Willow glared at the cup sitting on her kitchen table as though it had gone out of its way to wrong her. Actually, she was fairly certain that the man who left it there was going out of his way to wrong her. He had been staying with her for three days now and he had yet to pick up a single thing he used. Willow snatched up the cup and stormed off towards her living room.

"I am not your mother!" She declared.

Snape hid his confusion behind a scowl as he tried to work out what, exactly, the crazy muggle was going on about now. "Certainly not. You are not fit to kneel at my mother's feet." He watched her turn a very amusing shade of red. What was she going on about? They'd been getting along fairly well for the last several days, if you counted all the time they spent avoiding each other.

"Who do you think is going to clean this up? The cleaning fairies?"

Snape was well aware of the fact that muggles had to pick up after themselves but he was so used to not having to do so that he'd forgotten. Still, he certainly was not going to admit out loud that he'd made a mistake or apologize which meant there was only one solution to this problem. "No. I expect you to do it."

It was, he later reflected, the wrong thing to say.

A girl whose intimidation abilities he would have likened to those of small woodland animals and baby chicks suddenly became something else entirely. Her eyes went completely black and her hair was rapidly darkening as well. He stood quickly, wand in hand, a curse on his lips. It was a curse that never left his lips as he was flung like a rag doll against the wall, his wand clattering to the ground.

"My, I didn't take you to be into that kind of thing." It was only the intervention of a seemingly amnesiac old man that saved him. Willow turned to stare at Dumbledore, her brain attempting to scrub itself clean of the implications of that sentence, and Snape fell to the floor with a thud.

"That's… that's not what is happening here at all!" Willow exclaimed, sounding completely horrified by the thought. Snape stared at the now red haired, green eyed girl and attempted to reconcile her with the evil creature that had attacked him only moments before. Willow caught him at it and decided it was time for a strategic retreat "I… need to do something over there." She said as she scurried off towards the kitchen.

Dumbledore watched her go thoughtfully. "You really should make more of an effort, you're never going to win her over that way," he chided Snape as he moved to follow her.

Snape didn't deem that bit of nonsense worthy of a response and instead focused on the bigger issue of figuring out what, exactly, he was dealing with. He had extensive knowledge of the dark arts and yet couldn't think of one demon that matched what he had just witnessed. Dumbledore didn't seem at all bothered by it or inclined to leave. Snape narrowed his eyes. He had little choice but to do whatever it took to find out what he was dealing with. Willow would find he made a formidable opponent.

Willow, concerned that she might be backsliding into darkness, numbly went to work baking apology cookies.

----------------------------

Authors Note: I would develop things more slowly but, really, at the rate I get around to writing, this story wouldn't get finished in the next 100 years.