Chapter Eight: Severus Snape

The dungeon classroom was silent except for the sound of ladles stirring in cauldrons and occasionally nudging the sides, or the sounds of an ingredient being prepared. Severus Snape graded some essays while the students worked, keeping an eye on them so they did not blow up his entire classroom. As he looked back down at the paper he was currently working on, he heard a small scuff of feet and the rustle of clothing.

He looked up, his dark eyes quickly scanning the classroom for the source. He caught the eye of one Slytherin student and raised an eyebrow. The student in reply nudged his head slightly to the left. Severus shook his head, wanting to sigh. Instead, he continued to grade the essays and a few minutes later heard the sound again. He waited about ten moreminutes, then got up to prowl the classroom, checking on the students' progress.

Some of them were boarding the thin line perfect and close to perfect, while others were just a little bit behind, but still doing rather well. It was a combination of seventh year Ravenclaws and Slytherins, and thus, he expected them all to get a passing grade; otherwise he would not have them in his NEWT class.

However, as Severus observed them, he was well aware of the only other moving presence in the room. Though he continued to feign ignorance to the source, he continued to get hints from the students as to where the sound was coming from; they all knew who it was from.

Severus saw one student's sleeve get tugged, and the Ravenclaw girl cocked her head to the side, as if listening. Severus shook his head at the obviousness of it and slipped to the back of the room, then silently walked up. He stopped directly behind the child in his class, who was not even a Hogwarts student. "Aren't you supposed to be in Professor Granger's class?" he asked. The professors took turns watching the child since both of her parents were teaching.

Alison Helen Lupin, a.k.a. Ally orSnidget,jumped several inches into the air and spun around to look at the towering form of the potions master, who had his arms crossed and an eyebrow raised. "Dang it," she muttered as she looked at the ground, causing a few chuckles to come from the students.

"Well?" Severus prompted.

"I'm supposed to be," Alison said, tucking a strand of her jet-black hair behind her ear. "But nobody ever said how long I have to be."

Severus' eyebrow rose further at the Slytherin-like answer. He bent down to his six-year-old niece's level and looked her in the eye. "You know you are not supposed to disturb other classes." He said.

Alison's blue eyes, exactly like her father's, were mischievous though her tone was innocent. "This is potions class, not 'other' classes." She said with the trademark Snape smirk, "And besides, ya can't 'disturb' a class; it's an inani-" she frowned slightly, trying to remember the word, "inanimate object."

Severus rolled his eyes, and the students were trying to smother chuckles. You wouldn't believe how many debates Alison had like this with her uncle on a weekly basis, but- how lucky for him- she didn't have them with the other professors at all. "A class also refers to the people learning at a certain time, and right now you are disturbing this class." he said in a bored voice.

"Am I? Or are we? They seemed pretty fine when I first came in, now ya got 'em all tryin' to stop from laughing. And doesn't a Polyjuice potion explode if you don't stir in the lacewing flies right?"

Instantly, the Ravenclaw student closest began to pay more attention to the flies she was adding at the moment. Severus smirked, impressed by the fact that his niece might know more about the Polyjuice potion than the NEWT students who were making it, which could be both a good thing and a bad thing. "That it does. Now, back to the original question: why aren't you in Transfiguration?"

"That wasn't the original question," Alison remarked innocently. "It was: 'Aren't you supposed to be in Professor Granger's class?'"

"And your answer?"

"No."

He looked at her, suspicious, "Explain."

Her face was too innocent for his comfort. "I'm not eleven yet, so I can't be in any Hogwarts classes."

Severus put his head in his hands: she'd used his own words against him, curse the child. "Alright," he sighed, "You win this one." She grinned and ran up to the front of the room, then promptly climbed onto the teacher's stool, where she sat perched, watching the classlike a hawk. The students snickered at the potion master's defeat, falling silent when Severus glared at them. He went back up to his desk and sat in his own chair, continuing to grade essays while Ally supervised the class.

Severus should have known that the child of a Marauder and his sister would be so dang frustrating.

Coming Up:

Alex Zolar

(A/N: I'm going to be gone for a week at a summer camp, so the next chapter won't be posted for a while. Thank you for your patience.-- A .S. Leif.)