Year 4, Chapter 10

Severus Snape sighed, scrawling an 'A' on a Hufflepuff fifth-year's essay and shuffling it off to the side, only to pick the next one up without any enthusiasm. Exams were drawing near again, and if the students thought it was a hectic time, it was nothing to how the professors felt. He had a sizeable stack of essays still to be marked, lesson plans to go over, and he still had to find time to go to an apothecary, as several of his classroom stores were running low.

As if all of that weren't enough, Calista would be arriving in his office in - he glanced up at the clock on his office wall - no less than ten minutes for her weekly Occlumency lesson, and 'arriving' was rather political phrasing. Exam stress always seemed to hit Calista particularly hard and the result was that, for the entire month of May, she was more or less a bloody nightmare to be around.

This year had been one of the most profound examples of that; he suspected it had a little to do with the importance of the upcoming fifth year academics, and more than a little to do with the fact that she had reached fifteen years of age, and how often did that result in a pleasant attitude towards authority figures?

As if she were summoned by his thoughts, the door of his office slowly creaked open, and Calista shuffled in, head bent and eyes glued to a volume that was open in her arms.

"You know, I really haven't got time for this," she muttered, sparing only the merest of glances upwards to him. "If I don't get the hang of this blasted spell by exam time they'll keep me back and then I'll hurl myself off a bloody cliff, I swear I wi- Ugh, right into it then, I see?"

He saw her wince as he made his first attack on the outermost layer of her mind, but she recovered quickly and, still focused on what he now identified as her Transfiguration textbook, perched on the edge of the chair across the desk from him.

"How far have you gotten?" Severus asked, pointing with his chin towards the book in her lap, though she wasn't looking his way.

"I'm…" she paused, feeling the insistent press of his mental intrusion and, he suspected, bolstering her defences in response; however, whatever she did, she did it with a subtlety sufficient enough to mask it. He saw her pause, but he didn't feel anything within her mind shifting or responding to his attack.

He opened his mouth, intending to remind her not to outwardly respond to his intrusion, but before he could, she had lowered her head to the volume again.

"Cross-species switches," she said, "I've finally managed guinea fowl to guinea pig consistently, but now-"

Severus breached her first mental wall; he saw her pause as a flurry of thoughts and memories, undoubtedly carefully chosen and arranged, swarmed him in the second layer of her mind, obscuring the next barrier.

"Now," she began again, as she turned a page in her book. He didn't know if she was truly reading the text or if it was done for effect to cover her pause, but her voice barely wavered as she continued, "I'm meant to be practising badgers to hedgehogs, and it's a lot more difficult than I hoped."

"Is it?" he asked, smoothly, though he wasn't particularly interested in her response; within the space of her mind, he sifted through the contents until, finally, he discovered her second barrier.

"Mm," she said, and then, crossly as he began to exert force on her her mental wall, "Obviously. I just said it was difficult, didn't I?"

"Well, where are you going wrong? Perhaps I can help."

"Unless you're going to come into the hall and sit my exam for me," she growled, as he sliced through her second barrier and began the hunt for the third, "I doubt it."

"Ah, but then how would you learn?" he asked, lightly, knowing the question would irritate her and wondering if that would impact her blocking skills.

The third barrier was easier to navigate to than the second, because as he had sliced through the first two, she had redirected that strength, as was her habit, to the third barrier, and a practised legilimens like himself could follow the direction of the redirected energy. Still, he had to admit, she had done it quite smoothly; thought it possible that anyone besides himself might have missed the flow of energy.

"I've been trying to catch up for three bloody years," she muttered, "I don't even care if I learn it anymore; I just want to pass into the fifth-year class."

He pushed against her third and final barrier, saw at once that it was strong, solid. It would be difficult to pass through. He reached tendrils of his consciousness out, feeling for defects, for flaws in the pattern of the wall that he might be able to exploit; ah, there was one.

"And how do you suppose you would perform in the fifth-year class, if you had not fully grasped its foundation concepts?" he queried, as he began to worm his way through the spot. Really, it was so weakly reinforced just here that he couldn't help but affect a disapproving grimace, though he doubt she saw it, nose still turned towards the book. He'd thought she was more advanced than this -

And then, suddenly, just as he was nearing the other end of the tunnel-like weak patch in her mental barrier, he felt the strength of her, pushing him back through the same focused space. Because it was a narrow spot, she was able to force quite a bit of strength, concentrated, against him. She pushed him back out, beyond the barrier and further still. He felt swishes and flutters of her surface thoughts whizzing by at a disorienting rate, and by the time he recovered enough to overpower her, he found himself just barely at the outer edge of her mind.

"I expect," she said, even as a solid new mental wall began to materialize in front of his presence, and it was clear she was no longer speaking of Transfiguration, "That I'll do just fine."

(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)

"Perhaps," Percy said, eyeing Calista's latest transfiguration attempt, "They'll leave this one off the exams."

Calista sighed, slamming the cover of her textbook closed, and placing her chin glumly in her hands, elbows resting on the surface of the study table.

"You're saying that's my only hope to pass, then?"

"Well," Percy said, anxiously, "Your guinea pig transformation is getting halfway decent; I suppose if you can manage that they might overlook the snout inconsistencies on your hedgehog." He didn't sound as if he really believed this would happen.

"Inconsistencies," Calista echoed, a growl creeping into her voice, "My hedgehog looks more like an aardvark - how is that even possible?"

"I don't know," Percy said, bristling at her tone and stiffening his spine in response, "Perhaps you're simply not concentrating hard enough."

Calista aimed a glare at him that was so reminiscent of her father's that Percy flushed and dropped his gaze.

"Erm, never mind," he said hastily, "I'm sure it's just more practise you need. Shall we, then?"

"What's the point?" Calista asked glumly, but she re-opened the text anyway, lifting her wand with a tired sort of determination.

She had to admit, though, that as tiresome and teeth-grittingly irritating it could be to struggle through Percy's tutoring sessions, she did better studying with him than with anyone else. Perhaps she needed a demanding and aggravating teacher to succeed - she chuckled inwardly at the thought. That would certainly explain why her Occlumency lessons were going so swimmingly.

She certainly preferred studying with Amelia, but the truth of the matter was that when the two girls were together, studying was often quick to devolve into researching and discussing curses, and then into simply goofing around. The exception, usually, was when they were working on Arithmancy homework, which generally required their complete and dedicated concentration not to muck it up.

There was Marcus, as well; but studying with him was not the same now that they were finally, officially, a couple. They were likely to get perhaps ten minutes of studying in before Marcus would restlessly suggest that they go flying, or go for a walk around the lake. At first, she had given in about half the time, but now that exams were drawing close, she would stubbornly and steadfastly refuse to leave the library, or the common room, until they'd gone through all of the material they'd planned to study.

Occasionally, Marcus would grudgingly comply and they'd plod through their notes and cards, but more often, he would come across the table, sidle close and wrap one arm around her, would begin planting kisses on her shoulder, her cheek, until, red-faced and utterly unable to concentrate, Calista would have to take a break or else send him away. She couldn't quite pretend that she didn't enjoy those study sessions, but they certainly weren't very productive.

She had tried studying in her father's office a few times as well, but if he was there it always felt more like an occlumency lesson than anything else, and though she knew she was getting better at blocking him while focused on something else, she couldn't quite focus well enough to actually make much progress with whatever subject she was studying in addition to fending off his intrusions.

"Are you even paying attention?" Percy asked, in long-suffering tones, and she realised that he had been lecturing her about the incantation and she hadn't even noticed. She sighed, interrupted from her straying thoughts, and thought bleakly that it would be a miracle if she managed to do well enough on her exams to make it into the OWL-level class.

Severus might have thought she was having him on when she'd threatened to throw herself off a cliff if she was held back a year, but the way she was feeling just then, she wasn't so sure.

(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)

A week before exams began, Severus was interrupted from grading for what seemed the umpteenth time; before the growing commotion from the corridor even reached his office door, he had thrown his quill aside in barely-contained disgust and adopted an unwelcoming grimace.

Only a few nights past, those blasted Weasley twins had slipped into the Potions classroom after hours with a tub of some sort of hair product - or at least, that's what it had been labelled as, though Severus had a strong suspicion that whatever was in it was indeed some nefarious concoction of their own - and had begun, if it could be believed, to swab the stuff all over the insides of the glass flasks that Severus had laid out for his morning class.

Merlin only knew what was actually in the gunk and what it would have done had they not been caught and his unsuspecting students had actually poured their Forgetfulness Potions into the tainted flasks. Never mind that it was their own class they were sabotaging; they had targeted only the flasks lined up to the left side of the classroom, where the Slytherin students usually worked.

At best, the little heathens were trying to undermine his authority and disrupt his class; at worst, they could have caused a dangerous, perhaps lethal interaction, targeting the students of his House. And what had the headmaster done, when he, Severus, had recommended the swift expulsion of both of them? He'd chuckled, maddeningly, and refused to let Severus administer more than a single detention.

If it was them again - Severus felt his lip curl, as he began to rise from his chair - he vowed he'd have them out on their ears, no matter how soft Dumbledore always seemed to be when it came to Gryffindors causing mayhem.

A distinctly female wail rose above the general din in the corridor just as a knock came on his office door. He crossed the room and pulled the door open, instinctively searching the cluster of gathered faces for his daughter's.

No less than five Slytherin girls stood before him, nearly all of them first years. At least, he thought they were all girls - one of them, face half-covered in oozing sores, appeared so disfigured it was honestly hard to tell.

"Sh-she tried to kill me, Professor," the wailing one stammered out; the words sounded a bit mangled though, as they were pushed out from her swollen lips so it sounded more like, 'She tryba-kirrme"

Severus stepped aside, allowing the horde to stream into his office, where the light was better, and he examined the injured girl closely.

"What hex is this?" he asked tersely, addressing the rest of the girls, for it wasn't quite like any he had seen and he didn't want to give her the wrong cure. A few of them exchanged looks, and all of them looked distinctly concerned, as well as distinctly guilty.

"It… it was s-supposed to be Furnunculus, Professor," whispered the girl at the back of the group. It was Miss Spratt, the one Calista had spoken to him about a few months prior. "Only I… I think I might have mucked it up."

"Oh," Severus couldn't help but respond sardonically, "Do you, now?"

Nevertheless, he reached for a vial of Boil-Cure potion, and a Disinfecting Draught besides; he mightn't need both, but with a spell that had gotten as botched as this one, it certainly couldn't hurt to err on the side of caution. He unstoppered both vials and passed them, one at a time, to the blubbering girl.

Miss Spratt flinched at his tone, and retreated towards the back wall of his office. Slowly, the girl in front of him began to return to her usual self. Ah, as he'd suspected, then - it was Miss Nott, another of the first years.

"She tried to kill me, sir," Miss Nott repeated, now that she could speak properly, "It can't have been Furnunculus, you saw what she did, it was horrible. I think she should be expelled."

At this, and now that Miss Nott had returned to normal, the rest of the girls all began speaking at once.

Severus put a hand up, tiredly, and it ceased immediately.

"Miss Lima," he said, focusing on the one second year among them, because he knew her to be a friend of Calista's and a fairly reliable witness, "Did you see what happened?"

"It was Furnunculus, sir, just like Daisy said. Or… it was supposed to be. I think she might have said the incantation wrong, at the end. But sir, she was provoked -"

"That's a lie!" Miss Not interrupted indignantly, and after a glance at the professor, she hastily added, "Erm, sir."

"Go on, Miss Lima," he said.

"We were doing homework in the common room, all of us," the girl continued, in a clear voice; she was one of the handful of younger students that wasn't quite afraid of him. But then, she was a decent student, and he supposed the fact that she was friends with Calista bolstered her confidence. "When Gretchen came out from their dorm - the first years', you know - and she was holding a book. She started reading from it, something about -"

Miss Spratt immediately flushed pink, and Miss Lima glanced at her friend before continuing, "Well, it was something very personal, sir, and it was… well, it was from Daisy's diary. She… she was reading it in front of everyone."

"It was a joke," the Nott girl said, jutting her chin out defensively, "And she grabbed her wand and hexed me. She was all ready to fire another curse, finish me off, I suppose, but someone pulled her away. I ran down here to get help and for some reason," she paused to glower behind her at the crowd of girls, "They all followed me. Probably to try and make sure I got the blame for their friend attacking me."

"We followed you to make sure you were all right," Miss Lima said, though Severus' eye was keen enough to see that not all of the girls agreed with this sentiment, "Daisy felt awful when the spell went wrong."

"I see," Severus said, although he wasn't quite sure he did. Something was still going on among the Slytherin girls, despite the headmaster's anti-bullying speech a few weeks ago at dinner, but whatever it was, he didn't have the patience for it. "Miss Spratt, you'll serve a detention with me after your class tomorrow for hexing your classmate."

Miss Nott was gloating before the words had even left his mouth; she tried hastily to school her expression when she saw him catch it, but wasn't fast enough. He'd seen that expression enough times in his life to know that she certainly was no innocent party. His lip curled slightly. "Miss Nott, I think you'd best attend as well. Perhaps a couple of hours disemboweling toads together will remind the two of you that you're in the same House."

"But Professor -" Miss Nott wisely cut off her protests when his eyes began to flash.

He did not have time for this nonsense, he thought, as he sent the horde of them back to their common room.

Furnunculus, he thought, sourly, recalling a very similar incident over three years ago. Well, I know who to blame for teaching her that one.

(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)

The day they were meant to get their exam results, Calista couldn't sit still; she'd tried reading, tried sketching, even tried studying Transfiguration even though she couldn't quite see what good that would do her at this point, now that the exams had already been administered.

Cross-species switches had indeed been featured on the exam, and Calista knew that her badger-to-hedgehog transformation was still heavily flawed. She'd hoped, in vain, that her mistakes might not be noticed, but she had seen Professor McGonagall scrutinizing the snout and making notes with a small frown on her stern features.

She'd hardly slept at all since taking that exam, and she hoped that her lack of rest hadn't negatively affected her performance on the exams she'd had the following day - History of Magic and Herbology. Mercifully, at least, the rest of her exams had taken place before the Transfiguration one.

It was a welcome distraction when Marcus suggested they go flying, though she was slightly concerned that the results might come in while she was with him at the Quidditch pitch. The envelopes their marks came in were magically sealed so that only the student whose results were inside, or their legal guardians, could open them, but she didn't trust Olivia not to try and find a way around that, just so she could be the first to gloat if Calista were held back.

"Ready to go upside-down?" Marcus asked in her ear, as he pulled them slowly back up from an exhilarating dive.

"You know the answer to that," she said firmly, "And it's no."

"One of these days," he vowed, good-naturedly.

"Not a chance."

"You don't know what you're missing," he said, half-playfully and half-earnestly. "It's loads of fun - oh no, you don't," he said, because he had felt her squirming as they neared the ground again, saw the way that her neck craned toward the castle as a handful of owls streamed out from the high window of the Owlery.

"But the owls - everyone's sending letters, that must mean the exam scores have come in, people are writing to tell their parents -"

Marcus leaned forward, one arm angling the broom into another steep climb, the other snaking firmly around Calista's middle.

"All you've talked about for months are the bloody exams," he said, his tone just as firm as hers had been when she'd refused his offer to fly inverted, "You scored what you scored. Seeing it now or seeing it after having some fun for a change won't make a difference."

"Clearly, you and I have differing definitions of fun," Calista said sourly.

"Do we?" he said, before launching them towards the ground at an alarming rate.

Calista felt her stomach clench, and then threaten to leap into her throat; they were going so fast…

As if he had sensed her fear, Marcus pulled her even closer, his grip both on her and on the broomstick handle sure and firm. She felt him rest his chin on her shoulder, just as they neared the ground and then banked a spectacular turn, one that sent the broom, if not quite upside down, then decidedly sideways, before beginning yet another swift ascent.

"Okay," Calista said, feeling her stomach flutter for an entirely different reason. She found that she had to shout so the wind didn't snatch her words away, "This is… this is kind of fun."

"I knew it," he said, triumphantly, "I knew you could love flying."

"I wouldn't go that far -" she began, but he was diving again.

"Sorry, can't hear you," Marcus said brightly. "Wind."

They flew around the pitch for over an hour before Marcus finally relented and brought them to the ground.

"All right," he said, as he released his grip on her and she scrambled off the broom, "I know you're losing your bloody mind wondering about your scores. We'll go back - wait for me, yeah?"

She had already started practically sprinting towards the castle, but she did slow her pace considerably when he called after her, though she didn't quite stop.

"I'm kind of nervous, too," Marcus admitted, "If I didn't do well enough, they might not let me stay on the Quidditch team."

"How could you want to keep flying then, if you're worried about exams too?" Calista wondered.

Marcus frowned at her, brows furrowing in a truly puzzled expression. "That's how I stop worrying, yeah? I get up there, with the wind whipping past me and it's just like, there's nothing to worry about up there, except pulling off the perfect dive."

"I wish I had something like that. Something that would keep me from worrying."

"Flying doesn't… it doesn't do that for you?"

She shook her head.

"Huh," he said, and he sounded a little sad. "That's rough, then. I can't imagine what it would be like if I didn't have - if I couldn't take a load off by getting on my broomstick."

She shrugged, unconsciously quickening her pace as they drew closer to the castle.

"You know," Marcus mused, "I think it works even better when you come with me."

"Hm?" Calista glanced back; she'd been going over the switching spell again in her mind, calculating just how poor of an effort she'd actually displayed during her examination. Was he still talking about flying?

"When you're with me," he said again, gesturing behind them in the direction of the Quidditch pitch. "I like trying to make you enjoy flying, you know, instead of just being afraid. It's kind of a fun challenge."

"Oh," she said, unsure how she should respond; but more than that, they had arrived at the castle. She felt her heartbeat quicken as she stepped up to the heavy oak door, wondering what the tidy little envelope that would be waiting in her dormitory room would hold.

Marcus sighed, and jogged a couple of paces to meet her; evidently she'd left him behind again, without realising it.

"I'm nervous too," he reminded her, as they both traced their way through the dungeons to their common room.

"Let's bring them out here," Marcus said, before she could disappear into her dormitory, "And open them together. That way… you know, if it's… if it's bad news, at least we won't be alone."

"I don't see how that would make it any better," she said, already feeling a trickle of dread work its way into her chest, but she nodded anyway. "I'll… see you back here in a minute, yeah?"

It was just as well that she'd decided to withdraw from her dormitory room to open the envelope, because Olivia and Portia were in the room, gossiping and laughing about something. Calista supposed it couldn't be anything good, but she didn't have the energy just then to eavesdrop.

She snatched up her envelope and made for the door again.

"I hope to see you in Transfiguration next year," Olivia said, in a boastful sort of tone that conveyed exactly the opposite sentiment, while also making it plain that she, Olivia, was evidently pleased with her own scores.

Calista turned the envelope over in her hands, examining it carefully; Olivia didn't already know something awful, did she? Had she managed, somehow, to open Calista's results? But the envelope seemed intact.

Calista met Marcus in the common room, and they marched over to a study table in a quiet, unoccupied corner; she felt like she was marching to a funeral, and by the set of Marcus' shoulders, so did he.

Calista exhaled, and both of them tore open their envelopes. Her eyes dropped to the page, scanning the results.

Potions, top marks. Charms, top marks. She'd done quite well in Herbology for a change, and Astronomy and History of magic as well.

Her Arithmancy score was very good and - she'd scored top marks in another class this year, Ancient Runes. Well, it was hardly any wonder, with all the extra research she'd done for Flitwick, but all the same, she felt a glow of pride warming inside herself.

Finally, she forced her eyes to go to her Transfiguration score.

It was… gods, that had been close. Her mark was borderline, but there was no mistaking what it meant…

"I passed," Calista said, a huge sigh of relief escaping as she looked up at Marcus. A ghost of a grin began to spread across her face, but faded when she saw the expression of horror on her boyfriend's face.

"I didn't," he said, crumpling the parchment in his fist.


A/N: (sheepishly) Okay, I know it's been literally forever. But I did promise, I will finish this story, no matter how long a hiatus I may take here and there.