Typical Disclaimers Apply
A/N: The place between insanity and logic? Wisdom. Straddle it.
--
"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" Snape yelled, banging his head against his desk. It hurt quite a lot.
"No one's disagreeing with you," a skinny blonde witch quipped from her portrait. Her tightly-coiled locks and poisonous smile tended to remind Snape of Rita Skeeter.
"Drusilla!" Dumbledore chastised before addressing Snape. "Severus, you hurt Esme very badly tonight."
"I UNDERSTAND THAT!" he cried. "Now, do you know of any time-turners in the vicinity? I'm thinking I'll go back and beat the living daylights out of my earlier self whilst he's getting his cappuccino."
"Time-travel won't fix your emotional issues, Severus."
"Oh." He paused for a second. How else could her improve this situation? "Well then, if it's alright with you, I think I'll go hang myself."
"Again, suicide won't solve anything." Drat, Dumbledore was going to be infuriating again. "You need to go talk to her."
"But you said suicide wouldn't solve anything," he quipped, smirking lightly.
"You know, I bet if you use your charming wit around her, she'll fall head-over-heels in love with you," the blonde witch, who must have been Drusilla, said sarcastically.
"But that's the problem!" Snape groaned, obviously not getting it. "Every time I talk to her my brain practically falls out halfway through the conversation and I tend to spew hateful sentiments."
"You know, if this woman can make you act like a twelve-year-old and say things like you don't give a damn about whether or not her family is brutally murdered," Drusilla pondered, "then you must be in love." Drusilla was rather young, about Snape's age. Most of the other headmasters on that wall were closer in age to Dumbledore. Snape had to wonder if some group of angry teachers had gone off and murdered her.
"Thanks for the update, I realized that two years ago," he growled.
"Just trying to help."
"It doesn't matter whether or not he's in love with her!" The iron-haired and iron-willed witch Harriet snapped. She reminded Snape very much of McGonagall. "She's married. You have to accept that she's staying with her husband and all of this other talk about love is insanity!"
"Wow, that is depressing," he said, running a hand through his hair. "Is there any line I could straddle between insanity and logic?"
"Yes. Dumbledore."
"Well, I don't really want to straddle him…"
"Oh, I've heard that one before," Dumbledore's cheerful laugh broke through the depressing conversation. He beckoned Snape closer. "You're worried about unintentionally hurting Esme again."
"Yes."
"Even though you had every ability to keep yourself from hurting her, and you still do."
"I know, I know! It's just," he sighed. "It's like, when I'm talking to her, everything nice and sweet I want to say to her stays in my head, and the evil part of me prevails! As though there was an Evil-Severus living inside me who doesn't want me to be happy!"
"Perhaps, Severus," he began, "you should just stop thinking about her." Everything going through Snape's mind froze. Stop thinking about Esme? It'd be easier to stop breathing.
"I don't understand."
"Perhaps the only way you can keep Esme safe is to treat her like every other professor. Let her mean nothing to you. You're a good actor, Severus."
"Why?" he protested. "How can you ask me to ignore the woman I love?"
"You need to focus on the task at hand. Hogwarts is depending on you, and so is Harry, and so am I. Don't let us down."
--
Sirius stepped out of his classroom, quickly forcing the door behind him back on its hinges. By now his cheeks were flushed an angry, nervous red, and his silver eyes were narrowed. "What the hell was that about?" he growled in undertone. Esme rolled her eyes.
"I've no idea what you mean."
"You burst into my classroom, blowing up a door, and talking about some kind of 'beginning.' Have you gone insane? And where that hell did you even get a wand? The last I heard, Snape—"
"Don't you say that name around me!"
"Fine, he had taken your wand and not yet returned it, disabling you in battle!" Esme looked at him, and then at the wand in her hand. She hadn't even remembered that she'd lost her wand; she was acting all on instinct when she pulled it from her robes. Was it hers? It had worked fine; even the wood was still warm in her hand. Where had it come from?
"That's not important," snapped Esme, bringing her confused thoughts to an end. "We must begin our Muggle Studies classes soon and I must make my first attack on him—tonight!"
"Oh dear God," Sirius muttered. "What are you going to do?"
"You'll see," Esme sang, flouncing away towards her quarters.
For the rest of the day, Esme formed her idea. Her first attack would be relatively harmless—killing Snape probably wasn't the best idea right now—but it would still send a clear message. And of course, with Fred and George on her side, it could not fail. Now all she had to do was bribe the elves…
That night at dinner, everyone sat down as normal. Esme was calm and quiet, though she did seem to be keeping watch on Snape. This was making Sirius feel very uncomfortable. A few of the students had noticed Esme's fervent stares, and were too watching their headmaster. Ginny looked so nervous she must have thought Esme was going to leap up and put the Cruciatus Curse on him.
Snape was doing his best to ignore the uncomfortable stares. However, he was a little disturbed that his food had yet to arrive. It wasn't all that unusual for food to be a few minutes late—but for the headmaster? One of the elves must have fallen into the fire. But, in five minutes time, the food had come and all his worries, along with his appetite, were quenched. Tonight was a delicious selection of vegetables, steak, warm potatoes….He dipped his fork in.
With a bang like a gunshot, the food erupted into fireworks. A few of the closest professors leapt back, covering their heads. The brightly colored flames whistled and popped around the Head Chair. Esme had to stuff her fist in her mouth to keep from giggling.
"What are those?" hissed Sirius as Snape attempted at extinguishing the pyrotechnics.
"Exploding Entrees," she whispered. "Made fresh by Fred and George." Finally giving up on the fireworks, Snape stormed out of the hall, casting a quick glare at Esme. She looked back at him, realizing with a jolt of happiness, that the backs of his robes had caught fire.
--
Esme had attacked the underground Muggle Studies class with a kind of fervor Sirius hadn't seen since she'd beat the living daylights out of Bellatrix. During Potions she'd give directions and spend the rest of the hour scrawling down notes. Unfortunately, most of those notes were things like, "Electricity was invented by Olivia Newton-John." So Sirius ended up doing a lot of editing. Still, in just a few days she had managed to get a lot of historically-inaccurate work done.
On the day of the first meeting, Sirius and Esme headed down to breakfast to see a large knot of Hufflepuffs, Gryffindors, and Ravenclaws huddled together. They looked up excitedly at the two teachers. Snape, standing about ten meters away, grabbed Esme while she was passing. "What the hell are they all doing? What is it they're talking about?"
"Screw off, you bastard," she muttered, yanking her arm away from his grasp.
"She's so brave!" A third-year Ravenclaw boy squealed.
"She's so dumb," a seventh-year Hufflepuff muttered whilst massaging his temples. The girl next to him nodded, obviously wondering how long it would be till her Potions professor was turned over to the Death Eaters.
Esme looked up at the head table, thought better of it, turned on her heel, and began walking out of the Great Hall. "Where are you going?" Snape called after her.
"Gryffindor Tower!"
"Why?" She flipped him the bird in response. Sirius rushed after her. Snape sized up the group of students before yelling "Now scatter!" They all ran out in different directions, each, however heading towards Gryffindor Tower. But Snape didn't bother with them; he knew where they were going. He even had a good idea about why they were going there. Last night he'd found a scrap of paper with "Renaissance—period of great rains? Must ask Sirius." scribbled across it.
--
"Okay, so you all know why you're here," Esme said, planting her hands on her hips. After finding the large group of children stuffed into the common room, she'd ushered them down into the Room of Requirement. Inside they'd found what seemed to be a large classroom, with nearly fifty desks and walls lined with books and posters. After Sirius had sat the students alphabetically and made them sign a security covenant, Esme turned to address them.
"Actually, we don't," the blonde Hufflepuff, Hannah Abbot, said. "Ginny just told us to meet in the Great Hall this morning."
"Oh, erm, Sirius! Why don't you tell them why they're here?"
"Well, alright," he walked up to the front of the classroom. "When my wife looked in on one of the new Muggle Studies classes, she learned that Alecto's teaching you kids a lot of falsehoods. We don't want you growing up believing that muggles are stupid animals that aren't fit to lick our boots, so we decided to start our own Muggle Studies class."
At that point, Esme stepped in, "We also disagree on the punishment techniques that Amycus is using on children that earn detentions. Now, all of the older teachers have decided to do as much as possible to keep their students out of detention, but Alecto and Amycus are probably going to do the opposite. There's a good chance that any little screw-up that you make in their classes could put you in detention, and we don't need that. Hopefully this class will be something to look forward to while you undergo Alecto's ignorance. Hopefully it'll be able to keep you from spending your evenings with Amycus. You kids don't deserve that."
A first-year Gryffindor raised his hand. "Excuse me professor, but what exactly are the punishment techniques that you keep talking about?"
Esme seemed unable to answer, so Sirius, eyes clouded, stepped in, "Amycus is encouraging the use of the Cruciatus Curse. It is one of the cruelest curses in the wizarding world. It causes the most intense pain you will ever experience. It's basically several minutes in a living Hell." The younger students paled at the thought, but the description seemed to strengthen the will of the upper-years. Neville Longbottom's hand punched the air. "Yes Neville?"
"How will we know when we're meeting again? Is it going to be like with the," he swallowed, "the DA? Are we going to have some sort of magical coin to tell us when to meet again?"
"Excellent question Neville," Sirius said, causing Neville to break into a smile. "We won't be using any sort of coin or mark to alert you of the meetings. Instead, a few days before are next meeting, Professor McGonagall or I will say something along the lines of 'Anyone meeting for Remedial Transfiguration can come to class' at whatever time the meeting will be held. Of course, you won't be in the Transfiguration room, you'll be in here. Now, is anyone not taking Transfiguration?" No one raised a hand. "Excellent, it's quite a worthy subject to teach." He looked at his watch and said, "Well, it looks like it's about time to go. Class dismissed!"
The students rushed out of the room, talking cheerfully. For once it seemed that something good was finally happening at Hogwarts.
--
As silently as possible, Luna, Neville, and Ginny crept into Snape's office. "Lumos," Ginny whispered, lighting up the room. "Oh thank heavens, he's not here!"
"One day more to live!" Luna cheered softly.
"He probably wouldn't kill us," Neville rationalized, more to himself than to Luna. "I mean, we'd probably only get expelled or something…"
"Oh, but I'd hate to leave!" Luna gasped. "Everything's so different, and I'm just getting a feel for it."
"Right…"
"Now's not the time!" Ginny hissed. She looked up at the glittering sword, high above their heads. "Lift me up, Neville!" Silently, he bent down so she could climb atop his shoulders. A few of the portraits looked on curiously as Ginny lifted the glass and gingerly took out the sword of Gryffindor. It was surprisingly light.
"Snape's not going to be pleased about this," Drusilla whispered. Ginny's eyes flew wide open at the sound of her voice.
"No," Harriet sighed. "But he's getting what's coming to him."
"We've got to go now!" Ginny squeaked. They pushed open the door rushing down the curving stairs towards safety. They were about to relax when they ran straight into Snape; wearing a terry-cloth dressing gown, holding a cappuccino, and raising an eyebrow.
"Miss Weasley," he began, "why are you carrying the sword of Godric Gryffindor?"
"I think the better question, sir, is why are you drinking coffee in the middle of the night?"
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