Title: An Improvement Over Nothing (11/?)
Author: Sonya
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I don't own. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all associated characters, settings, etc., belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, etc. Harry Potter and all associated characters, setting, props, etc., belong to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Inc., etc. No copyright infringement is intended, so please don't sue - all you'll get is a really bratty bird and some really spoiled rats.
Spoilers: Up to 'Wrecked' in the Buffyverse, up to "Goblet of Fire" in the Potterverse.
Pairings: Willow/Snape, Hermione/Viktor Krum, Draco/Ginny, Fred/Angelina. Other 'ships to be decided.
Summary: Willow gets a clue.
Author's Note: Just a reminder that this story takes place following "Goblet of Fire" - as in, "Order of the Phoenix" never happened. There will be overlaps, but there will also be differences, and there are no intentional spoilers. So, if you've read the book, you'll see some things familiar and some things not. If you haven't read the book and don't want to be spoiled - use your own judgement. If I don't tell you what's my idea and what's from the book, then you're not really being spoiled, right?
***
Hermione dropped an enormous stack of books down on the library table with a resounding thump. She winced slightly, feeling thankful that Madam Pince wasn't around to comment on the noise.
"We're gonna need all that?" Ron asked incredulously.
"Binns only asked for a foot and a half," Harry concurred, eyeing the large number of thick and dusty tomes doubtfully.
"He only asked for a foot and a half because he knew we'd never find more than that," Hermione retorted, grabbing a thick volume bound in crumbling gray leather and pushing it determinedly across the table towards Ron. "Very few historians give more than a sentence or two to Ulburg the Raider, which is a shame, because really, some of the extreme tactics used by the Wizarding authorities against any suspected Goblins were, in my opinion, part of what started people thinking about the need for better interspecies dialogue and recognition of -" she cut off at the blank looks from Harry and Ron. "Didn't you pay attention at *all*?"
"I thought the first Goblin/Wizard treaties weren't until the Middle Ages at least," Ron said with a worried look. "There were treaties and stuff in the Dark Ages?" He paused, frown deepening. "Ulburg *was* doing his raiding and all that rot around 500-some, wasn't he?"
"He was," Harry affirmed, flipping through a few scant pages of notes. "I wrote that down. You sure you've got the right Goblin, Hermione?"
"Of course I've got the right Goblin," she answered, picking up 'Dark Events of the Dark Ages' and skimming through the chapter titles. "And you're right, the first official treaty was in 1023. I just meant that the extreme violence with which Ulburg's fairly bloodless raids were met created the sort of unstable and resentful atmosphere where socio-political change was possible." She glanced up.
More vacant stares.
"Oh, never mind," she sighed.
"Makes sense to me," a muffled voice murmured from her right side. Hermione cast a worried look at the mop of red hair and crossed elbows that were all she could see of the person seated next to her.
"It really wasn't so awful," Hermione offered tentatively.
"Yes it was," Willow insisted to the tabletop.
"Not so awful?" Ron scoffed. "It was bloody brilliant! If I'd known you were gonna thrash Reed in today's class, I would've sold tickets!"
Willow whimpered. Hermione shot her friend a reproachful glare.
"I think you're not helping, Ron," Harry muttered.
"I'm sure half the other professors wish they could have seen it," Hermione said placatingly. "And the other half wish they could have *done* it. Really, everyone knows Reed's a complete . . that is, a total -"
"Useless prat?" Ron offered.
"Pathetic waste of space?" Harry suggested.
"He's still a *professor*," Hermione snapped. "You shouldn't -" she glanced nervously back at Willow. "Er, I mean - well, he is. Those things." Oh for Merlin's sake, it's Reed, you've no trouble insulting Trelawney, and she's a professor, you'd think you could think of one acceptable insult and perhaps remember that pointing out his authority isn't the most brilliant plan for cheering up the woman who just tossed him over a desk!
"But you still shouldn't *say* it," Willow argued, still not lifting her head. "Or point it out any other way. Like by getting into a brawl in the middle of class and ending up spread-eagle on the floor and I probably shouldn't be pointing that out to you either 'cause you're all young and impressionable and god I'm just gonna shut up now," she concluded with a faint moan.
"We're not *that* young and impressionable," Ron countered, sounding indignant. "I mean, we know what it looks -" Hermione stepped hard on his foot under the table.
"What'd you do that for?" he demanded.
"Still not helping . . " Harry hissed.
"I just meant she wasn't, you know, corrupting us or anything like .. right," Ron trailed off at Willow's whimpering. "Shutting up now." He snatched up the book Hermione had shoved in his direction, opening it to some random point and appearing to be completely engrossed. Oh really, Ron, it's *upside down*.
"But really, somebody needed to do it," Hermione insisted. And this is wasting time I could be researching Ulburg the Raider. Not that I mind, exactly, Willow's almost like a friend even if she is a professor, but . .it's going to take forever, and I really should have at least two feet worth. "They deserved it, on both counts."
"Both counts?" Harry inquired.
Oops. Forgot they didn't know about the Snape incident.
Honestly, I wish I didn't know. And I think she's wishing she didn't tell me.
It's completely inappropriate.
And just too funny. I'm going to bust out laughing in the middle of Potions if he comes in with a great swollen nose and two black eyes - which of course he won't, he's a Potions Master, he knows how to make a poultice, but I'm going to be thinking it anyway.
"Both . .points," Hermione hedged. "I meant, she made several excellent points -"
"I hit Snape in the face with a door," Willow muttered dejectedly. Ron's upside down book hit the table with a loud clunk.
She really does have to stop telling us students everything, or she's going to get herself in trouble.
And I've got to stop enjoying it so much. It's very petty.
Really, I shouldn't find it so amusing.
"You didn't really," Ron asked incredulously, looking half horrified and half like someone had just announced that today was both Christmas and his new birthday.
"I really did," Willow confirmed, sounding utterly miserable.
"But she didn't mean to," Hermione interjected hastily. "That was an accident." But he *did* deserve it. He's a brilliant Potions Master and he is on our side but honestly, he's a bully, and he's got to learn better than to be provoking people constantly and if this doesn't teach him -
"Who cares?" Ron exclaimed. "Colin Creevey wasn't around, was he?"
Harry and Hermione both gave Ron puzzled looks.
"Nobody else saw, thank each and every single one of the gods," Willow said fervently.
"Damn," Ron said, shoulders slumping in disappointment.
"Why do you care if Colin saw?" Harry asked, but Hermione figured it out. Oh, honestly, Ron . .
"Because he would have taken pictures," she explained with an exasperated sigh.
"Oh, come on!" Ron insisted. "If there was ever an event that deserved to be preserved forever, that was it! Bloody shame -"
"But my *point* was," Hermione spoke loudly over him, lowering her voice when a group of Ravenclaw sixth years at the next table over gave her very reproachful looks, "she didn't *mean* to hit Snape, it was an accident and it only happened because he was slamming the door in her face and she caught it -"
Ron broke out in loud guffaws, attempting half-heartedly to stifle them when one of the Ravenclaws made very emphatic and annoyed hushing sounds in his direction.
" - so it's not her fault," Hermione finished determinedly.
This is a really doomed endeavor, isn't it? Ought to just let her sulk and get on with Ulburg.
"And Reed is -"
"Useless prat," Ron reminded her.
"Pathetic waste of space," Harry prompted.
"Oh, stop it!" Hermione exploded. The Ravenclaws slammed their books shut and stalked away. I'm disrupting others' studying now too! This is just about enough! "It's good for a laugh, yes -" Willow groaned - "but it's really *not funny*!"
"But, it's not really serious or anything," Harry countered, giving Hermione an incredulous look and shifting his eyes between her and Willow. "Nothing to be upset about -"
"I don't mean what Willow did," Hermione retorted. "I mean the whole retched situation that lead up to it. Reed *is* useless and pathetic, and he's teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, and with You-Know-Who on the loose, there's nothing remotely amusing about it! So I say, good for Willow! And I'll say it to Dumbledore if I have to! At least we learned *something* in that class today!"
There was a moment's quiet, in which Hermione could hear the retreating Ravenclaws muttering about melodramatic Gryffindors. She blushed furiously.
"Well, really," she finished weakly. "It's the truth."
"It really is," Harry agreed, but he was still watching her a little warily.
"You know - and thanks for the vote of confidence - I don't know who," Willow commented, finally lifting her head from the table enough that a single green eye peaked out sideways from under her hair.
"Know who what?" Harry asked.
"You-Know-Who," Willow said, sitting up and brushing her hair out of her face. Hermione was still blushing at her own outburst, but was satisfied to see it had brought Willow out of her funk. And at only the small cost of my humiliation.
At least I can get on with research now.
"I've heard a bunch of people saying that these past two weeks, and it's annoying as all you-know-what, 'cause you know, I *don't* know who," Willow went on with a small shrug. "Just wondering if anybody could fill me in."
Hermione, Ron and Harry exchanged flabbergasted looks.
"You - don't know - about You-Know Who?" Hermione asked, trying not to sound too shocked. But . . EVERYONE knows about You-Know-Who! Even the muggle-borns, it's the first thing you hear about the minute you take the slightest peek into the wizarding world -
"That'd be You-Don't-Know-From-Adam to me," Willow said.
"Bloody hell," said Ron incredulously. "Seriously?"
"What?" Willow asked, glancing between them. "Is this some sort of learned-it-in-kindergarten thing? Am I being a total clueless freak again?"
"You are *not* a freak," Hermione said firmly. "But - well, it's just surprising -"
"No wonder you don't treat me any differently!" Harry exclaimed suddenly. "You're not putting on, you honestly don't know!"
"Know *what*?" Willow asked.
***
Willow stalked very determinedly through the corridor, the students giving her a wide berth.
I wonder if the rumor mill is already churning about the DADA disaster, if it's just the could-potentially-spit-nails look that I suspect is currently on my face?
He didn't tell me.
There's a big bad of an evil wizard, and this Harry kid is some sort of magical mini-Slayer, and there's a war, and the big poophead jerk is actually a reformed cult member who's now a spy. Or, was a spy. Until the snake thing which Hermione's convinced he didn't know about - and oh, by the way, just in case anybody cares, the snake-thing was courtesy of one Voldemort, our resident evil-wizard Big Bad.
Just in case anybody might have been interested in these little details.
And I though Reed's class was bad enough as preparation for maybe someday meeting something nasty in a dark alley.
But no, actually, it's all the preparation these kids are getting for a fucking war!
A war!
Isn't there some sort of legal clause somewhere saying you have to tell somebody when they're getting freakin' combat duty?
I mean, there's gotta be a rule somewhere against just going "take that desk over there, might want to duck and cover on your way over, don't mind the shrapnel."
Not that I even got that!
A pair of first-year Hufflepuff girls ducked into a doorway as she stormed past.
Not that this is about me. Because I can hold my own. I mean, hello, lived on a Hellmouth. Closed a Hellmouth. Fought a god. My life would make this Voldie guy piss his pants. So *not* impressed.
But there are the kids. Who I've gotten kinda attached to.
Who are being assigned homework like braiding garlic necklaces.
Garlic necklaces! These people are wizards! They're clued in! In the know! Not like Sunnydale adults. Not off the hook for being clueless like Sunnydale adults.
Not lacking in responsibility for what happens when the next generation, who are *always* the ones who get stuck with the blood and guts and horror end of crap like this, think a garlic braid is going to save them from an evil wizard doing a bad Hitler impression!
And that smug bastard didn't tell me!
She caught sight down the corridor of the ugly gargoyle Harry had told her was the entrance to Dumbledore's office. She picked up her pace, causing a group of Slytherin third years to have to dodge out of her way or be trampled.
And if he thinks just because I'm all desperate in need of a job and pitiful and homeless and stuff that means I'm gonna sit by, tow the party line, let that idiot Reed teach these kids nothing that's good for anything except getting all kinds of dead just because Reed's some sort of tattle-tale to their really screwed up Ministry, well then -
She rapped on the stone gargoyle hard enough to send shooting pains through her knuckles and up her wrist. "Professor Rosenberg here, to see Headmaster Dumbledore!" she announced in a loud and demanding voice. "Open sesame already!"
- well then he's got another fucking thing coming!
The gargoyle slid aside to reveal a narrow, winding stone stairway. Willow stomped up the stairs, taking in only vague details of the office at the summit. Lots of paintings of old guys, weird gadgets, potential to be cozy.
"Willow," Dumbledore greeted her warmly, in the personal-yet-somehow-professional way he had with all of the staff. "Lemon drop?"
Okay, I haven't looked in any mirrors, but I do not think I have a offer-her-sweets sort of look on my face right now.
"What can I do for you?" he asked in the same cordial tone, replacing the lid on the tin of sweets and folding his hands on his desk, apparently unperturbed her lack of response to the offered candy.
"You can cut the crap," Willow snapped out. Okay, when I was practicing that in my head it involved bigger words and less cursing. Stupid temper.
"Ah," Dumbledore said grimly, nodding. "Please, have a seat." He gestured at a selection of chairs arrayed in front of the desk.
"I think I'll stand," Willow said stiffly.
"As you wish," he conceded with a gracious wave of his hand. If he gets any calmer about this I'm gonna have to start breaking things. "I will hazard a guess, and say you've been speaking to Mr. Potter."
"Yeah," Willow folded her arms across her chest. "We had this really interesting little convo about evil wizards and spies and messiah-like babies. It was enlightening."
"And now you are wondering why I did not tell you all this when you first arrived here," Dumbledore suggested.
"There's that," Willow nodded. "Then there's the wondering why your Defense Against the Dark Arts curriculum ought to be re-titled 'Being Lunch for Beginners' or maybe 'Intermediate Getting Really Dead.' And then there's the being confused about what in the frickin' hell is up with this 'You-Know-Who' crap - you can't even say the guy's freakin' name? Oh, yeah, that's inspiring confidence!"
"I quite agree," Dumbledore said levelly.
"And besides that, what's - huh?" Willow cut off short.
"I agree," Dumbledore repeated.
"You agree that you're going about this evil-fighting business like a bunch of headless chickens?" Willow challenged.
"Absolutely," Dumbledore nodded, looking almost cheerful.
"And you're not *doing* something about this because . ?" Willow demanded.
"When will you need a classroom?" he asked.
"Huh?" she responded blankly. Okay, I think I skipped a track there.
"Professor Reed is a necessary evil," Dumbledore went on, "though that is hardly his fault. Our Ministry is rather fond of their - how did you put it? - their chickens-without-heads approach. They do not recognize that we are in any danger. Anyone who suggests otherwise becomes .. suspect. I made the unfortunate error, at the end of last term, of expecting our Minister of Magic to be more concerned with meeting the threat of Voldemort than with keeping the public's approval. I'm afraid I accomplished little more than to . . upset him."
"So now you've got a babysitter," Willow nodded along. "It's no excuse. Make him teach something else. To leave these kids unprepared -"
"I am not, Miss Rosenberg, leaving them unprepared," Dumbledore answered her rather sternly. "In fact, I think I've found them the best teacher possible to train them in the skills they will need to survive and, fate willing, even triumph. I am not, of course, referring to Professor Reed."
"Great. When do I get to meet this miracle worker?"
"You've met," Dumbledore said, and there was a twinkle of mirth in his eye. Does this guy find EVERYTHING entertaining? 'cause you know what, that's just a little wee bit annoying.
"Willow," he said in a tone of amused patience, "I'm talking about you."
She stared blankly, utterly deflated.
Huh? What? Me? Huh?
"Me?" she squeaked after a long moment
"I repeat, when will you need a classroom?" Dumbledore said, steepling his fingers and watching her closely. "I am correct in assuming that you've discovered something you find worth teaching?"
"Not Dying 101?" Willow said incredulously.
"Excellent course title!" Dumbledore exclaimed, reaching for a quill and jotting it down on a piece of parchment. "I believe there's a large unused dungeon that would suit your purposes very well. Now, as your class must, unfortunately, be an elective due to starting mid-term, you have some leeway in how you may arrange it. Would you prefer to teach groups of students all in the same year? Or would you - and this would be my preference - rather mix things up a bit?"
Things are already mixed up just a bit, Willow thought. "You planned this all along," she said aloud.
"I hoped," Dumbledore answered.
"I don't like being manipulated," Willow said flatly. "Just about filled my quota of that for today."
"Such is war," Dumbledore said in the steel-edged voice she'd heard from him when they first met in the hospital, and discussed her past magic abuse. "Will you refuse to help where you are needed?"
"Why don't you tell me what you 'hope'," she retorted. He didn't answer, just put his quill down and waited.
"No," she said finally, shaking her head. "No, I won't. I just -" she cut off, not sure how to put her next thought into words, or whether she even should.
"You thought this was what you ran from," Dumbledore finished for her.
"That's about it," Willow admitted, shrugging. I'm not important. I'm not strong. Things don't end well when people ask me to be.
But I've got to be an improvement over nothing. I hope.
"So can we go check out this dungeon I'll be teaching in?"
***
Okay, lesson plans. Notices for Filch to put in common rooms. Recommended reading list. No, wait, first find out what's in the library - do we *have* the books I want on the reading list? I've been focused on all the books I *hadn't* read before.
Willow meandered up the corridor between her new dungeon classroom and her living quarters in an overwhelmed daze.
Field trips. Dang it, forgot to ask about field trips.
Waivers - do I need waivers from parents? I plan on teaching some graphic stuff.
I wonder where I can get body pads. I think I can talk to Professor Flitwick about making selectively incorporeal stakes so they can't actually stab each other, but there's still the knees and elbows and fingernails and all. They can do some damage, those elbows.
I'm actually going to be teaching a class of my own design. I don't believe this.
My class is officially entitled 'Not Dying 101'.
I *really* don't believe this.
Hrmm - belief and expectation - should there be some philosophy involved? Do I want to get into theory as well as practice? Or maybe that should be for Not Dying 102.
She giggled to herself. A group of passing Slytherins looked at her oddly.
I wonder if I have to stay traditional with the class time - I mean, want to give them a real taste of the evil-fighting life? Pull them out of bed at three in the morning.
Not for every class, though. But maybe once or twice? Maybe for tests? Unannounced tests! 'Cause you know, apocalyspses, you don't usually get much warning.
Well, sometimes prophesies.
Ooooh, I could set up a fake apocalypse! Clues and prophesies and stuff, and if they do their homework, then they're warned, if not, tough noogies.
They're gonna hate me worse than -
She walked straight into something very solid, which grunted when she hit it.
- Snape.
"Don't you think you've inflicted sufficient physical injury to the rest of the staff for one day, Professor Rosenberg?" he practically snarled, scowling down his slightly bruised nose at her. She just stared, feeling overwhelmed with her new knowledge of this man.
Goddess, does he ever define 'jerk'.
But he's Dumbledore's spy. All noble and reformed and self-sacrificing and amends-making and stuff.
And maybe he's a bastard 'cause he's just got no patience for all us sheltered people. Well, not that I'm a sheltered people, but not like he knows that, either.
Still not a good excuse to be mean to kids.
But still . . big jerky poopheads don't generally go risking their lives to make the world a better place.
"Admiring your handiwork?" Snape inquired, voice dripping sarcasm. She realized she'd been staring at his nose, and flushed.
"No, I just - I mean -" she stammered. He raised a sardonic eyebrow. "Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot," she forced the words out in a rush. "Okay, possibly the whole wrong leg. But there's - stuff. That we might have in common. Or not, but we're gonna work together, and we're on the same side in - stuff, that I think probably isn't the stuff of hallway conversations. So, um, would you maybe - wanna go get some coffee or something?"
He just stared at her expressionlessly.
"Sometime," she amended hastily. "Not necessarily now. Later is fine."
He was developing a hint of an expression; it looked like shock.
"Or, maybe you don't like coffee. Maybe something other than coffee? Beer?"
No response.
"Or, not beer. You don't look like a beer drinker. Me either, you know. I like to eat the olives out of martinis but really I don't drink much so - maybe a non-alcoholic outing would be good. Um, you have any particular feelings on hot chocolate?"
He was looking at her like she's grown a second head.
"Or maybe I should just go," she cringed. "And find a rock to hide under."
She hurried around him - he still hadn't moved, standing frozen in place as if petrified - and broke into a near run, not stopping until she'd reached her rooms.
***
The knock on her door came at some unidentifiably late hour; Willow was still unnerved by the fact that her clock said things like "late" and "you missed dinner" rather than showing actual times.
Other aspects of living in a magical castle have their benefits, though - like when you do miss dinner, house elves show up with trays full of tasty things.
Also, they're good for fetching things, like library books, when you're humiliated and not leaving your rooms ever, ever again or interacting with any member of the human species.
Willow paused, a dinner roll liberally smeared with herb butter half-way to her mouth. She was sitting cross-legged in the middle of her enormous bed surrounded by stacks of open library books, assorted lists on parchment, and a small salamander of the magical rather than amphibious kind in a floating fishbowl - evidently the wizarding equivalent of a book light, according to the house-elf that brought it. But much cuter.
And who the heck is knocking on my door this time of night?
Oh god, it's an attack. Or an apocalypse. Or somebody's dead.
She threw the roll in the general direction of her dinner tray and launched herself off the bed, ignoring the fact that she was barefoot and pajama-clad, and sprinted across the room to the door. The person on the other side of it knocked again, more insistently this time.
"I'm coming!" she called out, and flung the door open. "What's hap -" she cut off, her jaw dropping open.
There stood Severus Snape, a silver tray holding an enormous, elaborate silver tea service balance on one hand, the other hand frozen in the act of knocking.
Okay, not an apocalypse.
But just possibly the end of the world as I know it.
Do NOT laugh. You will not laugh. You laugh and I'm so gonna kick your ass into next week.
Is it a sign of psychosis to be threatening to beat yourself up?
Is it a sign of psychosis to show up at someone's doorway at ten at night with a big old honkin' tea tray?
There will NOT be laughing!
He looked, even more than usual, like he'd swallowed something sour.
"Uh, did Dumbledore send you to check on me?" she asked hesitantly. No giggles. Bad giggles! Bad, BAD giggles!
"No," he said brusquely, and dropped the hand that had been about to knock, still holding up that tea tray. He looks like a bad caricature of a butler!
And I'm wearing a nightgown.
This could get more fucked up. Maybe a couple naked house elves could streak by singing Christmas carols.
"So, uh - tea," she said. And I have the social skills of a demented ten year old.
Of course, hello to the unannounced, near midnight tea. I'm in good company here.
"I don't like coffee," he said, as if that explained everything, still grimacing as if he might be sick any moment.
Okay, he doesn't like coffee - oh, coffee!
How did you forget the oh-so-humiliating coffee discussion?
Possibly because watching somebody else humiliating themselves is a real good distraction from your own embarrassment and shame.
So he's . . trying to be nice?
Ye gads, does he really need some practice!
And he looks like he knows it. I think . . I think the swallowed-a-barrel-of-half-rotted-lemons look just might mean he's .. nervous?
I'm capable of making someone nervous? In a non-death-threat sort of way?
"So, why don't you, um, come in or something?" she squeaked out, opening the door and standing aside. "I mean, not or something. Come in. Not that I'm like, ordering you to, or anything, but you're standing there, and that looks heavy -" you laugh, I kill you - "so, uh -"
He walked in past her. Thank the Goddess. Uh, would it be too much to ask that you just strike me with lightening or send a plague of scorpions or something if I ever open my mouth again?
"There's the table," she said inanely, gesturing towards her small kitchenette. And, oh look, there's my open bedroom door, and there's my underwear on the floor. And seeing as it's all kinds of dark in here and there's a floating salamander over my bed it's sorta spotlighted and oh look, there he is checking out the piles of books and the bras.
Oh, you know what, fuck this being awkward shit. We're both way too pathetic to care.
She marched into the bedroom and grabbed two books up off the bed.
"So," she said in a determinedly conversational voice as she walked back to the kitchenette, aware she was still in her frumpy flannel nightgown and blushing furiously, "who do you think is the more definitive source on demonology as relates to sorcery? Would you go with Dimitrov's 'Compendium of Fiends' or Engelbreth's 'An Encyclopedia of Hell and Its Denizens'?" She plopped the two books down on the table, next to the tea service, and hastily muttered the charm to light the wall sconces around the room.
He's doing that suffering-head-trauma kinda staring again ..
"Dimitrov," he said after a long, very awkward pause, and seemed to gather some of his dignity. "Engelbreth's is more complete, but also full of religious superstition."
She nodded, pulling the book he'd chosen towards her and sitting, gesturing for him to take the other chair.
"That's what I was thinking, but he's kinda skimpy on the details of directed use of Succubi," she said. Nobody's serving the tea. Am I supposed to serve the tea? I live here. That makes me the hostess. But he brought the freakin' tea service with the many bazillions of implements and dishes that I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with!
Oh, screw it, I'm serving the tea.
"Cream and sugar?"
To be continued . . .