Hey guys, I've bet you've missed me a bit :) Ok, well here's the thing. I got about four pages into the chapter when all of a sudden the chord that charges up my laptop decided to DIE! Took me about four weeks to find a replacement chord, and by that time this Author had found not only a job, but a boyfriend. Cute story really. I went out to dinner to celebrate my finally getting a drivers liscence and quite by chance, I decided to change our plans and head over to Olive Garden. And we got the CUTEST server there. I mean he was a cuite with a bootie. So since I was on a confidence high with the new lisense, I decided to leave the cute waiter my number. And he called. And we went out. And hit it off. And so we've been dating now for about six weeks. Yeah. Anyway, enough of my rambiling. I have to get to bed, lloonngg day tomorrow. But PLEASE! Read and Review. Reviews keep me writing :)

Just in time! Hermione had stayed up all night and had even skipped breakfast to finish all the essays before turning them into Professor Slughorn that morning. The past week had been absolutely brutal. She hadn't been able to study with Bejy, Caradoc, or Remus at all. In fact, finding time to study at all outside of potions had been a challenge.

She had been called to work with Professor Slughorn three times so far that week, and on the days that she wasn't working with Professor Slughorn, she was in the library with Severus working on the project.

Well, to be honest, they hadn't really been working. There was very little actual communication. That tuesday when they had meet, Severus had told her before she had even put her stuff down what she was going to be looking for specifically that day as well as how to go about it. She had been too tired to argue after a long night of grading essays.

It had been the hardest week she had had to endure so far. Her hope that Professor Slughorn would gradually get easier on her was now completely gone. He hadn't gotten easier at all, in fact, he had gotten even worse! His remarks regarding her potions were growing more caustic while his praise for Severus seemed to grow tenfold.

Her stress level was near breaking point and the night before she had almost broken. Unfortunately her breakdown wasn't a private one. Lily and the Marauders had been in the common room when she ran in with tears streaming down her face. She couldn't even remember what caustic remark Severus had made to put her in such a state, but it didn't really matter. The moment Remus saw her in such a state, he ran over and took her in his arms. The moment James and Sirius heard her mention Severus, they started plotting their revenge to defend her honor of course.

Who said chivalry was dead?

But the freak out the previous night seemed to have done some good. Afterwards she was able to concentrate on her work and not think about all of the millions ways she would like to hurt Severus.

And now that her classes were over for the day, she was looking forward to a nice rest before she had to go and meet Severus to work on their project.

The common room was unusually empty when she walked in. Confused, she walked up to her room where she found Lily lying on the bed reading.

"Where is everyone?" Hermione asked as she too fell down on her bed.

"James said something about teaching Severus a lesson." Lily replied with a nonchalance that bothered Hermione.

"He what?"

"Don't get too worked up Hermione. James and them are always doing things like this to Severus, and Remus won't let them go too far." She answered from behind her book.

Hermione paled and began to panic. She knew what sort of pranks the Marauders used to pull on Severus and they were usually far from harmless. There was no way she could let them do this! Severus was her partner, there was no way she was going to let him have a weeks holiday in the hospital wing when there was work to be done.

"Where did they go?" Hermione asked, pulling the book away from Lily.

"Entrance Hall I think," said Lily as she grabbed her book back, "and try not to do that again, alright?"

Without a second thought, Hermione grabbed her wand and bolted out of the room. She didn't remember running this fast in ages, at least, not since fifth year during the battle at the Ministry. She pushed every student that dared come in between her and her destination out of the way. It took longer than she wanted to get to the Entrance Hall, but it seemed that she had just in time. She spotted the Marauders with their wands raised, snickering in the corner and followed the direction of their wands to Severus, whose nose was too buried in a book to see what was going on.

A small magical ring just a few feet in front of Severus caught Hermione's eye and before she knew it, she was running towards Severus. Her hands made contact with him, but instead of pushing him out of the line of fire, she pushed him into one of the broom cupboards.

The only way that Hermione was able to tell that she landed on Severus front was his gigantic nose poking her uncomfortably in the neck. At least, she hoped it was his nose poking her uncomfortably in the neck. Either way, once her head stopped spinning, she scrambled off of him and up against a wall of some sort.

It was completely dark in the room, unfortunately, as the door had slammed shut after them. She could hear Severus' sneer from where he sat on the floor, and she rolled her eyes as she began to feel the walls for the door.

"What in Merlin's name was that for?" He snapped.

"That was saving your arse Snape." She snapped back before squealing when her hand came into contact with a very big spider web.

"You might have to explain that one to me, Granger," Severus spat before lighting his wand.

Hermione tried not to blush. Of course! She should have used her wand in the first place. How thick could she get. With the light from Severus' wand, she walked over to the door on the other end of the room and grabbed the handle.

"James and Sirius and the other's were about to pull a prank on you and I couldn't afford for you to spend the next week or so in the hospital wing with so much work to be done." Hermione told him as she pulled on the door handle.

But it didn't budge.

So she pulled again, harder this time.

It didn't even creak.

Remembering her wand, Hermione started to try every unlocking spell she knew. But nothing worked.

"Out of the way," Severus said as he literally pushed her out of the way.

He tried a few spells of his own, and pulled too on the door, but his efforts seemed to come up short as well.

"We're stuck," he said and Hermione could hear the sneer forming on his face as he spoke.

Obviously the boys had put in a few preventative measures for their prank, just in case someone had come to his rescue. Though she doubted they had thought she would be Severus' rescuer. There was a strong locking charm on the door and while she was beyond furious at them for putting her in this sort of a situation, she made a mental note to ask what spell they had used.

Meanwhile Hermione was about to resort to plan B, aka banging on the door and making as much noise as she could, when she heard a voice call out from the other side.

"Oi, Hermione, you in there?"

Suddenly very angry at the boy on the other side, Hermione clenched her fists at her side and shouted louder than she had in ages, "Sirius Black! When I get out of this room I'm going to curse your manhood off!"

"Yeah, I think she's in there," said James with a bit of a laugh.

"You know Hermione, keep saying things like that and I might not want to let you out." Sirius answered.

"Just unlock the door Sirius." Hermione tried in a nicer tone.

"Well, that's the problem you see? We don't actually know how to." James said a few moments later.

"I used a charm from one of the books you lent me and I never was able to locate the counter charm." Explained Remus who at least had the courtesy to sound guilty.

"Then go get Professor Flitwick," Hermione half shouted before shaking her head and whispering, "dimwits," under her breath.

She back away from the door and clenched her fists tight at her sides when she heard the sound of feet scurrying away. "This is all your fault," she hissed at Severus.

"Excuse me?" He spat back as he raised his wand to her face. "How in Merlin's name is this my fault?"

"If you hadn't been such an arse to me before then James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter would've had no reason to do this to you!" she finally yelled.

Her voice echoed around the room and with each echo, Severus' face darkened. "They don't need a reason," he snarled.

"Oh, like this didn't all start with you being an arse to one of them. You wouldn't know civility if came up behind you and smacked you in the head!" She screamed as she closed the gap between them.

She tried to match him glare for glare, but no matter how angry, how furious she got, there was no way she would ever be able to focus so much anger and hate into her eyes.

"Watch your tongue," he spat in her face, "or you might just lose it."

"Hot air and empty threats," she growled, "that's all you are Snape."

When she saw his wand moving down away from her face, instinct took over and instead of reaching for her wand Hermione swung her fist in his direction. Without the light from his wand, she wasn't exactly sure where she was aiming but judging by the squish she felt when her hand connected she had hit his eye. And even though her punch and driven him to the ground, he still had enough wits about him to use his wand.

She dodged his curse by hardly an inch and again, instead of grabbing her wand and settling this argument like a real witch, she got down on the floor and aimed for his face again. Severus grabbed her by the shoulders and rolled her over before she could get more than two punches in.

He straddled her hip and pinned her arms down at her sides so that despite her struggling, there was no way she could punch him again. Hermione felt something wet dripping on her blouse and figured it was blood from Severus' nose., or lip, or cheek.

Still to angry to be grossed out or even give up, she struggled against him and hissed, "Why do you have to be such an arse?"

"Why do you have to be such a pain in mine?" He hissed back.

Even in the pitch black, Hermione could feel his face hardly an inch from hers. His not so pleasant breath was being blown right in her nose. And after grimacing, she moved her head to the side to try to avoid the foul odor. The position she was in was starting to get on her nerves and she was about to threaten Severus when she heard a great burst of laughter coming from outside the door.

It was enough of a distraction that she was able to free her arms and push Severus off of her and back onto the floor. Grabbing her wand, she stood back up and walked over to where the door was. Though there were many people laughing, she was able to distinguish one out of the masses. Sirius. His bark of a laugh was so, well, individual it was impossible to mistake.

Glad that they had finally come back, Hermione raised her hand and started to bang onto the door. "Sirius Black! Let me out of here!"

"Alright, alright," he called back, "just don't start with the threats or I will change my mind."

Hermione bit her lip to keep back the quip that was dying to leap off of her tongue.

"Stand back," came the tiny squeak that could only have come from Professor Flitwick.

Smiling Hermione stepped back and ran into Severus. He pushed her back but she took no notice, too glad that soon she would be away from him. It took a few moments for the Professor to unlock the door and Hermione had to admit she was disappointed. She had expected a big display, a loud crash as the door swung open off of it's hinges. Instead there was just a pathetic little click and the creak as the door inched open.

The noise of the laughter outside only increased when the door opened. Surprisingly in her haste Hermione was not the first one out of the door. Severus beat her to the punch, pushing her roughly aside and storming out in his usual fashion. She glared at his back as she stepped out herself into the Entrance Hall.

"What is everyone laughing at?" She asked Sirius whose eyes were focused elsewhere.

But all she had to do was follow the line of his eye to find the source of so much amusement. She couldn't help but laugh when her eyes fell on Mr. Filch, suspended upside down up against the wall in the Entrance Hall in a full ballerina outfit, complete with a pink bow and all of the frills.

"Enjoying our handiwork?" Said James, who had come up beside her.

She couldn't stop laughing long enough to respond, so she just nodded her head.

"It's what we planned for Severus," muttered Remus from her other side, sounding just a bit disappointed in himself.

That started to quiet her laughter and she immediately turned to look at James. "Is this true?"

Panicked, James' eyes went wide and he quickly pointed straight towards Remus who stared down at his feet. "It was my idea."

The broadest smile swept over Hermione's face and her arms wrapped tightly around Remus. "Thank you!" She said into his neck as she squeezed him as tight as she could.