A/N: Thanks to my wonderful betas for doing such an excellent job with my writing! These first two chapters and the prologue were more, as you can see, for setting up. Chapter three has more action in it and will be up as soon as I recieve it back. Your reviews, as always, are much appreciated!
Today had been Sashenka's first day scrubbing down the entrance hall, and she was convinced of two things. Number one, Hogwarts absolutely had to have mats for people to wipe their feet off on, because the floor was a shade darker due to all the dirt ingrained in the stone. And, secondly, if she ever died and became a ghost, she would haunt Snape until his dying day, it was just unfortunate that she couldn't curse him to scrubbing floors.
After a much needed long steaming shower she, with a glass of water, padded back into her room in a terry cloth robe, her hair dripping, and went to the green seedlings planted at her window seat. Outside, a rainstorm beat at the window and ran down the partially stained glass in defeat, obscuring any vision that was possible at night. It was really quite lovely, Sashenka thought with a smile, and glanced around the room. In Moscow, the room would have been a clean white with linoleum floors and a standard, plastic covered bed. The window would have been square with a ledge on both the inside and outside and below, rather than the grassy hills and calming lake of Hogwarts, there would be the busy street of Muggle Moscow or wizard Moscow, depending on what side of the residence you were on, not that there was any significant difference between the two worlds. In Russia, wizards and witches were non magic folk, then their magical heritage—it wasn't separate, or the other way around. A wizard got their automobile license as well as their Apparition license; for a wizard there was no one or the other. With that in mind, Sashenka had been shocked when she started at Hogwarts and realized how little purebloods knew about Muggles. She pitied one if they were ever thrown in the middle of Muggle London without the aid of a Muggle-born or otherwise Muggle savvy person.
The thought made Sashenka laugh as she turned away from the rainy dark window and picked up the glass. With care she watered the fragile green stalks that were starting up in the large pots she had them in. She wasn't gifted with plants; it didn't matter how devoted she was to them at the beginning of the year. Somehow they always seemed to die.
The truth was that she simply forgot to nurture the plants because she was always studying. This year, though, she had come up with a plan over the summer. When she got her books, she also got Muggle Post-it notes and sat with her books, marking each chapter with a Post-it note, reminding her to look up every so often and water the plants, make sure she didn't need more robes, and write home and let her parents know she was doing well. She even had a few that reminded her to sleep at the more interesting and engrossing chapters. When she had told Sarah this on the way to the school from King's Cross, Sarah just laughed and said she really wasn't that surprised.
"Most normal people need Post-it notes to remind themselves to actually study. You've always been an odd duck; I'll be surprised if you don't have them stuck around your room reminding you to eat or sleep, or get out of your shell and find a man." Sashenka had just rolled her eyes at the time and told Sarah that she wasn't that much of a bookworm, but now that Sashenka looked at her books spread all over the floor, each open to a different page with some piece of parchment with scribble on it stuck in the spine, she wondered if Sarah was right.
She was jerked out of her thoughts by a soft knocking at the door. "Come in," Sashenka called and set down the glass she had been holding. Sarah eased into the room holding her pillow, her pajamas pink, the bottoms with large white hearts on them, and her hair up in pigtails. Sashenka knew why she had come at ten o'clock at night too. When the new dorm assignments for this year had come in and the girls weren't assigned to the same room, many of them decided to do some rearranging of their own. The result: overcrowded in some rooms, such as Sarah's, and single people to other rooms, such as Sashenka's. It suited her fine, though. She liked her privacy, but at times she had the company of Sarah.
"Do you mind?" Sarah looked at Sashenka and grinned, her blue eyes sparkling. She knew Sashenka would let her and didn't wait for an answer, just threw her pillow on Sashenka's bed and started weaving her way through some of the farthest books. "Kammie is having one of her sleepovers. I would stay, but Lin is going to be there and Lin and I…not a good mix." Sashenka smiled and shook her head as Sarah welcomed herself to hopping in the middle of Sashenka's bed, sitting cross-legged.
"Hey, get those ridiculous slippers off the bed. I've been scrubbing that floor for four hours today. I hate dirt, any kind of dirt, and dust too. So off with the bunny heads on the bed." Sarah stuck her tongue out and slipped off the furry white bunny slippers, settling for throwing them at Sashenka and making a childish face at her when she gave her a scowl.
"Four hours, huh? Who finally told you to stop? Not Snape, I don't think. I think he fancies seeing people pass out of exhaustion and overwork." Sarah shrugged as she watched Sashenka kneel and pick a few books up.
"Lupin came along and insisted that I go to the kitchens and get something to eat, then go rest." Sashenka straightened and glanced at her, frowning a bit. "I rather fancied sleeping in my undies tonight; I just don't have the energy to fight a nightgown in my sleep." She shrugged it off and threw her hair up in a ponytail.
"And you think I would cop a feel? You're not my type, too curvy." Grinning playfully she reached out and made an hour glass motion with her hands at Sashenka's body. Sashenka rolled her eyes at Sarah and forwent the night gown. Instead she just slipped off the robe and shooed Sarah off the bed to pull the covers back.
"You're just jealous because you have to wear the frilly bras and I get to look at the ones for heavy duty work." Sashenka tugged at her camisole. Even in her undergarments she chose modesty and didn't have any fancy underwear. In general she and Sarah were the same size: both of them had thin legs and small waists. But Sashenka was gifted, and she used that word very loosely, with a larger endowment of her breasts and more filled out hips.
With an exhausted sigh Sashenka crawled into bed and huffed as she got comfortable on her stomach. Sarah crawled in behind her and laid on the other half of the bed. After much shifting around, and ill aimed kicks of protest from Sashenka, the blonde finally got comfortable on her side, allowing Sashenka to settle down into the bed and close her eyes. It wasn't but a few minutes later that she was sound asleep, the only sound coming from her being a soft breathing emitting from her.
The next day's only consolation was DADA with Lupin. Out of all her teachers, she liked him the best. Not only was he pleasing to look at, but he was such a refreshing change from hormonal, macho teenagers and an otherwise unmentioned bastard of a professor. Finally though all of her classes were done and, while getting a bite to eat, a darker shadow came over her otherwise mediocre day closed down on her.
"Miss Semenov, I do believe you have a detention to continue with. I noticed that the entrance hall was only partially done."
Snape looked down at the Gryffindor. After her episode of telling him, the Potions Master, what to put into a potion, he had done some checking. Nowhere in her files or transcript to Hogwarts did it say that her uncle was one of the best Potion Masters known to the modern wizarding world. It certainly explained a few things, but in no way made him have any desire to let up on her. Rather, his curiosity was perked up by her silence. Could it be that a Gryffindor was overlooking the chance to show off? Of course, he replied to himself, she wasn't an ordinary Gryffindor, but he would have thought she would mention it at least to her head of house. McGonagall hadn't known anything about it and was surprised at Snape's interest in the whole thing when he mentioned it over dinner.
Along with his curiosity came his suspicion as well. Why was she there and not in a Russian school? Hogwarts didn't have as much to offer her as one of her native schools, so why be there? Was her family banished from Eurasia? Was there a new dark power on the rise there that was worse than Voldemort? These questions formed in Snape's mind and he shot down as many as he could, but with each one came a renewed curiosity about what the answer could be.
"I felt that sleep, food, and class were more important." Deep down Snape applauded her lack of nervousness with him. It was surprisingly nice to get an acidic reply such as hers, and a volatile glare now and then. Having people intimidated into silence kept things in check, but it was no assurance that his snide remarks and insults were still affective. When someone like her came along and humored him with her stubbornness, it was reassuring. If his students no longer had a complete dislike for him, then he wouldn't have anything, not anymore.
"Well, I feel that cleanliness is more important and, since I am the professor, I do think what I feel carries slightly more weight than you." Snape watched her slowly take a drink of her pumpkin juice and, stealing another bite, got to her feet. Despite the fact that he was a little amused at her resistance to give in, he did feel a little annoyed, possibly out of habit, when she was deliberately slow about it. "Miss Semenov," He was going to enjoy antagonizing her. "I understand that you are used to dirt, and that the only Russians who know how to clean are servants to everyone else, but I'm sure even you can manage to scrub-"
"You know, the only thing I did to you was to make a small suggestion! Are you offended that a student dare help you, or does the fact that I breathe your air put a chip on your shoulder?" Snape raised a brow; Sashenka put her hands on her hips and glared.
"I do believe that little outburst earns you further detentions." Sashenka shook her head and looked off before looking back at him. What else did she have to lose?
"You know, I don't know what your problem is with students. In Russia, we have teachers like you, so you might bully around all these Brits, but I am Russian and not in the least intimidated by an overgrown-"
"50 points-"
"-point-taking happy bat like-"
"Sashenka!"
Sashenka turned and looked up to see Remus standing in the doorway to the kitchens, looking at her surprised and, she could swear, amused beneath that. Despite the trace of amusement, she felt suddenly foolish for getting caught arguing with Snape.
"Detention until Christmas break." Snape snarled slightly and turned, sweeping from the room. Sashenka watched him walk out and looked to Remus, who let a faint grin slip after Snape was out of the door.
"You were standing there just arguing with him?" Sashenka grinned at him a bit before making a certain 'oops' expression and laughing quietly.
