Disclaimer: They aren't mine. That's all you need to know. Or is it? I don't know. .... They aren't mine.

Quick Pre-Chapter Author's Note: Chapters one and three have been modified a bit due to Spanish Gal's corrections. I chose for Professor Silva to be from Argentina because of a children's soccer camp thing where my group was the Argentina group, so that particular country is special to me because of that. What was the problem with this? Nothing really. Except that they speak espan~ol a little bit differently down there. *pout* Languages are so difficult. Even non-English ones. Anyway, here is chapter three with the corrections!

1 The Half / He Lacks 2

Chapter Three: How the First Day Goes

The first day of classes did not go well for Snape, nor did it go well with any of his students. Because he had gotten so little sleep, he was grumpier and surlier than usual. The second through seventh years were accustomed to Snape's foulness and realized how foul a temper he was in, but the poor and inexperienced first years were given the impression that this was their Professor Snape on a regular day. To say the least, they were dreading the year's Potions lessons.

Even the Slytherins were wary of their Head of House. Draco Malfoy was smart enough not to open his thin-lipped mouth too much. Pansy Parkinson herself took a hint from Malfoy when she questioned him what had 'crawled up Professor Snape's arse' and he didn't reply.

The sixth year Gryffindors were only a little better off than the first years. Snape gave them all an extremely difficult potion to make before he locked himself away in the storage room to escape from the students and to maybe, possibly attain a bit more sleep.

But then that bloody, bumbling Longbottem boy had to go and forget to remove the veins from the fish eyes before mixing them with the rest of the potion. The first and very noticeable indication to the mistake was not the dust-bunny gray color the concoction turned but the vile odor seeping from the cauldron. The stink filled the entire dungeon and then began to work its way under the crack of the door leading to the storage room. Snape, who was at that moment just nodding off to sleep, was abruptly disturbed by the stench.

Before he knew it, he was banging about in the storage room belting out every foul word he knew. When he finally threw the door open, the sixth year Slytherins and Gryffindors were all staring at him wide-eyed.

"Fourty fucking points from Gryffindor! Now get out of my classroom!" he shouted even though at the time he did not know for a fact that it was Gryffindor at fault.

No one had to be told twice. Everyone grabbed his or her things and hurried to the door. But that rotten Neville Longbottem was still fumbling to put his parchment and quill away.

"You foolish boy!" Snape hissed down at him. "You miserable- I told you to get out!"

Neville leapt from his seat and ran out of the room, his parchment flapping after him like a banner.

Snape snapped out the spell to remove the potion from the cauldron, but the smell was still all throughout the room and would remain all throughout the room for weeks to come. Cursing under his breath, Snape wandered a sleepy path to his desk, sat in his chair, and laid his head upon his desk. The wood was cold, yet it felt nice after a few seconds. The smell really wasn't so bad if you just....

"¿Hola? ¿Profesor Snape? Sus estudiantes all just passed by la puerta de mi clase (the door of my room) in quite aprisa (hurry). Esta´ something wrong?"

Could no one leave him alone when he wanted to be left alone the most? Snape groaned and glared at the woman standing in his doorway. He had never seen her before, so he assumed she was one of the new teachers. He was too tired to remember her name. All he could remember was something about her being Spanish or whatever.

"¡Poooo! Smells like alguien (someone) screwed up su potion, no?" The woman covered her nose and mouth with the sleeve of her robes as she entered the dungeon. "¿Que´ esta´n ustedes (what are you all) making?"

Snape was still glaring at her. He did not respond.

"¿Que´?´" she asked, approaching his desk. She peered at him as he in turn glared up at her.

"Usted (You) no look like usted got any sleep, no?" She pointed at him and then outlined the bottom of her under eye to indicate her meaning, which he grasped easily enough.

"Sod off, Maria," he countered, giving her a gesture of his own.

Clearly the woman's name was not Maria because there was an intense moment in which she looked furious -and for good reason- but then she calmed herself, turned, and quietly left the room.

Snape glared after her. He fell asleep soon after.

*****

He didn't wake until later that evening when he heard the dungeon door shut. Slowly rubbing his eyes, he opened them to see a mound of cloth in front of him. He jolted to an upright position, his back and neck popping loudly. Wincing at his bubble wrap bones, Snape looked straight into the eyes of the owner of the mound and the cloth.

It was the woman from earlier. And she was sitting on his desk.

"What are you doing here?" Snape asked. There was very little malice in his voice, but this was only because he wasn't fully awake.

"Estoy aqui´ (I am here)," she began, "for su apology. I thought maybe usted had thought about lo que´ usted said, pero I veo (see) that you haven't been doing mucho (much of anything)."

"...What?" He had absolutely no idea what she was saying.

"Are you going to apologize or not?" she said slowly and distinctly. She didn't seem angry anymore. It was more as if she was just looking for some simple information, not an 'I'm sorry' for a stereotype insult.

"I'm sorry." He said it without thinking. He didn't know why he said it; he rarely if ever expressed regret for anything even if he was somehow I the wrong.

"I accept," she replied. Then she set a plate of food in front of him. "You missed la cena (dinner), so I brought algo (some) for usted."

Snape didn't say anything. His mind was already at work trying to figure out her motive for being nice to him.

"¿No tiene hambre?"

"What?"

"Lo siento (I'm sorry). You are, how you say, not hungry, ¿no?" She brushed a strand of hair out of her face, waiting for his response.

Snape didn't know how to react. She was a professor, so he did not want to be rude, but he wasn't known for being friendly or polite. To keep himself from saying anything he might regret, he filled his mouth with the meal she'd brought. This was a good enough answer to her question anyway.

They sat in silence, and Snape suddenly felt very aware of how loud he chewed. In the Great Hall, one could never hear the noises of food in the first stage of digestion. He ate almost meekly once his desperate hunger had subsided a bit. During this time the woman did not move from her perch on his desk, and he would have told her to remove herself from it if he weren't so busy concentrating on his manners.

When he had finished, she took his plate, hopped off his desk, and left the dungeon with a simple 'Hasta luego.'

For some time Snape remained seated at his desk at first wondering 'what the bloody hell' had just happened. Then he tried to analyze her motivations for being so... he didn't even know what she'd been. She hadn't smiled, hadn't been very polite. She'd been thoughtful and nice to bring his food, but why? It wasn't as if they knew each other. And why did she come back for an apology anyway? Well, he could sort of see why she wanted an apology, but she didn't seem to care if she received one. It was as if maybe she was just curious whether he would tell her that he was sorry or not.

The word 'why' continued to circle about Snape's thoughts even as he tidied his desk, as he readied for bed, as he fell asleep, as he took his bath a few hours later, and as he fell asleep again. He was always dissecting people's minds, determining what was motivating them, what they were thinking. Maybe if he could understand what the hell that blasted woman was saying, he could understand what was going on.

But even analytical intellects like Snape cannot always tell what a woman is thinking albeit they do understand her language.

~~~~~

Author's Note:

And there we have chapter three! I hope you all enjoyed it. I truly enjoyed writing it. I'm only a Spanish IV student, so please bear with me with the whole Spanglish deal. If you speak Spanish and notice any mistakes, please let me know. I'll try to fix them. Silva speaks to Snape formally. Usted is formal, this much I know. Haha

Also, I hope everything made sense, and I hope it wasn't corny. First meetings face-to-face are difficult to write without becoming lame. ^.^'' I hope it was funny if not credulous.

Please stick around for chapter four, and please leave as positive a review as you can. I'm a very insecure little girl, after all. *flutters eyelashes* Haha.