Good day.

Hey, if you're an As Told By Ginger (that's a cartoon) fan who likes Carl/Blake slash, I just finished a four-chapter story featuring it. Just thought I'd advertise, woot. Just click my name and the story is called Love and Hate.

Some notes about this chapter:
-Remember the weird thing that happened when they broke the crystal ball in the last chapter? That's probably not going to be brought back up. That's just what I imagined would happen if you broke a crystal ball. I mean, there's got to be something in there... I mean, what makes all the foggy swirly things that crazy people see pictures in?
-Severus is a big meanie sometimes. I know. I'm keeping him as true to his character as I can while forcing him to follow the story. But I promise that there will be a mostly happy ending eventually, okay? :)
-You can't beat Padma-in-Crabbe's timing.
-I love wards because I can make up stuff about them. --"
-Dumbledore-in-Goyle knows more than he really should, but hey, he always does.
-And I just had to do it... something so entirely unoriginal... something done in a million and three other romance fan fictions, more than half of which where never finished because they tend to pair this with Mary-Suedness... something like introducing a winter ball to the plot. Ahhh, please don't kill me. At least in this story, Dumbledore has a very specific reason. --" I'm sorry! It won't become a major part of the plot, I promise. begs mercy

Feel free to review. :D

The characters we know of are (body - person IN body):
Blaise Zabini - Harry Potter
Crabbe - Padma Patil
Goyle - Dumbledore
Neville - McGonagall
Ron Weasley - Blaise Zabini
Draco - Lavender
Padma - Ron
Harry - Draco
Pansy - Snape
McGonagall - Hermione
Snape - Neville
Trelawney - ?

Thank you to my wonderful reviewers!....

leeleepotter - Yes, it definitely is. About the identities - I would think that a bunch of normal teenagers, all thrown together in one big mess of age groups, probably wouldn't grasp the seriousness of the situation. People like Padma and Ron, who don't care who knows it's them, are balanced out by people like Harry, Severus, Blaise, and Hermione. But since Harry's always in the middle of everything (how does he do it?), the more important characters know who he is. I checked back on my writing... I think the only times that it was said in front of general, unaware public were times when it was also whispered. Correct me if I'm wrong though, I can go back and fix that, along with a number of other little errors people have caught me with. Like the apparation on grounds. Psh, I can be stupid sometimes.
Ronda-Silverpaw - Aww, thankies!
Cliffe - Thanks. :) Your reviews are the encouragement that keep me writing!
Kaaera - Thanks for the review. :D See my first note way up there about the crystal ball.
ataraxis - It's great to be back too
Elmindrea-al'Thor - Yep... going to be a freshman (ahhh scary O.o). That's good news too, someday they won't reject my short stories and poetry, just gotta keep trying. Thanks for the review!
slytherinsela - :D
Chaows - Thanks, and here's your update. :)
owlri - Okies!
Dark-Lady-Devinity - Lol, they'd better get their bodies back, endings are hard to write. :P More Neville-in-Snape... hmm... I dunno, maybe he'll turn up later. Have you read my mini-fic Reflection? That's all Neville-y and stuff.
magicalme32 - Thanks. :) Oh, and I think most people do - it's too confusing the first time around, lol.
penny - :D Thanks!
Katie Lupin Black - Well that's uplifting, I was hoping I wasn't making Pansy too out-of-character. : Does it seem like she's, er, crying too much? Maybe it's just because I reread countless times for revisions, haha. And they better not make us reread To Kill a Mockingbird, I already recycled my notes....

Ah yes, this is slash, male/male romance... between both Blaise-in-Ron/Draco-in-Harry and Harry-in-Blaise/Snape-in-Pansy (whew confusing)... just to enlighten the unenlightened. Potter belongs to JK Rowling. I'm not JK Rowling. I'm just a girl who lives in the United States who happens to enjoy terrorizing JKR's creations.

..

Chapter Fifteen

"What–what is this?!"
Pansy had walked to the door of the classroom she did training in to discover Crabbe at the head of the class, directing them. She'd stared for a minute or two, unnoticed, and then had found her mouth to speak.
No one really seemed to want to say anything. They shuffled around a bit, pawing at the ground like nervous hippogriffs.
"I kind of took over for you yesterday when you got detention," Crabbe finally said. Pansy's eyes landed on him. "And why are you all here now? Your training begins in five minutes. Not one of you, not one of you has ever been early–"
"I told them to come back here twenty minutes early to review," he answered nervously.

Pansy was silent. Regaining some sense of control over her actions, she pointed a hand at a random Death Eater in the room. One would never notice the slight shake of her arm except for Crabbe, who disregarded it. "You, Malfoy. Do a reflective shielding charm."
When the Slytherin hesitated, she shot an embarrassing but altogether harmless curse–Jelly-Legs Jinx. He hesitated a second too long and the spell caused the dance that followed. Another Slytherin muttered the countercurse, and Pansy only said, "Hmm. Try again."
This time, Malfoy was ready; he sent up the transparent blue spell in between himself and the curse, and the Jelly-Legs narrowly missed Pansy's left ear on its course that ended up disintegrating an innocent candle in the line of fire.

Pansy nodded. "You'll need to learn to aim. Bullstrode. Block a Body-Bind." The Slytherin, caught by surprise, stepped aside automatically. The curse passed her and towards Crabbe, who put up a simple shielding spell that snuffed it.
"I'll disregard the fact that I asked you to block it, Miss Bullstrode, and will instead mention that your reaction time is better than average." Pansy missed the rather proud look Crabbe had as she straightened her robes before turning her head towards him. "What did you teach while I was gone?"
"Several shielding spells, Jelly-Legs, and the Trip Jinx," Crabbe recited, confidence coming to him in leaps and bounds.
She narrowed her eyes at him, frowning. "And how did you teach this many spells to them when I can't ever seem to teach them all two in one classtime?"
His confidence left him, and he almost visibly deflated.
"Well, sir–er, ma'am... uh..."
"Parkinson."
"Well, Parkinson, they... don't like the way you teach all that much...."

"Is that so?" She crossed her arms. The movement was so simple and comforted her more than much else at these rather vulnerable moments. The moments when it came back to her about her personality and how far from perfect it really was. The moments when her foolish mind let these things get to her. They don't like the way you teach, Severus. They don't like what you teach. They don't like you, Severus.
Inside Crabbe's mind, however, was a very different thought pattern. Smart move, Patil. Ding ding, wrong answer. You're in for it now. He wondered how to patch up this fatal mistake.
"Well–you tend to expect them to know everything the minute you show them it. It just doesn't work that way. They–they need a more patient teacher. They–"

"And you think yourself to be exactly what they need?" Crabbe hesitated like Malfoy, the expression of trying to remember how you are expected to react in the face of danger–and Pansy continued. "You imply that I do not know how to teach?"
"Well–um. No. I mean, you need to be more patient but–"
"Interesting. Please leave."
"What–"
"You seem to know enough to get you past the world's worst madman to date, so you are free to leave. If at any time you deflate enough to admit that you are wrong, you may come crawling back to me and maybe I'll let you rejoin the class."
"Sir–"
"Go!"
Faced with nothing even remotely dignified left to say or do, Crabbe retreated to the door, glanced back in, and left.

Pansy turned back around to a silent class. Someone coughed.
"I don't believe I've taught you the Body-Bind. It's alarmingly simple and impossible for the user to get out of once they're in it without outside assistance."
She continued teaching halfheartedly, writing the incantation phonetically on the chalkboard, giving several slow examples, and finding herself getting completely frustrated when they didn't seem to get it.
Dismissing her class several minutes early, she fell tiredly into the teacher's chair, burying her head in her arms on the desk, knocking over a bottle of ink and smashing it, not caring as the magical substance sept into the aged carpeting.

They don't like the way you teach, Severus. The voice of McGonagall came to mind. She'd told her once years ago and then never said another word about it. Years of being called the greasy git now piled upon her, causing her to crunch more and more into the ball. Isolation was safety from others.
"I know they don't," she told the empty room, then sat up, wiping at her eyes, glaring at nothing, and left for the Slytherin commons.

"What's wrong?"
Pansy turned to face the crackling fireplace. Harry's face appeared in her line of sight, almost upside-down. "Severus?"
"Don't." She flipped again. The couch creaked below her as Harry slumped back into place in front of her, and clung to her arm when she turned away again.
Silence.
Harry looked the opposite direction of Pansy. "You know, when I said that one of 'em was a Death Eater and you jumped on me–all I told them was that you found out it was me."
"They're not supposed to know who I am though, Potter, so your stupidity–"
"–But I think Draco's new love interest has pretty much gotten him out of trouble, besides the way I saw him nod during Dumbledore's speech," he plowed through her words.
"Draco? I'm a dead man," Pansy said, slumping further into the couch. "Who's his damn love interest?"
"Blaise Zabini."
She stiffened next to him. Harry's eyebrows shot up and then back down at her next question. "You?"

"He's quite taken with him, apparently," Harry continued, intending to draw this out as long as he could. "Bloody good kisser too–"
She flipped back around and stared up at him with a face that said it was trying to be blank but was having an extremely hard time about it. "Malfoy kissed–"
"And–"
"Malfoy kissed you? You let Malfoy kiss you? I thought you l–well," Pansy looked suddenly uncomfortable. "I rather thought that you would prefer... anyone... to Malfoy.... You seem a bit taken with me, don't you?"
Harry grinned. "Actually, I rather meant the Blaise Zabini that is currently in Ron's body, but seeing as you like to jump to conclusions–"
"I did not jump–"

"Oh come on, admit you're wrong for once," Harry said, pulling himself closer to her. "You don't have to be all self-protective and stuff, you know. I would've hoped that you'd have noticed that I don't intend to thwart your every ambition like my father." Closer. "I don't want to be like my dad to you, you know."
She didn't seem to really know how to respond to that and instead surrendered to the part of her that wanted to let him kiss her. Her eyelids fluttered shut.

"Professor, I–er, maybe this isn't the best time–"
The voice of disaster about to happen.
Harry jumped up in surprise and fell off the sofa, banging his knee on the table in front of it, and landing on the icy stone floor. The arm of Pansy's he was holding on to went with him, and she ended up face down in the cushions. "What, Patil?" Her words were muffled by the pillows.
"I just came to admit my wrongs and kiss your feet," Crabbe grumbled, offering Harry an arm to help him up.

"That's good, you can go." Pansy carefully sat up, wishing to continue where they'd left off.
"That's it? What, you're not going to take this chance to publicly humiliate me?"
"No public to humiliate you in front of."
"Hello?" Harry called. Both ignored him.
"Wicked," she said, and turned. "I'll just leave you two to it, then. Although I suggest you get a room if you're going to do much more than–"
"Your welcome is quickly dissolving, Patil–"
"Right then. Thanks, professor."

She turned back to Harry, who was in the middle of a yawn, and she lost anything remaining of her desire to revive anything of the moment.
"You know, I'm going to give up wondering why you find anything worth wanting in me," she told him, glancing up at the clock. It was a little past ten already.
"That's good, because you probably wouldn't get anywhere anyway."

The next day was Halloween, accompanied by the usual feast and early end of classes. There was no speech, no really relaxed atmosphere–just a polite sort of air about. Students did eagerly dig into pork roasts and puddings, however, but many left early.
Glancing up at the teacher's table, Harry didn't see any sign of Lupin, who was probably still recuperating from Tuesday's full moon. He pitied whoever had to go through the horrors of being a werewolf, hoping that someone had thought to assist them; from what Lupin had told him over the years, transformations were painful, and even with Wolfsbane, one needed to possess amazing amounts of self-control to keep the things and people around them–and themselves–from being severely injured.

He turned back to his table, overhearing a snippet of a conversation between Crabbe and Malfoy and realizing with a start that it was about Draco's streaking in his body. Feeling his ears grow warmer, he realized that he'd never live that down. He had a sudden disturbing image of Colin Creevey, wildly snapping wizard photos....
At another end of the table, whoever was in Hermione's body had come over to talk to Millicent Bullstrode. They appeared to be arguing, but when Millicent grinned and waved Hermione off, he realized they'd been joking around.
Harry found that he just wasn't enjoying the festivities, and rose at the same time Pansy did, across the table; as Crabbe glanced over, Pansy sunk back into her seat, not taking her eyes off Harry until she was seated again. Then she cast them over in the direction of the Ravenclaw table. Sighing and leaving, he wondered if he'd ever manage to gain her trust.

Testing a stupid idea, Harry leaned down to retie his boot laces behind a suit of armor, and smiling to himself when Pansy exited the Hall a minute later.
"Hey Severus," Harry said, and she jumped slightly as he hurried to walk at her pace. "Feasts just not your sort of ordeal?"
"I always leave feasts early," she grunted, looking away.
"Ah. Well, I usually don't, but hey, no one to really talk to today, unless you want to." He grinned sheepishly when she gave him a 'yeah right' look. "Or not, whatever."

They walked to the commons in silence, and Harry ended up leaving for a shower, so Pansy opened up her research book on wards and continued looking for something that may allow them to reverse the effects of the wards.
Wards were a risky business. One could certainly reverse the effects, but there were countless more ways to do so that shut off the wards for a certain amount of time, which would allow the original spell to perform its purpose, whatever that was. They'd assumed that it was a mass Avada Kedavra, but it could be just about anything unpleasant. Make them all slaves... or slowly mutate them... or roast them all to death... there were a number of bad things it could've been.

She had been working on this in the past few weeks. Potter problems and Death Eater training had held her up slightly, but she'd managed to at least pinpoint an area between the steps in activating any ward. Pansy intended to ask Dumbledore what wards he'd used after the feast was over, so she could eliminate some of her possible options.
Finally the clock struck seven; Harry had come back into the commons already but just sat across from him, playing silently with a pack of wizard's cards. Pansy stood, magicked her research so it would fit in her pocket, and left to find the headmaster.

"Lemon drop?" The usual ritual.
"Eh, no thank you," Pansy said, opening up her notes again. "I need to ask what sort of wards you placed on the castle."
"Ah, yes," Goyle said, leaning back in his chair. "A variety of complete simpler ones, protection from Muggles, anti-map wards, anti-apparation too. Since the events of last summer, we also started to put up wards to keep Occlumency from going through them, in hopes that you would still teach Mr. Potter, but Voldemort would have a smaller chance of getting to him through dreams in case you didn't. Actually, that ward was the only unfinished one at the time. All the other ones have been finished for years."

"Did you continue constructing it after we were all switched?"
"No."
Pansy was feeling a sinking feeling somewhere in her stomach... the ward had probably been a variation of the normal anti-Occlumency ward created by Dumbledore himself, if it allowed Occlumency inside but not to enter from outside. But it could prove more useful if....
"Did you keep notes about the stages you were at? Did you record the exact spell used to add to the wards when you created it? Did–"

"Calm down, Severus, of course I did." Goyle stood up and left the room for a moment, and Pansy felt suddenly much relieved; maybe she could finish the countercurse before Christmas, even. It was then that Pansy realized the presence of Dumbledore's bird Fawkes, who chose that particular moment to fly over and land in her papers, swooshing them in every direction. She tried to back her chair away and ended up toppling onto the floor, clutching her head and spewing Latin curse words. Goyle entered to see this scene.
"Here they are, Severus." He swept his wand around the room and Pansy's papers gathered, and he put the several pages he was holding on top, picking up Fawkes and allowing the bird to fly back to its place. Pansy rose, brushing off her robes and reseating herself. "Is there anything else you would like to ask me?"
"No, thank you Albus," she responded and began to stand, but Goyle waved him back into the chair.

"The school spirit has been considerably dim this year, have you noticed?" Pansy made a scoffing noise, but the other boy ignored him. "Even at today's feast, the atmosphere was strained! I suggested to the teachers and Minerva that we cancel classes the day before winter break and instead hold a ball similar to that held during the Triwizard Tournament–"
"No," she interrupted flatly. "You are not going to use this opportunity to make P–Zabini cling to me further, Albus–"
"I'm sorry, but seeing as you aren't currently a teacher, Miss Parkinson, you have no say in whether or not we hold this Winter Ball or not," Goyle said, smiling impishly.
She stared at him. "You're just going to bend my identity any way you want, aren't you? Need help with wards, I'm Severus Snape, but hold a Yule Ball and I'm Miss–"

"Oh, open up Severus. Just let yourself go for once. You're always so obsessively on top of everything. You don't have to be, especially now. You can–"
"I don't have to be–?" she roared. "I don't have to be?! Every night I train Death Eaters who have no clue what they're doing because tomorrow might be the day, tomorrow might be the day, Albus! I–"
"But you have the whole day to be whoever you want to be as Miss Parkinson, Severus."
"I want to be who I have been being," she said stubbornly, feeling the anger drain out of her and knowing a surrender was near.
"But Mr. Potter seems quite attached to you, in any case. Do you want to disappoint him?"
"As Snape I lived to disappoint him," she said flatly.
"I mean now, not then."

"Eh." She frowned. She knew where Dumbledore was getting at. Playing with her emotions, manipulating her so she did what he felt was best–Hogwarts was the man's chessboard. "Not really," she found herself saying, and broke eye contact to glare at Fawkes blearily. Her body spasmed as she sniffed, trying so hard not to cry that it was making her head hurt. This body seems accustomed to crying at the worst moments, she noted. Miss Parkinson must cry a lot. Brat. "It's wrong, Albus. I shouldn't–"
Goyle was silent, listening to the former Potions Master babble until she couldn't think what else to say and clenched her jaw in a way that looked rather painful. "You know, there's no rule against student-teacher relationships recorded in the handbook," he informed her with a shrug.
Pansy stopped crying in an instant and her head shot up to stare at Goyle so fast it hurt. "You–"
"Good day, Severus," Goyle said cheerfully.