A few days after the choosing of the Triwizard champions, Azalea had not yet told Harry about the fact that they were related, neither had apologised to Snape or he to her. In fact they had barely spoken; it was as if they were avoiding each other and, to a point, she was avoiding him. However, today he was giving a lesson on antidotes to the fourth years and it was a subject she wanted to learn about so there was no getting away from him today. As she approached the potions classroom she could see students backing up the corridor as if getting out the way. She then heard two voices simultaneously shouting "fumunculus" and "densaugeo" and she saw a flash of light that showed that wands had been used. She hastened to the source of the sound and saw Harry and the blond boy, Malfoy, wands drawn and facing each other in aggressive stances. She took in the fact that two other students, one of whom was Hermione, appeared to have been caught in the cross fire of the angry exchange.

"And what is all this noise about?" said a voice in soft tones which Azalea knew without looking belonged to Snape.

"Potter attacked me sir.." Malfoy started to explain.

"We attacked each other at the same time!" Harry shouted.

"-And he hit Goyle. Look-"

Azalea assumed that Goyle was the name of the other student who had been hit in the cross fire and Snape sent him to the hospital wing.

The boy with red hair (who Azalea now knew was called Ron), said to Snape, "Malfoy got Hermione! Look!"

Azalea watched as Ron forced Hermione to remove her hand, which had been covering her mouth, to reveal that her two top front teeth had grown at an exponential rate and were now down to her collar. To Azalea's horror, Snape merely stared at Hermione and said "I see no difference."

Hermione's eyes filled with tears and she rushed away up the corridor. Harry and Ron started to shout at Snape at the same time and although Azalea couldn't make out exactly what they were saying she could get the gist and it was a view she shared. She pushed her way forward and thrust her face right up to Snape's and hissed angrily at him "You bastard, you utter bastard!"

Snape stepped past her and calmly said to the two boys, "Fifty points from Gryffindor and a detention each for Potter and Weasley. Now get inside or it'll be detentions all week."

As the students filed past to get into the classroom, Azalea stood in front of Snape and demanded, "What about Malfoy? He should get a detention too." Then she continued indignantly "Your comment to Hermione was unforgivable, what sort of teacher do you think you are to insult a student like that when the situation was not of her making?"

He glared at her and spoke angrily, "and what sort of student are you to insult a teacher in the way you did? You can go to detention with Potter and Weasley."

She stared back at him in surprise, "You're giving me a detention?"

"Yes, and if you don't attend then I'll deduct more points from Gryffindor house and won't that make you popular with your new friend Harry?" he said with a sneer.

"Fine, I'll go then," she capitulated.

"You speak as if you have a choice," he said in his infuriatingly calm voice.

"Severus, there is always a choice," she replied equally calmly, "sometimes it's a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea, but it's a choice all the same." With that she strode off into the classroom leaving him wondering why his choice was always with the devil.

The atmosphere in the classroom seemed tense to Azalea; after entering the classroom, she noticed that Ron pointedly ignored Harry and sat next to someone else. She saw a flash of disappointment cross Harry's face but then he turned his attention to staring daggers at Snape. Azalea could well imagine the things that were going through Harry's mind at the unfairness of the situation. Snape addressed the class, "You should all have prepared your antidote recipes by now, so I want you to brew them and then we will select someone on whom to test one..." She saw him lock eyes with Harry. Surely he must be joking? He wouldn't go as far as poisoning a student. The inference had unnerved Harry and Azalea could see the doubt in Harry's face. Whether or not he would have poisoned Harry was something that they never found out because Harry was called away for the rest of the lesson on Triwizard business.

Azalea was feeling in a pugnacious mood and although she knew it would be unwise to antagonise the teacher she did it anyway. "Professor," she said and seeing she had his attention she continued, "Are these antidotes for a specific poison or are they generic antidotes?"

"You are each doing an antidote for a different poison. You would know this if you had paid attention at the previous lesson," he informed her.

"I wasn't at the previous lesson as I had other commitments. You would know this if you had paid attention to the conditions of my attendance at Hogwarts," she responded scathingly. In the background she heard a sharp intake of breath from the students who were within earshot, so she carried on speaking before Snape could respond. "Professor, my antidote is for belladonna but the recipe I have is different to the belladonna antidote in the cupboard over there," she pointed towards a bottle labelled "belladonna antidote" on the shelf of a nearby cupboard.

"Miss Bennett, you obviously have some superior knowledge if you can tell that just by looking at a bottle, pray share your wisdom with the rest of us," he drawled in reply.

She looked back at him in surprise and without a hint of sarcasm said, "Surely you can see for yourself? The mix of colours in that bottle is different to the mix that these ingredients will make. There's another ingredient added to that bottle which isn't in the recipe." Noticing his sceptical look she added, "and I have got the ingredients exactly as stated in the text book."

He believed that she was being honest in her reply so instead of making another sharp retort he went to the cupboard and took down the antidote bottle she was referring to. He lifted off the stopper and quickly smelled the contents. He recognised it as one of his improved recipes which didn't exactly follow the recipe in the text book, there was indeed an added ingredient. That wasn't the first time she'd talked about colours in relation to magic and potion making. He wanted to question her further but at that point a cry from a student whose antidote was spilling out of the cauldron diverted his attention and he snapped at Azalea, "just get on and follow the recipe in the text book and stop trying to be clever."

Azalea waited until he had sorted out the problem with the over spilling antidote, then asked him another question, "Professor, do you have an example of a finished belladonna antidote which does follow the recipe in the text book?" He reached onto the shelf and took down a smaller bottle, also labelled belladonna antidote, and showed it to her. "Oh yes, that's the same, I can do it now thanks," she said cryptically.

He then saw her raise her wand and he realised she was about to use her "quicker method". He grabbed her arm before she could complete the action. "You will do it the traditional way," he snapped.

"But professor, this way produces more consistent results and you won't have to deal with an overflowing cauldron," she protested.

"There will be no short cuts in my lesson, do you understand?" he stated firmly.

She lowered her wand and lit the fire beneath the cauldron muttering, "one day you'll be glad of my short cuts."

He returned to his desk and sat there appearing to be watching the students work but his thoughts were on Azalea. What was it about her that made him feel so ill at ease? He compared her to a poison for which he needed an antidote. Azalea, even her name spoke of poison. The azalea flower was beautiful but the azalea plant was toxic and could be fatal if ingested. She stole into his thoughts when he wasn't expecting it; "she was the like a delicate liquid that was creeping through his veins, bewitching his mind, ensnaring his senses", he mentally recited in an echo of the opening talk he gave to the first years, the one she had thought so eloquent and evocative. Now he could never use those words again without thinking of her. He needed an antidote to her poisoning of his mind, his senses and his reason. He looked across at her making her potion in the traditional way but still managing to share a quiet joke with the student she was working next to. He noticed the way she held her head slightly to one side when she was concentrating, how she had a stray bit of hair which didn't quite tie back and fell softly over her forehead, how her green eyes would light up with mirth when she found something funny, how hardworking she was with all the new things she must be learning, how gracefully she walked, and an image of her walking away from him dressed in her exercise clothes came to mind, how she would try to talk to him despite all his attempts to brush her off and he wasn't at all certain that he wanted to be cured of her poison.

Later that day Azalea went to the hospital wing to check on how Hermione was doing and was relieved to see that her teeth had been restored to normal. She asked Hermione if there had been a falling out between Harry and Ron, because despite their united front against Snape with his cruel comment to Hermione, they seemed a bit distant to each other. Hermione sighed and explained that she thought Ron was jealous of Harry getting into the competition.

"Why would he be jealous?" Azalea asked, "if you want my opinion you'd have to be nuts to want to enter it. I know I don't know Harry very well but from what I've heard about him he wouldn't have tried to put in his own name, would he?"

Hermione replied at once, "No, he wouldn't and I don't believe that he did. I think he was looking forward to an uneventful year at Hogwarts this year with someone else in the spotlight. I hope that he and Ron make up their differences soon because I can see that they are both missing each other but neither will admit it. They're both being stubborn and neither of them is prepared to make the first move no matter how much I try to persuade them."

A short while later Azalea was asked to leave to hospital wing when Madam Pomfrey said her patients needed to rest, so she bade farewell to Hermione. As Azalea walked back to her rooms she noticed that the light was on in Snape's office. Since the night the champions had been chosen Azalea had regretted her harsh words to Snape, it hadn't been his fault she never knew about Harry being alive. She remembered what Hermione had said about neither Harry nor Ron wanting to make the first move and on impulse Azalea resolved to go now to see Severus and try to make peace between them, apologising if necessary.

She reached his office and knocked on the door but there was no reply. She tried to turn the door handle but the door was locked from the inside. She put her head close to the door and called quietly, "Severus, it's me Leah, can I talk to you please?" There was still no reply but she was certain he was in there so she said more loudly, "I know you're in there. Open up the door because if you don't then I'll have to do it. I don't have your finesse so I'll probably end up blowing the door off its hinges."

She heard a soft click as the lock was released and she slowly pushed opened the door. She went inside and closed the door behind her. The room was dimly lit by a single lamp on the desk. The desk itself was covered with student's work, the marking left unfinished and in disarray as if Severus had just thrown the papers around in frustration, whether at the quality of the work or some other reason she couldn't tell. She looked around for him and saw him sitting in a chair by the fire staring absently into the flames and not acknowledging her presence. She stepped across the room and knelt down next to him and began to speak. "I feel I should apologise to you for having a go at you after the choosing of champions. It's not your fault that someone kept the truth from me. You'd only just come out of the meeting about Harry's entry into the Triwizard and I gave no thought to what had gone on in there. I shouldn't have argued with you in public. That's not to say that I agree with you withholding information from me, you may well have had your reasons, but my timing was wrong and for that I am sorry." However, being true to her nature she added, "but I'm not sorry about my reaction to your comment to Hermione today, it was a terrible thing for a teacher to say about a student."

Severus continued to stare into the fire and avoid her gaze, so she wasn't sure if he had heard her. She'd said her piece and now she decided it was time to go. Standing up she put her hand on his shoulder and said again, "I am sorry." She felt his hand cover hers and knew that he had heard her. She interlinked her fingers with his then slowly raised both their hands and gently kissed his hand before releasing her fingers and placing his hand back on his lap. "I'll see you tomorrow then," she said.

As she left the room neither of them said a word. After she'd gone Snape left the seat by the fire and returned to his marking with a much lighter heart than when he'd started.