Before Snape had realized he had fallen asleep, a knock on the door woke him up. He stood up with a snort stormed over toward the door.
"No one is dancing!" he bellowed as he opened it. Albus Dumbledore stood there, smiling his smile at him.
"A pity," Dumbledore said and wiggled his hips slightly. Snape frowned and walked away from the wizard, giving room for Dumbledore to enter the room and close the door behind him. Snape turned and crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned against the wall farthest from the door. He turned in time to see Dumbledore run the back of his hand over the woman's face and smile down at her.
"The healers say she's doing quite well," Dumbledore said, sitting in Snape's warm chair. Snape scoffed.
"Does she look 'quite well,' to you?" he said in an accusatory voice. Dumbledore looked again at the woman and smiled.
"She seems to have a bit more color," he said.
"She's exactly the same," Snape told him, resisting the urge to yell at him. This was Dumbledore, not some student. She wouldn't even be here if it weren't for him.
But if the old coot thought she was anything but a breathing corpse he had lost it.
"Now I realize with the upcoming quidditch game many of you may not have had time to do the monstrous amount of reading I assigned you, and, since I intend to assign you a monstrous amount of reading tonight," Professor Bisset's class let out a low, collective moan, which made him smile, "I'm giving you a free period. But…" he warned his grinning students, "if I see anything not related to this class in front of you, the points will fly. Understood?"
The class responded with a variety of half-hearted 'yes, professor's and began opening their books and pieces of parchment. Snape, who had come at the top of his class in Defense for the previous five years, had done his reading and now found himself rather bored. If he didn't mind losing points for Slytherin he'd take out his copy of Advanced Potion-Making and scribble a few things in it, but at the moment Slytherin was behind Gryffindor and he didn't want to increase that gap. He took out his Defense textbook and flipped through a few pages. Nothing he hadn't already read. He looked casually around the room and watched Professor Bisset walking around the room observing the students. When Bisset walked by Germaine—who now had a seat a few rows away from Snape—he patted her head slightly and she looked up at him with a smile.
Snape scoffed slightly to himself and returned his gaze to the pages of his book. The Defense teacher's own daughter hadn't even done the homework. Over the past few years Snape had paid more attention to Germaine Bisset, and didn't like any of what he had seen. She was a shy, quiet, slow, frightened little girl who never seemed to catch on to anything. How she could be Professor Bisset's daughter Snape couldn't figure out. And the way Bisset seemed to favor her above all others while Snape was smarter, cleverer, and more talented. Professor Bisset had seemed so proud when Germaine got two 'Outstanding's on her O.W.L.s, but only slightly pleased when Snape got ten. It didn't seem fair to Snape at all.
His bitter feeling was cut short when he felt a hand briefly touch his shoulder. He looked up and saw Professor Bisset's face smiling down at him.
"Nothing to do?" he asked in a whisper.
"I did my reading," Snape answered, making sure to do so in a normal voice so everyone would know.
"Have any other work to do?" Bisset still whispered. Snape shrugged.
"I suppose…"
"Well, you can go ahead and do it. I'd hate to see a student just sitting there…" Bisset twitched his nose. Snape nodded and immediately took out his copy of Advanced Potion-Making. Bisset gave him a smile and a nod and continued walking about the class. Feeling special, Snape looked over at Germaine who quickly turned her head back to her book.