Professor Snape sat angrily marking papers in his office. Marking was his least favourite activity and he felt extremely annoyed this evening.
He had been after the position of teaching the 'Defence against the Dark Arts' class and had lost it yet again. To whom he had lost it made it all the more infuriating. An unqualified amateur!
He dipped his quill in the red ink and gave the essay in front of him a three out of ten.
After supper Hermione and Ron sat with Harry in the Gryffindor common room.
Hermione had got out her books as soon as they sat down as was now scrawling away while the boys played chess. Harry was losing to Ron, badly.
Hermione was still pondering Professor Summer's odd behaviour; even more odd was that panther of hers.
Magical animals were supposed to be smart but she thought that 'Spike' seemed a little too smart.
While they had been in their 'Defence against the dark Arts' lesson Professor Summers had sent her great cat to fetch a specific book for her.
It had scanned the tittles on the far shelf before selecting the correct one so it could apparently read!
She looked over her books and caught her friends' attention now. "Harry did you notice anything unusual about her panther?" "What do you mean?" he replied, not taking his eyes from the board. "I was watching it in class and I'm sure it rolled its eyes at Dawn." "So what?" Ron asked flatly. Hermione glared at him.
"Does it matter what kind of eye movements her cat makes?" Harry's voice was rather dead pan. "It's not just that, it read the book tittles for her too, remember? It's just …strange." "I'm sure it's nothing, perhaps she always has it fetch the same book or something." Harry reasoned.
Hermione only shrugged at this. Harry tried again, "I'm sure this time we have a good teacher, she's not a weird loner or annoying and she deducted points from Slytherine!"