Following close behind Snape's irritated exclamation, an Uncomfortable Silence swept in, pulled a book off a shelf, turned on some nice, soothing music, poured itself a tall glass of red wine and generally threatened to make a night of it. Harry tossed glances to Hermione and Ron (shocked and stunned, respectively) to McGonagall (somewhat mortified but covering it well) to Snape (resignedly bitter, as usual) and to Sinistra (about to wet herself from repressed laughter.) It was not until after the Uncomfortable Silence started in on its fifth game of solitaire that Harry actually managed to force his mouth to make sounds.

"Um…" Harry said, lamely looking around for someone knowledgeable. His eyes landed gratefully on his wizened head of house.

McGonagall looked very much like she had somewhere extremely important to be within the next thirty seconds or so and had completely forgotten. She stared with overwhelming alarm at her pocket watch in a way that practically screamed, 'Oh, look at the time!'

"Oh, look at the-" she began.

"Sev and I are living together." Sinistra stated simply.

The Uncomfortable Silence, having momentarily slipped out of the room for a bit of a stretch, poked its head around the corner, munching on a large box of chocolates.

"Er, yes. We live together. Oh, honestly, Minnie! It's not as if they're children! I mean, ok, they are, but really! They should have been treated more like adults long ago, considering how they've risked their lives for all of wizarding society-"

Snape laughed once, loudly. Sinistra stared daggers at him, but continued undeterred.

"And we should treat them with the respect that merits. Which means information. Even ... slightly awkward information. There's no one here who can't handle this!" She turned back to Harry, Hermione, and Ron, "Ok, maybe not. Right. Sorry Ronald. Sev, would you please fetch Mr. Weasley a calming draught?" Sinistra said, staring into Ron's wide, terrified eyes.

Snape returned momentarily with a small, unlabeled flask. Ron snatched it from his hands and drank it down in one great gulp. Instantly, his eyes clouded, and a vague smile landed on his face.

"Good Lord, Severus! What did you put in that flask?" Professor McGonagall exclaimed, clearly concerned.

"Oh, calm down, Minerva. It's just a typical, mild calming draught...with the tiniest splash of rum. And vodka. And whatever Mallory keeps in that bottle under the bar that he sneaks sips from when he thinks we're not looking. Nothing dangerous!"

Deputy Headmistress Minerva McGonagall rose to her full height and stared Professor Snape down with all of her incredible maternal wrath.

Snape cowered ever so slightly. Minerva laughed out loud.

"You know, I'm never certain if Albus actually thinks these things through before he puts us to them. And then, sometimes I think it may be he simply adores making all of us lesser beings terribly uncomfortable," the older woman said, cackling slightly.

The Uncomfortable Silence snorted and turned a page in it's magazine.

"Sadist." Sinistra snickered. "Anyway... oh, yes. Professor Snape and I own... Don't worry, Hermione, I promise Ron will be his normal, spider-fearing, semi-miserable self as soon as the draught wears off." She turned back to Harry, "Professor Snape and I work together outside of Hogwarts, too. We share ownership of this club. Therefore, it's very likely he'll be here when you are, Harry. Don't worry, we've learned our lesson. He won't be involved in your lessons, and he's promised to be underfoot as little as possible whenever you're about. Haven't you?"

Snape closed his gaped mouth with a muffle click and turned back to his post, "It's not as if it was a difficult promise to make, Sin."

Sinistra beamed, "And there you have it, from the Grinch's very own mouth. So, where was I? Oh, yes, so, Harry, about these lessons-"

"Excuse me, Euphoria, terribly sorry, but I really must be going, Order Business, you know...I shall return to collect the students after dinner, I suppose?" Professor McGonagall stood and straightened her hat back on her head. Harry heard Hermione and Ron shuffling beside him, clearly wishing they could suddenly develop 'Order Business,' too.

"Oh of course, of course. You're sure you can't be persuaded to join us tonight for a little bite?" Sinistra said, standing, "We're having turkey chili and cornbread..."

"Oh, no, no, no, I couldn't possibly, well, perhaps, if there's time..." The sweet old woman smiled, "Perhaps I'll stop off and pick up a lovely Merlot Rose? I've just heard of a new Romanian vineyard, something ironic..."

"I think I may have heard of that one," Snape said, offering her his arm as he proceeded to escort her down the stairs. "Oh, perhaps you could pick up a nice 40-year-old bottle of Single-malt? We're fresh out of our private stock, and I'm certain our beloved Euphoria will need it after this evening's...escapades..."

"Oh, can it, you!" Sinistra shouted down the green silk passage, "Ignore him. He's all bark, I swear. Okay, mostly bark, but I digress. So, Harry, about these lessons..."

The walls shook slightly. The ceiling screamed.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRROOOOOOAWWWWWOOOOOHHHOOOOOT! Got it, I GOT IT, the DAMN Bastard!" A tile directly over Sinistra's desk chair exclaimed. With a click and a rusty swoosh, it flew open and revealed a dark hole full of tiny, twinkling lights and the head of one very dirty-faced, muss-haired Indian girl. The head grinned hugely, and spoke.

"I TOLD you I'd get it, didn't I?" The head said, vanishing momentarily into the ceiling, only to be replaced by a grease-smeared arm brandishing a stack of twinkling star charts. "Behold, my brilliance!" The girl said, pointing at a particularly angrily twinkling spot near the lower right corner of the top chart.

"Oh, got it, have you Padma?" Snape said, just pushing through the curtain at the top of the stairs. Between Snape and himself, Harry watched Hermione's eyebrow grow ever closer to her hairline, and Ron's face ever more green.

"Absolutely! See, right here, right where I said it would be!" Padma Patil said, now a mostly visible torso, "Somebody owes me fifty galleons!"

Snape chuckled, a strange sound from his throat, "Well Sin, looks like she's got you there..."

"It's a lucky guess, I tell you!" Sinistra said, pulling a money pouch from her coat." No one can see something that small unaided!"

"You're obviously just not as sensitive as I am, my dear Professor!"

"You mean she can stand having the curtains open at three in the morning? That she doesn't bellow nonstop about how annoyingly bright the candles are? That she doesn't pace the halls nightly, whining that noone will stay up to talk to her? Why, yes, I think you might be right!" Snape snarled, but not without a faint trace of mirth.

Padma crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. Hey, turn that frown upside down! Oh, wait, you already have! Harry mused, stifling a laugh.

"Not my fault I'm uniquely gifted," Padma sulked.

"Hmmn." Sinistra said to herself, scrutinizing Ron and Hermione with sharp eyes. "Padma, how would you like to go to the Market?"

Padma Patil landed flat-footed on the floor. She looked up at the much taller woman with skeptical eyes.

"Whose payroll? And why do I smell a catch?" She said.

Snape shook his head, laughing to himself as he turned and padded back to the office near the door. He closed the frosted glass door behind him a little over halfway, and soon busied himself with a loud-clicking adding machine.

"Mine, and no catch. Okay, half a catch. I'm thinking these lovely classmates of yours might like to stay for the show tonight, and they could use some...suitable attire. You know to, em... blend in."

Padma still wasn't biting. "So, I can dress them in anything I want?"

Sinistra leaned down to star her eye-to-eye, "Anything they'll willingly wear. All three of them, though only those two will be with you. You can guess Harry's size, I'll wager?"

Padma studied the trio a long minute. She nodded resolutely, "I love a challenge." She sniffed loudly and rubbed a hand over her cheek. "Right then, just let me get washed up," she said, rushing out of the room like a small, brown, grease-smudged tornado.

"Ah, Professor Sinistra? Might I ask a rather... impertinent question?" Hermione said, clearly off-balance. Ron was literally off-balance; he had turned himself upside down in the chair as was now tying complicated knots in his shoe laces.

"Just one? HA!" Snape said from behind the office's frosted glass door.

"Sev, hush!" Sinistra shouted as she resumed he seat on top of her desk. She turned back to Hermione, "I think we've more than earned that. Ask away."

"It's just- how long has this been going on? I had no idea-"

"WHAT? NO! The great MISS GRANGER, stumped! Impossible!" Snape sniped, "I would say you must be mistaken, but I know that simply cannot be..." Harry could almost see Snape's bitter sneer.

"SEV! Well, Hermione, we've been a couple for... what is it, '96?" She began to count on her fingers.

"Don't forget the lake trip! That COUNTS!" Snape shouted.

"Oh, right." Sinistra started her finger count over again. After starting over the seventh time, she gave up, "A while. A frickin great, long, long while."

"But aren't you worried..."Harry started. Sinistra gestured for him to go on. "Aren't you worried, what with Professor Snape's...work, that, maybe..."

"I might be in danger? We've had that discussion." Sinistra said.

"She's a stubborn cow and wouldn't listen to reason." Snape shouted from the office, "And may you be so blessed as to find someone so pigheaded. Might introduce you to a place we like to call reality."

"Sev, darling, I could have sworn you said something about being silent as the grave... Harry, what do you know about Cavanaugh Warding?" Sinistra asked.

"Wrong Gryffindor, Darling. I know, I know -Shoosh, Sev!"

"Ok, then. Hermione?"

"Cavanaugh warding is designed prevent any information that the owners of a warded area want to keep secret from escaping that area and being overheard by anyone who wishes them ill. Cavanaugh wards don't prevent ill-wishers from entering an area, but they do make them forget any dangerous information the moment they leave, and they prevent that information from being communicated through any means. They're meant to be incredibly difficult to perform, but once they're established, they grow in strength as the years pass. I suppose they've been employed here?" Hermione said, pleased to be on such familiar footing.

"And at the flat around the corner, and in our chambers at Hogwarts, both sets. We never discuss these matters outside those sets of walls, and should you try to discuss them when you leave here, you'll find your vocabulary entertainingly limited. We also employ a healthy mix of your standard, everyday physical safety wards, all of this on top of our both being fairly accomplished, field tested Occulmenses and magic users." She turned her gaze back to Harry. "We know the risks, Harry, and we've chosen to face them together. I know you may not understand, and in truth, I don't need you to. All I need you to understand is I will do my best to teach you this skill by now I'm certain you know the importance of. Oh, and that I'm really nothing at all like your last teacher, who clearly had no idea what he was doing, the poor, incompetent wretch." Sinistra shook her head sadly, and chuckled at the bout of coughing pouring from the office. Harry and Hermione joined her in the laughter, glad for the levity.

Ron, now a puddle on the floor, took that moment to voice his concern.

"Ish thish evennnnn….. legal?" Ron slurred, his head between his knees.

This time the loud laugh was from Sinistra, "Alas, dear Ronald, I'm afraid so. The Wizarding world has yet to fashion a law whereby devastatingly beautiful foreign witches are forbidden from cohabiting with hideously grouchy yet strangely alluring hermit-wizards. The world simply isn't ready for that kind of advance."

"Thanks be for that!" Severus said. From the sounds echoing out of the office, Harry thought he might be spinning around in a rolling office chair.

"Amen. Any other questions?"

"If there are, they'll have to wait! Onward, brave Gryffs! To the Market!" Padma Patil stood in the curtained doorway, clean-faced and freshly attired in jeans and a hot pick Aerosmith t-shirt, "Off to Market, Sev! Need anything?"

A hand gestured Padma over to the office door. "We're out of Darjeeling, see if Ben has any. And I could use a few parchments, and a bit of printer paper, as well. Also, we're out of banana bread... and asphodel…. Oh, and if there's any baklava..."

"Right. Off then!" Padma started for the door.

"Wait!" Snape called the young Patil back, "You've your talismans, yes?" He said, low, "And you've practiced your dueling? Your defensive charms?"

Padma rolled her eyes, "Ye-es. From the Jellylegs to the Sectumsempra, yes!"

Sinistra smiled amusedly at the trio, "He's like this all the time." She mouthed.

"Heard that!" Snape shouted.

"What's that, Moody?" Sinistra sniped back.

"Hush, you. Here, Padma, give this to Weasley or you'll be carrying him to Market." Padma took the bottle and offered it to the now completely inverted Ron. He took the glowing little phial and downed it as quickly as he had the draught of extreme intoxication. His eyes instantly cleared, and he righted himself, blushing furiously. He tripped at least three times over his hopelessly mangled laces before Sinistra took mercy on him and loosed them with a quick flick of her wand.

"All right then, youngsters! It's time Mr. Potter and I got to work. Enjoy yourself! Oh, and say hi to Freddie for us, won't you?" Sinistra stood to usher Padma, Hermione, and a strangely alert but still befuddled Ron down the stairs.

Ron and Hermione tossed Harry concerned looks. He gestured them on, a resigned smile on his face. He had promised Dumbledore, and anyway, it might actually be fun.

"Be careful! Back before dark!" She shouted to their retreating forms.

"Now then, Harry, about these lessons..."

--T-O--B-E--C-O-N-T-I-N-U-E-D--

Well, there you have it! Sorry I'm so painfully slow about this writing thing- I intend to improve that as the year goes on. Comments loved!

-yuni-