A/N: this isn't beta read, and I'm just writing this for my own sanity during these things. Updates will be sporadic, but all of it is planned. Bed sharing! Hair washing! Hair braiding! Bickering like an old married couple! I love these idiots.
A teaching workshop. A teaching workshop.
Severus blinked and skimmed over the letter again, hoping he'd misread. But there was no denying it. Minerva had signed him up for a workshop. In France. A week after the end of term. And it lasted a month.
"You can't be serious," Severus demanded, staring at the words with a faint look of disgust. "I do not need a workshop."
He looked up to Minerva, seated across from him with her eyebrows raised.
"Trust me, you do," she said. Severus scowled and opened his mouth to retort, but she continued, softening a bit: "That's not meant to be an insult. This is only your fourth year teaching, Severus."
Severus bit back the sharp comment on the tip of his tongue. He could admit to himself that, perhaps, Minerva had a point. All of the Howlers he'd received might be indicative of that.
Still.
"You could have at least informed me sooner, to get my affairs in order," he sighed. Minerva's lips twitched at that, while Severus' pinched. He wasn't fond of that gleam in Minerva's eye.
"I apologize. I hope all of your pressing appointments can be rescheduled," she quipped, shuffling the papers in front of her. Severus glowered.
"Don't mock me," he snapped. Minerva paused her ministrations and raised an incredulous brow at him, lips thinning, and Severus almost shrunk under her stare. Loathe as he was to admit it, Minerva could be rather intimidating.
"There are worse things I could do than tease you, Severus," she said ominously.
Severus didn't know how to reply to that, so he didn't, instead folding the letter and tucking it into his robes. Minerva seemed to accept his silence, folding her hands on the table and watching Severus.
He cleared his throat and made to stand, halfway up before Minerva's stare pinned him.
"One last thing," she said. Severus' stomach dropped—there was more. Oh, no. "Gilderoy will be joining you."
Severus' skin prickled. He sank back down into his seat, grip not easing on the arms of the chair.
"I'm sorry. I must have misheard you," he said softly.
Minerva seemed as if she was resisting the desire to roll her eyes. "No, quite the opposite. Gilderoy is going as well."
"You signed him up with me," Severus said shortly. He just needed to confirm, was all.
There was that gleam in her eye again. It made Severus twitchy.
"Actually, he asked to go. To begin his improvements early, as he said," she said lightly. It seemed like she knew something he didn't.
He narrowed his eyes, hating feeling left out of the loop. He forced himself to relax his grip on the chair, folding his hands in his lap instead.
Minerva watched him process the information, unamused.
"Obviously, he has some ulterior motive," he said. He drummed his fingers over the back of his hand.
"I can't prove that, and neither can you," she said with a sigh, and Severus opened his mouth. "—legally." His jaw shut with a click.
A moment passed, the fire crackling away happily in the silence as Minerva waited for his reply.
"We both know that man hasn't proactively done a thing in his life," he finally muttered. Minerva pursed her lips, but didn't comment on the remark. It was a clear sign she agreed, and he felt some sort of satisfaction in that.
"However honest or dishonest his motives may be, it's already settled. You're both to go to France and complete the course, and I expect you to be civil. This is non-refundable."
At that, Severus resigned himself to his fate. There was no fighting Minerva on this, and seeing as the course cost someone a fair amount of money, he couldn't find it within himself to back out.
He could be civil with Lockhart, and a month in France surely couldn't be that bad. He might not even have to see Lockhart often, outside of the classes.
It could be an enjoyable experience. Right?
