Snape opened the door to Dumbledore's office and stepped through before Elayne could think he was holding the door for her. She strolled through the door and Dumbledore gestured for her to take a seat after shaking hands with her. She turned to look at Snape, he was standing at the door watching her. 'You know a guard of honour isn't nessecery?' She asked him with a raised eyebrow. Snape's face clenched slightly and looked to Dumbledore.

'I think it might be best he stays here.' The old wizard told her quietly. She looked at him suspiciously, Dumbledore recommending something could always be counted on to turn into a major point soon after. He sat back in his chair, his robes were dark purple velvet and as always he had tucked his beard into his belt, looking for all the world as if he was Gandalf on crack. 'You may be wondering why I recommended you for the defence against the dark arts job?' Elayne shook her head.

'Nope, I just figured you wanted to make my life miserable after 'recommending' me to go out and work in Romania with all those vampires.' Dumbledore nodded slightly a bit nonplussed. 'Seriously, there's going to be no rehabilitation of vampires into the magical community Dumbledore so this is just another step on the plan to make Elayne hate her life you don't seem to be getting tired of that.' She grinned wryly at him.

'You should know that what I recommend for you is for the greater good.' He said and her face twisted in distaste. 'Reguardless, I recommended you because after so much field time I believed you could easily teach the children the best field techniques and how to not rely on their wands so much.' She frowned.

'You mean you want me to teach them how to not die?' He nodded at her. 'Well that's easy you don't let the other guy hit back first I can teach them that in a day. What's the other 200 odd days of term going to be left with?' Dumbledore nodded slowly and stood up, never a good sign.

'I assume you were informed that Voldemort has risen to power once again?' He asked her softly.

'I got the memo.' She said flippantly.

'You have a great deal of experience in not dying, you also have a tendancy to help other people stay alive too. You're to impart as much of this to the students as possible, but in your spare time I request you help Professor Snape on the task I assigned to him last term.' She stared at him in surprise.

'But Professor' They both said at the same time, Dumbledore raised his hand.

'Please, your co-operation in this is the only thanks I need.' He smiled mischeviously. 'I assume you both want to go to the feast, I shall see you later.' They both stared at him for a moment, both aware they had been dismissed and both wanting to argue their inability to work together to the hilt. It was Elayne that moved first, stalking out the door muttering imprecations under her breath, Snape sweeping out behind her with an equally sour look on his face.

They looked at each other for a moment. 'Does this to you a lot does he?' Elayne asked quietly, Snape turned his sneer on her without answering and moved towards the main hall. Elayne stared at his retreating back. 'You're going to have to talk to me sometime.' She waited for a moment and followed behind him, heeding her inner child she followed exactly behind him, trying to step on the very edge of his swishing black robes.

'Would you stop that?' He hissed and turned on her. 'Dumbledore obviously seems to think I need help but why would I need help from someone as childish as you?' She didn't even flinch.

'There's a subtle difference between being in touch with your inner child and being childish.' She smirked. 'As for the help, well, not knowing what task he gave you all I can imagine myself doing is oh saving your arse, you may be a master at all the subtle magic stuff but you couldn't hack the physical stuff worth a damn.' She grinned at him slightly. 'Just say if you can't keep up now.' She turned away from him with a spring in her step.

'You might find the 'subtle magic stuff' a boon in the not to distant future when you inexplicably lose motor control.' She looked at him with a raised eyebrow and shrugged.

'Learn to take risks, Snape, it's the only thing that makes life fun.' Snape smiled maliciously.

'Oh there are other ways to have fun.'

*

Elayne sprinted down the corridor with hair flying out behind her like some demented medusa. She was late. It was Hagrid's fault, he had started her drinking at the teacher's table and then had taken her down to Hogsmeade for a few more tipples. After that the night started getting a bit blurry, she remembered singing and telling Hagrid that he was her 'fuchin best mate.' Long years of practice had stopped her being noisily sick at the school gates, she had managed to convince Professor MacGonagal that she simply wasn't feeling too well once she met her in the corridor. It had taken a lot of self will to stroll nochalently down to her room in a straight line.

At which point she had collapsed into a dead sleep and it had been Havelock clawing at her face that had woken her for her first day of lessons. She had speed dressed and skidded out of the room, nearly flattening Professor Flitwick in her haste, she had just yelled 'sorry' over her shoulder and charged on. She burst into the classroom and hung on the door staring at the class waiting for her.

'Did I miss anything?' She asked as she got her breathing under control. They simply stared at her, or more precisely, at her clothes. She had simply changed into her muggle clothes, she hadn't worn robes since leaving Hogwarts, but still a teacher in army trousers and black t-shirt wasn't what they were used to. For some reason Elayne felt more self conscious walking to the front of the class than she had at the teachers table last night. Granted last night she had alchohol to make her feel more confidant. They stared at her like they expected her to pull a rabbit out of a hat or do some other kind of magic tricks. She paused oh right they actually were

'Well!' She said certainly and looked at them biting her lip. 'Actually this is a bit of a crap first lesson from me isn't it? I don't even know which class you lot are.' A hand was waved up at the back of the class, Elayne watched the girl for a moment. 'Yes Miss Flatly?' The girl's face twisted up for a moment in offence, Elayne had to remember that insult for when the girl was considerably pissing her off.

'Fifth year Gryffindors.' She said and Elayne nodded slowly. She shrugged and climbed up onto the desk and sat there cross legged.

'So I guess you lot have been taught the stuff I was, basic hexes, incantations and what to do if you're ever attacked maliciously by a grindylow?' She rolled her eyes. 'Okay, well, in my class you're gonna have to forget all of that. From this moment on we're going to be dealing with the real world kiddies.' She paused and fixed them with that scary gaze she used when fighting vampires, truthfully she was surprised at how well this was going. 'What have you dealt with up to now.' The same hand waving in the back. 'What's your name girl?'

'Hermione Granger.' The fuzzy haired girl told her proudly, like it should mean something to her, Elayne gestured for her to continue. 'We've studied a variety of creatures such as redcaps and werewolves and this class fought a boggert under supervised conditions.' Elayne shook her head.

'You'll find none of those in the real world I'm afraid Hermione.' The girl looked perplexed.

'I thought boggerts we' Elayne cut her off.

'I was talking about supervised conditions.' The look on the girl's face was priceless. Elayne watched the students for a moment. 'The idea in this class is to learn how to stay alive, you'll be surprised at how many people will fail this class in the long run Of course we could go into zombification after that, but I find that you tend to stop being invited to respectable dinner parties afterwards. So I prefer the not dying route of surviving death.' She looked over them and grinned.

'It's a harsh world out there it's kill or be killed actually it's often kill or be horrifically mutilated whilst your organs are used in a magic sacrifice.' Elayne grinned wider. 'But not to worry eh? I know some pretty cool places to take you were we can run rampant on some of the local magical creature communities.' She winked happily at the suddenly petrified faces.

'All I'm going to be teaching you is to sharpen your wits and reflexes, plus teaching you my patented techniques for kicking the arse of your average vampire.' She looked at them seriously for a moment. 'I'm sure you all know that Voldemort is out there somewhere, hopefully some of what I teach you won't ever be needed but I have practical problem for you before I dismiss you.' They looked at her for a moment and she knelt on the desk.

'Say, after everything I've taught you, you STILL manage to get captured by a dark wizard, and if you do and you survive I'm gonna hunt you down with a stick, and be aware I'm quite dangerous with a stick. If that still happens and he has you kneeling on the floor in front of him with your hands tied up, with no wand. He's about to murmur the killing curse. What would you do?' She grinned at them sweetly. 'Oh don't worry, I'm still here aren't I!' Their eyes went completely round. 'It's not exactly the crisis situation you imagine.'

*

Snape watched the Gryffindors walk out of her class in close groups with rather large eyes muttering amongst themselves. He was only really here because Dumbledore had called him into his office this morning to inform him that Elayne really was there for a reason, that her skills were nessecery. Snape admitted to himself that she was certainly good at her job, despite the fact that her methods were risky, her reasoning shakey and the fact he couldn't stand her stupid upbeat optimism and her overly smug grin. The girl was truly a treasure, only in that she was someone you would want to see buried at the soonest possible juncture.

Snape tried to bury his resentment of her as he walked into the classroom, and he stopped and stared. She was hanging from the roof beam above her desk by one hand and one foot. The other hand was groping blindly across the beam and she was muttering something about evil little buggers. She yelped in sudden pain and growled a curse. 'Got it.' She turned her head as she brought her hand off the beam. She stared at Snape in surprise for a moment and said 'catch' throwing a little brown ball into his direction.

Serverus instinctively caught the tiny brown thing and on feeling its leathery skin he recognised it as a gnome. He stared at her and held it by the scruff of his neck before it could bite him. 'What's the idea behind this?' He said. 'Did it get away from you?' His tone was scathing. She raised an eyebrow and removed her foot from the beam and hanging upright.

'I think we have an infestation.' She looked at him with a flicker of a grin. 'Of gnomes too.' He felt his eye twitch, she always brought out the worst in him. The worst thing was he could be as nasty as he could to her and she still didn't care. She acted like it was all a big joke, maybe that's what irritated him the most, to her it was. She just didn't care what other people thought of her.

'Dumbledore asked me to fill you in with what my task is. I have a class now, but tonight I'll meet you in the teachers lounge we can go over it later. That is of course if I can keep you out of the rafters.' His face was unemotional as he stared at him and it irked him that she just shrugged.

'Right I'll remember that, in the presence of Professor Snape I must not have any fun. Gotcha.' She laughed and turned away from him.

'You'd do well not to take this so lightly.' He admonished.

'You'd do well to take it much more lightly.' She said without missing a beat. He stared at her perplexed for a moment and swept out of the room.

Author's note ~ Altogether now MUahahahahahahahahahahahaha...