AN: I wasn't entirely sure that I liked the way the story was going, so I went back and changed some things before I posted. The way I had it written before made Seladine a little bit too cheerful for having just lost her mother. She's resilient, but not in denial.

----Chapter 9----

After a bit of the conversation had died down, it was time for the students to head to their dormitories for the night. They had their first classes the following morning and for the sixth year Gryffindors it promised to be torment. They had Potions first thing. Sela couldn't understand why they were all so glum looking as they left, until one of the other teachers muttered something about potions class. She wondered if she should follow the students or if she should just stay where she was so she chose the latter. If she was wrong someone would send her away, they always did. The professors started to go their separate ways and Sela hurried along and followed Severus down to the dungeons.

"Are there any mice?" Sela peered into a grate as if she were looking for any that might be hiding.

"No."

"Why not?"

"No doubt some vigilant Slytherin cat has decided to eat them all. Now do stop asking all these insipid questions." Severus hissed at her. Sela hissed back like a cat.

"Stop that." Severus growled.

"Why?"

"Don't you ever stop asking questions?" Severus snapped as he unwarded the door to his personal quarters.

"No. Why?" Sela asked, following him through the door.

"Now you're just doing that to annoy me." Severus grumbled as he lighted the place with a muttered spell. Sela looked around the place, she still wasn't familiar with it. There were books and papers all over the place. Not just in bookcases, but on tables, chairs and some were even in the corner of the room. There was also some odd contraptions tucked in here and there and Sela wouldn't swear to it, but she thought she saw a mouse in a jar.

"Of course. Why don't you like the Gryffindors?" she asked, examining a magnifying glass and effectively making her eye look thirty times bigger than it really was.

"Because they are pestilences, like you." Severus snapped, taking the magnifier from her and putting it on a shelf.

"I knew you liked me deep down." Sela said sarcastically as she climbed onto a chair. Vamptor was nosing around the stacks of books in the corner. Severus looked over at him.

"If you so much as THINK about doing anything to those, you can count yourself wingless." he snapped. He wasn't in a mood to have some hairy nuisance urinating on or clawing his books. Then again, Severus was rarely in that sort of mood. The cat looked at him and meowed loudly. Severus rolled his eyes, grabbed the cat and tossed him through a window. Sela stared at him. For a split second Severus cringed inside, he'd forgotten about her. Half expecting her to go stark raving mad he was surprised when Sela asked about the window.

"Where'd you get windows in a dungeon?"

"We're not IN the dungeon. Not now anyway. This is the floor above." Severus said as he stalked into a different room, hiding his relief at Sela's apparent lack of concern about the cat. He turned his thoughts to the problem at hand. She couldn't keep sleeping on the couch as she'd done the night before. He'd have to do something about it soon. Sela was annoying and asked far too many questions. Somehow though, she reminded him of himself.

Sela was staring through the window at the grass outside. It was dark and she couldn't see very far, but she was sure she could hear Vamptor sneaking around outside.

"Doesn't the water come in when it rains?" she asked when she heard Severus return.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because there is a spell on it. Are you in a wizarding school or not? Use your head, girl."

Sela looked appropriately chastised.

"So what do we do tomorrow? Do I have to stay here like a hermit?"

"I don't trust you to be in here without destroying something valuable." with that, Severus walked into his own room and closed the door. He had to get away from that child before he lost his mind! A little inquisitiveness was to be expected, but this child never stopped.

"Vamptor! When you're done out there you better come inside." Sela called out quietly and was answered with a mew from the cat. She walked over to the couch and flopped over onto it. Eventually, she was going to have to convince her father that she needed an actual bed. The couch wasn't bad, but it was annoying when one rolled off of it.

Even as Sela fell asleep, the Gryffindors were discussing her.

"So she's really Snape's kid?"

"She must have really bad karma." Parvati said, looking through her copy of Witch Weekly.

"Well, you know if Snape gives us too much trouble, we could always do something to her..." a second year mumbled.

"That's cruel!" Hermione said.

"It'd serve him right! Always taking away points for stupid things..." the boy sulked.

"Um...that might not be such a good idea, you know." Ron said hesitantly.

"Why not?"

"I found out from my mum over the summer that Snape has some sort of connection with the Draconic Order."

"You mean those weird foreigners who keep going on about how to stop You-Know-Who?"

"Yeah. Apparently, the greasy git's related to them somehow."

"So what're you sayin' Ron? That Snape'll sic them on us?"

Ron fidgeted. He didn't want to say it, but he'd have to.

"Mum said they put some sort of spell on their kids. You know, so that most really horrible stuff won't hurt them...she kinda did the same thing to us with this all-encompassing protection spell this summer." he mumbled, hoping they wouldn't hear him.

"You're joking. You're mum put a protection spell on you?"

Ron looked slightly embarrassed. Mostly protection spells were used with very young children to keep them from seriously hurting themselves. It was almost as bad as having a babysitter at the age of eighteen.

"You know what I heard? I heard that the kid is a vampire."

The group looked at the speaker, and were mildly shocked it was Neville.

"One of the new professors said that she had it reliably from the Headmaster himself. And she also said that Professor Snape was one too." Neville looked nervously at the window.

There was silence for a few moments, then Hermione snorted.

"You don't really believe that do you? I mean, if they were vampires, wouldn't they have attacked someone by now?"

"I guess you're right, Hermione, but I'm going to carry some stuff with me to keep them away." Neville said resolutely. With that, the conversation ended and everyone started drifting toward their dormitories. Some of them more apprehensive than others to go upstairs and sleep, fearing an attack in the night. Hermione shook her head.

"What?" Harry asked.

"They're just jumping to conclusions. No one can get in here without the password."

Harry shrugged and said goodnight, making his way up to the now familiar room where he and the other Gryffindor sixth years slept.