Exhausted and downhearted, Ari fell asleep quickly, wanting nothing more than to immerse herself in a good dream to take the pain away. But she felt like she had just closed her eyes when she jolted awake again. Her neck hurt and she felt sore all over, but that wasn't what had woken her up. Through her groggy stupor, she heard something rapping frantically at her window like a possessed hammer.

She tottered out of bed like a zombie and saw another owl perched at the darkened window, a roll of parchment tied to its leg. Oh, no…

Hoping it wasn't what she thought it was, she removed the letter and unrolled it. Her silent prayers came crashing down, however, when a sharp, spiky scrawl sliced into her bleary eyes. She sighed and tried to decipher the words again through her groggy haze.

Miss Rossi,

You are due to serve the detention you received on the first day of class. Report to the entrance hall this evening at seven o'clock sharp. Refusal to comply will result in flagellation.

Professor Snape

She had no idea what "flagellation" meant, and couldn't have been bothered to know, either. In a blind rage, she crumpled up the letter and hurled it across the room. Great, just great! So Snape had woken her up early again to relay his instructions for another detention — which she had already known about! After detention yesterday, Filch had clearly told her to come back to the entrance hall again the next evening — so just why did Snape have to give her the same directions again?!

Maybe he hadn't counted on Filch to tell her? Or maybe Snape thought she was stupid and wouldn't have been able to remember? Or maybe… maybe he just wanted to be mean again by disturbing her beauty rest again and adding on to her already existing pain. Yeah, that totally sounded like something that toad would do!

The more she thought about this and how unfair it was, the angrier and angrier she felt, until she felt just about ready to scream. So she did. And she screamed so loudly she woke up the rest of her roommates, and they all got angry at her for waking them up. But Ari didn't care. If she had been forced to wake up early and experience all this pain, then they deserved to know what it felt like, too!

She was feeling too heated-up to go back to sleep, so she got out her school books and tried doing some homework instead. But after five minutes of this, she got bored, so she got dressed and headed down to the Great Hall for breakfast.

Since it was such an early Sunday morning, there was barely anyone in the Great Hall. Even the staff table was pretty much deserted — there was no sign of Snape. Ari glared at his empty seat. So apparently he had no problem getting up early to send the owl and torment Ari, but he didn't dare show up for breakfast and risk coming face-to-face with her. What a scaredy-cat!

Feeling even angrier, she stomped out of the Great Hall and headed outside. The sun was just rising over the mountains, and a chilly breeze stirred the air. Ari shivered violently, having forgotten to bring a coat. But she stopped by the Owlery anyway to say hello to Prince.

She stood on the feather-strewn floor and called his name, but he wouldn't come down. So she tried looking for him through the conglomeration of owls overhead. But she couldn't find him, and he still wouldn't come down no matter how hard she called. In the end, she lost her patience again and ended up stomping out of the Owlery, too.

When she got back to her dormitory, she sent a letter to her dad ranting about her current predicament. After all the trouble she had been through, she was missing home even more badly than before, and was desperate for a voice of comfort. If anyone would understand, it was her daddy.

For the rest of the day, Ari was in a bad mood and locked herself up in her dormitory, sulking. She tried playing with her birdie and puppy to relieve some of the stress, but she just couldn't put her mind to it. She couldn't do anything but flop down in her four-poster and stare despondently at the canopy. Hopefully her dad would reply soon and give her some light in this big dark hole of hopelessness.

At seven o'clock that evening, Ari repeated yesterday's story and met with the crabby Filch and his weird cat in the entrance hall. Then they took her to a different bathroom and made her scrub all the toilets.

Maybe it was because she was in a bad mood, or still tired from her last detention, but the work felt even more painful and tedious than it had yesterday. Her arms ached with a vengeance, and her legs went numb from bending over for so long. Plus, Filch was meaner than ever and forced her to bleach and scrub all the toilets twice before he would deem it clean. By the time she finally finished cleaning all the toilets, it was two o'clock, and everything hurt so much she was ready to dissolve into a puddle of jelly. She just wanted to roll in bed and never come back out.

But of course, the next day was Monday, and she had to wake up bright and early for classes. Getting up was even more painful than usual, quite literally. Her body felt like it had been run over by a truck, especially her arms and shoulders, and everything hurt with the slightest movement. Plus, she couldn't even enjoy her breakfast, because everything she ate had a faint bleach burn. Thankfully she was too tired to eat, anyway.

"Wake up!" Hermione said crossly as Ari closed her eyes and put her head in her arms. She would have dozed off if it weren't for Hermione violently shaking her shoulder. "You can't sleep at the table! It's not proper!"

"Leaf m'lone," Ari slurred, flipping her head over to the other side.

"Professor McGonagall's watching you," Hermione warned.

Ari cracked open an eye and saw the Transfiguration professor eying her beadily from the staff table. With a start, Ari quickly straightened back up and fumbled for her fork.

When she looked at Professor McGonagall again, she was now talking with Snape beside her. Ari watched them curiously as she rubbed the knot in her shoulder. Given the Transfiguration professor's flashing spectacles and fervid gestures, she seemed quite miffed. But Snape on the other hand barely batted an eye at the professor's ranting, and his face remained as cold as an ice cube.

Eventually Professor McGonagall looked away, her lips thinly pursed, apparently done with the conversation. That was when Snape glanced at Ari, and the side of his mouth curved up in a subtle, devious smirk.

She stopped rubbing her shoulder at once and scowled. He just looked so proud of himself, that little toad. No doubt he must have been tickled pink knowing that his plan had succeeded and he had caused her all this pain.

In retrospect, she could appreciate just how methodical his actions had been. Everything from using Filch to supervise her, the timing of his letters and detentions, and of course, the actual detention itself… He had planned it all out in a way to cause her the most suffering and sleep deprivation — and then once he set everything in motion, he could watch from the sidelines as the world burned down. Ari might have been impressed at Snape's strategy, if only she hadn't felt so angry.

And she felt all the suffering and sleep deprivation that day as she trudged and sat through her classes like a zombie with back pain. By the time the last class of the day — Transfiguration — rolled around, Ari was pretty much in a state of half-consciousness. They were supposed to be turning feathers into quills, but Ari accidentally fell asleep instead. Professor McGonagall later woke her up and chided her. But she didn't seem as angry as Ari had been expecting, which was a relief. And when class was dismissed, Professor McGonagall held Ari back and asked her how she was faring.

"Oh, Professor, it's horrible!" Ari burst out. "Snape — I mean Filch — I mean, both of them, they made me scrub toilets for detention. And they made me do it on the weekend! Both days! And yesterday I didn't finish till two o'clock so I couldn't sleep good, and everything hurts so bad, and I can't smell anything — and I'm just so tired!" And then to prove her point, she opened up her mouth in a jaw-cracking yawn.

"Do you feel ill?" Professor McGonagall asked, frowning. "Do you need to go to the hospital wing?"

"No, I think I'm fine," Ari answered, rubbing her shoulder. "Just my shoulder hurts. And I'm tired. I guess I'll take a nap once I get out of here."

"Yes, you do that," Professor McGonagall said, and then she shook her head. "I'm sorry, Ari. I entrusted Professor Snape with enforcing a reasonable punishment. If I had known he would have assigned you detention on the weekend — and made you work until such an inappropriate time, for that matter — then I would not have let him go through with it. What he did was certainly not acceptable, no matter the level of the perceived offense."

"I know, right?" Ari exclaimed, so glad at least one person understood her. "He's so mean! And unfair! And annoying! I just can't stand it. You've got to do something, Professor. You can't let him get away with what he did! Or — or at least punish him for it!" She clasped her hands together and looked up imploringly at Professor McGonagall.

The professor pursed her lips. "Yes, well, I did talk to him this morning about it, but I'm not sure if it went through."

Of course it hadn't! Ari scowled again as she recalled Snape's sneaky little smirk.

Professor McGonagall continued: "Rest assured, Ari, something like this will not happen again. Next time if Professor Snape assigns another detention, I will consult with him and make sure that he chooses a task appropriate to the circumstance."

"Oh, good!" Ari sighed in relief. But then she stopped as she suddenly realized something, and her good spirits plummeted as fast as they came. "But wait, Professor, what do you mean, 'next time?' There's still gonna be a next time? Even when Snape's gonna get fired soon?" She cocked her head and looked incredulously at Professor McGonagall.

"No, indeed," Professor McGonagall suddenly pursed her lips again. "Professor Snape is not getting fired."

"Huh?! Why not?" Ari exclaimed, shocked. "But his dungeon — he's been doing horrible things! He's torturing students!"

"That was just a rumor," Professor McGonagall said in a clipped voice. "I spoke with Professor Snape, and I could not find any evidence that he has been engaging in any… unseemly activities."

"But he gave me that detention!"

"Yes, but like I said, I will make sure that he enforces the appropriate discipline from now on."

"But he's still a bad teacher!" Ari protested. "All he does is yell at us, and then he tried to throw a jar at me! Oh, and yeah" — she perked up, suddenly remembering something — "just after flying class the other day, he attacked me again, in fact!"

"Did he?" Professor McGonagall said, raising her eyebrows.

Ari nodded vehemently as she recalled Snape's threats. "He said he was going to rip my lips off and put it in a jar! And then he said he was gonna get rid of me. As in, he's going to kill me!" She slashed dramatically at her throat and made choking noises.

"Nobody is going to kill you," the professor said, flaring her nostrils. "Granted, Professor Snape has a… a history of using such scare tactics on students. And while I certainly do not condone his approach, there is little I can say to him at this point to change his ways. At the very least, he has never gone through with any of his threats, so make of that what you will."

"Nuh-uh!" Ari pouted, unable to believe how Professor McGonagall could be so nonchalant about a literal murderer being in the school. And when his wrongdoings were clearly displayed for all of them to see, too! "There're jars all over in his room, and they've got all sorts of weird human parts in them. I bet they're the same people he cut up and stuffed inside!" She looked at Professor McGonagall with wide eyes.

"Don't be silly," Professor McGonagall said reprovingly. "He keeps jars in his classroom to store his potions ingredients — nothing more, nothing less. None of them consist of human parts."

"But he's still mean!" Ari protested. "He seemed really, really angry when he said he was gonna get rid of me. And then he tortured me with the detention and everything — I think he's really gonna do it this time, Professor!"

Professor McGonagall had pressed her lips so hard they were white. But nevertheless she finally promised that she would talk to Snape again and keep his behavior in check.

Ari beamed and thanked her. There! That would show Snape. Ari might not have been able to fire him, but if she got Professor McGonagall to keep an eye on him, then he wouldn't be able to get away with his sick plans regardless.

Ari left the classroom and skipped up to the common room, tired and excited all at once, for she was ready to indulge in the best sleep of her life. But as she barged into her dormitory, she stopped dead in her tracks when she spotted an owl pecking at her window.

Icy dread flooded her insides and horrible flashbacks of spiky scribbles and toilet bowls raced through her mind. Oh no, no, no… not this again! Hadn't Snape had enough already? Even when Professor McGonagall had given him all those supposed warnings, he still had the nerve to send owls to Ari?! And right when she was done with classes and was about to go to sleep, too! At this rate, she would never be able to get a decent rest!

As Ari glared at that cursed owl, a crackling, indignant fire burst inside her chest, melting away the ice and propelling her toward the window like an Exploding Snap card. "You stupid toad!" she snarled as she flung open the window. "What's your problem? Why do you still have to send these stupid owls all the time?! Can't you just leave me alone already?!" She yanked the letter from the owl's leg so forcefully the paper ripped right down the middle. The owl gave an indignant squawk before flying away, but Ari was fuming too much to notice.

But when she opened the torn letter and saw her dad's handwriting inside, her anger screeched to a halt and she let out a huge gasp. Oh my bananas!

Oh my goodness, Ari! I'm so sorry that you had to go through that! Is the detention over now? Are you feeling better now? Yikes, Professor Snape seems like a real... pain in the neck, to put it mildly. It's a good thing that he's getting fired soon. Someone like him doesn't deserve to teach children.

Still, I can't believe that he would make students scrub toilets! That's so unsanitary! And just completely outrageous! Why do they have to make students do that work? Don't they have special people who can do that kind of stuff?

Have you tried telling Professor McGonagall about what happened? Do you think she might be able to help? I'm sorry, I don't know what else I can do. Let me know how it goes, okay? I'm worried about you, Ari.

I'm glad that you're enjoying school otherwise. And yes, trees are made of wood. I've been harvesting some to work on my woodworking set. Right now I'm building a new cabinet to put in our living room. I'd love to work on a project with you when you come home, we can build our own special creation. Think of something you'd like to build and we can try to make it when you come home.

We miss you dearly. Take care of yourself and have a good rest, you deserve it after all your hard work. Looking forward to your return letter.

Love, Dad

"Well, well," Ari said to herself once she had finished reading. "Guess it wasn't from Snape after all." She looked down at the huge rip in the page and suddenly felt a bit awkward.

But at least she didn't feel angry anymore, and the happiness and excitement came back in full-force now that she had gotten Dad's letter. And she really wanted to reply and tell him that he didn't need to worry, and that she had finished the detentions and talked to Professor McGonagall. But Ari was just too tired, so tired she didn't think she could muster the energy to hold a pencil. So she promised herself that she would write her letter when she woke up. With that, she collapsed into her bed and promptly passed out.

TBC!