Returning to Hogwarts every year after a summer at Spinner's End was always a chore, but at least the two weeks before the children returned was pleasant. The hallways were peaceful and quiet, and the potion's laboratories were free of explosions and other assorted disasters.

Severus Snape regarded this time as his haven, his way of relaxing before the chaos and unpleasantness that inevitably came with the school year.

Peace and quiet was a precious commodity. At times he liked to walk along the shore of the lake, enjoying the quiet stillness of the water. There were certain types of algae that he could collect from the banks that were useful in lucrative potions.

So when he heard an unusual cracking sound from the forest, he was concerned. It sounded a little like a Muggle firearm, which was concerning. If there were Muggles in the forest he had to get them out before they were eaten by any number of things, or before they accidentally shot someone.

No child had ever been shot at Hogwarts, although they had been burned, sliced, petrified, crushed, sauteed, transformed and been eaten by a number of monsters.

Muggles were a danger to themselves and others. Snape moved quickly toward the edge of the forest, pulling his wand from its holster but holding it down by his side. He stiffened as he heard the sounds of childish laughter.

No children were permitted in Hogwarts until the school year began. They certainly were not allowed in the Forbidden forest. It was forbidden for a reason.

Cautiously he slowed his pace.

He heard the sound of another small explosion and he began moving very quietly. It was possible that it was a hunter and his child, although that was seeming increasingly unlikely the closer he got to the source of the sound.

Peering around a large tree he stared.

There was a hut there that hadn't been there at the end of the school year. It looked as though a massive boulder, at least twenty foot on a side had been set on the ground and then hollowed out. The front was carved in a crude rendering of a woman with multiple arms.

Steven Universe was standing near the hut with a small purple woman who was holding a whip.

"I think you need to give her a little more of a smile," Steven was saying.

The woman scowled. "I lived there five thousand years. I know what it looked like."

She flicked the whip, and with a crack another piece of stone came off the sculpture.

"Pearl's just gonna complain," the woman said.

"She's not here now," Steve said. "And I'm sure she'll fix it the way she likes when she gets here, but you're the one who's gonna live here until then."

Snape stepped around the corner of the tree and asked, "What's going on here?"

Looking up at him, Steven's face broke out into a large grin. "Professor Snape!"

"Mr. Universe," Snape said stiffly. "I asked you a question."

"This is Amethyst. She's one of the gems, and she woke up!" Steven said. "Hagrid said I should just call her my aunt, but if I'm my own mother, wouldn't that make her my sister?"

Snape noticed an uncomfortable look pass over the woman's face at the mention of his mother. For a moment he allowed himself to wonder what it would be like to know someone for thousands of years, thinking that it would last forever and then lose them.

It sounded like a receipt for disaster. Snape could barely tolerate his fellow teachers for the school year, much less for millenia. It seemed impossible that they wouldn't eventually try to kill each other by the end of the first century.

"She's living here?" Snape asked.

"Dumbles set me up with this cool pad," Amethyst said. "I've been customizing it."

"I didn't think anyone lived here year round except Hagrid," Snape said. He could feel the beginning of a headache coming on.

He treasure his peace and quiet, and if there was one thing Steven Universe wasn't, it was quiet. Considering that he had to have learned the behaviors from somewhere, his aunt had to be even worse.

The whip vanished from the woman's hand with a gesture.

"So you're Snape," she said, sizing him up. "Steven says you work hard to keep all the kids safe."

"It's professor Snape," Snape said. "And yes."

"Don't you think safe is a little...boring?"

Something about the way she was standing screamed insolence. Her outfit was even worse. With one bare shoulder and wearing a monstrosity of a leotard, she looked like she should be on an exercise program on the telly or perhaps preparing for bed.

If she was a Hogwarts student he'd have taken house points. Undoubtedly she'd have been in Gryffindor, given her attitude toward danger. Snape suppressed a shudder.

The Weasely twins were going to love her.

"I'm sure the parents of the children of this institution would prefer boring,"he said. He stared off into the distance, refusing to look at her ghastly outfit.

Unfortunately, over the past millenia Hogwarts had been anything but boring.

The thought that this woman, if she'd been born in this universe would have been old enough to have known the Hogwarts founders, or even Merlin himself was startling. There were ghosts in Hogwarts that old, but their memories, especially of the times before their deaths was suspect.

"They just need a little livening up," she said.

He glanced back at her and saw her grinning.

"Pearl's gonna love you," she continued. "All about rules and bein proper and all that. Sometimes you stick in the muds have to learn to stir things up once in a while."

"Rules exist for a reason," Snape said irritably. He could tell without looking that this woman wasn't intimidated by him.

"Yeah...to be broken!"

"We've been exploring the Forbidden forest all summer with Hagrid," Steven said cheerfully. He didn't seem to notice the tension between the two adults at all. "It's been a lot of fun."

Given that the boy had beaten a troll on his own, in the company of Hagrid and this woman he'd probably been as safe as a normal Hogwarts student in the Great Hall.

"So you've been living here...on school grounds," Snape said flatly.

"Oh no," Steven said. "This is just the entrance. We've been digging the Temple all summer, under the Forbidden forest."

For a moment Snape allowed himself to wonder about tree roots and the water table, but undoubtedly they'd found held from various staff members. Magic surmounted all sorts of Muggle obstacles.

The boy's body language was different from what he'd ever seen; it was more open and joyful than it had been when he had been alone in the world. If he'd worried about Steven being popular before, this was going to make it even worse.

"I will see you at the beginning of the school year," he said stiffly.

"You didn't tell me he was a big nerd," Amethyst said behind him, her voice pitched so that he could hear it.

"Amethyst!" Steven said. "He's one of my teachers."

The women was like the reincarnation of James Potter in a woman's body; the school year was going to be intolerable.

"An she likes my rock cakes,' Hagrid was saying enthusiastically.

From what Snape had heard, the woman literally ate garbage simply for the novelty of it. Rock cakes couldn't be much worse.

He'd complained, of course. Having a dangerous magical creature on the edge of the Hogwarts wards wasn't safe. He had no doubt that some of his Slytherins were going to complain to their parents, and the headache that would be was already giving him the beginning of a migraine.

Somehow the headmaster had decided to give her a job...as Hagrid's assistant.

Snape doubted that the woman even understood what a job was, much less had any sense of responsibility. He'd read some of the Ministry transcripts of the interviews about the boy and his aunts. Apparently the woman had been feral for the first centuries of her life. There was something feral about her still.

"She likes a good scrap too," Hagrid was saying. "Y'oughta see her...it's really something. Even Steven's not too bad in a scrap."

Trust Hagrid to have a crush on a creature who was literally a rock.

"She's agreed to help patrol the halls at night," Flitwick was saying. "Fewer shifts for the rest of us."

That was assuming she could be trusted not to simply turn into a cat and curl up somewhere and pretend to sleep.

In his opinion she was the one they should be watching out for.

"Whatcha doin?"

Only years of experience kept him from dropping the crushed firefly extract into the cauldron in front of him. Dropping it in now would lead to a a Longbottom-like explosion.

As soon as he was sure his hands were steady he looked up.

A ridiculous purple cat with a gem on its chest was laying on the table in front of the cauldron.

"I'm attempting not to cause an explosion that will cause the room to collapse," he said. "Startling me won't help."

She was silent for a moment then said, "What are you doin now?"

He stirred the potion carefully. "If I tell you, will you go away?"

"Probably not."

"I'm brewing a potion."

"So magic, huh?"

"Yes." he said shortly. Maybe she was like a real cat and she'd go away if she was bored.

"So why aren't you stirring it with your wand?"

He stared at her, outraged. "Wands are not necessary for potions, and no proper wizard would ever consider abusing their wand like that."

She was silent again for a moment.

"So what's the potion for?"

For the first time Snape found himself wishing he was brewing a headache cure instead of a firedrake brew. He was rapidly developing a migraine.

Maybe having the children back would be a blessing this year. At least it would give the blasted woman something else to vent her boredom on.

"Can I eat the cauldron when you're done with it?"

Snape sighed. It was going to be a long year.