YAY! Only one week to go before book 5 comes out… *does a happy dance*

Hmm, I completely forgot to mention where the quote above the last chapter came from. It was from the excellent book "Oz; into the wild" from a writer who's name I can't remember, and it was about Oz, the werewolf from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I figured that it was an appropriate quote to put at the beginning of a chapter about the full moon…

This chapter has sneering!Snape in it! Yay!

October 1993.

"Professor Snape, the Potions master, was staring along the staff table at Professor Lupin."

Remus opened his eyes drowsily, his eyelids still heavy with sleep. He slowly lifted his head from his pillow and looked at the window, the only source of light in the room. To his surprise, a blue-eyed beauty was smiling back at him. Huh?

"Huh?" he said intelligently.

"Goodmorning," she whispered back. "Have you slept well?"

"Euh, okay, I guess…"  He blinked a few times and ran his hand through his hair. He couldn't help but notice that it was standing right up in the messy fashion that was so typical for early mornings, before one has seen a mirror. "Uhm… what are you doing here?" He paused for a moment, then added "in my bed?"

"Keeping you company, of course," she said, as if it was completely logical.

"Ah, right." He thought about this for a few minutes. If this was some kind of joke somebody played on him, it certainly wasn't an unpleasant one. Who would play such a joke on him anyway? But it was still a mystery… oh well.

He shrugged the questions off and rolled on his back. She – whoever she was – took immediate advantage of this and laid her head on his chest. Comfortable.

"What are you going to do today?" she asked.

"Hmmm, teaching, as usual," he replied sleepily. It felt nice, having her here. "And there's a staffmeeting this afternoon." He sighed. "With Snape, unfortunately."

"Can't you just say you're ill or something?" she suggested.

"Why?"

"So you can stay in bed, have a lie-in. Maybe do something else…" she ended seductively.

He laughed. "That isn't a bad idea indeed." He pulled her closer and she changed into a pillow. Huh?

Realisation came with a clock. A huge grandfatherclock just outside Remus' door struck six o'clock in the morning, and the echoing strikes woke him up completely. It hadn't been real, it had all been – ow that's just gross.

He tossed the pillow to the other end of the room. This was no doubt the worst way to wake up: a mindsplintering headache, muscles that seem to live their own lives, a staffmeeting coming up, which meant being in one room with the person Remus hated the most (well, apart from Sirius, naturally) for more than two hours, and to top it all hallucinations of Witch Miss England in his bed. Yuck.

Not that I don't want her in my bed, he was talking to himself while somehow getting out of bed without falling on the ground, after all, I'm not lacking anything in the hormonal field. But it's just – He stared in the mirror.

It's just what? his messy reflection wondered.

"It's just that I need a comb and a cup of coffee, else I´ll kill someone. How about Snape?"

Excellent suggestion.

I thought so.

~*~

Coffee, coffee, my kingdom for some coffee… The words danced through his head and sang childishly. Remus waded through the students walking up the Marble Staircase to the Great Hall for breakfast.

"Goodmorning professor Lupin," several of them greeted him. He even managed to greet back, a tired "goodmorning".

"Our first match's against Slytherin," Harry was telling Ron. Although he was at the bottom of the stairs, and Remus almost at the top, he could hear every word.

"But Malfoy´s arm…" the redhead protested. "I mean, the way he's been acting the past days…"

"C´mon, it's almost a month away," Harry stayed positive. "He won't let his arm keep him from playing Quidditch, you think?"

Remus couldn't hear any more because the sea of students forced him into the Great Hall. He made his way to his seat, ignoring the Slytherins who were making fun of his tired appearance (he could hear them even though they were thinking they were whispering).

"Remus," Dumbledore greeted him. The old man was sitting on his throne-like chair, enjoying breakfast. "Have you had a good night sleep?"

"A night sleep, but a good one?" Remus replied, sitting down and forcing his arm to take his breakfast and put it in his mouth.

"What's the matter, Lupin?" Snape hissed. "Bad dreams? Monsters under your bed – oh no, I forgot. You are the Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers. You are – qualified to get rid of, shall we say, children's fears?"

Remus ignored him, ignored the sniggers from Slytherin table – why do we have to sit so close to them? – ignored everything and everybody and concentrated on eating his breakfast, the taste of his coffee, the sound of his students packing their things and walking to his classroom, the feeling of his own feet on the staircase, his fingers opening his books, his voice informing children how to deal with a zombie, the question of a student. He concentrated on living through the day.

~*~

Dumbledore tapped his fingers on the table and the assembled teachers silenced. Remus was sitting between professors Vector and Sprout, and opposite Binns. It was a bit unnerving at first, to be able to see right through the ghostly professor, but Remus found out you get used to it pretty quickly. At least Binns never blocked the light when he was sitting in front of a window…

Remus had also found out that professor Sprout was drying flowers in her agenda. When she'd leafed through it to find the right page, his nose had caught the particular and familiar scent of lavender, a strong, somewhat sweet smell. A quick glance to his left told him that he was right: he saw small, purplish flowers, pressed between the 8th and 9th of September.

"Smells nice," he had commented. Judging from the way she slammed her agenda shut, he had surprised her.

"Oh, just a hobby of mine," she said, blushing a bit.

"Do you have other flowers, or herbs, in it?" he asked, trying to keep the conversation going.

"Yes," she answered. "Here're roses – " on December 15th and 16th "- Daisies – " on January 8th and 9th "- and mint." She held up the pages of march 31st and April first. "You smell it?"

"Yes, I do." He didn't even needed to bow his head towards the tattered little book. He was almost wishing he hadn't asked – the scent was a bit too strong for his liking.

On his right hand there was professor Vector, almost in every way the opposite of professor Sprout. While Sprout was short and somewhat plump, Vector was tall and almost skinny. He was precise and organised in every part of her life, from the way she dressed – matching colours, polished shoes, neatly combed hair – to the way she organised her lessons. No flowers in her agenda, but countless diagrams, mathematical calculations, illegible numbers. It was obvious that her passion was Arithmancy.   

"I would like to open this meeting," Dumbledore said. "It's October the first, 1993." An enchanted feather started scribbling down everything the Headmaster said. "Are there any announcements or questions before we begin?"

Madame Hooch, the flying instructor raised her hand. "I have a question. There's a Quidditch match in four weeks. What about the Dementors? Are they going to guard the field or what?"

"As I have said many times before, the Dementors are not allowed on the grounds," answered Dumbledore. "Having them here at Hogwarts is trouble enough as it is, and I don't want them stalking around and frightening the students." Everybody in the room shifted uncomfortably in their chairs; the Azkaban guards gave everybody the creeps.

"Any more questions?" Nobody reacted. "Good. We will discuss individual students later, first I would like to talk about the lessons. Any comments on that or are things just going perfectly fine?"

"Uhm, no, actually not," Remus said. Snape, who had been writing something on a sheet of parchment, immediately looked up. His eyes were shining maliciously.

"You see, the problem is that all the students are horribly behind when it comes to the Dark Arts." Remus saw Snape looking at him, and he added: "all except the Slytherins of course."

Dumbledore ignored this and the smirk that was creeping up Snape's face. "Do you have any idea why?"

"Well, I asked them what they'd learned last year, and the answer was: practically nothing. From what I've heard, Gilderoy Lockhart had quite a peculiar way of teaching."

"Indeed, that's the right way to say it," sneered Snape. "Quite peculiar. But I was under the impression that you were using quite peculiar methods yourself."

"Only when it leads to an increase of knowledge, and I have not seen such with my students," Remus bit back. "When I told them you need to give a Zombie salt to get rid of it, they were utterly amazed. And that is first years theory!"

Dumbledore raised his hand to get attention. "How bad is the damage? You think you can drag them up to the required level?"

"I'm already working on it," Remus answered truthfully, "but I'm not really sure if I can fix the 'damage', as you call it, completely."

"I understand," the Headmaster said, meanwhile watching the quill write Remus' words down. "Do try the best you can." Remus assured him he would try the best he could.

"Now," Dumbledore continued. "Anything else troubling you? Severus?" Snape's head jerked upwards again. "What?"

"Is there anything you would like to say?"

"Not at all, Headmaster."

"Perfect," the silverhaired wizard said cheerfully. "We'll continue with the students then. They've all behaved like good children the past weeks, so this will be short, no doubt. Who are we going to discuss?"

"The Weasley twins!" everybody said simultaneously, followed with laughter.

"We seem to agree about them," chuckled Dumbledore. "Are they really that horrible?"

"Albus, do not make me start," sighed McGonagall. "If you want a detailed report on them, I suggest you go and talk to Argus Filch, he's got a complete file on them."

"I´ll do that then," Dumbledore said, and the quill wrote it down. "Anyone else?"

"Draco Malfoy," said McGonagall to everybody's surprise. "How is he, Severus?" Hagrid, who had been looking at his hands for much of the meeting, now looked up. Snape sat upright looking important, and the look on his face irritated Remus to no end. No doubt Snape was aware of this.

"He's doing reasonably fine," the Potion Master said, "if you keep in mind that he has been attacked by a hippogriff. Prospects are that he will be able to use his arm again in a couple of weeks."

"And the Quidditch match?" Remus couldn't help but ask. Snape looked at him with narrowed eyes. "What about it, Lupin?"

"Mr Potter was wondering if the Quidditch match would be continued, now the Slytherin Seeker is injured," Remus explained shortly. 

"I won't worry about that, Lupin," Snape replied coolly. "And as for Mr Potter – " 

"The stars informed me that this match will end differently than expected," the dreamy voice of Trelawney suddenly cut in. All the professors stared at her, and she looked back innocently.

"What?" Flitwick finally said. 

"I was consulting the stars yesterdayevening," Trelawney said, "and they informed me that the coming Quidditch match will end different than expected."

"Yes, thank you, Sybil," McGonagall said rather harshly. "We were talking about Mr Malfoy. Severus?"

"As I was saying," Snape said with his rather nasal voice, "the healing of Mr Malfoy will only be a matter of weeks. As for Mr Potter and his inquiries; I would advise him to keep his nose in his own business and let the Captain of Gryffindor Team handle this kind of matters."

"He was just curious if the match would be played, that's all," Remus said irritated. Leave it to Snape to blow trivial things out of proportion and blame it all on Harry.

"Yes, Mr Potter has a habit of being curious, and most of all of trying to find it out himself," Snap sneered. "Pity for him that this means he often finds himself in the most troublesome situations. Apparently the similarities between the Potters go beyond mere appearance..." The meaningful glare in Remus' direction made his blood boil.

"You know what, Severus," he hissed back. "Why don't you get lost and buy yourself a new handbag, because the one I saw you wearing a few weeks ago was horribly old-fashioned."

Everybody struggled to keep a straight face while Snape was looking daggers at Remus. The latter was looking innocently as if he had no idea what was wrong about his comment. Inwardly, he was laughing his head off as he saw Snape twisting his sallow face and baring his yellowish teeth as if he was a dog, ready to bite his enemy. Before he could make a sarcastic reply, Dumbledore cut in: "may I ask you to exchange fashion advises later? We don't have that much time, you see."

"I'm sorry," Remus apologised. Snape merely nodded angrily. Dumbledore continued the staff meeting as if nothing had happened, but when Remus glanced at him, he wasn't that surprised to see an amused twinkle in the Headmaster's eyes…