Previously: Professor Snape took over Professor Lupin's class while the latter rested after a full moon. He decided that the most appropriate subject to study would be werewolves. Kali Black stayed after class to inform Professor Snape of her less-than-flattering thoughts regarding him.
Chapter Ten:
A Tuneful Revenge
"He's evil, cruel, and bigoted, and he's not fit to teach," Kali said, pacing through Remus's sitting room, one hand wrapped around her middle, the other gripping a strand of her hair.
Her veins itched from the fury boiling beneath the surface. She wanted to throw up or hit something, maybe both, although preferably not at the same time. Remus said nothing. He sat back and watched her shout and pace, letting her be angry. She would have preferred to see him get pissed off, but she'd take what she could get.
"He's despicable," she added, tugging on her lock of hair and squeezing her stomach tighter.
A man-sized dragon statue that looked more like a winged lizard guarded the entrance to Remus's quarters. It hissed insults through the door whenever Kali got too close to it, and Pan hissed back, a king cobra poised to strike ever since the statue had called him a poor replica of lesser beasts.
"He took away your chance to teach about an issue that directly affects you, to teach it as it should be taught, to educate students on a new perspective. He took away your right to represent yourself, and for that he's—"
The more she grappled for them, the more the words escaped her. She groaned and dropped onto the couch, running her hands through her hair.
"I hate him," she said instead. "I hate him, and he deserves to be—"
"Throttled?" Pan supplied.
Kali let her sentence hang because Pan's suggestion sounded like a good one, but Remus would disapprove.
The ball of emotion that had wedged itself in her throat since her confrontation with Snape threatened to explode.
It was too much.
First, her father had broken into Hogwarts and had shredded the portrait that guarded the Gryffindor tower, acting precisely like the deranged lunatic everyone thought he was. Now, all those who had stopped treating Kali like she was just as much of a criminal as he was had started up again. Second, Snape had given that horrible lecture on werewolves and demanded that Kali and each of her classmates write an essay on how to kill them. Third, Remus was upset.
It was all far too much.
Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them away. "He's a bad person."
Remus left his armchair and came to sit next to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and resting his chin atop her head. "Professor Snape didn't have an easy time growing up."
"Neither did you." Lycanthropy probably beat whatever Snape had gone through in terms of awfulness. "It isn't an excuse for being horrible."
"I know." He rubbed her arm, his jaw rolling against her head as he weighed the pros and cons of whatever follow-up sentence waited in his mind. "You have to learn to pick your battles."
He wasn't talking about Snape any more.
Kali shifted away from him so that she could see his face. The bags under his eyes looked like bruises against his pale skin. "Will you be mad if I pick this one?"
"I won't be mad. But promise me you won't …" His sentence trailed off, but she knew what he had wanted to say—some variation of it at least.
"I promise not to maim, scar, or otherwise cause any permanent or serious physical injury," she said as the ball of anxiety eased into a more minor discomfort.
Remus chuckled and kissed the top of her head, moving on to a less troublesome topic of conversation, but Kali's mind wandered elsewhere toward the best way to deal with Snape.
On the morning of Hogwarts' second Quidditch match of the season, Kali woke to a clap of thunder.
Outside, next to the Great Lake, Pan rolled around in the mud as a potbellied pig. "I would not want to fly today," he said as the rain and hale beat down on him.
His thick skin lessened the downpour's bite, yet still, it travelled to Kali, who shivered beneath her blankets. She wrapped herself up further, the weight of her duvet pinning her to the mattress, urging her to stay in bed.
"This is ridiculous," she said, rolling out of her four-poster's warm embrace and fighting back a wince as the muscles in her upper back and shoulders protested. "The players aren't going to be able to see anything. They should cancel the match."
Her bare feet hit the thick green carpet and sank into it. If not for Pan, the freestanding fireplace in the centre of the room would have banished any chill before it reached Kali. Stretching out the post-exercise soreness, she pulled on the cosiest,most waterproof clothes she could find.
Pan shook off the mud and dove beneath the turbulent surface of the lake, turning into a narwhal the moment his feet left the ground. "It's Quidditch. You don't cancel Quidditch."
"That is a terrible rule." She rummaged through her trunk and found a bright yellow raincoat. It was less than a year old but no longer fit as well as it used to, leaving her wrists bare.
She would have killed for a pair of wellies, but the best she could manage were combat boots, which were at least more water-resistant than her trainers or oxfords. That was if she could find them. One had found its way beneath her bed, but the other eluded her.
According to Daphne, the third-year Slytherin girls' dormitory had grown since last year, morphing from a square into a pentagon to accommodate the addition of its newest inhabitant.
Each side of the room was identical if not for the personal touches the girls had added.
A stack of study guides teetered on the edge of Daphne's nightstand next to a moving photo of her sister and parents. A quilt embroidered with flowers and birds hid the green school eiderdown that covered Tracy's four-poster. A cat bed lay atop Millicent's trunk at the foot of her bed for her beloved Kneazle. The top of Pansy's dresser disappeared beneath the stack of presents her parents and grandparents sent her every week.
Kali's side held no personal touches except for a pile of library books stacked on her desk.
Light flashed through the small windows that gave out onto the dark depths of the lake, the lightning bright enough to penetrate even this far down. Thunder rang out, and the candles flickered atop the candelabras, glimmering over the smooth stone walls: the perfect setting for a gothic horror novel.
Kali rolled her eyes before her imagination could get the better of her and dropped onto her hands and knees to extract her boot from where it had wedged itself between Daphne's trunk and bedpost.
"What time is it?" she asked, glancing at her roommates' empty beds.
"How should I know?"
She found her watch on her nightstand. Half-past eight. She'd slept in, which wasn't surprising given what time she had gone to bed last night, too busy practising the new Charms spell and making good on her promise to work on her upper body strength to look at the time.
Shrugging it off, she left the dormitory and got to the common room in time to hear Draco and the rest of the Slytherin Quidditch team lamenting to the gathered crowd Draco's untimely Hippogriff-induced injury, which made them unable to play today.
Kali scoffed as she passed.
"You got something to say, Black?" asked Marcus Flint, the team's Captain, a tall, broad, dark-haired boy who was retaking his seventh-year because he had failed his exams the first time around.
"Do not engage," Pan warned as he played at poking Grindylows hidden in the seaweed with his sword-like tooth, transforming into a pygmy seahorse until they calmed down, and starting all over again.
She ignored him. "Just wondering if Draco enjoys playing the weakling."
Colour flooded Draco's fair cheeks. "I am not weak."
Vincent and Gregory scowled and flexed their muscles, but Kali tuned them out. "I didn't say you were weak. I said you were pretending to be, either because you're a drama king or because you're scared to go up against Gryffindor."
The pink flush spread to his neck and ears, a pale blue vein on his temple throbbing. "I'm not scared."
"So you're an attention-seeking dramatiser?"
"No." He clenched his hands into fists and looked like he was about to stomp his foot.
Kali slipped her hands into her coat pockets, doing her best to ignore the fact that the scene had gathered an audience. "Why back out of the game then?"
"My arm isn't healed yet."
"You managed to play during the Slytherin versus Ravenclaw match last month."
"I guess I overexerted it."
"I hadn't realised you were so frail."
Muffled sniggers spread through the gathered crowd, and Draco's skin went from light pink to flaming red. "I am not frail!" he shouted, any hint of composure gone.
"It's one or the other. Either you're worried your teammates and yourself aren't good enough to beat the Gryffindor team, or your body's too weak to heal from an insignificant little scratch. Or perhaps it's both."
"I was attacked by a Hippogriff!"
"And I saved your arse before any real damage could be done. Remember that?"
He didn't answer, but the thin line of his lips suggested that he hadn't forgotten.
"Regardless, I was only asking because if the reason for not playing is because you believe that the Gryffindor team is more skilled, then I was wondering if you recall that their Seeker wears glasses?"
"Of course I know Potter wears glasses," Draco spat. "His eyesight is as awful as the rest of him."
Kali didn't roll her eyes, no matter how much she wanted to. "Knowing that, did you stop to think that perhaps this awful weather might be more detrimental to his vision than it would be to yours?"
Silence fell. Draco frowned for a moment before his expression cleared and froze. Whispers broke out around them, and Marcus asked one of his teammates to explain what Kali had meant.
"I've seen Harry play during his team's practices," she said, still looking only at Draco. "He's good. Better than you, and you know it. There's nothing wrong with that, but given the circumstances, you want to be taking every advantage you can get. Low visibility would have worked for you. But, hey, good luck beating Gryffindor when the weather gets better."
She walked away, slipping through the gathered crowd before anyone could decide that she'd thrown one insult too many. Spotting Daphne over by one of the small clusters of armchairs, Kali headed her way.
"You really shouldn't rile them up like that," said Daphne, looking up from her book as Kali plopped down in the seat in front of hers.
Kali shrugged and glanced to her left in time to see the Slytherin team walk past on their way to the Great Hall, each player glaring daggers at her. "I wouldn't do if they weren't such gits."
"Just so you know, if you wear red and gold to the Gryffindor versus Slytherin game, I'm going to pretend I don't know you."
Kali smiled. "And here I was, thinking we were friends."
"We are friends, but I'm not as perilously impulsive as you are." Daphne closed her book and stood, offering Kali a hand up.
"I'm not impulsive," Kali said, taking the hand and standing. "All of my actions are perfectly thought out beforehand."
The two girls headed for the common room entrance, but when their joined hands started drawing too much attention, Daphne took a small step away, extracting her fingers from Kali's and mumbling, "That makes it so much worse."
Despite the thunderstorm, the whole school turned out to watch the match. Students ran down the lawns toward the Quidditch field, faces bowed against the wind, which tore the umbrellas from their hands and the hoods from their heads.
The hale pounded against the stands, the trees in the Forbidden Forest swaying and groaning as the rolls of thunder drowned out the crowd's cheers.
Fourteen players flew through the stormy sky, tilting and swerving with the wind, their blurred outlines of scarlet-red and canary-yellow fading as the rain soaked their uniforms until they all wore the same shade of soggy black.
"What's the score?" Blaise shouted to be heard over the clap of thunder.
"Gryffindor is fifty points up," Kali shouted back.
Blaise grumbled and pulled his cloak tighter around himself. "They'd better catch the Snitch soon, or we'll be here all day."
The forked lightning added some light to the pitch but made it all the more dangerous to be out here. Blaise was right; someone needed to catch the Snitch.
Another flash of lightning revealed the Hufflepuff Seeker, Cedric Diggory, pelting up the field, a tiny speck of gold shimmering in the rain-filled air in front of him. Harry noticed it, too. He threw himself flat onto his broom handle and zoomed toward the Snitch.
Before he could reach it, the world lost its voice.
The wind, though as strong as ever, forgot to roar. The crowd, still jumping and waving its wet banners, went mute. Something moved on the field below, and a wave of cold swept over Kali, burrowing into her.
At least a hundred Dementors stood beneath them.
Freezing water rose in Kali's chest, cutting at her insides—
"Block them out." Pan's voice broke through the icy mist, and she clung to it.
She melded her mind with his, feeling the wind slice through his feathers, the rain weighing him down, his talons catching in the soaking wet material of scarlet Quidditch robes—
Kali snapped her eyes open and jumped to her feet.
Harry had fallen from his broom. Pan slowed his fall as best as he could, but the weight difference made it an impossible battle. A tall figure rushed out onto the field below, and with a short wand wave, Harry's fall lost its momentum as though he were plummeting in slow motion. He hit the ground with much less force than he had been going to.
Pan turned into a tiger and stood over Harry's limp body, baring his teeth at the approaching Dementors. The tall man—Dumbledore—shouted at the hooded figures, but they kept advancing until he cast a Patronus. A silvery phoenix shot from the tip of his wand, and the Dementors scattered. Pan watched Dumbledore as the anger etched into the old man's face faded until it remained only in his blazing blue eyes.
"I can take it from here, Pan," he said.
Pan didn't uncoil his muscles.
"Let him help," said Kali, and Pan slowly moved away from Harry.
The rest of the players landed in the mud with a squelch. Dumbledore magicked Harry onto a stretcher and strode to the school with Harry floating beside him before the boy's teammates could crowd in. Pan followed at a trot, his sharp hearing focused on Harry's uneven breathing and thundering heartbeats. Kali's heart sped up to match his.
There was a commotion down on the pitch. Diggory waved the Snitch, trying to get Madam Hooch to agree to a Hufflepuff versus Gryffindor rematch, but he had caught the winged ball before Harry had fallen, fair and square.
People rushed from the stands to the castle, and Daphne dragged Kali along behind them.
Harry's fall was the talk of the school that day. There was a brief worry among the students that he had not survived, but it dissipated when his teammates were let into the hospital wing to visit him.
Harry's broom hadn't faired so well. It had flown straight into the Whomping Willow after his fall and had shattered into bits. Kali wondered, not for the first time, why anyone would think to plant such a violent tree on school grounds, but as said school bordered a forest named 'the Forbidden Forest' and had housed a Basilisk for hundreds of years, she supposed that student safety was not Hogwarts' number one watchword.
When Professor Flitwick carried in the remains of Harry's broom, Draco made a disparaging comment regarding Harry's flying skills and the Gryffindor team's dwindling chances of winning the Quidditch Cup. Kali hexed his vocal cords so that he sounded like a monkey whenever he opened his mouth. Fortunately, Gryffindors surrounded her at the time, so he didn't see who cast the spell. Face red and eyes bulging, he stormed off to his dorm room and locked himself in for the rest of the day, which Kali counted as a win.
Madam Pomfrey insisted on keeping Harry in the hospital wing for the rest of the weekend, and while Kali had joined in his steady stream of visitors, Pan had refused to leave his side since the fall.
It was on Sunday night when Kali was wandering the halls—very much out of bounds, but she couldn't sleep and had needed to take a walk—that Harry had his worst nightmare yet. He'd had a couple last night, waking Pan with his shouting, but nothing compared to this. She was only a couple of corridors away, so she headed that way.
The hospital wing stretched for an eternity in the dark, its vaulted ceiling and tall windows giving it the look of a Muggle place of worship. Instead of pews, neat rows of beds lined the walls, each with its own bedside table and wooden chair. None of the partition curtains were drawn, and only one bed was occupied.
Harry lay in a nest of rumpled sheets, thrashing against them, his facial features scrunched up so tight that it must have hurt.
Kali took a step in his direction, but before she could get much further, Harry jerked awake, bolting upright so suddenly that Kali jumped back. He looked terrified—his eyes wide and his breathing erratic. He reached for his glasses on the nightstand, slammed them on, and searched the room skittishly, pausing as his gaze landed on Kali.
"Kali," he said a little breathlessly. "It's past curfew. You shouldn't be here."
"You keep waking me up," she said, gesturing at Pan who snuggled closer to Harry's side.
Harry's gaze dropped to the purring cat, and he rubbed his hands over his face. "Sorry, I didn't mean to …"
She sat in the chair beside his bed. "Don't apologise. He's the one who refuses to leave."
"There's this little something called watchful vigilance. Look it up," Pan chirped.
Kali smiled and rolled her eyes. "Here I was thinking it was called being an overprotective worrywart. Silly me."
Pan turned up his little nose and made a show of looking away from her. "Just because you have a complete disregard for your care and safety does not mean the feeling is universal."
"He appears to have taken a liking to you," she said.
Harry's smile bloomed. He looked down at his bed companion and scratched under the ruff around Pan's face.
"What's keeping you up at night?"
His smile faded.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," she added. "But you should tell someone—Ron or Hermione, or anyone."
Harry stayed quiet for a long while, staring down at his lap and stroking Pan. It got to the point when Kali thought she had better leave, but then Harry started talking. The words slipped from him, slow and uncertain, his voice soft and quivering the entire time.
He told her about the Grim showing itself to him twice, and how near-fatal accidents had followed both appearances—the first time, he had come close to being run over by the Knight Bus; the second, he had fallen fifty feet from his broomstick. He worried that the Grim might haunt him until one encounter finally killed him, that he would have to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder for the beast.
He told her about the Dementors. How he felt sick and humiliated every time he thought of them. Everyone said Dementors were horrible, but no one else collapsed every time they went near one. When close to Dementors, he heard the last moments of his mother's life, her attempt to protect him from Lord Voldemort, and Voldemort's laughter before he murdered her. Harry told Kali that when he fell asleep, he sank into dreams of rotted hands and petrified pleading, and every time, he jerked awake to dwell on his mother's voice.
Kali listened, letting the words spill from him like a confession.
When he finished, he sagged against his pillows, his chin lolling against his chest.
"I don't think you're going to die," she said after a moment's thought, trying to remember everything she had ever heard or read about death omens. "There are accounts of the Grim existing, but there's no solid proof that it has ever failed to kill before or shown up more than once for the same person—that I know of. I'll look into it. It happening twice is still just a coincidence. If it gets to three, that's when it becomes a pattern. We'll worry about it more then, but try not to die in the meantime."
Harry chuckled. "I'll do my best."
"As for Dementors, they feed on happiness by dragging up bad memories. You went through something traumatic at a young age. They must sense that somehow and are drawn to you because of it."
Harry nodded, but a frown creased his brow. "How do you know all this?"
"My godfather is the best Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher this school has ever seen, remember? That and I'm really, very clever." She winked at him, and he laughed with her.
"I should let you get some sleep," she said. "Goodnight, Harry."
"Goodnight, Kali."
"Oh, and Harry?" She stopped at the door. "Talk to Remus about the Dementors. He can help."
It had started with Fred and George Weasley laying a Dungbomb trap outside the Slytherin common room on Monday morning after the match. Unfortunately for them, Professor Snape set it off.
The twins received an absurd number of detentions as well as a couple of thinly veiled threats. The upside to this was that Kali had never seen Snape go that shade of puce before—she had been surprised when smoke hadn't billowed from his ears and nostrils. Never before had anything got under Snape's skin to that extent, which gave Kali an idea.
The next day, after Professor Snape called Neville Longbottom a blithering idiot, the Potions professor's hair turned bright purple and his eyebrows grew to match the length of Professor Dumbledore's beard. A few days after that, he gave detention to some first-years for getting stuck on a trick step, and suddenly whenever he walked onto a staircase, it would turn into a slide, regardless of whether he was heading up or down.
Nothing incriminating was ever left at the scenes. Most people assumed the Weasley twins were the culprits, but they denied it, and they were not ones to disclaim a well-executed prank of their making.
One day, after Snape had been particularly vile during class, Kali decided to enchant the coats of armour in the dungeons to blurt terrible potion puns whenever someone walked by (What do you call a potion that turns you into a cat? Cat-a-tonic!).
Wand in hand and tongue pressed against her teeth, she repeated the incantation over and over until it latched onto the armour. Her temple throbbed with every mental click that pulsed behind her left eye whenever the spell caught, and her ears strained for the sound of an oncoming interruption. When one came, she didn't hear it coming.
"What trouble is little Kali getting into today?" someone asked.
Kali's hand jerked as her heart leapt, sending the suit of armour flying. It clattered down the hallway, each bang louder than the last until it screeched to a stop. Kali froze in a wince and waited for the slap of startled footsteps.
Peeves, Hogwarts' resident poltergeist, tutted, floating above her, wearing a smile too big for his face. "No one around to hear, little Kali. Sir Filch is occupied elsewhere."
"What did you do?" she asked, eyeing the rectangular bulge in his red and yellow polka dot overcoat.
His grin widened. "I'm as innocent as you are."
With a careful swish and flick, Kali levitated the now scratched hunk of metal back to its raised platform. "Anything I can help you with, Peeves?"
Swimming breaststrokes through the air, he pursed his thin lips into a look of guiltlessness, which his wicked orange eyes belied. "I have something of yours."
Kali stopped thinking through the polishing spells she knew and turned to Peeves, once again looking at that bulge. "I would have thought that thievery was beneath you."
"Everything is beneath me. See?" He zoomed to hover above her. "Ha!"
His laughter rang louder than the banging of the suit of armour. Kali cringed and glanced up and down the corridor. "Be quiet. Filch isn't the only one who could show up."
His laughter died in a second, but his smile remained. "Wouldn't want anyone showing up, would we? Not when I have this."
He whipped a fat book from beneath his coat.
At the sight of the worn leather cover, Kali pressed her lips together to trap a swear. Her chest rose and fell with two deep breaths, and she dragged her eyes away from the grimoire and over to Peeve's triumphant face. "Give that back."
"Nope." He cackled and opened the book to the page a sticky note stuck out from. "Summoning rituals. Why would little Kali be studying these?"
"Curiosity."
"That's a lie. I found this, too." A sheet of paper appeared in his free hand, and Kali closed her eyes. "Hobgoblins. Nasty little creatures. Too easily offended if you ask me. So why would little Kali want to summon one."
"None of your business. Give those back, or I'll tell Filch where you hide all your toys."
His grin fell.
Pan had stumbled upon Peeve's nest last week. It lay behind the house-elves' living quarters, next to the laundry room, and burst with more jokes and tricks than Zonko's Joke Shop.
He wiggled the book and paper. "If you tell on me, I'll tell on you."
"I guess that means we have a truce."
Whipping his head around to make the bells on his hat jingle, he sang in a loud off-key screech, "You win this round, little Kali."
He bowed, his nose brushing against his curly tipped shoes, and dropped her things. The book smacked against the floor with a bang, and Peeves zoomed off. Kali glared after him. As if she didn't have enough to do, now she was going to have to find poltergeist repellant charms to cast on all of her things. She brushed the dust from the book and stuffed it and her notes on Hobgoblins into her bag.
She had found the book in the library's Restricted Section, which Professor Flitwick had given her permission to access. She had the beginnings of a plan on how to find out what Hob knew about her father. All she needed were a couple more ingredients and for Peeves to keep his nose out of her business.
Turning to the battered suit of armour, she bit her lip, teeth pressing a little harder at each dent.
Something rasped behind her.
Remus's poltergeist jinx sat on her tongue, but Peeves was never so quiet. She checked the scratched metal breastplate for a reflection, but she stood alone, distorted in the blemished surface. The hairs on the back of her neck tingled as she turned.
A tabby cat with spectacle markings around its eyes sat in front of her.
The tension left her shoulders on a breath of air that was half a sigh and half a laugh. "Hello, Professor."
McGonagall transformed into her human self in one fluid motion and stared with narrow eyes at Kali and her drawn wand. "May I ask what it is you're doing, Miss Black?"
Kali smiled and didn't pocket her wand. There was no point drawing attention to it. "Nothing much, Professor."
Professor McGonagall gave a non-committal hum, her gaze searching up and down the corridor for anything amiss.
An idea sprang to Kali's mind as she ran through conversation starters to distract the professor from looking too closely at the suits of armour. "I was wondering if you could help me with something, Professor."
"What would that be, Miss Black?"
"I was in the trophy room earlier, and I noticed that Slytherin has won the House Cup an inexplicable number of times over the past ten years."
A scowl crossed McGonagall's face. "Yes, I'd noticed that also."
"It coincides with Professor Snape's tenure here," Kali added. She wasn't sure how deeply the solidarity between teachers ran in this school.
"What are you implying, Miss Black?"
"I'm implying that Slytherin students don't, overall, have a better academic performance or better behaviour than students in other Houses—not enough to justify winning so many times. What we do have is a Head of House who blatantly favours us."
The professor schooled her features and let out a loud sigh. "It isn't your place to question Hogwarts professors, Miss Black."
"It is when the headmaster and the rest of the teachers won't. You're all brilliant people, so I imagine you're aware of the situation."
"Miss Black—"
"But if you know what's going on, then you're being harrowingly negligent toward your students by letting such an unfair situation continue."
The professor had her mouth open, but her words got lost along the way.
"I can only assume that Professor Snape is teaching here against your wishes, but this problem has to be dealt with."
With a frown and a slow shake of her head, Professor McGonagall asked, "What do you suggest?"
"By my count, my actions and those of my housemates in all seven years should have led to a combined eighty-five point deduction if Professor Snape weren't so biased and treated us as he treats everyone else. Minus an extra ninety points that he's awarded to his students undeservedly. So one hundred and seventy-five points total. I suggest you take those points away from us."
McGonagall stared at her. "You want me to take over a hundred points from Slytherin?"
"Professor Snape won't dock points from Slytherin. I've tried to make him. But if you do it—and if you let him know why—perhaps it will incite him to act more fairly in the future."
"You realise that this would penalise your House."
Kali smiled and shrugged. "The game is rigged in Slytherin's favour. Professor Snape is setting us up to win through no merit of our own, but winning is of no value if it isn't earned."
Professor McGonagall continued to stare. Kali wondered if she'd gone too far, but eventually, the professor blinked and said, "You're a very odd child. Did you know that?"
Kali shrugged again. "So you'll do it?"
But the Professor shook her head. "I can't undermine another teacher's authority like that."
In for a Knut, in for a Sickle. "The other option is for me to cause just the right amount of chaos that you and the other teachers are forced to take the points from Slytherin for my awful behaviour. But I figured you wouldn't approve of that alternative."
McGonagall gawked at her for a whole minute, eyes wide as though not sure she'd heard right. "Are you threatening to unleash hell on this school if you don't get what you want, Miss Black?"
"I wouldn't call it threatening," Kali said.
McGonagall scoffed, but her strict features softened. "I'll see what I can do, so don't blow up half of the school just yet."
Kali grinned as McGonagall walked away. "That went better than expected."
"Do you think it'll work?" asked Pan. He sat outside an unused classroom on the second floor, spying on a pair of redheads and picking up on shenanigan-related tips and tricks.
"I don't know. I get the feeling that Snape isn't here because he has a passion for teaching." More often than not, it looked as though a perpetual storm cloud hovered above his head. "But until we figure out what's making him stay, I don't think we'll be able to make him leave."
"We can make him wish he did."
Kali agreed and carried on charming the suits of armour. Her patience could be endless when the cause was right. She promised herself that by the time she left this school, Snape would no longer be teaching in it.
A/N: The potion pun is courtesy of a friend who dressed up as Snape for Halloween a couple of years ago and spent the whole evening adding bad jokes to quotes from the HP books and films.
I hope you liked this chapter and that the many scene changes weren't too jarring, and I'll see you next week with a Ginny POV and Hob's return!