I was awoken the next morning by Susan chanting my name. I opened my eyes slowly and focused them on Susan who was shoving something into my face.
"Look what I found!" She squealed with delight.
I focused my still sleepy eyes on what she was holding. Both hands were filled with her wedding magazines. I lifted my head up slightly to look at the foot of my bed where my trunk was resting. The contents of my trunk were splayed all over my covers and surrounding floor.
"You went through my trunk?" I asked annoyed at the combination of being woken up early and that my things had been thrown around the room.
"I couldn't sleep and I was thinking of places I hadn't looked for my magazines and I thought that you would be the least upset of everyone if I looked in your trunk…" Susan began before crumpling her brow. "Hey! How did you know where they were?"
I was suddenly very awake. I flung my covers off and ran to the foot of my bed picking up the thrown pieces of clothing that I would need for the day.
"Would you look at the time?" I declared. "I'm going to be late."
"You hid them!" Susan yelled causing the other girls to poke their heads through their closed bed curtains.
I could feel my cheeks redden at the new audience. I rushed towards the bathroom when Susan stepped in my way.
"You stole them!" She accused.
"I thought you needed a break." I said.
"You blamed those poor elves!" She said.
"You were stressed out and I was just…" I told her.
"Save it." Susan said before turning with her arms full of her reading materials and heading for the exit of the room.
"That's not fair!" I shouted "You don't get to be the angry one! You dug through my things! That's an invasion of privacy!"
Susan slammed the door behind her.
The other girls in the room sat with their heads poked out looking at me. My cheeks reddened even further and I walked from the room to the bathroom for a shower and to change into my robes.
For once I ignored Susan just as much as she ignored me during an argument. I was only trying to help. I had every intention of giving her magazines back when she stopped stressing herself out. I was angry that she had gone through my things. I was forced to shove everything back into my trunk on my own and everyone who had been present for our spat continually gave me judgmental looks. I was angry with Susan to say the least.
I made no attempts to talk to her during breakfast, Transfiguration, or lunch. I had to force myself to concentrate on assignments in the afternoon before dinner. The more I thought about waking up to the things that had been in my trunk being thrown about the room this morning the angrier with Susan I became.
When I entered the Great hall for supper I immediately noticed that Severus wasn't sitting at the staff table. Instead of sitting down to the meal alone where Susan would give me dirty looks and I would do the same I walked to the end of the table and unfolded a napkin. I noticed Susan staring at me from the other end. I watched her as I deliberately loaded the napkin with a few rolls, chicken legs, and carrot sticks. I folded the napkin over everything and turned quickly to leave the hall.
I walked down the stairs to the dungeons, marched through the potions classroom, and straight into Severus' office.
"You're early." He said when I slammed my bag down on the table.
He made a dive to catch a jar that was knocked down with the movement of the table.
"You're upset." He observed.
I put the napkin with food down in front of myself and opened it. I picked up one of the carrot sticks.
"Susan makes me so angry." I said before I bit down hard on the vegetable and relished in the snap it made.
"What?" He asked. "Yesterday you were so keen on getting us to get along and now you are angry with her."
"She dug through my trunk and then she had the nerve to get angry with me!" I said throwing the carrot in my hand back on the napkin.
"Why would she do that?" He asked glancing at an hour glass.
"She found the wedding magazines I took from her." I said as I noticed him glancing at the hour glass again. "She shouldn't have been going through my things in the first place. Do you have somewhere you need to be?"
I asked the question with more acid in my tone than I had intended.
"I'm sorry." He said. "I didn't expect you to be here this early and I certainly didn't expect you to be so angry about something. I have fifteen minutes to gather more Flobberworm Mucus or my potions will never reach the correct thickness. I'll be right back. I promise."
He took the jar that had fallen from the table when I arrived and disappeared through the doorway.
I sat alone in silence waiting for him to return. I looked down at the food I had on the napkin and picked up a roll and bit into it. It felt odd sitting alone in his office where the only sound was the bubbling of cauldrons with unknown concoctions simmering.
I was halfway through eating my second chicken leg when Severus returned and after looking at the hour glass added a small spoonful of green goo to each cauldron.
"I have to say I'm pleased you dislike Susan." He said.
"What?" I asked surprised by his statement.
"She's not good enough to be your friend." He said putting the jar down on a shelf.
"How do you figure?" I asked.
"She's stupid for one thing." He said.
Hearing him say that made me angrier than I was at Susan. "She is not stupid."
"Of course she is." He said. "I hear she once got a T on an assignment."
"That's because you gave her one." I snapped.
"She acts like a troll sometimes." He said. "Trolls go through other people's things. You were just trying to help her and how does she repay you? By pillaging."
"The only things she took belonged to her." I said.
"Are you sure?" He asked "Did you check?"
"How dare you talk about my best friend like that?" I said standing up.
"You don't seem that angry with her." He said. "I thought you were angry with her."
"Just because I'm angry with her doesn't mean you can say such rude things." I told him.
"Maybe you should apologize to her." Severus said with small smile. "Since you really aren't angry with her and perhaps realize that maybe you were just as wrong as she was."
"What do you know about being angry with friends?" I asked.
"I think you forget that I had a friend so angry with me that she never spoke to me again." He said. "And now she's gone and I'll never get to speak to her again."
"You always bring up Lily." I said. "She has nothing to do with any of this."
"I'm sorry." He said. "But you really should make up with Susan."
"I'm always the one to make up with her." I said. "When is she going to be the one to admit she's wrong?"
"Maybe neither of you is wrong or maybe both of you are."
"I'm not going to tell her I'm sorry. I was just trying to help her by taking her mind off of the wedding."
"Did you try to get her mind off of her wedding or did you just hide her stuff?"
"Shut up. Don't point out how flawed my plan was."
I folded my arms over my chest and pouted.
"You have stuff in your hair." I spat.
He reached up and wiped his hand over his scalp. His hand was smeared with green slime. "Flobberworm Mucus."
"Couldn't you have been more careful?" I asked.
"I was more concerned with getting back before my potions were ruined than with the cleanliness with which I scraped mucus from the beams of the attic."
"You're disgusting." I said and immediately felt bad for calling him names like that but I remained scowling.
He looked at his slime covered hand and in a swift series of movements he was standing and his slime covered had was making a quick reach for my face.
I made a quick dive out of the way. "Don't you dare!"
A devilish grin spread over his lips and he took another step towards me.
It was hard not to smile in response to his clearly playful look. He rubbed his hands together coating them both in a layer of mucus. I was too afraid to turn and run lest he touch me. I walked backwards with my hands outstretched in front of myself.
"No." I said with a laugh. "No, no nononononono!"
"What's wrong?" He asked innocently before making a pounce for me.
I wrapped my hands around his wrists to keep him at a distance. Suddenly, I felt my foot fall on an uneven surface sending me falling backwards over a stack of books in a dark corner. I tried to steady myself with my grip on Severus but he was not expecting my falter and was merely pulled down with me to the ground.
I felt his weight on my body along with the movement of his silent laughter. I looked down at him which his head on my chest where it landed in our fall. He hoisted himself up on his fists and smeared two mucus covered thumbs over my cheeks.
"Blech." I groaned before he placed one gooey hand on each of my cheeks.
I reached up a hand and wiped it over his hair loading my palm with leftover Flobberworm Mucus. I smeared my hand down the front of his face leaving a strip of green over his nose. I laughed at the disgusted scrunched up face hovering over me.
He opened his eyes and looked down at me expectantly. My insides went to mush at his gaze. I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck and he lowered his lips slowly upon mine. I parted my lips and he lightly sucked on my bottom lip before sliding his tongue into my mouth. I felt his hand moving up my side until it was on top of my breast. I let out a small moan of pleasure at the unexpected contact. He began to gently massage my flesh in his palm.
"Professor!" Someone called.
My eyes flew open and I searched quickly with my eyes as my blood turned to ice and I was certain that my heart had leapt from my chest into Severus' hand. There was no one who could see us.
"Professor!" They called again.
Severus removed his hand from my chest and lifted a finger to his lips in a signal to be quiet, as if I needed one. He spun his wand in a circle cleaning his face and hands of the green slime before he hoisted himself from the floor and walked from my view.
My heart was pounding in my ears so loudly that I almost couldn't make out the conversation.
"Yes?" Severus asked.
"Morgana took my rat and won't give him back!" The voice said.
There was a slight silence.
"Tell me, Tiberius." Severus' voice sounded of ice. "Do I look like a nanny?"
"What?" Tiberius asked.
"Do I look like a nanny?" He asked again.
"Er," Tiberius sounded. "No?"
"Then why are you bothering me with your adolescent problems?" He asked calmly which was, perhaps, more frightening than if he had raised his voice.
"I, er, I…" Tiberius struggled.
"Get your rat back yourself and don't bother me again unless you're nearly dead." Severus said. "Ten points from Slytherin, now get out."
I was too afraid to move until Severus walked back over to me. He reached a hand down to me which I ignored and lifted myself off of the floor.
"I'm sorry." I said afraid to look at him.
A fear that someone was now watching us or would walk in at any moment was eating away at me now.
"I have to go." I said. "I'm so sorry. I just…"
"Your hands are shaking." He said and reached for one.
"Stop." I said pulling my hand out of reach. "All of me is shaking. I shouldn't have lost control like that. I decided early on that I shouldn't do anything like that with you in the school. I have to go."
"Are you going to be okay?" He asked with a concerned crinkle in his brow.
I nodded my head. My throat had gone dry.
"I'll apologize to Susan tonight." I said. "Thank you for your help."
I picked up my bag and left his office on legs that felt as wobbly as a jelly.
Running up the stairs with shaking everything was very difficult. I stopped in the library hoping that Susan would be there and also hoping that I wouldn't have to go up anymore stairs.
I took a quick look around when I finally saw Susan sitting across from Mark. Susan had her nose in a magazine and he seemed to be working on actual course work.
I walked up and seized Susan by the arm and tugged. "I really need to talk to you."
As soon as I looked as Susan my eyes automatically began to brim with tears.
"You're fingers are shaking." She said standing up. "Are you alright?"
I nodded my head quickly and choked out, "I need to talk to you."
She followed me deep into the stacks of books.
"Are you alright?" She asked as soon as we stopped. "I thought you'd be with him."
"I was." I said.
"What happened?" She asked. "What did he do? I swear, I'll kill him."
"He did nothing." I said. "I was angry about you and he made me feel better about it and told me to apologize but he was covered in Flobberworm Mucus and then he started trying to touch me with it and one thing led to another and he started kissing. We were almost caught."
By this time there were tears streaming down my cheeks. "I was so afraid. I promised myself I would never do that in the school with him and I can't concentrate on anything. I'm shaking everywhere and my heart is going to explode and I don't know what to do."
"But no one saw you?" She asked.
I shook my head. "I don't think so. He did his best to get rid of the student without letting him in the room. He even deducted points from Slytherin."
"From his own house?" She asked. "He must really like you."
"I don't know if I can convince myself to see him again." I said.
"Why not?" She asked.
"I've never been so scared before." I said. "What if we'd been seen? I'd have been expelled and he'd have been fired and then what would I do? My entire life plan would be gone. I can't do anything without an N.E.W.T. score and I'd probably be forced to live life as a muggle and what would my parents say?"
"Calm down." She said placing her hands on my shoulders. "Come sit with Mark and I. You can help me with wedding things or you can study or you can do nothing, just breathe. I'm sure you'll feel better by tomorrow. You just had a bit of a scare. Don't sever ties with Sn…him…we should really come up with a code name for him."
"What happened to Mr. Defense Club?" I asked.
She shook her head. "We need something better. We'll brainstorm later."
I wiped the tears from my cheeks and followed her back to the table where she was sitting with Mark.
"Are you alright, Ruby?" He asked.
"I'm fine." I forced a smile. "Just a bit of anxiety. You know how seventh year is."
"Yeah." He said nodding. "Stressful."
Susan slid a wedding magazine in front of me and I absentmindedly began flipping through the pages trying hard not to think about how much my fingers were still shaking or how hard my heart was still beating or how good it had felt to kiss Severus and have him touch me like that. I shook my head and concentrated on looking at flower arrangements and bouquet ideas.