Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Nora Springer, newly acquired assistant to the ever-moping Severus Snape, was standing in a random corridor of Hogwarts, banging her head on the stone wall. It was ten-o'clock at night, and she had just ended her friendly meeting with Albus Dumbledore.

They had sat in his study, Dumbledore seated behind his desk, with its whirring instruments and bobbles, and Nora sitting across from him in a plush seat, unraveling what appeared to be pure sugar tablets from their crinkling plastic wrappers. She was able to stave off the crippling anxiety and nausea that hit her full-force after her meeting with her new boss long enough to enjoy a pleasant conversation about her childhood with Dumbledore. But as soon as she stepped off the staircase hidden behind the eagle, she nearly retched all over the stone floors, and began her blind descent to the dungeons, grasping to the walls for support.

She wasn't lying when she told Severus that she was cornered by Peeves. With a mere two minutes to go before the meeting, she came face to floating face with the famous poltergeist of the castle. He had taunted her and blew raspberries in her face until she threatened to call for the Bloody Baron. Sulking, he swept past her with such a speed that caused her robes to billow up around her waist.

Now she was in a third floor corridor, literally banging her head against a wall. She wanted so badly to make a great impression on the Potions professor. She had envisioned reminding him all about her extraordinary marks on her O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, and watching his eyes light up as he remembered her attending his classes for two years. Then he would shower her with praises and confess his remorse for never recognizing her skills and potential until that very moment.

She could see now that was not at all the way things were going to go.

Swallowing bile that threatened to leave her mouth for the umpteenth time, she shakily continued her journey to her chambers. Not at all in her favor, they just so happened to be located right next to her extremely-bitter-super-scary boss.

Finally reaching her room, she fell onto her bed face first, wishing sleep would overtake her weary body quickly. But her anxiety had reached an all time high and she found herself thinking that she would rather take on the giant squid in the Great Lake than face Severus in the morning.

Her room was decently sized. The four poster bed was larger than the one she slept in during her time as a student, high up in the Ravenclaw tower. Her trunk and other belongings had been neatly stacked near the chest of drawers on the right hand side of her bed. On the far side of the room was a fireplace, which upon her arrival, had been roaring majestically, warming the dank, windowless room. Where the flames had been, were now burnt logs and ash, and only a few embers remained glowing weakly.

Flopping over onto her back with a sigh, she stared up at the dark green curtain hanging around her bed. She scrunched her eyes shut, wishing sleep to descend upon her and take her away from the misery that had enveloped her whole being. Perhaps in the morning she will actually be on time, and then things will change around for the better. But she knew that no matter how much she tried, she would always be unlucky with time. Her whole life, she was late to everything. Her mother joked that she was even late to her own birth, being scheduled for February eighteenth, but instead coming two weeks later on March fourth. Emelia Springer claimed this was for the best though, as it changed Nora's sign and made her a the sensitive and intuitive person she is today.

It was a good thing that she was also blessed with an ability to retain large amounts of information, saving her ass in every class. During her first year at Hogwarts, she received three detentions on her very first day. The professors had actually gotten into an argument over whose detention should be served first, and in a huff, they decided to cancel all three on the basis that it was overkill for the first day back. During the first half of the year, she received many more detentions, house point reductions, what have you. By the second half of the year, the detentions dwindled, and reductions in house points decreased to the point that they were only taken away once a week instead of five. When she returned for her second year, it appeared that the professors had gotten together over the break and decided it was no longer worth it to punish her. It was simply a lost cause, and truthfully, her high marks made up for her lack of punctuality.

And then there was Professor Snape. During her sixth year, Professor Slughorn had retired, leaving his beloved Potions room in the care of the young man with the greasy black hair. Either he missed the memo about Nora's "affliction", or he ignored it and felt that it was his duty to make her social life near non-existent with detentions. Yet, even though she was punished just about every class with him, Nora admired Professor Snape. He didn't just brew potions; he brewed art. Every movement he made was deliberate and carefully honed. He was tough on his students, and while most of her classmates chose to give up halfway through the year because they saw no feasible way of passing, she worked doubly as hard as she ever did in her past Potions classes. Her desire to impress her professor greatly outweighed any vindictive feelings she may have harbored. Despite her efforts and leaving Hogwarts at the top of her class, Professor Snape hardly acknowledged her hard work during those two years. He graded her and went about his usual insults and punishments.

When she saw the advertisement for "Assistants Wanted" in the Daily Prophet, she thought, This is it. This was her calling. Another chance to grasp the attention of one of the professors she looked up to so much. Really, all she wanted was validation. But after tonight, she felt it was going to take more effort than just grading papers and making class plans.

With a grunt, Nora flopped off the bed and removed her robes. Perhaps if she changed into her pajamas she would find sleep easier. She removed her navy blue nightgown from her trunk and slid it over head. Turning to get back into bed, she made contact with her own reflection in the mirror above her dresser. Her hair was sticking out in all directions from the static off her nightgown. Nora smashed her hair back down and cocked her head. She didn't consider herself "beautiful" necessarily, but she thought she was decent enough. The nightgown definitely accentuated her curves better than her robes, but she was not a bombshell by any means. It was during these late hours before bed that Nora allowed herself to admire and preen in front of the mirror. In the morning she would be back to caring more about her studies and duties than her appearances. Still, it would be nice to be complimented for her looks occasionally.

Prying herself away from the mirror, she shuffled to the fireplace. With added logs and an Incendio spell, flames once again danced about and crackled. Nora noticed a change in her room immediately, and basked in the warmth of the fire. Feeling that the fire and her nightgown were suitable enough for her to attempt slumber once more, she threw back her green comforter and snuggled down into the bed.

Within ten minutes her eyes snapped open, where they remained until early morning.

Severus stood at the front of his classroom. He had just finished his opening statement to a group of first years, and he was internally fuming. Sure, he relished the look of pure terror on their tiny faces, but there was the matter of his new assistant.

The shock he received from the news that he would now have to babysit an assistant had blocked Nora Springer's name from registering in his brain. But at around four in the morning, realization struck him like a sack of potatoes.

Merlin, help him.

He remembered her. He remembered how she showed up late to every one of his classes. He was fully aware of his reputation as a "strict" professor - though really, you had to be tough on these dunderheads -, but he did not believe that he would ever say that in two years he gave a detention to one particular student almost every day, every week, every month, for two years. Severus was certainly no stranger to detentions, thanks to Potter and his posse, and the other professors reminded him of this and claimed he was being "too hard on the poor girl", urging him to just take away house points instead. Honestly, by the time they gave him their little speech, he was no longer doing it to teach her a lesson. No, she was far too gone for saving. He was just doing it for his own personal amusement at that point. How she kept her grades up, he really could not even begin to fathom.

When she finally graduated, he was both relieved and disappointed at the same time. Relieved because she was finally gone and out of his hair. He would no longer have to invent new ways to punish her, such as essentially making her his guinea pig for several potions - all non-life threatening of course, but enough to let her know he meant business. Yet, after several months, disappointment set in. The whole ordeal was entertaining to say the least, he got several decent study results from her, and she left behind a slew of students who couldn't tell a slug from a leech.

Now she was going to be his assistant, and he fought the urge to pull his hair from his scalp. This was not going to be fun at all. At least when she was his student, she went away to other classes and her own common room. But she was now technically a student professor, and thus she was almost required to be near him at all times in order to gain firsthand experience on how to teach her own group of spawn one day.

Heavens, forbid.

Needless to say, he was not surprised in the slightest when she came bursting through his door over an hour late. She had apparently been running to his classroom because when she hurtled through said door, it swung open with such violence that it bounced off the stone wall with a bang and almost hit her in the face.

xxx

Nora had indeed been running to the Potions classroom. She was fully aware of how late she was. After remaining awake for hours in her bed, her body had decided that it was going to shut down completely at around five, whether she liked it or not. Had she any windows, she would have heard the birds beginning to sing their sunrise songs. She awoke with a start an hour after she was supposed to be going over how her tasks were to be allocated throughout the year.

Ten minutes later, she was now standing in the doorway of one of the dungeon classrooms, gradually becoming more and more aware of just how disheveled she appeared to the group of eleven year old witches and wizards. Her robes - the same as the ones she was wearing the previous night - were thrown on haphazardly and hung askew on her frame. She did not bother showering or freshening herself up. Her hair was dirty and her eyes were crusted from sleep. She did not look professional at all. Quite the opposite actually; she looked very much like a drunken vagrant who took a wrong turn and found themselves in the lower levels of Hogwarts.

The students stared at her.

She stared back.

My, how awkward.

Whispers began to crop up among the seats, as the students broke out of their initial stunned silences.

"Who is that?"

"I don't know."

"Think that's his girlfriend or something?"

"No way! Gross! Maybe she's a seventh year?"

"Is...she allowed to be here...in this school?"

As her face grew redder by the second and giggles starting to surround her, she heard a loud throat clearing at the front of the room. The small faces, that were just sharing theories on who she was with each other, all snapped back up to the thin man behind a table with several glass bottles and a deep cauldron. Nora locked eyes with her superior and instantly paled. Boy, did he look pissed. Sheepishly, she closed the door as quietly as she could, and shuffled her way up to the front to stand next to Severus. As she neared his position, he shook his head slightly and jerked it to his left. She followed his sign and saw a lone stool pushed against the wall, lined with long shelves contained floating body parts and other various powders and liquids.

Lowering her head, she padded to the stool and sat gingerly, clasping her hands on her lap. She looked up at Severus, but saw that he was continuing his lesson from where she had interrupted. Several students occasionally glanced over at her nervously, but soon forgot all about her when they became immersed in their cures for boils. She witnessed several occasions where a student had added the wrong ingredient, or added it at the wrong time, and was about to interject, but Severus had already swooped over and magicked away the potion with a swift motion of his wand. He did not make eye contact with her again through the whole lesson. Nora regulated herself to simply sitting and observing silently until she felt that she had become part of the jars behind her.

The first years spilled out of the classroom as quickly as they could when the bell rang, signalling the end of the lesson. They chattered about how difficult potion making was, how scary their professor seemed, and swapped rumors about the young woman who sat in the corner the whole time.

Nora waited until the last student filtered out of the room, before hesitantly making her way over to Severus, who was busy trading out the ingredients used for demonstration for the first years, with the ones needed for his fifth years scheduled to arrive in an hour.

"Uh...um, Professor Snape?"

Severus glanced over at her from his place at the shelves on the right hand side of the room. "Yes, Miss Springer?"

"I- I was just wondering why-"

"Why I hadn't introduced you to the students today?" Nora nodded, though she didn't think he saw it. "You were late. I specifically told you to arrive at seven thirty to go over your duties before the first class of the day. Since you failed to do so, I did not think it necessary to give you the pleasure of introducing yourself."

Nora swallowed. True, she was late and this seemed like a reasonable punishment, but the embarrassment of being treated like a five year old told her otherwise.

"Until you can learn to be punctual, you will not speak to any of my students. You will not help them. They will never know your name. This goes for all of my classes, not just the first years today." Severus turned around and regarded Nora with his cold eyes. "Don't think I don't know who you are. I think these children have a better chance of meeting the Dark Lord than learning your name."

Nora was stunned. This went beyond any of the insults she had received from him as a student herself. She clenched her fists so hard they began to shake. "I do believe I will take that as a challenge, Professor Snape," she responded with as much venom as she could muster. She wasn't sorted into Ravenclaw for nothing; she would find a way to make sure every single child in the castle knew her name.

Ignoring Severus' raised eyebrow at her bold response, she stormed over to the door and swung it open. For the second time that day, it crashed against the wall. A minute later, it creaked back open, and Nora's head poked in.

"I uh...guess maybe I should stick around to see what else needs to be done…shouldn't I?" she whispered.

"Well, would you like to be fired, or not?" Snape replied with a sneer.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll just…" Nora slid back into the room and closed the door.

"You can begin by taking inventory of everything on the shelves and in the potions closet," Severus nodded over to a journal hanging by a chain near the potions closet., before turning his back on her.

Just like old times, thought Nora with a sigh.