The Exchange Students
A/N: I don't know exactly where I'm going to go with this, I wrote this chapter as a whim more than anything else. If you have any suggestions on a title, please e-mail me to let me know. You have my e-mail address on my biography, if I'm not much mistaken.
Disclaimer: Everything you see belongs to J.K. Rowlings, except for Sarah Hernandez, who belongs to me. Norkten is an academy of my own making, as anyone who has read my "A Moonlight Sonata" will know.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Professor McGonagall tapped her wand on the end of the pedestal she was standing on in order to obtain the attention of her fellow professors in the room. "Now, as you all know, we have received various complaints from the students about," pausing, she picked up a list that was in front of her.
Adjusting her glasses, she cleared her throat and read it off.
"A.) The food at meals," she blinked and frowned at this. Of all the nerve! Those house elves work so hard preparing all that food… She continued after composing herself.
"B.) The condition of their common rooms."
"C.) Not enough activities to participate in."
"D.) Too much homework."
"And finally," she paused here, scanning the list, but there was only one word, name, really, left.
"…Peeves."
At this, Professors Sprout, Flitwick, Lupin, and Dumbledore smiled. They weren't sure of the other items on the list, but they, too, had had, or were aware of, little mishaps with the poltergeist.
McGonagall placed the list down and leaned over the pedestal toward the other professors.
"Now," she said as-a-matter-of-factly, peering at all of them over her glasses, quite similar to the way she gazed at her students after a particularly important lecture.
"A few complaints of these matters do not raise concern, as many students are, ah…rather demanding of their environment." Several of the other professors nodded in agreement.
"But the fact is," she continued, "We have received countless complaints about the facilities!"
At this, she bent down and poured a sizeable amount of letters on the ground to show her co-workers just exactly how many complaints they had received.
Scanning the room, she continued, "Unfortunately, we cannot rely on students alone to gather exactly how bad the facilities have become, and I cannot say that us, as professors, can give a credible opinion on what it is like for them," she pointed her wand down at the pile, the letters returning back into the bag.
At this, Professor Snape spoke up.
"So what exactly are you proposing, Minerva?" he smirked, his voice reeking with sarcasm.
"One of us enroll as a student and see it from their point of view?"
The other professors looked from Snape to McGonagall in curiosity rather than skepticism and found to their surprise, that she was beaming at Snape.
"Why, Severus! That's exactly what I was proposing!"
She gazed around at the rest of the administration and her jubilant faded to a look of annoyance at the reactions she perceived.
Snape was staring at her sideways, his eyes narrowed in suspicion; Professor Sprout had a look of disbelief on her face; Flitwick was hopping up and down in his seat to get a better look at her; Lupin was watching her, a polite look on his face, though his eyebrows were raised in question. All in all, her colleagues were stunned at her proposition, all that is, except Dumbledore who simply smiled and twiddled his fingers.
"How exactly do you plan to do this, Minerva?" he asked pleasantly.
A bit more confident seeing that the headmaster seemed to be accepting of her proposal, she explained.
"It's really quite simple, actually. All we do is take a Reversing-Aging potion, which," she paused to look over at Snape. "I assume, our….delightful…. Potions master will concoct for us…" she looked away, clearing her throat at the particularly malicious look he gave her, "And then use a time turner so we can both attend classes and teach them. I have taken the liberty of requesting permission from the ministry for this already, and they have accepted."
Some of her colleagues nodded slowly at this idea, though Professor Sprout voiced her question. "Which one of us, exactly, is going to participate in this?"
"Two actually," replied the Transfiguration professor, "And, I was hoping," at this, she sent a rare, warm, and pleasant smile around the room, "That two amiable… daring… and charming professors would volunteer for this."
Her expression soon fell as the room was devoid of any hand raising or remarks such as, "I'll volunteer."
Her eyes narrowed dangerously and she muttered, "I see…"
Her gaze swept around the room and she randomly selected two professors.
"Severus, Remus, both of you will take this assignment."
Their mouths dropped open, astonished that she would have the nerve to just put them on the spot like that.
In answer to their protests, Dumbledore quietly spoke out, "Twenty galleon bonus on your next salary for the extra work."
They both silenced after this and Professor McGonagall beamed at Dumbledore.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
After the meeting, both Snape and Lupin were having second thoughts about their agreement. They both walked in silence toward the professors' chamber, each with his own thoughts upon the matter.
As they climbed up a staircase, Remus glanced over at Severus and remarked, "Do you think it odd, that we'll each be in students in our own classes?"
Snape looked at Remus, an eyebrow raised at his inquiry.
"Now that you mention it, I suppose so… That was not one of my immediate thoughts on the subject."
Remus shrugged good-naturedly and glanced up at the winding staircase above him of which he was escalating.
"What about your name?" he asked again, as they walked down the hallway.
"Name..?" responded Severus, looking at his colleague questioningly.
"Yes, well, we can't very well go around calling ourselves Remus Lupin and Severus Snape!" he exclaimed, as if it where the most obvious thing in the world.
"I was thinking of Phillip Lycan."
Severus raised his eyebrows but did not let out a chuckle of amusement in recognition of the last name.
"I really don't know, Lupin… The thought hadn't crossed my mind."
Remus looked at him carefully for a moment as they turned a corridor.
"What about Charles Brewer?"
At this, Snape stopped in his tracks and stared at Remus.
Sighing, he rubbed his eyes.
"If it will please, you, Remus, fine." He shook his head as he turned and entered his chambers. Remus smiled to himself, knowing the discomfort he caused to the disagreeable potions master and went on down the hallway until he reached his own quarters.
A few minutes later, Snape shook his head and allowed himself a low chuckle as he shut his eyes to go to sleep. "Charles Brewer and Phillip Lycan…"
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Don't walk so straight, slow down and slouch a bit more – And for heaven's sake, don't look so surly!!"
Snape/Charles scowled at the younger image of Remus Lupin. They were on their way to Transfiguration and were trying to get used to their younger, sixteen year old selves. They weren't in too good a mood as they had gotten lost trying to find the right staircase until they had found out that Peeves had been switching them around.
Remus/Phillip had the same pale grey eyes that expressed his warm and sensitive nature. His hair color had been changed, of course, to help prevent recognition. Remus now had golden-brown colored hair that occasionally fell over his eyes in strands. He, of course, was devoid of the tired look he always seemed to be carrying with him, though his eyes still carried not quite age, but something more like wisdom and maturity. He was a bit on the lean side, though not gangly and was taller than average, though not quite as tall as the Weasley boys had been at that age.
Severus had the same dark brown, almost black eyes, and a dark brown hair color which was shorter and a little easier to take care of, as he couldn't go around with the greasy hair that was his trademark. After a lot of hassles and arguments, Snape had finally agreed to wash his hair twice daily to reduce its natural oily look and to comb it frequently between classes. Remus was there to make sure of this, of course. He was not quite as tall as Remus, but was a bit more muscular than his companion and a slightly bulkier.
"Don't forget Re- Err…Phillip," Severus corrected himself. "We're exchange students from Norkten and we're only staying temporarily until the boys' dormitories have been successfully restored."
Remus nodded in annoyance, "Yes, yes, I know.. But won't you think the students would be suspicious of this, as we're the only ones from there? And comb your hair!"
"For goodness sakes, they're kids...Phillip," he scowled and pulled out a comb, hastily running it through his hair. "They won't suspect any—ARGGHH!"
Severus never got to finish his sentence, for at that moment, Peeves had decided to drop two large water balloons on both of them.
Giggling like a madman, he blew a raspberry at them, did a somersault and flew away cackling.
Remus sighed and quickly performed a quick drying charm on himself after much cursing on Severus' part.
"Now I see why those infernal kids complain about that wretched poltergeist," the young Potions Master spat out, performing another drying charm himself.
"We're late," Remus muttered and the two ran down the hallway.
Hermione and Sarah each looked up as two young men they had never seen before came bursting in, out of breath.
Hermione had remained more or less the same as she had in her fourth year, though she had, naturally, developed more curves and had found a quick, yet effective charm to straighten her hair.
Sarah was a Spanish girl who came from the west, the United States was the rumor, despite her heritage. She had a mild western accent and had brown-coppery eyes and brown hair a few shades darker. Coming from the south, she had a light tan. She had been placed in Slytherin, though she had a nice personality and held no prejudices against the other houses, if you didn't count thinking of Hufflepuff as a bit slow.
"Who are they?" she whispered to Hermione who shrugged and whispered back.
"I don't know…but they look awfully familiar," she tilted her head.
"Familiar or not, the one on the right is pretty good-looking," she grinned.
Sarah was referring to Snape, or rather, Charles Brewer who was looking a bit sour now as he surveyed the class.
"Say what you want," Hermione responded quietly. "I like the other one," she raised a hand to her mouth to cover up what was might have been a giggle. Remus looked in her direction upon hearing the noise and she quickly stopped.
Lowering her hand and coughing to save herself, she scolded herself for thinking such things about a boy she had never even met.
Despite her self-lecture, she couldn't help but think, Really, though, it's nice to have a fellow female for a friend whom you can talk to about things like this. Boys…well, boys are boys, I suppose.
Sarah's attention, however, had moved from Severus and was now turned upon her transfiguration professor whom, rather than looking annoyed, seemed to be fighting a look of amusement. The corners of her lip were twitching and she picked up her roster and pointed at the empty desk in front of the girls.
"Phillip Lycan and… Charles Brewer, I presume?" she raised her eyes back to Remus and Severus who each nodded and walked over to the desk and sat down.
"Phillip and Charles," muttered Sarah, quietly enough so only Hermione could hear.
"I wonder which is which," she replied thoughtfully.
_ _ _
Remus and Severus' P.O.V.
Remus leaned over to Severus and muttered, "What do you think they're giggling at…?"
"I haven't a clue," he mumbled, his gaze on McGonagall as she expertly avoided their gaze and went on, explaining and demonstrating how one would go about determining colors and details of the product after turning an inanimate object into an animal.
After narrowing his eyes a little as his heightened senses picked up more hushed whispering, Remus looked down, spotting a quill rolling right in between him and Severus.
Glancing up at Severus who glanced down then back up to the transfiguration professor, he bent down and picked it up.
He turned around, meeting Hermione Granger's eyes and froze a moment, thinking it odd to be looking at her from this perspective, as a fellow student, and not a professor.
She smiled and took the quill, mouthing a silent, "Thank you."
He turned around in time to see Severus' amused expression and looked away, annoyed somewhat by the muffled giggles behind him.
"Hernandez, Granger!" snapped Professor McGonagall, mispronouncing "Hernandez" so it sounded more like, "Hernahdes". "Have you anything you would like to share with the class?"
They were vaguely aware of them moving their heads quickly in back of them.
"Then do be quiet, unless of course, what you were saying is that you would like to have an extra workload of homework this week," she went on, giving the girls one of her famous over-the-lens glares.
Impressed, Severus raised his eyebrows and muttered, "Not bad..not too bad…"
"Sev- Brewer!" the professor stammered out. "I do realize that you and…" she checked her roster again, "Lycan," she raised a hand to her mouth as if to recover herself, though Remus and Severus both knew what she was disguising, "Are new, but the rules apply to you as much as the others." With that she turned around and the bell rang just then, but not before "Charles" and "Phillip" saw the twinkle of amusement in her eyes.
"Your homework is to read through chapter twelve and write a fifteen-inch long essay on the importance of visualizing your product before transfiguring it. To be turned in Friday, no excuses and any writing that I consider to be miniscule will be done over, twice as long."
Remus and Severus took their time in gathering their belongings and the Remus went on ahead of him to avoid Hermione and Sarah who were looking as if they wanted to tail him.
After the students left, Severus took his time walking by McGonagall and muttered, "Not too shabby, Minerva…"
She turned to glance at him and if he had not known better, he would have sworn she gave him a small wink.