Author's note: Quite a short, light chapter here... But everything happens for a reason... It may not seem so yet, but I haven't gone soppy with the roses. Honest!

DECK THE HALLS

By Bellegeste

CHAPTER 3: A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

Tuesday 17th December

In the Staffroom.

"Oh, roll on Christmas!" gasped Professor Lupin, slumping into the armchair and sprawling, legs akimbo, in an attitude of exhausted abandon. "Kids, eh! Why do we do this thankless job?"

"My sentiments precisely. I think we are all more than ready for a holiday. Those children! Am I imagining things, or are they worse than ever this year?"

Professor McGonagall carefully set down her tea-cup and saucer and permitted herself the indulgence of leaning back with her eyes momentarily closed. Mirroring her fatigue, her hair, normally rolled into a tight, obedient bun, had slipped and now nestled loosely in the nape of her neck.

Professor Trelawney also had her eyes clenched shut. Both pointing forefingers were extended to touch her temples, fingertips circling in tiny, tiny rotations. Under her breath she was moaning a low, repeated " 'Om'."

Not all the staff, however, were in extremis.

"Bad day, Minerva?" chortled Professor Grubbly-Plank. "Younger generation giving you a spot of bother? End of term-itis! High spirits, don't you know! Can't say as I've noticed the little darlings being any more obnoxious than usual. Send 'em for a quick dunk in the lake if they get too frisky. That'll sort the wizards from the wimps. And you, my dear, look like you could do with a drop of Grubbly-Wallop! It's my own special recipe you know: a capful of Poppy's Pepper Up Potion in a tumbler of Sloe Gin. Sets me up for the day nicely. You should try it!"

"No offence, Wilhelmina, but - " Professor McGonagall began.

"None taken, I'm sure."

" - but babysitting Kneazles and Puffskeins does not require a high level of magical finesse. Transfiguration, on the other hand, - oh, I apologise. That was uncalled for. Forgive me. I have had a trying day - most trying."

"Not the Headless Clabbert spell again?" Professor Grubbly-Plank could be sympathetic, despite her bluff demeanour. "That one always turns my stomach, and I must have seen it a hundred times. Personally, I think the blighters get it wrong on purpose, just to wind us up. They love it really - all that shrieking and mock-hysterics. Any excuse!"

Professor McGonagall smiled thinly. She took off her spectacles and rubbed her eyes. She looked weary and older than her seventy wizard years.

"No, nothing like that. Perhaps it's just me. But you know how demoralising it is when you think they have all achieved a certain level of competence, and then, for no particular reason, they start making silly mistakes? I feel as though I've been wasting my time. Even some of the older students - some of my best year 6s - have been making the most elementary howlers. Their minds are simply not focussed on the task in hand. Everything that could possibly go wrong today has done so. Breakages, botched transfigurations, turkey feathers everywhere when there should have been paper party hats - oh, I don't know. Happy Hogmanay! I'll be glad when it's all over!"

"It's probably Peeves," mumbled Remus drowsily, getting a little too comfortable, settling down for a snooze. "His idea of the Spirit of Christmas. Anyway, as long as no one gets hurt, we can all take the odd practical joke in our stride."

"There's a time and a place for joking." Disapproval clipped the soft edges of McGonagall's Scottish accent.

"You're not suggesting that there's anything sinister going on? Oh, come on, Professor - so a few kids get a little carried away… Too much cake and too many trips to Zonko's, if you ask me. Year 3 played a great one on me this morning: we were deflecting a basic Impedimenta, and one of them turned my entire desk into a patch of marshland, complete with Marsh Marigolds and Bulrushes. Don't ask me how! Rather advanced magic for that age group, actually. Sounded a bit like the swamp the Weasley twins rustled up to 'amuse' Dolores Umbridge last year."

McGonagall rather relished that memory; some jokes had their uses.

"The kids are their own worst enemies," Lupin complained. "I was planning a kind of 'Dark Duel' as an end of term treat - under careful supervision, of course! - but it looks like I'm going to have to cancel it. They're all so hyped-up you don't know what might happen. I'll stick to theory for the last few days - boring, I know, but you can't take risks with DADA. I never thought I'd hear myself saying it, but perhaps Umbridge had a point… When you think of the havoc those twins wreaked…"

Lupin suddenly jerked upright, as though an awful idea had grabbed him by the collar and pulled.

"You don't suppose they're here, are they?" he asked. "Fred and George haven't flown up to visit Ron and Ginny? I wouldn't put it past those twins to set off a few seasonal jinxes to liven up the end of term."

"I sincerely hope not!" Professor McGonagall was too tetchy to be amused. "Much as I applaud their indisputable initiative, I can do without those two today. I've had quite enough: exploding chinaware, animals dancing about on their back legs with their ears on fire…" She sighed. "I dare say I should be grateful that it wasn't the other way round. But if I get one more two-headed tea-cup or legless Crup with a porcelain tail… and this from students who are old enough to know better… It's a simple enough transfiguration after all - Cup to Crup."

"Linguistically, maybe…" muttered Snape darkly. He was sitting at the table at the back of the room, poring over a sheet of figures, a deep frown creasing his brow. The others had all but forgotten he was in the room.

"You had a problem with the Longbottom boy yesterday, I hear, Snape," said Grubbly-Plank, addressing him stoutly. "The Spirit of Peeves-Weasley-Christmas taking its toll on Potions classes too, eh?"

Snape did not need reminding. He had returned to the dungeon that morning to find the flagstone floor glazed with a wet, sticky substance, a pool of clear, sweetly glistening liquid, with floating islands of grey-green, furry mould. In the centre of the syrupy puddle lay Neville's abandoned wand. Snape's 'Scourgify' had had no appreciable effect, and, while he was re-evaluating his cleansing charms, the entire First Year class had trooped silently to their desks, not daring to complain as the glue clutched and sucked at their shoes, treading the mess through the whole classroom. To cap it all, some idiot had thrown a handful of confetti through the door and the pinky-red petals had stuck in the wet stuff like midges to fly-paper. Spell resistant, the glaze responded only to old-fashioned soap and water, (even Mrs Scower's Magical Mess Remover was unequal to the challenge) and the class had spent the rest of the lesson physically scrubbing - the floor and the tacky soles of their contaminated footwear. Snape chose not to mention this.

"Pomona won't be happy, you know, if you've injured Longbottom. He's her star pupil. Thinks the world of that lad. Scalded, wasn't he?" Grubbly-Plank continued, ignoring Snape's scowl, and quizzing him with healthy curiosity.

"Superficially." Snape did not care to elaborate.

"Come to think of it, has anyone seen Pomona today? I wager she'll take root in that greenhouse of hers one day. I'll pop my head in on my way back to Hagrid's. Well now, must be off - all that talk about Crups has reminded me - they'll be ready and waiting for 'walkies' - crossing their legs, don't you know - and I've got a Nogtail sow about to litter any second - no rest for the wicked, eh? Toodle-pip!"

The room seemed a great deal quieter without Professor Grubbly-Plank's hearty presence. For a few moments the remaining four members of staff took in deep breaths of silence, appreciating her absence. Then Professor Trelawney, still mussing her wispy hairline with the single-finger massage, set up a mournful wail:

"The signs! The signs are all about us! I see great danger! I see earth and air and fire and water… I see height and depth, flying and falling, heat and cold… I see life and death…"

"A fairly open brief, then," smiled Lupin. Snape's lips pursed with irritation.

"I see calamity and affliction pestilence and plague!" keened Trelawney.

"Which plagues did you have in mind for us, Sibyll? Frogs? Locusts? Boils?" asked McGonagall tersely.

Remus sensed a little professorial friction in the academic ether.

"Oh, I think we can safely tick off the 'boils'. Chalk that one up to young Neville!" he joked.

"Are you suggesting, Sibyll, that the Lake will turn red? That the pumpkins will rot in the barn? Are you predicting the death of our firstborn students?"

Snape grimaced - that would be one way to get shot of Longbottom.

"Oh, ye of little faith! You mock the Inner Eye!" cried Trelawney, flouncing out in a jangling waft of beads and scarves. "I See - and soon, my friends, you too shall see…"

Lupin and McGonagall exchanged glances.

"What a shame - she didn't finish her tea," commented the witch.

They returned to their thoughts, each independently reviewing the anomalies of their day in the light of the recent conversation. Snape was particularly perplexed. He scrutinised the data columns again. It didn't make sense. He had checked Longbottom's measurements and method at every stage of the procedure - there was no way that potion should have failed…

He became aware that Lupin was regarding him with an asinine grin.

"Something funny, werewolf?" he growled.

"I see you have an admirer," laughed Lupin, tapping his head with a suggestive upward twitch of his shaggy eyebrows.

"Don't be ridiculous!" Snape snapped, but, reaching up, his fingers touched a spiky stem. As though weeding out a stinging-nettle, he plucked a specimen red bud from behind his right ear.

"What the..??!!"

And then he noticed the roses. A bunch of blowsy, pink tea-roses, their scented heads blushing out of his cloak pocket…

Lupin watched his colleague as he pulled out the flowers with diffident distaste, as though half-expecting a love-lorn student to be holding onto the other end. When they emerged, unattached, he tossed them dismissively onto the floor and flicked his wand.

"Evanesco!"

Instead of the roses disappearing, a second bunch bloomed on the table, yellow ones this time, double-petalled Floribundas, richly exotic. Their powdery fragrance filled the staffroom. Startled, Snape gave his wand a puzzled tap and, for an instant, he could almost have sworn that it vanished from sight. He shook his head, blinking.

"I'll, er, fetch a vase, shall I?" offered Lupin.

Snape's glare would have withered an oak tree.

"I'm going to get to the bottom of this," he spat, heading for the door.

Something told him that if he'd said 'the Longbottom of this' he would have been closer to the truth.

End of Chapter.

Next Chapter: POTIONS AND PARKIN PIGS. Snape comes up against Neville's northern 'grit'. The magical situation deteriorates.