PART THREE

Wednesday dawned in a obscenely sunny manner.

Sev noted this fact as he left the building to go to the greenhouses because a headful of crazy red hair backlit by the sun came into his line of vision.

"Excuse me," Sev commented, trying to move around the girl in the middle of the walkway.

She suddenly spun around, seeming to step right in front of him, and caused him to bump into her.

Sev pulled away. "Sorry."

She was petite, wore a Hufflepuff uniform, and had freckles all over her face. Round glasses emphasized chocolate brown eyes which were full of enough character and intelligence to make him stare.

"You're - Severus Snape, aren't you?" she remarked.

"I have the unfortunate luck to be given that name, yes," Sev replied, moving around her to continue on to his classes. "If you're here to complain about the purging done to your house, I was merely the catalyst in that."

"No," she said, grabbing the sleeve of his robe. His fluffy hair whipped up in a stray breeze from across the moors. "I just wanted to tell you I think you're incredibly cute and I want to date you."

Sev gazed at her through narrow eyes, his nostrils flaring. "If I had a sense of humor, I may find that funny. However, give up this game so I can retain my dignity and you can retain your face, little girl." With that, he swept away to his Herbology class, fuming about girls' ideas of jokes.

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It was not until that afternoon when the redheaded girl showed up again, this time as Sev and Martis were walking around the Quad and discussing the Triwizard Tournament.

"Hi, Sevvie," the redheaded girl lilted.

Sev's expression of distaste was matched by Martis' expression of amusement.

"Go away," Sev snorted.

"Who's that?" Martis asked as they continued walking on.

"Some stupid bint who's trying to make a fool of me."

The girl ran up behind him. "Severus Snape, I'm in love with you!"

Sev shrieked and Martis turned around. "Who the Avernus are you?"

"Me?" she asked. "Um ... Ginny Weasley. Yeah, that's it."

"Well, Ginny Weasley, you must know that if you intend to have your way with Snips, you must be screened by me so you know what you're getting into by being part of his life."

"SPIRALS!" Sev exclaimed.

"Hush, Snips. This First-Year upstart thinks she actually has a chance with you."

"I'm Fourth-Year!" the girl huffed. "I'm just ... extra-petite." She scowled. "Especially compared to you."

Martis rounded on 'Ginny' and thunked her in the middle of the forehead with a finger. "What makes you think you're worthy of the Dark Prince of Slytherin?"

"Basic theory."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The Law of Opposites. Didn't you study your Basic Magical Physics classes or do those things cause brain damage? 'Opposites attract'. Which leads into the Law of Synthesis - 'Two opposites will balance to make a greater whole'." She dodged around Martis and hugged Sev. "It's a Law of Nature!"

"Get off!" Sev snapped, struggling out of her arms.

Insulting her figure, her intelligence, and glomping onto Snips - something had to be done.

Martis grabbed a handful of the girl's wild red hair and yanked - hard - dragging her away from Sev. "I don't know what your game is, skinny-girl, but you just earned yourself a beating! NOBODY glomps onto Snips but ME!"

The squealing girl-child suddenly straightened out her arm, her tiny fist hitting Martis in the kidney. The blow made Martis let go, and she was still shouting when the girl's forearm hit the back of her knees, making Martis fall back onto the grass.

As Martis got back to her feet, Ginny dashed back to Sev and glomped him again. "Well, you didn't see us by the greenhouses earlier. He expressed his true feelings for me!"

Sev, aggravated by both the glomping and the sight of Martis on the ground, exclaimed, "YOU NASTY LITTLE TOADSTOOL!" He shoved her away and pulled his wand. He opened his mouth to incant a particularly horrid curse -

And she started to cry: "WAAAAAAAHHHHH!! YOU BRUTE OF A SNAPE! WAAAAAHHHHH!!!"

Suddenly, there were students standing around. They saw Martis and Sev - Sev with his wand drawn - standing together, with a little Hufflepuff girl on the ground crying.

"My god, Snape!" a Gryffindor boy cried. "What are you doing to that poor child?!"

An older student bent down and checked her for injuries. "Oh, you poor little girl!"

Ginny pointed to Sev and sobbed, "He - he - OH IT'S TOO HORRIBLE FOR WORDS!!"

From out of the crowd came the call, "You bastards!"

For the first time in his life (but, he suspected, not the last), Severus Snape was surrounded by the beginnings of an Angry Mob. Martis automatically set her back against his, drawing her own wand out.

"Didn't I say something about always being at the other's back?" she commented.

Out of the noise of the mob came the barking laugh of Sirius Black: "Hey, Snivellus, having to pick on little Hufflepuffs now??"

The crowd parted, knowing the Marauders would take care of the Slytherin troublemakers, and the four Gryffindors made their way toward Martis and Sev.

"Hey, what's going on?" Remus Lupin asked in his 'Prefect' tone.

"Snips and Spirals were attacking this poor little girl!" someone yelled.

Martis stepped from behind Sev and stared down at Black, who was still a few inches taller than her. "She glomped onto Severus!"

"Nice try, Brito-tart-is, but everybody knows no girls want that greasy, slimy, ugly git." He leered down at her as he folded his arms. "What shall we do with little disgusting snakes like you?"

Sev raised his wand, but was tackled by James Potter and Peter Pettigrew. They pinned him to the ground and snatched his wand out of his hand.

Ginny crawled off into the crowd of robes around the group.

Martis raised her hand, the palm glowing golden. "Tell your boy-toys to release Severus, or I'll be forced to use magic without my wand."

Black remained uncowed. "No. You brought this on yourselves - "

A quiet voice somewhere in the crowd said, "Septua Dissimulo."

A mist of white light fell over the group, then faded away to reveal ... weirdness.

Sev and Martis were the same, but the Marauders were ... changed.

Remus Lupin was now suddenly wearing bell bottom jeans, a white turtleneck, a fringed leather vest, and Birkenstocks.

Sirius Black was clad in white polyester bell bottom trousers and vest, a wing-collar paisley shirt open to his navel, black cuban heels, and gold chains.

Peter Pettigrew was sporting a rainbow plaid three piece suit, bright blue shirt with wing-collar, and white shoes and belt.

James Potter looked quite uncomfortable in a skintight leotard with was half black and half white and showed off his chest.

Martis covered her mouth to suppress a giggle and Sev shook his head in pity, causing his fluffy black hair to fly around.

"Oh, Gods, I look QUEER!"

"This is SO ugly!"

"The Muggler struck again!"

"I could go hang-gliding in these things!"

"Lily! Don't look! I'm disgusting!"

"You always were disgusting, Prongs."

"Shut up, Disco Queen!"

"Take that back, you prancing ponce!"

The collected students forgot about the Slytherins and fell to the ground in laughter at the Marauders as Black and Potter began to scuffle.

Akiko Mori waved her wand at Sev and Martis and both ran after her during the distraction. When the three had finally entered the Dungeons, Sev finally said, "Mori, YOU'RE the Muggler?? The fiend that's been plaguing Diagon Alley the past summer??"

The Seventh-Year Slytherin nodded, grinning cutely. "Of course I was the Muggler!" She snorted. "While the Diagon Alley residents were looking for a group of British boy wizards, a Japanese witch went completely under their noses. Have to love cultural blinders."

"But how did you - ?"

"It's the spell I designed for my Charms' NEWT. I knew about the costume charm for a couple of years, and I designed one that reflected current Muggle fashions - hence the 'Septua' part of the spell. If I wanted them in 1950's Muggle fashions, it would have been 'Quintua' or the like."

Sev grinned. "I'm impressed."

Martis rubbed her hip over her kidney. "That little bitch hits hard."

"What little bitch?" Akiko asked.

"The one that got us into trouble and almost started an angry mob on us," Sev answered. "Redheaded Hufflepuff called Ginny Weasley."

"She was glomping onto Snips and saying they're meant to be or some crap like that," Martis growled. "I was about to give her a nice beating, but I didn't expect a Hufflepuff to fight dirty."

"Haven't you been listening to the news of the Hufflepuff Purge?" Akiko said. "Liquor stills, gambling rings, some Sixth and Seventh Years running a Call-Witch Ring out of their Floos - right now, nothing a Hufflepuff does would surprise me. They're beginning to make us Slytherins look good."

"Yay for us," Sev deadpanned.

Martis suddenly burst into giggles. "So I suppose the girls using the Floo Network for their Call-Witch business are called 'Floo-zies'."

Akiko and Sev paused and stared at her, then zapped her fluffy hair back up into a dandelion puff.

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Later on that evening, Akiko entered their shared dorm room where Martis was working on an essay at her desk.

"I looked and asked around for you," Akiko said as she plopped onto her bed.

Fallon continued to sketch out a particularly intricate Celtic knot. "So, what color underpants does Evan wear?"

"Not you, Lolita - Spirals."

Martis glanced up from her essay. "About what?"

"Ginny Weasley of Hufflepuff - there's no such person."

"Then is she Gryffindor or Ravenclaw?"

"Neither. There are only five redheads in Hufflepuff this year - four are older, one's a First-Year guy. Ravenclaw and Gryffindor don't have any twelve or younger redheaded girls. And I managed a sneak at McGonagall's student body records - there is no one here by the name of Weasley at this time; the last one was an Arthur Weasley, but that was about ten years back."

"An unregistered student?"

"Hardly. You know how McGonagall is with records."

"Then maybe she's Durmstrang or Beauxbatons?"

"Beauxbatons," Fallon suggested. "From how you were describing the way she was molesting Snape, she has to be French." She smirked. "They like big noses."

"Then she must be a tiny Seventh-Year," Akiko remarked. "Because the other schools sent only Final-Year students for the Tournament."

"No, she was definitely First - maybe Second - Year. Flat as a board." Martis cleared her throat. "No offense, Aki."

"None taken." Akiko smirked. "Watermelons-smuggler."

The girls giggled, but Martis had a sinking feeling. Another girl had targeted her Snips ... and he was going to get stomped on again. Best to give him no reason to succumb.

She pulled out another parchment and wrote: 'Madame Hortense - Please accept this payment for three red roses and have them sent by owl to Severus Snape, Hogwarts. Enclose a message with this one: "S and S forever and always". Thanks. Britomartis Vox'

Martis dropped a few sickles into a bag, tied the note to it and asked, "Aki, may I borrow your owl?"

"Sure."

She handed the package to the owl and stated, "Madame Hortense's Flower Shop." The owl took off out the window of Slytherin girls' tower.

Fallon grinned. "If you keep sending roses to Snape like that, he's going to assume something's up."

"Well, it has to be known that he's off-limits to tramps."

"And everyone else except you," Akiko muttered.

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