In the Staff Room On Another Day

"Oh," Minerva McGonagall said blandly when she saw only Severus Snape sitting at the staff room table. "Maybe I'll just eat lunch in my room."

"Wait!" he suddenly swept up beside her. "You didn't happen to see Igor Karkaroff [he growled the name through his teeth as if it were some new form of hell come to ride on his back all day] out there, did you?"

McGonagall raised an eyebrow. "I don't recall seeing him. Should I go get him?"

"NO. No, but if you do run across him," Snape's eyes glinted murderously, "then please invite him to go to lunch with you."

She blinked casually and adjusted her spectacles.

"I don't want to eat lunch with Igor Karkaroff, Severus."

He scoffed. "That really is beside the point-"

"Odd. I always thought that conversation was exactly the point of eating lunch with another human, but-"

"Allow me to rephrase that, then," Snape hissed. "If he asks where I am, tell him that I am in Hogsmeade; or if he starts to head in this general direction, just mention to him that I said I was going to be somewhere else; or, even, if his eyes wander in this general direction and he seems to be thinking about-"

"Severus, I do find myself under the impression that you are over explaining this concept. Why on Earth are you so set on avoiding the man?"

"Who doesn't want to avoid him?"

McGonagall's expression told him quite plainly that unless there was more information added to the previous sentence, there was no hope of her accepting it anymore than she would accept a page-short essay three days late.

Just then, the door flew open with enough force to drive a hole in the wall (by ways of the doorknob). Luckily for the wall and not so luckily for the two professors, McGonagall and Snape were in the way. There was no hole in the wall, but there were two unnaturally close to flat professors plastered to it.

"Oh, BLOODY HELL!" Snape kicked the door back into the face of he who had opened it.

Hagrid peeked around the edge of the door, rubbing his face where the door had hit it. "I'm sorry," he said sincerely. "I didn' wee you there or I wouldn'a-"

"Obviously," Snape glowered. "Perhaps if you didn't throw it open with such bloody gusto-"

"Oh, no, Hagrid didn't open that door," Holly Hooch peeked around Hagrid's shoulder, causing the two of them to appear like an absurdly mutilated cuckoo clock.

"Well then what was he apologizing for?" Snape snapped, his eyes on Hagrid, who shrugged apologetically.

"You have the hardest nose cartilage of anyone I know, Severus," McGonagall said, stepping out from behind the door. "You nearly broke my spectacles." She stopped, frowning at the floor. "We don't normally get those kinds of beetles around here, do we?" she asked, looking at a rather large bug crawling across the floor.

Snape scowled at it. "No, I don't think so."

"Well," Hooch mused, "we could kill it, and you can put it in a jar of slime and eventually it might come to some use."

Buzzing madly, the beetle narrowly escaped Hooch's rapidly falling foot and slipped out into the hall.

"Odd," McGonagall sighed absently.

Conjuring up a plain cup of tea, she sat down. Hooch made herself comfortable with a bowl of ice cream. McGonagall eyed it skeptically. Hooch grinned.

"I'm sorry Severus, I forgot. Should we post an Igor lookout?"

"No," Snape growled. "I'm fine. What are you doing in here anyway, Hagrid? You can't fit in any of these chairs."

"Oh Lord, Severus, just drink your coffee, would you?" McGonagall slid him a cup of coffee- the kind only he would drink. He drank it in one swallow.

"Why do we use these blasted tiny tea cups? I have to drink seven or eight before they have any effect on me," Snape said before he gulped down another cup.

"Perhaps if you slept a few times a week-" McGonagall began.

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

McGonagall spilled her tea, Hagrid jumped, and Hooch nearly toppled out of her chair.

"I can't, and I'm sure you must be dying to know why," Snape said flatly and sarcastically as Professor... erm... 'Alastor Moody' entered.

He smiled maliciously (which couldn't exactly be avoided with a face like his). "Just scattering the ferret scum, Professors." His magical eye did a little loop in its socket.

"You weren't, by chance, referring to a group of children from my homeroom, were you?" Snape asked in the usual tone.

"I'm not so scary in the daylight, eh, Snape?" Moody cackled. "I was referring to a group of those sad excuses for Hogwarts students, and I don't deny it. No, I'm not in denial, Severus Snape."

Snape's wand hand was twitching.

"Surely Mr. Malfoy has reaccounted for you his experience as a bouncing, pink, ferret-" Moody began.

"Thank you, Alastor. I'm sure we all remember," McGonagall said, looking rather displeased. Moody obviously enjoyed that expression.

Snape didn't look like he thought anything was anywhere remotely close to being enjoyable at the moment.

"'Ave any of you seen Dumbly-dorr?" Madame Olympe Maxime stepped halfway into the doorway.

"No," Hagrid piped up, "but I'm half-giant, an' I'm proud o' it! An' Harry an' Hermione an' Ron don' think on it, so neither will I! 'Ceptin' to be proud, o'course."

"Of course." Snape rolled his eyes. "'I'm a vicious monster and Rita Skeeter's shouting it to the mountain tops, but at least Potter likes me.' That makes perfect sense, Hagrid."

Madame Maxime looked at Hagrid briefly in annoyance and turned to the rest of the room. "Anyone else, per'aps? 'As no one seen Dumbly-dorr?"

"Dumbly-dorr? I don't know anyone by that name," Snape said in a bored voice.

The large French headmistress had left with an offended noise, slamming the door behind her with an almighty bang even before McGonagall could begin to apologize.

"I've had just about enough of you for today, Severus Snape!" McGonagall yelled, standing and almost knocking her chair over. "That was our GUEST! First Miss Granger, now this! When will you GROW UP?"

No one seemed to have anything to say just then.

"What did I say to Miss Granger?"

"You said that her teeth were enormous."

He opened his mouth to speak.

"NO. You- an authority figure, a teacher-!"

"And he wouldn't be, if I had any say in the matter," Hooch muttered as she stirred her melted ice cream.

"You told a girl in the midst of puberty that she had buck teeth! Do you realize the level of disgusting immaturity that takes?"

"She does have buck teeth."

"Oh, Good GOD!" McGonagall sat down hard and massaged her temples. Abruptly she snatched Snape's cup of black, black and nothing else coffee and drank it.

She set it back down in front of him. "That is positively revolting coffee, Severus,"

Her fingers drummed on the table.

"Well, happy Christmas everyone, I hope the Easter bunny finds you well, and I'm taking off!" Hooch announced into the silence. "And a jolly Valentine's Day, too!" she added as she disappeared around the doorway.

Hagrid left silently. He didn't seem to want to hang about unproductively while Minerva McGonagall was furious.

Moody's eyes were both fixed on Snape in the general direction of his upper left arm.

The door closed behind Hagrid.

Moody was still drilling holes with his eyes.

"STOP IT!" Snape barked.

"So touchy about the past, eh?" Moody asked.

McGonagall was looking at the two men, a high lack of enthusiasm for either of them showing on her face.

Igor Karkaroff sidestepped into the room. He looked disappointed to find it so full. "I need to talk to you Severus," he said.

Snape looked at Karkaroff as if he wished the man would please go die an excruciatingly painful death somewhere far away.

"I don't want to talk to you, Igor."

Karkaroff's jaw set itself stubbornly. "But... haven't you...?"

"YES," Snape said, grinding his teeth. "And I don't want to talk about it. What is it that you need so badly to say about it, for God's sake? Why must you TALK about it?" his voice sounded heavily restrained.

"Having a little meeting?" Moody asked, his magical eye zipping over to focus on Karkaroff, who stiffened and paled (clutching his left arm).

Oh, get out of here Igor," Snape said angrily.

"You cannot tell me to get out of the staff room!"

Snape stood. "Then I'm going to my office, and if you want to, you may follow me; and when we get there, I'll tell you to get out." He brushed out of the room.

Karkaroff jerked angrily for a moment and bristled out of the room.

McGonagall had drifted, but she came uneasily back to reality, where she found herself alone in a room with Mad-Eye Moody.

She finished her tea.

"I must be going. Good day, Alastor."

He grinned, eyes glittering crazily. "Good day, Minerva."

McGonagall left, deciding to herself that she did not really feel sure about that man...