A/N I Took out the epilogue, it sounded too OOC, and would not end the way it should, so I modified the Epilogue into this to have a totally different chapter ending….of course, this would not be the last chapter.
Sorry this took so long (since last year!) I had some personal problems to settle, but what the heck. Enjoy the show!
Evaluation
Chapter Seven
By Astral Fou-lu
Disclaimer: I do still WANT to own Severus Snape. Can somebody buy his rights and manufacture a plushie of him!? GWAAAAH! Put in Professor Remus Lupin too!
Severus winced at the memory of himself telling that Black was desirable enough to be kissed. He felt disgusted enough to feel his face contort as if he smelled a rotting corpse left alone for two months.
For the rest of the school year Severus Snape never did again make any attempts on fulfilling the evaluation criterias; not when he realized that it was going to be so much trouble.
And whether Dumbledore decided to base his judgement pertaining to his status as a professor on the student's evaluation or not, it was out of his hands. Snape may very well pass off to be an Auror, but that was not going to happen easily; he was a double agent himself, and nobody but Dumbledore was certain on whose side he was.
Oh yes, he returned to his usual methods; slicing points off by chunks, and for once even Slytherin wasn't spared. He had somehow realized that if he was going to be unpopular in three houses, one house isn't going to make any difference.
Severus Snape was becoming more fatalistic towards his job by the minute, undoing the painstaking work he had done for a week for the rest of the period before the school year ended.
He had made Pansy Parkinson cry; she had expected him to side with her because Hermione all-too surreptitiously poured Parkinson's potion onto her lap; fortunately it had been a cold potion. Snape however had made /Parkinson/ clean up the mess instead of Hermione, obviously never bothering to find out who did the prank. Pansy tried to explain herself and Hermione's part, but Snape waved it off as a poor excuse of an excuse.
Neville Longbottom was not spared of the deluge of plague that poured forth from the Potions master. He was made to sweep the entire floor of the dungeons and when Snape found him missing a spot, he had promptly poured a cauldronful of muck for him to sweep off again. The cruel game lasted until breakfast, when Snape had been forced by McGonagall to release the poor boy who was already shaking with fatigue.
He confiscated Ron Weasley's wand for a whole day after he had accidentally knocked one of his empty potion flasks while the poor boy had so foolishly performed a poorly practiced Summoning Charm on one of the required ingredients. Ron hadn't got hold of his wand before Snape promptly broke it into two; promising Ron that he will restore it if he passed one of his tests PERFECTLY (impossible, really), or he could buy himself a new one. And the 'slimy git' knew that the Weasleys usually cannot afford new things.
He all-too-satisfyingly kicked a large black dog that came from Dumbledore's office while passing through the corridors.
He was whistling after that.
And finally, but not the least of his wrath, he ungracefully punched Remus Lupin in the face when he found out that Lupin was betting with Hagrid if ever Severus would pass through the evaluation; Lupin had been betting on Snape losing.
The whole of the campus was faced with a Snape undiluted, 100 percent increased strength concentrate.
Alas, they don't know what ingredient will water down his fury. And they will NEVER know.
The day of the evaluations have arrived. Severus Snape was explaining the properties of stardust when Remus Lupin, with a bandage on his cheek, went in and requested that Snape go out of the classroom for a while.
"And WHY, pray tell?" he snarled.
Because of the punch Severus gave him, Remus didn't even bother to grin. The Advanced Double Potions class felt the tenstion running through the two professors. Zinfandel and Tzigane were betting that they would engage in fisticuffs yet again, and Zinfandel won; they never did, she knew that the tension drew Severus' strings too tightly enough to make him tired and drawn out ("Awww," moaned Tzigane). The Potions master quietly walked out, giving Lupin a strong shove out of his way as he passed.
"Is this the reason why he's so out of himself lately?" Zinfandel murmured.
"Teachers evaluations. But I don't buy the reason why the hell Snape goes out of lengths to actually change his stance towards the Gryffindors and us," Blaise Zabini, from Zinfandel's right, drawled. "It's pure crapola. By the way, you better talk about your apprenticeship in dueling with him. You mentioned that he's messed up your sched?"
"Ya," Tzigane piped in for Zinfandel. "Well, it all adds up. Neville being hugged by Snape?" Tzigane promptly shuddered, joined in by Blaise.
"He better shape up, or I lose in my match against Beauxbatons."
Oblivious to the little conversation between the two Slytherins and a Gryffindor, Remus only grumbled but put on his smile as soon as he passed on the evaluation sheets. "Now now, kids," he said placatingly, "Don't you be too biased, hmm? Be fair. No erasures, now."
The students did not miss the strained, forced tone on Remus' behalf.
Remus Lupin thought with all his heart that even if the students were fair in evaluating Snape, one would accurately divine the results, and he need not expound on that.
Severus Snape had taken sleeping on the teacher's desk as a habit of his ever since the teacher's evaluation disaster started. His face plastered on the surface of the mahogany desk, one would think that his face had melded with the varnish, if it were not for the shallow breathing and snoring that indicated his state.
The door to the dungeon classroom suddenly creaked open, and Snape snapped to an upright position.
"What the-? Miss Highwind, what are you doing here?"
Zinfandel walked towards him slowly, her face pensive. "Professor, if you may, I suggest that you relax."
"And you came all the way down here just to say that?"
Zinfandel shook her head, her face betraying her irritated and anxious state. It so happened that Snape had missed many seesions with her that should have been spent teaching and polishing her dueling. Now she was thinking that either Professor Snape shape up, or she would transfer her apprenticeship from Snape to Lupin, an adept dueler as well. "Eh? You know what I mean!" Zinfandel said, her voice almost into a whining pitch. "You keep missing our sessions for what--? Five meetings already? And is it just because of the evaluations?"
Severus Snape raised his hands and sighed audibly, every inch of his stone cold, sharp wit having left him. "Not just any evaluation, Miss Highwind," he snapped, but his face betrayed his tired state. "My job--no, my life-is at stake here."
Zinfandel raised an eyebrow. "I don't believe it. The headmaster wouldn't..."
Snape shoved the memorandum informing him of the Evaluation into Zinfandel's arms. "Then you read it!" Snape barked at her, causing the black-haired girl to jump slightly.
Eyebrows furrowing as she skimmed the parchment, she rolled it afterwards and gave it back to it's owner.
"Well, you don't buy that, do you?"
Silence told her that Snape said, 'What do you mean?'
"I mean," Zinfandel continued, words slowly drawn out of her as she thought over them, "that this is pure hokum. This is just evaluating your teaching methods, Professor Snape. I already had them in my years of my muggle education, and all of the teachers we were angry with and graded abysmally, were never actually kicked out of the school."
Snape hung on to every word, which gave her a clue leading her to ask an important question.
"Professor, this is your first time being evaluated?"
The answer was a simple "Yes."
Zinfandel smiled.
"That explains why you act like a newbie, then," Zinfandel chuckled. "I wish you didn't fall for that. It's the thing with memorandums, see. They are so formal, they sound as if they should be understood literally. Think of it this way, Professor, the serious tone in the memorandum is simply to jumpstart to people into moving in a certain direction."
"So you are saying that this Evaluation business is normal but not really detrimental to the careers of the faculty?" Snape asked, almost idiotic with almost-relief.
"Detrimental? You make it sound so negative (though with your case, I'm not surprised) Professor. It is just a guideline where you could improve yourself."
"I wish I could believe you, Miss Zinfandel, but I could just not miss the postcript of the memorandum. It says here that our payrolls will be affected."
"Well, it did not say what aspect of the payroll, Professor."
A new day, and a new beginning.
"Payback," Snape murmured, a pristine smile pasted onto his face which had too much share of frowns.
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