor, guessing the effect was somewhat less menacing from such a compromising position.

And when used on such a daft object, I added.

"Your screaming sent me to the ground!" I argued back, thoroughly annoyed, "Can't you bloody send out a warning beacon before you open your mouth?!"

To my surprise, the mirror started to fog up.

"I only wanted to wish you a good afternoon! You're so much nicer than Severus!" it sniffled.

Oh Merlin, it's not...

I cringed as the mirror began sobbing.

How do I stop it? I panicked.

"Stop it! Desist at once!" I yelled. This only appeared to make the mirror shriek louder.

At this rate, someone will come running down just to check on the bloody glass!

I moaned.

"Come on," I coaxed in a gentler tone, recalling the soft manner with which Rowena usually reacted to a student's tears, "Please, be quiet?"

"B-but I made you angry!" it sobbed. I took a moment to roll my eyes as I attempted to stack the tomes back in the order they had been.

"No, you didn't," I assured it, "You just took me by surprise."

I think this one went here, I thought, cocking my head at my work. I nodded.

It's good enough, anyway, I decided, He'll never notice the difference, and if he does, who will he question? The looking-glass?

I turned to look into the glass, having finished with the books.

"That's all," I assured it.

"B-but-!" it started, but I cut it off with a wave of my hand.

"I'm really not mad, so please do not feel bad about it. Just, next time, could you warn me before you start shrieking?" I sighed, giving up altogether. Some battles were not meant to be won. I instead settled on stumbling to my feet and dusting off my new school skirt.

The mirror squealed with delight, and I cringed.

"Really? That's wonderful!" It piped merrily.

"I'm sure," I replied, inspecting my arse for dirt marks. There was a white streak down the right-hand side of the fabric, that looked suspiciously like chalk. I scowled.

How long has that been there?

"And you're truly not mad at me?" it questioned with overbearing hope.

"What? Yes, yes. Of course. We're fine," I replied halfheartedly, attempting to scrub the back of my skirt clean without resorting to spinning the cloth around.

"So we can be friends?" it asked.

Maybe. Can you get this chalk off my arse? Seriously, is it jinxed onto my backside? I glared at the offending marks warily, Would anyone even bother to jinx my bum? ...I'm not even going to enter that realm of thought, right there.

"Of course we can, deary," I said, using the mirror's own term of affection.

Ah! Done it! I smiled with pride, finally ridding myself of the stain. The mirror, too, seemed to be particularly happy since we had 'made up'.

'I love you, Salazar!" It crooned. I froze, still looking at my bottom.

"What did you just say?" I asked icily.

I never told it my name! I panicked. On the surface, I remained calm.

"That's wonderful. I love you?" The mirror repeated, obviously confused. I squinted at it.

"Is that all you said?" I questioned, "Wasn't there more to it?"

"No..." the mirror informed me slowly, "Did you hit your head when you tripped, deary? You do look a little pale."

I nodded absentmindedly.

"Perhaps..." I replied distractedly.

I am becoming rather too paranoid, I chastised myself, Why would this mirror know me by name?

But inside I was not so sure. First, the damned thing had acted so out of character, and now it was presumably calling me by name. I frowned.

How am I supposed to know the glass' 'character'? I assured myself, And I have been very tired lately. I am simply hearing things.

I nodded. That was right. Everything was fine, here, and I had a very clean skirt.

I looked up at the mirror, grinning widely.

"Well, it was nice to see you, but I really must be going now," I told it. It sighed in response.

"A pity," it said softly, "I hope to see you again soon."

I smiled, showing none of my inner turmoil.

"But of course," I agreed, slipping along the wall, and hopefully out of the mirror's sight. Rubbing a palm against the polished stone, I once again pressed my lips to the wall, and watched as the door to my resting chamber slowly materialised. It was an almost painful thing to see, with the seconds slipping away so rapidly. The Professor was bound to turn to his bed soon, even if I had noticed his proficiency in holding beyond lengthy conversation on nearly every subject. Even thinking this made me so very nervous, that I whipped open the door while it was still attempting to materialise. My punishment was a high-pitched squeak, and being tugged roughly into the gaping abyss before me, which soon became my room. I sighed with relief, even as my kneecaps bounced painfully against the carpeted floor. For a moment there, I had thought myself to be in dire trouble. Thankfully, this had been one of the few times my impatience had ever played out the way I wished.

Standing, I rushed over to the rickety old bookcase, my fingers running nimbly along spines, pulling out only the titles that I thought necessary. First, my copy of The Irreversibles by the ever-knowledgeable Morgana le Fay; the book I had instantly thought of during my research in the Library, and the original reason I had been so eager to return to my sanctum. Her journals had oft proven helpful to me, and a particular passage from this volume continued to ring within my head. The second book, however, had been written by her brother, Mordred, who although had been slightly misguided in life, was also apparently quite a clumsy man, and had hence written a personal tome entitled When Magic Goes Wrong. This hilarious journal had practically fallen into my hands one night whilst at the le Fay estate, soon after the family's brat had decided to turn my 'silly' hair green. I smirked as I held the perfectly preserved 'gift' in my hands.

I wonder if he ever was able to turn that ridiculously long nose of his back to normal, or if he was left looking like a wild hog forever? I shook my head at the memory, I was silly back then, I must admit. And romantic. What kind of hex involves 'until someone will love you'? It should have been, 'ugly until proven otherwise', or 'feast until you are a beast'! I thought, still scanning through the crowded shelves. I giggled, Or 'You shall lust after everything you see, but whatever you truly love will see you as a pig'!

"Ah, I really was just too hopelessly romantic," I hummed aloud, "But what is a lowly half-breed to do?"

It was then that I noticed yet another intriguing volume resting on my shelves. I picked the light volume up, frowning slightly. The cover read, as the spine had, Only Time Will Tell, but I was finding it hard to place where I had acquired it from. It looked too new and shiny, even amongst other well-preserved volumes. I flipped open the cover, reading the description within:

Only Time Will Tell

by Merlin

On aging backwards, forwards, and all things in-between!

A hasty note was scribbled underneath the writing; that of a familiar hand:

You are another year older! Congratulations on not contracting some Muggle disease and dying a horrible, painful death!

Much love,

HELGA!

(Post Script: You had better read this book; it is very informative, and cost me quite a lot of money, not to mention the time it took to track it down, and the effort expended on begging the previous owner to sell it to me, so not only will you read it, as I have advised, but you will cherish it, or else I shall think of something horrid to do to you. I'm not sure what that something will be yet, but it will be thoroughly atrocious!)

I squinted as the writing became smaller and smudged, then shuddered at the end of the passage.

So that's where I got it, I thought disdainfully.

I suddenly did not feel like taking the volume with me to see the others, where Helga would most certainly realise that I had not in an entire year since receiving Only Time Will Tell, even managed to properly glance at the first page.

Once the witch had mentioned it was written by Merlin, I had almost decided to burn the book to a crisp, but refrained from doing so to spare my friend's feelings. It was not that I disliked Merlin (although I certainly did not hold him in the same high regard that Helga did); it was that I disliked his books. Whilst incredibly informative, they had a penchant for clapping me across the head, or pinching my bottom – often times, both. And although I had reached the age of twenty-seven as a maid, I was not quite so desperate as to allow myself to be sexually harassed by lecherous literature. Even now, the pages were ruffling about, making puckering noises in my direction. I groaned.

"Shut up, you old pervert!" I snapped, shoving the book roughly into my school bag along with the others.

Godric is going to have too much fun with this tonight, I groaned, And Helga has had a very long time to think of how to punish me for not reading this. I hope her memory is failing her...

And I truly hoped that it was. Despite what others often seemed to think, Helga was a prankster of the most formidable kind. When she said she would be thinking of a way to make you regret slighting her, she most certainly meant it. And she truly was terrible! Kind as she was, she would never put anyone in immediate danger, but that did not mean she was above making one think that they were.

Or thoroughly humiliating them in front of the entire School's populace, I shuddered.

I reached for another volume; the last on my list. It was a plain tome – one that we had used for lessons in Defence classes, although I could not seem to locate one within the entire school earlier in the week. Seeking answers as to Hogwarts' dilapidated condition, I had attempted to accio a copy to me from my hospital bed, but had only managed to retrieve a lecture from Madam Pomfrey when I was caught with my wand in hand. I had glowered at that. If they did not want me to use the thing, then why was it left right beside me on the table?

So, I held the precious copy of Unbreakable Spells and When to Cast Them by Anriel Bagshot incredibly close to my chest, as I glanced once more around the shelf. With a shrug of my shoulders, I snatched up my own personal journal, containing records of all the inner-workings of Hogwarts, and then pushed the two slender books into my carry-bag, along with the first three.

Satisfied, I nodded, and headed towards the exit of the room, pulling up short only to retrieve some undergarments from my own (thankfully silent) dresser, and two of my favourite dresses from the wall closet. Unfortunately, with my schoolbag already being bulky and of an unwieldy weight, I was forced to carry the two heavy gowns in my own hands, disguising my more personal attire amongst them.

I took me a good two minutes to turn the door handle in such a condition, and yet another half a minute to determine that I was not going to fall on my way outside, even if I did manage to bang my head against the door-frame thrice.

Thank goodness I didn't-

"Oof!"

-trip on my way out the door and spill my personal belongings across someone else's bedroom.

"Oh dear!" the mirror cried immediately, "Not those silly books again! Severus, you should clean them up!"

"Yes, he should!" I agreed angrily, rubbing my pounding head. My vision was slightly off-kilter, and I was finding it hard to tell which books were mine, from the ones that had already been on the floor. Not to mention my underwear was now scattered in a large pile around me, completely unashamed to be out in plain sight. I blushed.

At least it's only me and the dresser, I thought, It would be terrible if someone else was he-

"Severus! Snap out of it, and help her up, will you?" the mirror continued, sounding mildly irritated, "And then you clean this room up properly, young man!" it insisted.

Mirror, no...

Cringing, I turned my head towards the dresser, to find a tall, abnormally skinny person standing quite close behind me. At least, they were abnormally skinny for Professor Slughorn.

A little bit thinner than average, I would say, noting that the person's face was the most bizarre mixture of horror-struck and bewildered I had ever seen. I giggled.

"Your face is hilarious," I said aloud, and this seemed to snap the person out of their own state of shock. However, I soon realised that when this particular person wasn't gaping at me like a floundering eel, they were in a really foul mood. They were always in a really foul mood, I noted, because they were Professor Snape.

Merlin help m- OUCH! Flipping pinching my arse!

I grabbed the offending book, which was now back to cooing and puckering its pages at me.

"Evil, lecherous thing!"I exclaimed, before realising my Professor was still standing before me, now seeming to be rather enraged. I sheepishly held Only Time Will Tell out to him.

"I don't suppose I could interest you in a book?" I giggled nervously.

His expression told me that he didn't think so, either.

A/N: Well, wasn't that adventurous? I'm actually a little bit annoyed about the start of this chapter, but hey, I managed to keep it in one tense (I think). I'm having some trouble when uploading/saving changes, where the wordsallstringtogetherliketh is, which is ok for a parody fic, but - let's face it - bloody annoying when I'm trying to be serious. *TRYING!* I think the main problem with it are the jokes I was making as I was writing it, not the actual wording, though. :/

Anyway; review replies! I can't actually remember if I've replied yet to the members who were signed in, but if not, thank you, and I'm glad you're having as much fun as I am!

Moi,

I'm glad you found the last chapter so entertaining. I personally couldn't wait to write it, because it brings so many things about the castle, and Sal's past to light (also, thanks for calling it elegant. I think I actually wet my pants in happiness at that point...that was an image you needed in your head, I'm sure). I hope you enjoy this chapter as well. :D

I really want to go into a discussion about how the Founders chose their students' qualities, but that would probably end up being a bit of a spoiler, so I'll keep it to myself for now. My fan art, however... I'd rather keep in the closet, but since it IS technically a part of the story, I have added (or will add in another few minutes, if my net doesn't conk out), a link to my 'arsty b#!5#17', as I like to call it.

P.S. Cute, cuddly, vicious dogs are the best. :D

As always,

Love,

Lucy~!