I don't own Harry Potter. The Muggles and Sarah, I own, unless you recognize the name from Harry Potter. I also created a few students for my pleasure to give myself something to work with.

After dinner, Sarah went straight into Silvana's office. She looked around nervously, tears forming in her eyes with guilt at her foolish rage once more. The new professor looked up and smiled gently, motioning for her to come in and to shut the door.

"I'd offer tea, but Sev said you were against it," Silvana said gently, and Sarah smiled softly. "So, what would you like to talk about first?"

"My parents," Sarah said, pulling out the article from the Daily Prophet that she'd stashed in the pocket of her robes. "But… the article doesn't go into much detail. I-for the longest time, my parents would both scream at me and-and tell me that I should have died. They wanted me gone, and when I was five, a few days before Christmas, my mother screamed at me to get out of the house. I was terrified, and I didn't want to get beaten for disobedience, so I ran. Nobody cared."

Silvana gasped and became increasingly horrified as Sarah continued her tale. Sarah felt so much better after revealing her secret to the older witch, and began confiding more and more to the woman. She soon found herself almost unable to stop, barely hiding the fact that she knew the identities of all of the Marauders and was one herself. It was dark by the time Sarah finished talking, and the teenager was hoarse.

"Thank you," Sarah said wearily, "You have no idea how long I've waited for someone to listen to me like that. it felt good, thank you. I-I…"

"It's alright," Silvana said gently, tears also in her eyes, "I understand. I'll explain my background to you another day. I'll suffice to say that my father faked my death to try to break Severus. He even sent me to Beauxbatons to keep me away from him, and paid a French lady to keep me for the summers. I will, however, mention that our mother wasn't abusive at all in any way. But, we're half bloods, you see, so she couldn't perform magic to protect us. Severus and I became good fighters and hiders because of our father's abuse. My father even tried to rape me just as I got my Hogwarts letter. Thankfully my powerful bout of accidental magic prevented him from removing his pants in any way for the next few days. Thus, I was sent to Beauxbatons. I'm used to it. I, too, was forced to drink a de-aging potion gone wrong, and thus, I'm in the same predicament as Sev."

There was a hanging silence in the air for a few minutes.

"Sorry," Sarah muttered as she looked at the clock, "I shouldn't have wasted all your time…"

"Nonsense! That's what I'm here for, Miss Denning! Contrary to popular belief, the hearts of my brother and me pump more than just blood and oxygen," Silvana teased. "I'll be here whenever you need me. I feel that as a fellow abuse victim, and a co-head of Slytherin house, that it is my role as a substitute mother to keep an eye out on all my little snakes. Now, if I recall correctly, it's almost your curfew. I think I'll walk you to your dorms, just to make sure you don't get in trouble."

"Thank you, Professor," Sarah blushed.

"Please, call me Silvana," she smiled, "But, only when it's under the same regulations that you're allowed to call my brother 'Severus'."

"Thank you… Silvana," Sarah said quietly. "Silvana… Geez, you're lucky. Your name's actually beautiful."

"Yours is too," Silvana shot back, "Yours actually means 'Princess' in Hebrew. Miss Denning, I would like to give you privileges since you have managed so well in class today. I will test you at the beginning of each week, and if you pass the exam, you will be spending my class time to do something entirely different for a different kind of Muggle Defense. Yes, there is the physical Muggle Defense I'm teaching the others, but I'd like to talk to you about the mental Muggle Defense. Your first homework assignment will be to draw ten things to show me how you are feeling about your parents. I don't care how much detail it is in, or even the content – I just want the entire page to have color unless skin is white as paper."

"Yes, ma'am," Sarah said obediently as Silvana handed her a sketchpad. "Thank you. This means a lot to me, it really does. Professor Snape was the only other person to listen to me before. Professor, there's another student like me, he's a fourth year in Hufflepuff, and-and I don't want him to go without this class. Rocky Underwood, ma'am."

"Ah yes, I have his class first thing in the morning," Silvana said kindly, "Now, I understand you have a lot of homework for your first day back. Why don't you go get some done?"

"Yes, ma'am. Thanks again," Sarah said before racing out, not catching the amused and weary sigh her professor let out.

OoOoOoOoOoO

"Hogwarts Staff, and the Weasley family," Silvana greeted the next day, "I would like to thank you all first and foremost for coming to this meeting on such short notice, and especially if you have come from out of the country. As you know from the Daily Prophet, Miss Denning has had a bit of a parental issue her whole life. I have seen her behavior in Muggle Defense Class, and it is more than just appalling – it is both awe-inspiring and terrifying.

"She is very calm and composed until you at long last manage to anger her, and then she turns into a mass of rage that will only be calmed through violence. I had to dock an extreme amount of points from the Gryffindor for some horrific and very, very vulgar statements that preceded the rage, however. She is a formidable foe, better than Severus, Me, and our father all three put together. And that is saying a lot since our father was an expert fighter."

"Oh dear," Severus said in tones so worried and terrified that the others were looking at the two Snape siblings like something was wrong. "How did you stop her?"

"Simple," Silvana replied, "I encouraged her to take her anger out on me in a fist-fight under the guise of a test to see how much she knew and was able to fight. Her fighting style is more than just amazing, it is so unique that I actually held her back to ask her about it. She uses a combination of magic and physical attacks, but not enough to be noticed until the toll taken on your nervous system is too powerful, and let me tell you this. I have never, in my entire adult life, been afraid of anyone that wasn't Voldemort or Severus – the latter only because he's by older brother – and even more said so about those younger than me. However, this child – no, this young woman – has me terrified out of my wits. I worry for her sanity, she's powerful, if not completely unstable emotionally.

"I decided to talk to Sev to find out about her background. I found out that she had been so brutally abused, and I figured that it was the cause for her rage, frustration with her peers mocking and ridiculing her over petty things, and her violent tendencies. True to Slytherin code, I disguised another test in the forms of a homework assignment. The assignment was to draw five pictures showing me things that she felt about her family, and I wanted no white spots on the papers unless it was a part of the clouds, people, or buildings. When I received her homework back this morning, she had gone far above and beyond the call.

"I found not five, but twenty pieces of her artwork on my desk this morning. She created ten copies of a horrific scene from the Muggle Bible – I'm sure you're all familiar with the story of the Egyptian plagues. She used this as her basis for the first ten, each picture being one of the ten horrifying plagues, and in the stead of the Egyptians, she used her parents, her brothers, and any other people in her past that she bears a grudge against. I also noticed that Rita Skeeter was on the front lines near her parents. However, what startled me was that she also put people behind her in the photo. You see, in the photo, she used herself in representation of Moses, and the people she was 'Freeing' were people that were being abused – Harry and Mr. Underwood included, among other faces I did and didn't recognize."

"What about the other ten photos?" Severus asked fearfully.

"The first one was quite similar to the Egyptian plagues – the only difference was that it showed not the plagues, but a – ah, Poltergeist – haunting her parents. There were titles on the backs of all the photos, and the title I found on this particular one was quite shocking – Revenge Plot Number One. The different forms of ghosts, however, were past versions of herself at different ages, all sobbing and asking different questions. The fifth and sixth year versions were hurt and angry, but the seventh year version was – Merlin's beard – terrifying. Her wand was brandished out at them, her face contorted angrily, and a red spell being sent in their direction. I can only assume that that is where Peeves has been missing at for who knows how long.

"The second photo was most certainly an odd one. It showed a blonde male in a green tunic with a sword on his back, and three golden triangles on his right hand. However, it also showed a black wolf facing the opposite direction and the two faded in and out of each other at the neck and back. (A/N: Think Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess.) The third one showed something even scarier – Voldemort as a sixteen year old, but – it was odd… he was dressed differently. I'm not sure what it was, but he had some sort of giant purple snake. Mr. Potter, his eyes – what color were they in the chamber?"

"Uh, dark," Harry said confused, "A dark brown I think. Why?"

"The man's eyes were golden, just like a snake's," Silvana said shaking her head. "I'm not sure what it meant, though. He wore a giant upside-down bow made of rope on his rear, and for the life of me, I just can't seem to put my finger on why it should seem – oh, of course. She told me that she got most of her fighting skills off of a Muggle TV show from Japan. The person in the drawing must have been from the Muggle show, although I won't deny I mistook the male character for a female at first."

"What about the other seven pictures?" Arthur asked, "What did they show?"

"The first of the other seven showed a remarkable change in her normal ones – this one was…different. I couldn't quite place the emotions that she was feeling with it. it showed her underwater, meditating, and alone. The second was one that I thought was insane – her being a Parselmouth, which I have no sense in looking for unless we perform a lineage background check with the Goblins at Gringotts. The third one showed her alone, surrounded by different things surrounded in mists. Among the more normal things for our kind were her wand, a snake, a cauldron, and-and a skull, but not the dark mark. I saw a lot of Muggle things, too – music, a television set – which is basically an entertainment system that shows moving pictures with electricity – more items off of TV shows, and an Ocarina. I think – I think she want to feel that she has some sort of power, which she had none until Severus came into her life.

"The fifth was even more disturbing. She was in a graveyard, standing over a gravestone that was literally marked with her own name and a false date of death, and she looked as though she'd just broken out of Azkaban and hadn't had a bath in more than a month. Severus was in this one, too, but he was clean, and it looked as though he was upset at her death and they were comforting each other. I still don't – Severus Tobias Snape, don't you dare tell me that that picture she drew was a memory!"

"It was," he admitted, "It really happened. That was about a week after she faked her death to get away from her parents and I was visiting her grave to see if I could get any hints as to her whereabouts from it, since I knew she liked to leave clues in the most obvious hiding places. I didn't think she'd be hiding in the graveyard for me to figure out that her gravestone itself was the final clue to her hiding spot."

"That's disturbing. I'll get the details from you later, you ignorant git. I'm your baby sister, you're supposed to tell me this kind of shit! Moving on, the sixth one showed me in black robes and Sev in pure white one with frilly blue lace," Silvana said just before Severus began laughing like an idiot. "Let me guess, another memory?"

"Yes, that particular one was a result of the Prank War in Rocky Underwood's first year at school. It was, ironically, Sarah's fifth year in school and she'd gone mute with trauma," Harry explained as Severus continued trying to get his laughter under control. "Severus was able to get her talking again only because he was her head of house and had been using Legilimency to communicate with her and to see what she was saying. The white outfit he was wearing was the trick that got her to talk for the first time since an encounter with some wizards who thought it would be fun to hurt her with the Cruciatus curse a few times each."

"Okay, then. The seventh one was a little off, if not crowded. It showed a mirror, something Severus told me was the Mirror of Erised. Inside the mirror, however, was the love of her life – who I will not name – and behind him was his entire family, and behind her was her entire family, which was considerably larger. The mirror of Erised shows you what your heart desires the most, and thus, she wants to have a family and for her family to love her. As angry and spiteful as she is towards them in her artwork, she really does miss them."

"Let me guess, the eighth one was a wedding picture," Severus sneered.

"Actually, yes, it was," Silvana said, "And that is all I will say on that matter. The ninth one was somewhat normal, if not odd – her in a den of snakes with a set of ravens, badgers and lions teamed up against her in hatred, with the snakes in the pit hissing angrily at her with one exception of a black cobra, which rested on her shoulders. I can only assume the black cobra was some sort of representation."

"The time when the entire school hated her for being my apprentice," Severus nodded, "although why on earth she chose a cobra is beyond me."

"Perhaps it has something to do with the King Cobra, and you are the legendary King of the Dungeons and the snakes," Hermione said thoughtfully.

"Point made, Hermione," Harry said giving her the please-shut-up-before-he-kills-us look.

"The tenth one was extremely hard to figure out," Silvana said at last, "It showed a multitude of animals all gathered and having a good time. It was very confusing. The animals were, in order from left to right: two deer – a stag and a doe – a large dog, a werewolf, a hawk, a tiger, a lioness, an otter, an owl, a bat, a snake, a badger, a raven, a phoenix, and-and a-a half-kneazle cat."

"Of course. She wants people she knows to get along, so she must have chosen their patronus forms to represent them," Severus said calmly. "Although the two deer, the dog, and the werewolf patronus forms all have dead masters as far as I know, so I suppose that puts my idea out of the running."

"Yes, but it's the best one we have, Severus," Minerva said calmly. "I believe that we should keep an eye on her and-and screen her letters. Perhaps she is trying to make contact with her parents."

"She already has, Minerva. That was who the package was from a few days ago," Severus retorted, "I screened her reply before it managed to get too far away from the castle. It was from her mother, who apparently had a sudden and very odd change of heart enough to send Miss Denning two thousand American dollars and a very elegant dress, even by witch standards. I have, however, removed said dress from Miss Denning's care to check for dark curses just in case."

"How do we know you're not just going to use that to start having insane fantasies?" Ron shot, and Severus and Silvana both shot him shut-your-mouth-and-take-that-back-or-I-will-kill-you glares (glare number 65).

"Weasley, if your parents weren't here, I'd be hexing you six ways to Sunday," the two Snape professors said venomously, "And for the record, it would be best if we were able to keep her going with this therapy, wouldn't you agree, headmistress?"

"I believe so since it is enabling her to be rid of her emotions without causing any kind of harm or stress to another student. The faculty, however… that is another matter entirely," she shuddered slightly. "Yes, this is the best route to take. Thank you for finding it, Silvana. However did you think of it?"

"Actually, I learned a very good number of nonviolent stress relief methods from mind healers at St. Mungo's before I came here. I wanted to be ready for worst-case scenarios of having to deal with a psychopath like Sev did last year," she said flipping her hair as she left the room, adjourning the meeting that she had called.

"Greasy bitch," Ron muttered.

"That's it!" Severus roared, "You and me in a duel, Tomorrow Night at dinner!"

Silvana laughed, her inner Slytherin coming out at the joys of a duel for the next night. Severus would wipe the floors with Weasley, and he probably wouldn't even need a second, knowing him. She smirked, knowing that he'd choose her for his second for old times' sake. She shook her head, telling herself to refuse and turn the title over to Sarah, who so obviously and desperately wanted to prove herself to him.

So, yeah, they're worried about her. Silvana really has come to look at Sarah like a little sister that she never had, and Sarah looks up to her like a surrogate mother. I couldn't resist making these pictures, but I'm not good at art, so I didn't actually draw them. Sorry! My specialty is words, not colors.

Review? I'll try to draw the pictures I had in mind and reveal some stuff about the pictures I left out because I didn't want to humiliate Snape, but only to those who review. If you're a guest, send me your email so I can email it to you.