Rating:
R
House:
Schnoogle
Genres:
General Crossover
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire
Stats:
Published: 11/02/2002
Updated: 11/04/2007
Words: 363,688
Chapters: 65
Hits: 101,532

The Eighth Weasley

Fyre

Story Summary:
Set post-book seven. Voldemort is long gone and the dust is settling. So when the Weasleys are informed that a missing family member has been located, there is a great deal of excitement and nervousness as contact is made with said absentee from the family. However, when it transpires that the missing Weasley has connections with a certain Vampire Slayer, it goes without saying that Hogwarts will never be the same again!

Chapter 26

Chapter Summary:
Chapter 26 - TOIL & TROUBLE - Willow missed her first Potions lesson and has to have a one-to-one class with the master of the cranky and glowery. This is one of my favourite chapters in the series :D
Posted:
12/01/2002
Hits:
1,314
Author's Note:
I finally got around to tidying up and coding all the rest of the chapters of this story that are available, so hopefully, by the time I finish uploading, chapters 23-35 should be up :) No, I don't write too much, honestly. And chapter 35 is my current favourite :D

The Eighth Weasley - Chapter Twenty-Six

TOIL & TROUBLE

Notes: Its 1.15am. Its cold. I'm sleepy. And yet, for the fifth night in a row, I find myself inspired to write this bloody fic! Hopefully, the chapters before this one'll be done soon, cos I wanna post it, but - unfortunately - I need to do some cross-checking for 24, before it can be posted. Mind you, by the time you're reading this, 24 will have been posted, so there's really not much point going into this babble-fest, so I'll stop now.

And just add that Whedon is a genius. Once More With Feeling = brilliant CD. And all the characters contained herein who don't belong to him, belong to J. K. Rowling and definitely not to me.

And yes, Echo, we're finally at the scene you've been wanting to see :)

___________________________

Willow had never been more terrified in her life.

Hellmouths opening and in need of her to close them she could deal with. Newly-risen vampires to be staked - not a problem. Werewolfy boyfriends charging at her with the intention of ripping her throat out, easy!

Today, though...

Her timetable had been arranged so that she would be able to attend some classes with the first years, especially for Transfiguration, in which she needed to learn the basics, and thanks to a clash, she had missed her first potions lesson with the rest of the beginners.

So now, instead of being in with the rest of the first years - they had been in potions and she had been given additional private lessons in charms, so she could actually use her wand properly - she was having a one-on-one tutorial.

One-on-one with Snape, he of the notorious reputation.

Willow could feel what colour she had seeping from her features at the thought of being in a room alone with the man who seemed to do nothing but gaze at her in a way that made her feel like a rat on a table for dissection.

Yes, Hermione insisted that Snape wasn't as bad as he pretended to be with the glaring and ominous whispers, but that was all very well for a top grade student, who had had a group of classmates to back her up.

Her roommate had conveniently forgotten that Willow would be in the creepy class in the dungeon, on her own with the Professor, with no friends or people to back her up or whisper the solutions to her.

Standing in the dark hallway outside the potions room, Willow whimpered, her arms laden down with all her supplies, which she had brought just in case she needed all or any of them.

Even the hallway was creepy.

A few flickering torches shone on the bleak black columns, but for the most part, they just served to make the shadows look even darker and gloomier.

Reluctantly, she raised a shaking hand and tapped on the door with her knuckles, a gusty draught whipping her robes around her legs. She shivered, not liking the fact that the dungeons were so cold.

How could they be so cold, she wondered, when people always had fires under their cauldrons down here?

She was still glancing around the quiet, dark and draughty hallway, pondering on the origins of the chilly wind, when the door swung open and - unconsciously - she took a nervous step back.

He loomed over her, head and shoulders taller than she was, his face expressionless and pale, his black eyes glittering. One hand braced against the doorframe, his robes spread around him making him look so much more imposing and terrifying up close than he had during the Sorting.

"Ah," She could hear the sneer, even though the backlighting almost concealed the curling of his upper lip. "The famous lost Weasley." Sweeping back into the room, he didn't even look back to check that she was following.

She took the chance to glance around the dungeon and yes, it was as scary as she had been prepared to expect.

The roof was not nearly as high as roofs elsewhere in the castle and it was arched in a very Gothic style. There were only a few narrow windows at the very top of the furthest wall, which hardly allowed any light in.

Dull lamps hung randomly along the ceiling, most of them glowing a very dull yellowish colour, hardly adding any light to the dim afternoon light ebbing through the windows.

Snape was sweeping past four rows of desks that crossed the room from left to right, each one occupied by a small wooden stool. Every one of the dark wooden desks was empty now, except the one at the very front of the room, a few paces from the teacher's desk.

"It is reassuring to see you didn't manage to get yourself lost again, as you so efficiently did, when you were scheduled to have a potions class last week," his voice was a low murmur that reminded her of the sound of a cauldron simmering with the possibility of coming to the boil at any moment.

"Um...I-I-I..." Stumbling after him, her robes catching on her legs as she tried to keep a hold of her bag and shut the door at the same time, she turned around to find those eerie black eyes on her face again. "I...uh...I..."

"How very eloquent you are," His hand unfurled in the direction of the table at the front of the class. "Now, if you wouldn't mind, I don't have all day while you stand there mumbling."

"I-I-I had to do ex-extra charms stuff," she muttered, making her way nervously forwards to the table he had indicated, where a single plain cauldron the same size as her own one stood, a green flame flickering beneath it. Snape's eyes suggested whatever excuse she was about to make wouldn't be anywhere near good enough for him. "They... I mean, Professor McGonagall...she said...I mean, I would have come with the rest of them but they thought that I..."

"Miss Weasley," his voice was that notorious, barely-audible whisper she had heard so much about. "I would greatly appreciate if you would be silent, as much of a challenge as you may find it."

"Sure...I can be quiet. I mean, yeah. I was always quiet at high school and it said so on every report..." she trailed into silence at a look from Snape, tipping the contents of her arms onto the desk. He glanced at it, a brow rising in a silent question. "Oh! I didn't know what to bring, so I just brought everything so I..." Her expression was one of anguished unease. "Um...is that wrong?"

"What might this be?" One hand lifted her cauldron out of the pile of bottles and bags, studying it with a smirk on his lips. "My, my, Miss Weasley. You certainly have extravagant taste. Such...crass decoration."

Willow felt a prickle of anger, her cheeks burning with embarrassment and irritation combined. "Well, then it's a good thing that it's my crass cauldron," she said defiantly, grabbing it off him, then mentally whimpering that he might take a hundred points from Gryffindor or something.

He did no such thing.

That frightening eyebrow rose again and he motioned to the desk. "Provide a flame if you will."

"Huh?"

"Miss Weasley," he murmured. "I heard such praises sang about your intelligence. I am afraid you are proving a great disappointment. You require a flame for your cauldron and I wish to see you provide one."

"O-oh!"

Her hand over the desk, she whispered the incantation for the conjuring of flame that she had first learned when she was seventeen, leaving a small, flickering ball of flame hovering above the counter, looking up nervously at Snape.

There was a note of defiant pride in her voice when she withdrew her hand. "There!"

"Very good, Miss Weasley. However, you did not use your wand," The right side of his mouth lifted in a smirk and she had the odd urge to smack him on the head with her cauldron. "Do it correctly, with your wand."

"But I..."

"I said," his voice was calm, quiet, like it had been before, but it was that cold calmness that made her feel uneasy. His arms were crossed over his chest, his expression deadly. "Do it correctly. With your wand."

Grabbing her wand from the pocket of her robes, she dissipated the ball of flame with a gesture - not noticing the admiring look in Snape's eye at the wandless display of spell-casting - and pointed the wand.

"Inflammare!"

The whole table erupted in flames.

With a squeak of fright, she hastily used a wandless spell that she was more familiar with to send a surge of water down onto it, smoke and steam hissing and sizzling in the already-stuffy air of the dungeon.

As the smoke and steam cleared, Willow coughing, she found him standing where he had been before the desk decided to burn, his expression exactly the same, his arms still crossed over his chest.

When she finally stopped coughing, there was a long moment's silence.

Then, he quietly spoke three words in a tone of voice that made the witch want the floor to swallow her up, heat burning in her face as she stared at the desktop in pained embarrassment.

"How very...impressive."

***

"Once again, Miss Weasley, your over-inflated reputation is proving flawed."

Willow really, really wanted to throw something at the Snape's head. A hard, blunt something, with enough force to knock him unconscious so she could flee from the class and the humiliation.

"I added the shredded dandelions in like you said!" she protested, looking across the desk, but finding no one there and turning slightly, to find a hook-nosed face barely inches from her own.

With a yip of fright, she hastily turned her eyes back to the cauldron, wishing for the hundredth time that he would stay still.

Snape was hovering around her and had been since she had started to try and brew their first potion.

It was horribly disconcerting. One moment, he would be on the opposite side of the desk and out of reach, the next, he would be hissing remarks directly into her ear from right behind her.

It was also really starting to annoy her and she knew that if he didn't stop irritating her, she was really going to...

Well, she couldn't quite think of anything bad enough, but oh!

He was gonna get it!

"Yes, obviously," his voice was dry as he looked at the cauldron which was full and overflowing onto the blackened desktop. "You have an uncanny gift for adding far too much of everything required to your potions. What a generous person you are, Miss Weasley," his voice was a chilly breath in her ear and she shuddered, scowling. "How very...special."

The overflow of gloop had come from Willow jumping with fright whenever he had hissed an instruction in her ear, making her spill handfuls of various items into the small cauldron she was working with.

"If you'd stop being all breathe-down-the-back-of-my-robes-creepy-stalker-guy and distracting me, I wouldn't make so many mistakes!" she exclaimed in aggravation, whipping around to glare at him. "Go and stand somewhere that isn't near my neck!"

"Did you just...give me and order, Miss Weasley?"

Normally, rational-Willow would step in at this point, but rational-Willow was as wound up as cranky-Willow and when rational-Willow was no longer rational, there was a big problem in state of Willow-land.

"You bet I gave you an order, Mister!" She tapped him smartly in the middle of his chest. "Maybe you find all that lurking and looming and breathing on my neck all intimidating or sexy or something," Her words were punctuated with repeated jabs to his breastbone. "But the last time someone did that to me, I staked them with a number two pencil, so don't you try and-and-and be all scary, Mister! I have no fear!"

That was when rational-Willow came charging back to the fore and Willow gave an anguished whimper, staring up at Snape and hoping fervently that he wouldn't do something too nasty to her.

Snape was gazing down at her with those creepy dark eyes. His expression hadn't changed in the slightest, but she could sense - whoa! That couldn't be right, could it? - amusement rippling off him.

"Is that so, Miss Weasley?"

"It-it is!" she squeaked vehemently. "And...and..." She tried to think up something suitably scary and intimidating to do to him.

Again, that annoying eyebrow rose. "And what, Miss Weasley? You'll point and stammer at me? How very terrifying," he said, his lip curling again. "You ought to know that I have had Hufflepuff first years with more technical skill than you, although I must admit you do stammer as well as the best of them."

Willow was sure she felt something snap in her head and she pulled herself up to her full five foot three inches, her green eyes narrowing, her lips pursing, as she drew an angry breath and huffed it out again.

"Don't you curl your lip at me and sneer at me, Mister-I'm-all-dark-and-loomy-in-my-dungeon!" She wagged a finger in front of his face as rational-Willow backed back into her quiet corner, twitching in a heap. "From the minute that I got in here, you've been picking on me, even if there's no one to pick on me in front of and I don't think you're being fair on me, cos hello! Lived on a Hellmouth and don't know how things work! You're meant to be all helpy and stuff and showing me how I do things, not calling me names and insulting everything I do cos...cos that's not what teachers are for!"

"Miss Weasley, you are being rather outspoken. It's obvious your mother never put much stock in manners."

Willow gaped at him. She expected more of a reaction than that. And she had no manners? This was classed as rude?

"Don't you dare say that about my mom!" she cried out as she poked his chest again with one small finger, her eyes flashing with annoyance. "I'm SO not rude! You were the one who was being all rude and intimidating and loomy and-and-and I haven't done this before and it's unfair that you think I should know how to do everything and you don't even bother to tell me what I'm doing wrong and you breathe down my neck and-and-and make me drop stuff and burn stuff and now look!" She huffed an angry breath out her nose. "You've made me all cranky and I really wanna be able to-to-to..." Fishing around for want of a better word, she pointed an angry white finger at him. "Poof you!"

The raising of the brow once more suggested she could have come up with a better threat. After all 'thump-poof' probably only really made sense to someone who had been in the Scoobies and Snape had definitely never been one of them.

"Poof me?" he inquired, doing that slow crossing-of-arms thing that she was told he did when he was getting angry, his voice not giving anything away, although she was still getting that odd sensation of mirth from him.

Taking a nervous step back, her butt colliding with the edge of the desk, she blinked up at him. "Uh...yeah...poof you..."

"Miss Weasley," He was still gazing down at her with that odd glitter in his black eyes. "Judging on your abysmal performance this afternoon, I sincerely doubt your abilities to tamper with my sexual preference."

"Eep!" The squeak came out both audibly and mentally, the youngest Weasley going beet-red, as she suddenly remembered why she was told never to mention the 'p' word while at Hogwarts. "That's not what I meant!"

Much to her surprise, what looked like an actual, genuine, amused smile crept onto Snape's lips. "Indeed," was all he said, before sweeping back around to the other side of the desk.

When he turned back to face her on the opposite side of charred desk, the smile had gone, replaced with the smirk she was more familiar with and she felt a tiny bit reassured by it.

Reassured by him smirking instead of smiling...

Now that was just wiggy.

***

The immense doors of the Great Hall swung open and crashed against the wall with unnecessary force, every eye of every student and most of the teachers turning to see what all the fuss was about.

After all, meal times usually proved to be entertaining.

This time looked to be no exception.

Several of the Gryffindors knelt up on their seats, craning up, trying to see beyond the Hufflepuff table, whispers passing down the tables about just what was going on and who was at the doors.

Willow Weasley was stomping determinedly down the central aisle towards the teachers table, between the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables, her expression on her face only describable as a 'resolve' face.

Her lips were pursed, small wrinkles of determination visible on her forehead, her hands balled in clenched fists by her sides.

Her black robes were singed and splattered with various substances, her long sleeves of her black robes, grey sweater and white shirt all rolled up over her elbows, the front sections of her hair pulled up in a scruffy ponytail on the top of her head.

At the teacher's table, some of the students noticed Snape sit up a little, a smirk coming onto his lips. Professor Granger also shifted in her seat, glancing from Willow to Snape and back, a look of worry on her face.

She knew that Willow hadn't returned from her Potions class, which she had been at from two o'clock that morning - nearly five hours earlier - and, when she had hunted down and confronted Snape in the staff room, asking where Willow was, he had just smirked and strolled away.

Something suggested that she was about to find out just what had been going on.

Ignoring all the eyes on her, although her face had flushed a deep scarlet, which suggested that she knew she was being observed, Willow resolutely stalked down the length of the room, her chin raised proudly.

Professor Dumbledore looked like he was torn between standing up and asking what was troubling her or falling off his seat laughing at the determined expression on the girl's face.

It seemed like an eternity before she reached the head table, where all the teachers sat and stomped along the length of it, her eyes fixed on Snape in a blatant glare. He leaned back in his seat, still smirking.

Whispers and gasps were passing along the tables, the Gryffindor table in particular.

To see the eighth Weasley willingly going to face off with Professor Snape, the most frightening and intimidating teacher at Hogwarts was definitely not what they had expected as entertainment for the evening meal.

They weren't exactly going to turn down the chance to witness it, though.

When the youngest Weasley stopped directly in front of the Potions Master, a silence fell, so deep that you could have heard a pin drop, everyone in the Hall wondering just what was going on.

"Miss Weasley," Every single person present heard the lazy whisper.

Willow's hand plunged into the large canvas bag hanging from her right shoulder and several people rose up from their seats, clearly expecting her to curse him or something equally exciting!

However, her hand emerged holding a small selection of bottles.

"Shrinking potion," She put a clear bottle containing an acid green substance on the table in front of him. "Cure for boils," Another bottle was clapped down, followed by several more, each containing a different colour of liquid. "Skin conditioner. A mid-strength consciousness potion. A one minute dose of feather-light solution. Invisibility solution, temporary." The set of bottles continued to take up space on the table. "A single dose of freeze-flame. Thirty doses of draught of living death..."

The startled silence from several minutes before was rapidly being replaced with one of confusion and awe, as she continued to withdraw bottle after bottle from deep recesses in her bag.

Had she, the first year Weasley, made all those potions? Today?

Snape didn't look impressed, though. His expression was neutral, but for the derisive smirk that seemed to be locked in place.

No one outside Slytherin had ever got a positive reaction from Professor Snape before and everyone inside the Great Hall, teachers included, was sure that - no matter what the muggle-raised, famous Gryffindor Weasley tried - she wouldn't succeed in making him doing anything but sneer.

There was a silence, when Willow paused to gain her breath, a dozen little bottles standing in a little group in front of Snape.

"Oh!" she added, and only the teachers who were in her line of sight along the table saw the wickedly malicious glitter in her green eyes. "And I made this one especially for you, Professor Snape."

Everyone in the hall saw her withdraw a small bottle, which contained a substance that seemed to change colour from deep, swirling royal blue to a cloudy shade of pale pink and back again.

Looks were exchanged, even along the teachers table.

Clearly no one but the girl and the teacher had any idea what the substance was.

Every eye in the Hall went to Snape, whose regulation smirk seemed to be twitching slightly. He pressed his lips together in a thin line, but there was no mistaking what he was trying to cover up.

A smile.

Snape was trying not to smile.

Or laugh.

Since no one had ever seen such a thing before, it was difficult to decide which.

Even Dumbledore was regarding Willow and his Potions Master with a combination of amusement and consternation, as Snape's hands convulsively locked around the arms of the chair he was seated on.

Nothing had ever made the Potions Master reacted thus in many years and the Head Master couldn't decide if it was a good thing or not, because Snape looked like he was on the verge of a seizure.

He was really trying not to laugh.

Every person in the Hall could see it.

He was almost succeeding as well, although his face was going a little more purple than they were used to and his lips were pressed together that they were an even thinner line than even Professor McGonagall managed.

That is, until Willow pushed him over the edge.

Leaning forward, as she placed the tiny bottle right in front of him, she whispered sotto voce, with a wink, "Told ya I could poof ya."

A loud, echoing snort of laughter escaped the Potions Master, ringing off the silent walls of the Hall, one hand immediately clamping over his mouth in disbelief as if he couldn't believe he had just made that absurd sound.

Dumbledore cracked. He couldn't help it. The stunned expression on Snape's face was simply too much.

The mirth radiated out in waves, the other teachers - although uncertain of what had caused Snape's outburst - falling against one another at the look of embarrassed irritation on the severe Potions Master's face.

Smiling primly, Willow gathered up her bottles and replaced them in her bag. Her hand came out to the small bottle that she had placed directly in front of him, then paused. "I think I'll let you keep that one," she said.

That said, she turned and walked purposefully across to the Gryffindor table on the other side of the Hall, sitting down at her place and grabbing some food, flashing a grin up at Hermione, then along at Snape.

Neither of the two subjects of her looks seemed to know what to do or say, although Snape - once everyone had turned back to their meals - carefully drew the small bottle across the table and slipped it inside his robes.

Of course, only Willow noticed and smirked.

He sent a scowl in her direction, which was belied by an uncanny gleam in his eye.

For the first time since he had started teaching, he had found a pupil who was up to the challenge of facing him, despite her initial nervousness, and one who knew what she was doing, when left to her own devices.

A pupil who could produce high-quality potions without instruction. He knew, without even having to test them, that every potion she had produced for him in those neatly labelled little bottles was exact in it's content and consistency.

And she was a pupil, who had a sharp, biting sense of humour and a stubborn pride which had actually made him, the grimmest, most intimidating teacher in the school, laugh out loud.

In public.

By Merlin, he was really going to have to work hard to regain his composure after that slip.

Yet, it was rather...nice.

Once she had overcame her blatant terror and answered him back, once she had managed to ignore him breathing down her neck which was a trick very few of his students managed in their first day, if ever, once she had realised he wasn't about to punish her for daring to move, she had proved most adept.

Not that he wanted it to happen on a regular basis, but yes. He could come to appreciate the young Weasley, as long as she didn't try to hard to outdo him and earn a place on his black list.

She was definitely tolerable.

***

"What was that about?"

"He said that I sucked at potions. I showed him I didn't," Willow was sitting cross-legged on her broad bed, working on her Transfiguration homework, when Hermione entered their room.

Hermione deposited her own bag on the floor beside her desk, then approached Willow's bed. "You made all those potions?"

"Mmm-hmm," Willow didn't look up, making notes with her quill.

"But you made at least a dozen!" the other witch exclaimed, stunned. "How did you do it in the time you were at the lesson?"

"Conjured up lots of cauldrons and had them going at the same time. Once you get in a rhythm, it's not too hard," Willow finally looked up, grinning at her friend. "But you really wanna know what that blue and pink potion was that made the Crank-meister crack, don't you?"

Trying to feign disinterest, the older witch shrugged. "I was a little curious, since that seemed to be the one that...um...affected him the most."

The red head grinned and it was a wicked little grin. "I found it in a book of advanced potion-making I was reading when I was at home. It sounded funny so I remembered it. I never thought I'd have to use it, but he said something and I got SO annoyed with him that I had to make it. Just to prove to him I could do it. Just to see what he would do."

"What was it?"

"Doesn't matter..."

"Willow," Hermione's voice had taken on the severe, lecturing tone.

"It's nickname is gender-blender," Colour rose in Willow's cheeks, her eyes going back down to her homework.

"You WHAT?!? You made gender-blender?" Hermione squealed, her face going as pink as Willow's was, her hands clapping to her face. "Good grief, Willow! You do know that you made an alternate sexuality potion for Snape, don't you?"

The younger witch timidly lifted her head. "Um...well...I...uh...it made him laugh."

"And you wonder why?" Hermione spluttered.

"He said I couldn't...uh..." The red head went a deeper shade of red. "I wanted to prove that I could...ah...um..." her voice sank to an mutter of embarrassment that Hermione barely heard. "Poof him."

Shaking her head, still leaning against the post of Willow's bed, the older witch chuckled, her brown eyes crinkled in amusement. "Willow, you are one of the oddest witches I have ever met."

"And that's why ya love me," Willow grinned up at her.

A strange, soft expression crossed Hermione's face and she smiled. "Yes, Willow, that must be it." She chuckled, then added. "You nut-case."

Willow just grinned.