Chapter 13: The Bat of the Dungeons

Bella waited outside the potions classroom all the way through dinner. When her stomach began to protest at the lack of food, she ignored it and continued waiting for her teacher to come down and start her detention.

"Wonder what he's gonna make me do?" Bella whispered to herself. She began playing with the hem of her robe that had started fraying.

Half an hour later, Bella realized that she had been sitting in a shadow for nearly five minutes. She slowly looked up and met the cold black eyes of her teacher.

"Professor," she greeted him quietly.

Instead of returning her greeting, Snape merely pulled her to her feet and led her into the classroom.

"I trust you brought your homework," he stated as he moved to his own desk, leaving Bella by the door.

Bella opened her mouth to reply but all her thoughts were frozen.

"No? Well then I suggest you start cleaning the cauldrons in the back," he continued without even glancing up. "Get started."

Bella hastened to the back of the classroom and hoped that Snape's mood would improve because he still sounded extremely angry.

Silence reigned in the classroom for nearly an hour. Then Bella's stomach rumbled quite audibly. Bella ignored it and continued scrubbing the cauldrons but Snape rose from his desk and headed to the back of the classroom.

"When was the last time you ate?" he asked, startling her.

"Oh, um, at breakfast, sir," Bella answered quietly as she still scrubbed the cauldron in front of her. She stopped when Snape gently took her wrist and led her to one of the desks.

She sat down while he pulled out his wand and made a plate with a sandwich appear in front of her.

"Eat," he ordered her as she looked up at him in question. "I will not have one of my students starving themselves just because they were yelled at."

Bella quickly started eating the peanut butter sandwich and avoided looking at Snape so that he wouldn't see how red she was turning. When Bella had finished her sandwich, she tried to stand up but Snape merely stuck her to her seat with a sticking hex and made a small amount of broccoli appear where the sandwich had been. Bella ate the broccoli without complaint and then tested her seat. She found she could get up, so she went back to the back of the classroom and continued cleaning the cauldrons.

For the next forty minutes, Bella worked nonstop on the cauldrons until they were completely spotless. When all the cauldrons were finally clean, Snape had her prepare ingredients for class on Monday until eight thirty.

Bella was carefully slicing rat tail when Snape once again walked up behind her.

"Very good, Miss Darling," he commented quietly so as not to startle her.

Bella looked up as soon as she had finished with the rat tail and saw a strange look in Snape's eyes. She could not place it and before she could give it anymore thought, it was gone and his eyes were once again guarded.

"I believe your detention is over," he said as he handed her a rag to clean her hands. "Your lights out is at exactly nine o'clock for the next two weeks."

Bella nodded her head as she started to move towards the door but stopped before she had gone two feet.

"Sir, may I leave?" she asked quietly, trying to keep eye contact even though Snape still looked to be in a bad mood.

Snape nodded his consent and moved back to his desk. Bella once again went to the door but paused before she opened it.

"Sir?" she questioned her teacher. When she had his full attention, she began speaking again. "I'm really sorry about how I said what I said this morning but I meant it; I'll only cheer for my friends," Bella said looking down.

In an instant, Snape was in front of her again, but instead of yelling at her as he had done this morning, he gently lifted up her chin and spoke to her in as quiet a voice as she had used.

"Always stand up for your friends, even if no one else will stand with you. And never be ashamed to speak your mind Bella," he whispered as he opened his classroom door and nudged Bella into the corridor. "Nine o'clock Miss Darling." With that said, he closed the door before Bella could say anything.

Bella walked through the dungeon corridors in a daze until she reached the Slytherin common room entrance. Mumbling the password, she walked in and went straight to her shared dormitory. By nine she was already in bed, still pondering what her teacher had said when a thought suddenly struck her.

"He called me Bella."