I crept down the stairs. It was much quieter down here now than it was during class hours and it seemed fitting that I be quiet too. I stood outside the potions classroom door studying the grain and cracks of the wood. I was stalling even though I knew that however long I stood looking at this door that I would still spend the same amount of time in detention with Snape. I took a deep breath and pulled the door open.

The desks were empty and the room was dimly lit. Professor Snape sat behind his desk with a stack of parchment to his right. I took another step into the classroom I wasn't sure what would come next.

"Sit down." He instructed without looking up from the parchment he was reading.

I side stepped towards the table in the back corner where I sat during class.

"Not there." He said.

When I looked over to him he was pointing at a table to the left of his desk that was not there during class. Next to it was a box filled with dirty vials.

I stepped around the box and sat in the chair and waited for further instruction.

Snape brought his quill down onto the piece of parchment and made a mark. He placed the parchment to his left and stood up taking deliberate steps towards me.

"As you should be able to tell, you will be cleaning vials for me." He began. "Normally I would just clean them by magic but I thought perhaps this would be a good task for you."

He waved his wand and a bucket of sudsy water floated over to the table and landed with a splash sloshing me with some of its contents. I noticed a handle sticking out of the bucket and grabbed a hold of it. It was a round tipped brush in the shape of a pine tree.

Snape looked down at me looking at the brush. "I assume you know how to clean." He snapped. And turned his back on me to return to his desk.

I reached into the box and pulled out one of the vials. I dipped it into the bucket of soapy water and wiggled the brush around in it and dunked it back into the bucket. I placed the vial that I deemed clean enough into an empty box on the other side of the table.

I grabbed hold of another vial and dipped it into the water but when I began scrubbing the inside with the brush there was an explosion of dark purple smoke. It swirled around me and stung my eyes. It burned my lungs and I could feel it filling them. I couldn't see and I couldn't breathe. My skin was prickling and felt itchy. My lungs felt like they were going to turn to dust when I could feel the smoke being pulled out of them. The smoke was escaping my body through my mouth and nostrils and I could see all of the smoke around and in me being pulled to the tip of Snape's wand. I didn't remember falling but I was looking up at him from the floor.

He raised his eyebrows at me. "For such an advanced potions student I thought you would have known that some potions have violent reactions to one another. Make sure the brush is clean before beginning the next vial. There is a solution in the water that prevents the reactions but it doesn't work if the potions make contact on the brush. I advise you be more careful, Miss Winston. Dumbledore would be very upset with me if a student died under my watch." He swirled his robes and walked back to his desk leaving me sprawled on the floor.

I sat back at my seat and swished the brush around in the water and continued to clean. My lungs felt like a scatchy throat. I took a deep breath to try to stretch them out and ended up having a coughing fit. Snape didn't look up from his work until one of my fits knocked over the bucket of solution water. His head jerked up and his face was intense with a mixture of anger and annoyance but with a flick of his wand the bucket and its contents were back on the table next to me as if they were never knocked down.

I stopped trying to stretch my lungs and just put up with the grainy feeling when I breathed. I kept cleaning and felt like I had been doing it for hours and I had barely made a dent in the box of dirty bottles. I picked another one out of the box. The contents of this vial had clearly been an attempt at polyjuice potion but the lacewing flies hadn't been stewed long enough. They must have forgotten to add them when they were supposed to.

As I was studying the vial Professor Snape brushed some of his hair out of his face while he read a paper. The movement caught my attention and my eyes flicked to him. He must not have known I was looking at him because his face was smooth and not tense. His lips were parted and appeared fuller than I thought they were with how they looked when he pursed them all the time. His hair was tucked behind his ear revealing a strong jawline I didn't know he had. His hooked nose stuck out from his profile but wasn't completely unattractive. His eyelashes fluttered as he blinked, his black eyes focused on the parchment in front of him.

He was sort of attractive when he wasn't belittling me. I was studying the curve of his eyebrow when I noticed he was looking back at me. My heart dropped to my feet and I dropped the polyjuice vial I was still holding with a shatter. I dove so quickly to pick up the pieces of glass that I accidentally knocked over the box with the rest of the dirty vials scattering them across the floor. I stretched out to right the tipped box and brought my knee down on a piece of broken glass. I jumped at the sudden pain and hit my head hard on the table and the box of clean vials crashed to the floor. Professor Snape was standing in front of me looking down the face I was more familiar with glaring at me.

"Out." He said through gritted teeth.

I looked around at the chaos I had created. "I am so sorr…"

"Out!" He shouted. "Before you break everything in my classroom.

I pulled the piece of glass out of my knee and pressed my robe to the cut to stop the bleeding. "I can help you clean this up. I am really sorry."

"I suggest you leave, Miss Winston." Snape snarled. His hands were balling into fists with restraint. "We will continue your detention tomorrow night."

I pulled myself off the ground and smoothed my hands over my robes. I limped from the classroom and avoided making any eye contact with the professor. I closed the door quietly and sat on the steps putting pressure on my knee until it scabbed over.

The bleeding stopped but my knee still hurt, especially when it bent. It took me nearly five minutes longer to limp my way to the Ravenclaw Tower. I still wasn't sure how late it was but I wasn't expecting anyone to still be sitting in the common room.

When I came through the portal the fire was dim but there was one person sitting on a couch.

"Oh, Ruby." Susan exclaimed. "You're limping. What did he do to you? What horrible things did he put you through?"

"He made me clean dirty vials." I said with a shrug.

Her brow furrowed. "How do you end up with a limp from cleaning vials?"

My heart rate accelerated and my palms became sweaty. There was no way I could tell Susan that I was staring at Snape's jawline and decided that his hook nose wasn't entirely unattractive and that the shape of his top lip was like an inflight bird in a painting and made me smile a bit.

"Uhhh, well…" I started slowly. "You know how clumsy I am. I dropped a vial by accident for no particular reason and went to pick up the bits and one ended up in my knee." I pointed to the scab.

She raised an eyebrow at me but didn't question anything. "You need to be more careful. You're supposed to heal others not be the one that constantly needs healers. Don't you know the charm for healing cuts?"

"Yes but I didn't bring my wand and it's too late now because it's scabbed over." I said bending my knee and wincing slightly at the pain. "It'll be fine."

"You were down there for a long time." Susan added. "I was getting worried."

"What time is it?" I asked completely unaware how much time had passed while I was in detention with Snape.

"It's past eleven." She said.

"I was down there for five hours?" I groaned.

"I was surprised too." Susan agreed. "I'm going to bed are you going to come up stairs with me?"

"No, I still have homework to do." I whined. "This is going to be a long night."

I walked over to the corner where I stashed by bag before dinner and sulked over to a table near the fireplace. I just realized how cold I was from sitting in the dungeon with Snape all night. The moment he caught me staring at him replayed over and over in my head and I cringed with embarrassment.

After a few more hours and several more replays of embarrassment I finished my homework. I closed my books and stowed everything into my bag and tip-toed up to my room. The only noise I heard were the sounds of sleep coming from the other girls. I snuggled under the covers and stared out the window at the stars. The sky was already starting to lighten with the coming of the rising sun.

I blinked and Susan was already urging me to wake up and go to breakfast. I nearly fell asleep in Transfiguration several times, Professor McGonagall wasn't sure what to do with me.

"Miss Winston, I'd like to have a word with you." She said before I left the classroom. "I noticed you had trouble staying awake in class, that's not like you."

"I'm really sorry." I whimpered. "I was up late completing homework after detention with Professor Snape."

"Well how late did he keep you?" She inquired.

I looked down at my feet uncertain whether I should tattle on him or not. "I didn't get back to the common room until after eleven." I finally confessed.

"Heavens." McGonagall exclaimed. "I will have a talk with him and urge him not to let detentions go on so late. It's unacceptable."

"Thank you, Professor." I replied.

"If he still keeps you late don't hesitate to alert Professor Flitwick or myself, Miss Winston." She called out to me as I left the classroom.

My head was in a fog as I walked through the corridors. Every time I blinked it became harder for me to open my eyes. My limbs felt ten times heavier than normal and it made me feel like crying out of desperation to think about staying up as late again tonight. Why did there have to be this many students at Hogwarts? Everywhere I went I was bumping into people; jostling back and forth. It had never bothered me before but a combination of the annoyance and my extreme tiredness made me want to lash out at the next person who ran into me.

My mood was not improved when I entered the Potions room to be reminded that I had nothing to work on today since Snape unfairly disappeared my potion. I looked over to Peter Gregorian whose cauldron had trails of yellow ooze from overflow. Everyone in the vicinity of his cauldron were holding their noses and Peter was on the verge of convulsion. A fresh wave of anger towards Snape crashed to the surface at the thought that he took my potion and let Peter keep his monstrosity. I crossed my arms in front of my chest and threw myself back in my chair.

The door connecting to Snape's office opened and he walked purposely to the front of the room. He waved his wand and the remaining potion instructions appeared on the board.

"Do you have anything to add today, Miss Winston." Snape questioned.

The class started to giggle. I was caught off guard but when I realized what he was asking I was almost ready to walk out of class and never come back. The only thing stopping me was how desperately I needed my potions N.E. . I bit my tongue and shook my head.

"Excellent." He droned. I could see a slight look of disappointment cross over his face. He wanted an excuse to give me another week of detention no doubt. "Since you have no potion to work on today I would like you to write a foot of parchment on the correct way to brew this potion. Spend adequate time describing where yours went wrong." He turned with a smirk and sat behind the table in front.

He avoided looking in my corner of the room which was just as well as I spent nearly the whole class staring daggers at him. He had to have been aware of the hole I was burning into his face with my hot glare but he showed no notice that I was even in the room. I imagined him being trampled by a group of centaurs or torn limb from limb by a hippogriff. No one had ever made me so angry. It's like he knew exactly what would make me the most irrationally irate.

I noticed people bringing vials of completed potion to the front of the room and looked down at my blank piece of parchment. I scribbled one sentence on the paper.

I think we are both aware that my potion was near perfect and the only problem was you.

I put the stopper back in my bottle of ink and placed my belongings back into my bag before strutting up to the front of the class. I placed the roll of parchment on his desk with a smile.

"I think I was able to fully capture the problem with my potion yesterday." I gave him a sly smirk and turned on my heel and strode confidently from the room, the consequences of that note the furthest thing from my mind.

I walked up the dungeon stairs and rushed to the third floor for Defense Against the Dark Arts. It was by far my worst practical subject. I was always good at theory and paper writing but when it came to casting defensive spells they never quite worked for me. Professor Edgewoode was a good teacher and he definitely made the subject interesting with his stories of personal experience with curses and creatures of the night but it didn't make me any better at using spells.

Edgewoode was waiting at the head of the classroom mindlessly moving papers around on his table. Once everyone was situated he cleared his throat.

"Today we will be talking about the Inferi." He began. "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named made armies of these creatures using the large number of people he killed. They are similar to zombies though they have no free will and only do what the dark wizard who animated them tells them to do. They are characterized by their icy white skin and clouded eyes. It is said they may be able to speak but I have never been in the situation to be able to confirm that." He smiled to himself.

"Because they are already dead beings they are unaffected by most of our usual defensive spells that cause bodily harm or discomfort. They are creatures of darkness and dislike light and heat making the spell we will try today very effective. Firestorm is a spell that creates a ring of fire around the caster and moves with them. The caster may also use the spell to shoot balls of fire at individual targets. Today we will work on surrounding ourselves with the ring of fire. Stand up all of you."

He lifted his wand and made a swishing movement causing the tables and chairs to screech over to the walls clearing a large space in the middle of the class room.

Professor Edgewoode gestured for us to begin a line against the back wall and he stood in the middle of the floor.

He swirled his wand in circles above his head. "Ceruchius Ignus." He bellowed and a rope of fire flowed from the tip of his wand and formed a ring around his shoulders. He took a step to the left and then to the right and then several steps forward. The fire remained whole moved at the same speed as he did. "Ignus Rumpere."

The rope of fire broke and dissolved.

"Mr. Glendale would you care to be the first to try?"

A Hufflepuff with curly blonde hair stepped forward to stand in the center of the room and attempted the Firestorm spell. On his second try the rope of flame erupted from his wand and moved very smoothly with him.

One by one Professor Edgewood called forward students to try. At last my name was called and I stepped forward. My palms began to sweat and my heart was pounding in my ears. I took a deep breath and lifted my wand above my head.

"Ceruchius Ignus." I murmured.

"Perhaps try projecting a little more, Miss Winston." Edgewoode suggested.

"Ceruchius Ignus." I said louder this time. Nothing happened. "Ceruchius Ignus."

After the third time a small amount of warm air floated from my wand.

"Why don't you try one more time?" Edgewoode encouraged.

"Ceruchius Ignus." I growled. All I was able to accomplish was puff of smoke. I hung my head and walked back to the line-up of students. Why couldn't I do it when everyone else seemed to have no problems?

I sulked back to the common room to work on some homework before dinner and detention. Using spells in Defense Against the Dark Arts always made me feel inadequate. I began on my essay about Inferi. I always found that if my homework assignments were of good quality that I was able to obtain a satisfactory grade but I would need to work seriously on my spell work if I was going to get my N.E. where I wanted.

I found myself with my head on my parchment and Susan shaking my shoulders as she was telling me it was time for supper. My head shot up and I looked around the Common Room. The windows were darkening and students were making their way to the portal.

I was so tired at this point I couldn't even concentrate on eating. My unscheduled nap made me even more tired than I was before and my head was starting to throb at the temples. I pushed my food around my plate while I let my eyes rest. I looked up at the staff table and noticed that Snape was gone. I let out a sigh of resentment. I vacated my seat next to Susan just as Mark was walking down the aisle he made to wave at me but I shuffled passed him in a sleepy fog.

I made my way down the dungeon stairs. I was starting to hate that I was so familiar with this route because using them made me think of Snape which made me angry. I balled my hands into fists of annoyance at the thought of him and turned to enter the potions classroom.

Snape stood with arms crossed in front of the door leading to the cabinet with the student potions ingredients inside; a more spiteful look on his face than normal. I remembered my 'essay' and gulped hard before walking to the front of the classroom with feigned confidence.

"I'm glad you decided to attend your detention." He declaimed as if I were late. "I also had a conversation with Professor McGonagall about how late you were here last night. I promise to not keep you as late tonight. If you can complete the task I give you before that time."

I stood in my spot looking anywhere but at him.

"Your task tonight will be to clean the ingredients cabinet." He said and swiftly opened the door revealing floor to ceiling shelves and a ladder up to the top shelf. "I want you to label and organize them by category. I have already placed labels with categories on the shelves it is up to you to identify the contents of the bottles, vials, and jars and move them to the correct shelf. Do you think you can do all of that before eleven?"

I'm sure despite Snape's best efforts I actually enjoyed this task. Determining an ingredient on color, smell, and consistency I found delightfully challenging and I was always proud of myself when I felt confident enough about my identification of an ingredient to label it and place it in its correct spot according to category. I hummed to myself as I studied vials, bottles, and jars.

I had just placed a few jars containing Wiggentree bark on the shelf marked Curative when I noticed an empty bottle slide across the floor and stop right underneath where my foot was going. It was too late to stop my stride and I slipped on the glass. I tried to steady myself but I ended up falling backwards and crashing into the shelves behind me. I covered my head with my arms and braced myself for the tumbling ingredients but the only thing that fell was a small vial of honeywater. I was splashed with a tiny amount of the liquid and I breathed a sigh of relief.

I looked over to the door to the classroom and noticed Snape standing there with his wand in his hand and a devious smile spreading across his lips. He swished his wand and a vial of powdered sneezewort leaves tumbled from the shelf above my head and broke with a shatter sending a cloud of the powder to envelope me.

It made my eyes sting and my throat feel dry. I could feel a tickling in my nose becoming stronger. "Aachoo!"

My eyes began to water and the sneezing became a constant stream. As I sat there barely able to breathe in between sneezes I was able to make out a satisfied grin on Snape's face before he turned and vacated the doorway to the cabinet. I knew this was his answer to the parchment I handed in during class.