Minerva had been watching things, and they weren't quite adding up. Severus had left on Family Business - which, she'd been told, quite archly, by a Slytherin Prefect when she'd inquired.

Snape didn't have family. He stayed at Hogwarts as long as he possibly could, and then two hours longer just to wind her up.

She'd gotten him good and drunk, and he'd never breathed a word about family, not of any stripe.

She sighed, it wasn't like he'd voluntarily talk about his Family Situation - Snape was the type to be taciturn about such things. But - the man had quite the prodigious temper, and with it came wit. If he'd had any relations to speak of, she'd have expected them to be Brought Up during disciplinary hearings in front of the Headmaster.

Draco Malfoy was missing too - except to the owls, who routinely got double treats when they had something to deliver to him. Nott took charge of them, and Minerva had good reason to think that he wasn't opening them himself. Probably just piling them in Malfoy's room.

Slytherin house was the devil's own to penetrate, even as a cat. Minerva thought, though she'd managed to enter it far enough to find the wards on the Malfoy scion's door.

All of this might have added up to something, if only Harry Potter wasn't missing.

Albus had told everyone that he was Training, but - Minerva knew, downright knew, that there wasn't a better teacher out there than strolled the halls of Hogwarts.

If there was, she'd have been hunting them down for positions, thank you very much.

Which left three Very Odd things occurring in close proximity.

Make that four, Minerva hissed, as a very interesting mouse (blue, green AND red) skittered across her very human foot. The girls in her current class jumped up on their tables, screaming. Two of the boys (Ron and Dean) started to try and catch the things. They'd be lucky if they didn't kill them with a heart attack.

Just lovely.

The Weasley Twins pranks had escalated, and it was even more difficult than usual to pin them down.

It was all Severus's fault, too. He apparently considered it unfair that he'd asked the Twins to make Wolfsbane (a very hard potion in its own right...)

Minerva stopped, and started to grin a cat's grin. She couldn't give them more points for Saving The School, but she could give them points for Extra Difficult Work.

Take that, you dirty old snake.

[a/n: the word Minerva wants is mangy, but it doesn't fit with snake. Review?]