A week later Severus Snape was seated at his desk, which was once more covered with colorful pamphlets, this time for various careers in the wizarding world. "Have you given any thought to your future beyond the walls of Hogwarts, Miss Stuart ?"

"I'd really like to go into Potions work, Professor. I'm not sure yet whether I'd prefer to work at a hospital or an apothecary, or as a teacher."

"A teacher ? Of Potions ?" Snape raised a skeptical eyebrow.

Veronica squirmed. "Um, yes, sir. I... I rather like children," she mumbled.

"You like children," Snape repeated slowly. His voice was heavy with sarcasm. "In that case, Miss Stuart, may I suggest that you dispense with higher education entirely ? If you're so fond of children, simply marry and spawn a brood of your own."

"I was under the impression that in the twenty-first century, a woman could do both. Sir."

She wore that expression he disliked so much, perfectly serious, yet there was an air of holding back laughter. Laughter at his expense. Snape decided to concede that one point. "You'd be taking the same courses in your sixth and seventh year, regardless of whether your ultimate goal was medicine or academia. For Advanced Potions, of course, I require no less than an Outstanding grade at the Ordinary Wizarding Level. High marks are also required in Herbology and Arithmancy." Snape paused to glance over Veronica's grades, consulting a musty-smelling scroll in addition to the slim stack of fresh parchments provided by the other professors. "You've kept your marks up in both subjects, in this century," he remarked with a smirk, causing the girl to giggle. "It shouldn't surprise you that competancy in Defense Against the Dark Arts is also a necessity. One needs to know one's remedies and antidotes," he pointed out.

"How about Astromony ?"

"Absolutely. As you already know, the correct phase of the moon is key to the success of many potions. More advanced potion brewing often requires that complex astrological equations be taken into account. Professor Sinistra accepts only those students who've earned an E or higher on their O.W.L.s," Snape added severely. "I take it you've been studying diligently ?" He knew she had. Despite the recent Easter holiday with its accompanying fine weather, she was pale, evidence that she'd spent many more hours in the library or the Slytherin dungeon common room rather than out of doors in the fresh air. All his fifth-years had that same pallor, and the seventh-years studying for their N.E.W.T.s.

Veronica looked determined. "I will repay my debt to you, Professor Snape," she said fervently.

He nodded curtly, secretly pleased with her decision to follow in his own chosen career path. "If you have no further questions then, Miss Stuart, I'll let you get back to your studies."

"There is one more thing, Professor, if you have time ?"

Snape glanced at the clock. "Miss Gaunt is not due for her career counseling appointment for another twenty minutes." Veronica rummaged in the bookbag at her feet and produced a grubby piece of parchment. As Severus Snape took it from her saw that it was a Hogsmeade permission form, heavily creased. She'd obviously been carrying it around in her satchel for some time.

"It's the last Hogsmeade weekend of the term, sir. I need a parent or... or legal guardian's signature," she stammered as he scowled at her. "I've been studying very hard, Professor. I'd really like to go, just for an hour or two."

His eyes flicked back to the record of her grades. "You continue to have difficulty in Transfiguration, I see." His class and McGonagall's were the only classes in which the child was not earning top marks.

"I've been working really hard to improve, sir."

With a menacing glare at her and a sharp tug at his sleeve, Snape jerked a button off the cuff and flung it onto the desk between them. "Prove it," he snapped. He'd seen her struggle to turn beetles into buttons; transfiguring a button into a beetle was, arguably, even more difficult. Veronica drew her wand. Leaning forward in her chair, her eyebrows drew down as she frowned in concentration. Murmuring the spell, she tapped the button lightly, then jumped back with a shriek as a large black beetle scuttled towards her. Snape laughed at her surprise. "Not really expecting that to work, were you ?" He corralled the bug, caging it between his fingers. "Now turn it back," he ordered her. With more confidence this time, she complied. Snape reattached the button to his cuff. "Reparo. Very well," he sighed as he scrawled his signature on the permission form. "Just don't overindulge in butterbeer. And if I catch you bringing back dungbombs or any of that other foolishness from Zonko's joke shop," he imbued the words with contempt, "you will find yourself serving detention."

"Oh, no sir. Thank you, Professor." Still she lingered, turning the permission slip in her hands.

"Was there something more you wished to discuss, Miss Stuart ?"

"You were right about my parents," she said abruptly. Snape cocked his head, bemused. "When I told you no one had ever loved me," Veronica elaborated. "You argued that my parents had. I didn't believe it at the time. They never showed much affection." Snape shuffled her grades to one side, waiting for the child to make her point. "I had five brothers, Professor, none of whom lived to see their first birthday."

"Infant mortality rates were high back in those days, even among wizards."

"I know it was a great disappointment to my father, not to have an heir. He probably wanted nothing more for me than to make a good marriage," she explained, "but instead he agreed to send me to Hogwarts for an education. Something I'm sure he felt I had absolutely no use for," Veronica said wryly. Snape looked away, remembering his earlier comment. "Anyway, Professor, thinking back on it now, I have to agree with you that my parents did love me, very much. They just weren't able to show it in conventional ways." Her hand slipped across the desk between them. Snape felt her small fingers close over his, briefly. The potions master started to jerk his hand away, but she had already folded hers demurely in her lap again. "It's odd, sir. I'd forgotten so much, over the years I existed as a portrait. It all came back for a while, after you brought me back to life." She smiled at him, that quick smile that lit up her face. "The longer I live in this century, though, the harder it is for me to remember the girl I was in the sixteenth century. It's all starting to fade away. When I think of my father, I can't picture his face any longer. Actually, Professor, when I try, the face I see... is yours."

Veronica jumped up, gathering her books to her chest with a nervous little laugh. "Oh well. I just wanted to tell you that you were right, before I forgot about it completely. Good day, Professor Snape, and thank you for signing the permission slip." Before the dumbfounded Snape could begin to frame a reply, she'd darted from the office.