It's too early in the day to suffer such fools.
It was two in the afternoon, and Selene Sinistra was not only awake, but outside of her apartments. Considering she didn't fall asleep until after eight in the morning, and that she'd been summoned here by another staff person, and that she hadn't so much as sniffed a cup of coffee, made her irate enough.
But…this?
Every telescope from her observation tower was hanging from the ceiling in the Great Hall. Every. Single. One. Somehow, someone had broken into the observation room after she'd left it, later than usual this morning, moved a dozen heavy telescopes from the tower, across the castle to this room, and levitated them up, conjuring ropes to suspend them in the air.
It had taken her a week to position them all correctly. Seven nights of work to calibrate them to perfection. These telescopes cost thousands of galleons. Each.
And someone did this as a prank. It was enough to make her blood boil.
"And you have absolutely no idea how this happened, Headmaster? No idea who did this?"
Albus Dumbledore shook his head, his white beard swaying with the movements. "They were here when the staff came for breakfast."
"They've been here THAT long and you didn't get me until NOW!" She whipped her head to glare at the man, her eyes narrowed, rage causing her to shake, her normal icy composure gone. "Are you mad? Do you have any idea how valuable...?"
The headmaster held his hand up to stave off her temper. "Calm yourself, Selene. I wanted to make sure you'd gotten some sleep before I woke you to see this. After all, we both know your sleeping habits are…somewhat irregular." The pause in his words came with a lowering of his voice, something that annoyed her greatly and almost inexplicably. "Besides, I had hoped that, by seeing their work still in place, the culprits would have given some indication of who they were."
Outwardly, the mask of serenity came back over her face. Inwardly, she was fuming, far more irate than she'd been in months.
Well, there go my plans to watch that meteor shower this week.
She glared at the headmaster. "I assume that someone will be assisting me in returning my telescopes to my tower?"
He nodded. "Of course. Professor Flitwick had already volunteered his services in levitating them, one by one, back to your tower personally in order to assure their undamaged return to you."
"Good. I assume that return will be prompt as well. Now, I need to go rework my lesson plans for the next week, since I won't be able to have my students observe at night until I have these repositioned and recalibrated." With one last nod to her employer and an annoyed sweep of her eyes towards the ceiling, she spun on her heel, sailing out of the doors to the Great Hall, her dark blue robes flowing in her wake.
Sighing, Dumbledore began a closer inspection of the dangling telescopes. Whoever had done it had taken great pains to ensure they wouldn't fall. Polite tricksters. A stunt worthy of the Weasley twins, to be sure, but they'd never do something this outrageous. Besides, he'd just interrogated them, and was convinced of their innocence. And given the lateness that Selene had been in her tower, observing, they had to either have been observing her, or darned lucky they weren't caught earlier. Timing had been crucial, both for liberating the equipment, and raising all twelve to the rafters in the Hall.
A part of the Headmaster felt a wave of pride at whoever accomplished the feat.
Within moments of one dark-haired professor striding out the doors, another stormed in, causing Dumbledore to silently ask the gods for patience. "Severus? What are you doing here?"
"Coming to find you, Headmaster. I would have thought that was plainly clear."
The older man had seen such a look before on the Head of Slytherin House's face. It was a familiar one. Tread lightly, Albus. The boy's temper is barely in check. Again. "Aren't you scheduled for double Potions with your third years right now?"
How does he do that? He can't possibly memorize every professor's schedule.
The glower on the Potions professor's hawk-like features was clear. "I would love to be doing nothing more than teaching my double Potions class. IF I could teach my double Potions class."
Dumbledore sighed heavily, feeling as if today would have been a better day for sleeping in, not running a school full of mischievous teenagers. "If? Why does that word fill me with a sense of dread?"
"My students' cauldrons are missing."
With a sigh, the Headmaster's eyes raked over the ceiling, wondering if he'd find cauldrons amidst telescopes. For the first time since storming into the Hall, so did Snape's. His eyes carried a healthy balance of amusement and understanding. "So. That's why Sinistra looked ready to level the school when I passed her in the halls on my way here. I'd wondered."
As if speaking her name had conjured her, the Astronomy professor flew into the hall, only a hair less irate than she'd been a moment ago, robes billowing. With a curt nod, she stood directly before the pair, her back straight, her hands clenched. "Headmaster, Professor Snape. I think there's something the two of you should come see." With no other word, she spun around, forcefully, her long braid almost lashing Snape's nose as she led them out of the room.
Up several staircases she directed the two, nimbly jumping over a pair of trick stairs without a second thought, to the top of her tower, opening her classroom door, adjacent to the observation deck. Waving her hand around the room, she stood in one of the few spots on the floor that didn't hold a cauldron.
"Now, as healthy an appreciation I have for your area of expertise, Professor," she murmured, the look on her face genuine, without a line of the sarcasm Snape had expected to see, "I am neither an expert in Potions nor find myself in need of this many cauldrons. So, I would suspect that these may belong to you and your students."
Snape turned to Dumbledore, anger blazing in his usually cold black eyes. "I keep my classroom, my office, and my workrooms warded every second I am not in them. For some student to have broken in and stolen over fifty cauldrons, not to mention having moved them from the southern dungeons to the northern tower of the castle…"
Dumbledore waved his hand, his voice calm and with the slightest taste of patronizing. "Yes, Severus, I am well aware at how protective you are of your classroom, and how difficult this must have been to accomplish. However, there must be a logical answer to this, and we will find it. Now, if the two of you will excuse me..." With no further comment, Albus Dumbledore walked out the door and down the North Tower stairs.
Sinistra sighed deeply, sinking against her desk, a cauldron sitting on her chair. "Gods, what I wouldn't give for coffee right now." With that utterance, she began rubbing her temples, feeling the beginnings of another headache approaching. They came whenever she hadn't slept enough, which was often, considering she never slept the quantity of hours a day her body demanded. "So. My telescopes hanging in the Great Hall. Your cauldrons in my classroom. Besides our classrooms being the furthest apart in the entire castle, why would some idiot children pull such an asinine stunt on the two of us?"
In another time and place, Severus would have almost smiled at her comment, since it almost perfectly echoed his own thoughts. Somehow, they'd been teaching at the same school for over a decade, and he'd never spent longer than two minutes in her company.
And I thought I was the only one who saw the students as something other than adorable little creatures. Interesting.
"It was probably directed at me, since I usually have some sort of foolish trick played on me once a year. The students seem to lack appreciation for the way I run a classroom. Your telescopes, I'm afraid, may only be innocent victims."
She looked up at him, the ache over her left eye growing. "My telescopes had better arrive undamaged back to my observation room. If so much as one scratch is on a lens, I won't care what reasons the students had. As it is, I don't care what Dumbledore finds suitable punishment; I'll add my own, regardless."
The set of her jaw and the flash in her eyes intrigued him. Somehow, he'd never seen Sinistra as capable of such vehemence.
Of course, you probably have spent a collective hour in her company in all these years. Once again, your little campaign-of-solitude, remember?
Sighing, he coughed in the doorway. "Well, when I find out which miscreant did this, I promise, you'll know. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll levitate fifty cauldrons out of your classroom and be out of your way." With a flick of his wand and a curt nod in her direction, he led the parade of pewter pots out the door.
As the last one sailed out of sight, Selene sank into her desk chair, staring at a room that, in a few hours, would be filled with students, most disinterested and barely paying attention to a word she'd speak, just as she'd done for years.
It almost made her wonder why she bothered anymore.
A knock on the door drove out the melancholy line of thought. In surprise, she found herself staring at a house-elf carrying a silver tray. "Pardon the intrusion, Professor. But Moffy was asked to bring coffee to Professor Sinistra. Yes, she was. Black. With cream and sugar on the side, if she should desire it."
Selene looked past the house-elf, down the staircase that fifty cauldrons had recently taken, the faintest of smiles tugging the corner of her mouth.