After an interminable length of time, the rehearsal finally ended. The cast and directors wearily headed to the Great Hall for dinner. Only Ginny seemed in good spirits. She had spent the evening watching everybody else make fools of them while she stayed behind the safety of the piano.

When they reached the Great Hall, the students began to separate to their different tables, and the two directors went forward to the head table. Everyone in the Hall seemed much worn out. The 7th years from Gryffindor were putting on a Transfiguration Parade for the pageant, and a few of them were still sporting feathers and extra limbs.

Ginny regretted her distraction a moment later when she realized most of the seats at the Gryffindor table were taken up, except for a few down by.

"Ginny, Ginny, come sit by me!" Colin Creve shouted, even though she was only a few feet away. Colin seemed to have a bit of a crush on her which made her very uncomfortable, but she couldn't see being meant to him. She threw a pleading look down to Harry, Ron, and Hermione, but they were too caught up in the misery of the day to pay any attention to her.

"Hey, Colin," smiled Ginny, "How's your play going?"

"Oh, good, good," said Colin, "I get to play Goodrich Gryffindor, you know!" There was a distinct note of pride in his voice.

Ginny did know, that was one of the reasons she didn't want to be in "Hogwarts: A History Comes Alive." First of all, it was an incredibly stupid show, but also, she had been cast as Rowena Raven claw, the founder of Raven claw house, and also the woman who most people (including the play's authors) assumed to be Gryffindor true love. Ginny tended to look on that "true love among the houses" stuff as complete crap. She had a strong suspicion that the founding of Hogwarts had involved a lot of magic, hard work, and a lot of really intense boink-fests.

"How's your play going?" asked Colin.

"Well, it's..it's a bit ambitious, I think."

"That's putting it mildly," Snape said, passing behind her table on his way back from reprimanding some student.

Snape smiled as he saw the Weasley girl nearly jump out of her skin. Scaring the life out of students was one of his greatest pleasures. Besides the Wizard of Oz, of course.

He slowly made his way back up to the head table. Professor Trelawney had managed to take a seat right next to him, and had insisted on chattering on about every detail of this travesty of a play. Snape was really regretting that he hadn't managed to perfect his Mouth Sealing Solution yet. It would have done the trick, but it still had a few bugs. For one thing, it lasted for 24 hours. And for another, it was so potent that one touch on human skin caused a person's lips to seal shut instantly. The effect could be very distressing. But as Professor Trelawney continued on, he really did wish he had brought the potion. If she would just be quiet, then Snape could return to his usual daydream in which Dorothy gives him the ruby slippers before she goes back to Kansas.

"Sybill," Snape said suddenly as inspiration struck, "I have a question for you."

"Yes, Severus?" said Professor Trelawney, startled at the interruption of her monologue.

"I've been meaning to ask why so few of my students received large parts in the show. Only one Slytherin has a lead, and she is the villain." He thought this would shut her up. She obviously couldn't admit that she preferred the Gryffindors over the Slytherins. That would not be in her nature. She surprised him, however,

"Severus, as a performer, you must be aware of the aesthetic importance of a performance like this. You also must be aware that your group of students," her hand swept in the direction of the Slytherin table, "are the not the most aesthetically pleasing groups ever assembled."

Snape had never really considered the attractiveness of his students before. He looked at the Slytherin table, and there, as plain as day, he saw it all. The misaligned teeth that stuck out of almost all of their mouths, the crooked and oversized noses, the brow ridges that made most of his students, male and female, resemble a Neanderthal. And they all looked a bit inbred. Even Draco, who was supposed to be a handsome boy, was so self-assured and unctuous that he seemed to be covered in a layer of oil. By comparison, the Gryffindors looked like a table of models.

"I've always suspected," said Professor Trelawney, "That the Sorting Hat has a very strong sense of humor."

Snape simply put his head in his hands

A/N Sorry this chapter isn't as silly as the last, but I needed to set up some plot stuff before I could move on.