Typical Disclaimers Apply

--

"Sit," he growled, gesturing to the three chairs he'd summoned in front of his desk. "Stay." He began pacing.

"We're done for!" Neville whispered to Ginny. She didn't respond, but kept her eyes on Snape.

"What are you going to do?" She asked coolly. "Expel us? Turn us over to Amycus?" Snape flinched noticeably at the name.

"I should turn you over to your sister. It'd be an interesting way to get revenge." The three teens eyed one another nervously. Snape was one thing, but Esme was downright unpleasant when woken in the middle of the night. In fact the odds were good that she'd simply kill all three of them plus Snape so she'd have no more trouble makers and no more Snape. "However, as I am trying to break myself of the habit of taking revenge on people who have not yet done anything to me, I'll have to find another way to deal with you hoodlums." He took a long drink of cappuccino.

"Plus she sleeps naked, so I doubt she'd be very happy to have you bursting into her room," Ginny said, smirking. Her smirk grew wider when Snape gagged on his coffee. Luna had stuffed her fist in her mouth to keep from laughing.

"Anyway," he said, recovering his composure, "you're still going to be punished. Severely."

"By Amycus." Ginny's brown eyes were cold and hard. Her demeanor was beginning to bear a startling resemblance to that of Esme.

"Ginny," Neville hissed, "will you stop encouraging him?!" Luna, on the other hand, just stared peacefully forward, a serene smile playing on her lips.

"Miss Weasley, your friend is correct; it's wise for you to just shut up now." He returned to his pacing. "Who's a step down from your sister in the anger department?"

"Well that would be Hagrid, of course," Luna said calmly.

"Yes, Hagrid!" Ginny cried, leaping up. Neville gestured angrily, trying to get her to sit down. "Turn us over to Hagrid! He'll set us straight!"

"Fine, I'll leave you with Hagrid." The three students cheered silently. "But I'm still telling your sister."

"Damn it!"

--

"Ginevra Weasley I am so going to—"

"Kill me?" Ginny smirked at her older sister. It had been a week since she'd broken into Snape's office and stolen the sword. They were already halfway finished with their detentions. Evidently, by her flushed cheeks and clenched fists, Esme had only been recently informed. "Wow, I'm really scared."

"No," she said, her voice low and dangerous. "I'm going to write to Mum."

"You wouldn't dare," she gasped.

"You'd be surprised what I'd be willing to do."

"Well, if you're going to tell her about the break-in, you should probably tell her about the undergr—mmph!" Esme clamped her hand over her younger sibling's mouth.

"Are you honestly trying to get yourself killed?" she hissed.

"You are the one who organizes the meetings," Ginny said, shrugging and pulling Esme's hand away. "Anyway, you have nothing to worry about; we're halfway through our punishment with Hagrid. We're excercising the unicorns in the forbidden forest."

"He wouldn't have to exercise them if he'd just let them run free!" A chubby dark-haired girl yelled. She was wearing a button with "Free the Unicorns" flashing in bright purple and gold. Esme and Ginny stared at each other for a few moments, shrugged, and walked off in opposite directions.

--

Autumn went on as peacefully as possible. Ginny had received quite a loud howler a few days after her confrontation with Esme. The Carrow siblings had gotten extremely upset with this, wondering why they weren't chosen to do the punishing but Snape had silenced them with a raise of his eyebrows.

The Muggle Studies classes went on quite well. There had been some close calls where one of the Carrows would catch a late student rushing toward the room, but with the majority of faculty members one their side, the student could say almost anything and have an alibi. During the classes, the talk would be less focused on Muggles and more focused on the outside wizarding world. No one had heard about the break-in until Ginny's howler had arrived, so she was brought up front to tell her side of the story. When asked why she did it, she responded by saying, "That sword was the rightful property of Dumbledore. Why should his murderer have the right to hang it in his office?" Of course, the entire class agreed with her.

As it turned out, Esme and Sirius weren't able to get that much information about the outside world. Every once in a while Esme would receive a letter from Arthur, and if she was able to crack whatever code it was in she could share it with the class. Students with parents in the Ministry new a little bit too, so they could piece together what was going on. The Prophet was no help at all; it was just filled with lies about Dumbledore and his biography, or reasons why Muggles are inferior. Esme began bringing copies of it to class and she and Sirius would point out its flaws. At the end of every class they'd find an interesting way to dispose of it. Typically it'd be burned. One day, the room provided them with a shotgun, so the pinned the newspaper up on the wall and everyone got the chance to shoot Thicknesse's face. Esme called it "Hands-on learning." Flitwick, who had heard the noise while passing, rushed in, and nearly gotten shot, called it "Righteous insanity."

Esme and Snape hadn't spoken since he'd told her off that night, nearly a month ago, and that was fine with them both. Snape had been told by the portraits that he'd "done a very good job" when punishing Neville, Luna, and Ginny. After that he'd thought that maybe he needed to start socializing with living people. Unfortunately, the only living person who had the desire to socialize with him was Alecto. And he was quite frightened of Alecto.

Esme seemed to be in a better mood since she'd stopped seeing Snape. It was nice not being randomly insulted, but being without him felt strange, almost like she had lost a limb.They'd been teaching side-by-side for years. Last year they'd even shared the same room! Even over the summers they'd kept in contact by owl; he'd send business-type letters, trying to help her with her lessons. She's send friendly letters with little doodles in the margins, regaling him all about her summer holidays. He was the one who'd walked her down the aisle when Arthur wasn't able. He'd been there when she'd found out that the Malfoys were disowning her. He'd been there when she learned that the Weasleys wanted to adopt her. He was the reason she had a job. He was the reason her husband was still alive. There was no possible way she'd admit it to anyone, but she missed him.

Sort of.

Snape had been missing her too, but for different reasons. Sure, he missed her companionship; she was always a laugh to be around, but he missed other parts of her too. He missed the way she smelled, like a mix of spices and grass and potions ingredients. He missed the feeling he got when she laid her hand on his arm and smiled at him. He missed the way the room seemed to brighten the moment she walked in. Every night, memories ran through his mind: giving her away at the wedding; the time, during her first year teaching, when she just randomly ran up and hugged him as tightly as she could for nearly a full minute; the day she'd told him she loved him. Of course, she hadn't meant it romantically, but he could still remember the loving look in her eyes.

Fortunately, or perhaps, unfortunately, Esme and Snape were about to meet again.

It was a cool day in November. Esme had just finished up in her Muggle Studies class, and she was on cloud nine. The students were doing spectacularly in their understanding of why Muggles, though different, were not inferior. It had taken a lot more to persuade some of them than she'd thought. Now she was planning on spending the rest of the afternoon in the staffroom with one of the books she'd taken from the room, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. She'd chosen it because she had the same name as the heroine.

So, she was walking along, her head in the clouds. She was even humming a bit. However, her humming stopped the moment she walked straight into Severus Snape's chest. He cried out, spilling something sticky and bitter all over her scalp.

"Oh, God! You spilled coffee all over me!" she screamed, staring at the cappuccino dripping from her hair.

"Maybe if you paid attention to where you were going, you wouldn't be covered in coffee!" He yelled back. They stared at each other for over a minute, until Snape's lips started twitching. He tried to fight it, but that only made it worse. Soon he was doubled over laughing with his arms wrapped around his stomach.

"What, may I ask, is so funny?" she growled.

"You're covered in skim-milk vanilla-bean cappuccino!" After hearing that, she began laughing just as hard. They laughed for a full ten minutes before Snape regained his composure and realized that she was actually laughing at him. "Why are you laughing?"

"You drink skim-milk vanilla-bean cappuccinos!"

"What? They're good!"

"I'm not arguing!" she said, straightening up but still giggling a bit. Then she tapped her head, muttering "Scourgify." She turned to glare at him, remembering what he'd said to her. "Why don't you just leave?"

"I could, except you knocked my coffee out of my hands and onto your head." Her response was stony silence. His stomach hurt. "I suppose you aren't interested in an apology."

"No, not really."

"Didn't think so."

"Look Sev—Snape. Neither of us wants to be in this conversation, so why don't you just go off and remake your girly drink, and let me read in peace."

"You won't even listen to my apology?"

"Oh, I'll listen," she said icily. "I just won't give a damn."

--

A/N: Please review! I find them lovely!

Snape: You're officially no longer allowed to call this "Humor." My heart is practically shattered!

Sirius: It's also not all that romantic. I mean, I'm the only hot stud, and I'm barely in it! I don't even show up in portraits…:cries:

Esme: You made Sirius cry! You bitch.