My Name's Severus!

Chapter 10: Bad news

Severus arrived late for herbology. He walked in, grinned apologetically at Professor Sprout and flopped down beside Draco who had teamed up with Vincent, Gregory and Blaise.

"Hi!"

Draco looked at him quizzically.

"Hi?" he asked. "What's wrong with you?"

"I promised the headmaster to be nice to you." Severus smiled.

"Nice? You?" laughed Draco. "You never should make promises you can't keep."

"Maybe I can."

"You? You don't even know what being nice means." declared Vincent.

"As if any of you did." snarled Severus angrily.

"I believe I told you to work quietly." Professor Sprout reminded them sternly. "Severus, you are late. Do you have any excuse at all?"

"I was with the headmaster." grinned Severus. "You can ask him if you want."

Professor Sprout sighed. She couldn't take points off Severus for talking to Dumbledore. Not even for his insolent behaviour.

"We are working in groups of four today, Severus and as you can see there are already four members in this group. So kindly join that group over there." she ordered pointing at a group of Ravenclaws at the other end, of the greenhouse.

Severus got up slowly and sulked over to his appointed group. The Ravenclaws didn't exactly look happy to see him and refused to talk to him at all.

After trying to break their silence for a while Severus got up and walked over to Professor Sprout.

"That group you assigned me to doesn't seem to want me." he complained. "They're not letting me do any work at all. Can I try working with one of the other groups? I'm bored."

Sprout stared at him for a moment. What sort of trick was that?

"No, you can't! Return to your group and help them."

"But they're not letting me help!"

"I don't care what you do, Severus, as long as you stay with your group. Now, go!" Sprout ordered.

Severus returned to sit beside his group and watched Greenie dig up and devour an earthworm. The hedgehog made loud smacking noises while eating. Obviously worms were very tasty.

Severus scraped around in the soft soil and dug up some more worms to feed Greenie. The hedgehog happily ate them out of his hands.

"Ahem!" he heard somebody behind him.

Severus turned. It was Professor Sprout and she looked very angry.

"You said I could do whatever I want if I stay with my group. Well, I want to feed my hedgehog and I am with my group."

"Hedgehogs do not belong in greenhouses, Severus. They eat earthworms."

"Yes, I noticed that." said Severus holding another worm out to Greenie.

"Earthworms do belong in greenhouses." Sprout continued unperturbed. "They loosen the soil and allow the plants to take root. Therefore they are very important."

"Greenie thinks they're important, too." said Severus. "He says they are very tasty."

Sprout regarded the hedgehog. The hedgehog regarded Sprout.

"Sniff!" commented Greenie.

"Take that hedgehog and put him back in his cage, Severus!" ordered Sprout.

"But ..."

"I do not want my earthworms eaten by your hedgehog. Please find some other food for him elsewhere and put him in his cage."

Severus complied grinding his teeth. He returned to watching the three Ravenclaws work. They were still ignoring him. It was still boring.

Five minutes later the first firecracker exploded inside a bucket Sprout used to water plants.

The Slytherins consequently left the greenhouse with thirty points less than they had come in with (and that had been somewhere around -400.) and in a very bad mood.

When Draco returned to his dorm however he found his box of sweets sitting innocently on his bed. He checked it's contents and found that only a few chocolate frogs and a box of everyflavour beans were missing. That and twenty galleons.

'I wonder what Severus did buy.' he thought as he returned the box to it's normal place in his trunk. 'It can't have been that one mousetrap.'

He considered finding a safer place to hide his sweets and money, but decided against it. Severus had given them back. He wasn't likely to steal them again. Maybe Severus did know how to be nice after all?

Wednesday was a bad day for Professor Binns. He was already in a very bad mood when he floated to his classroom for the fifth years history of magic lesson and it only got worse from then.

Once again he found the door closed. With a quick glance he assured himself that nobody could see him. Then he tried to grab the handle and open the door. Of course his hand went right through it.

He'd have to float through the door once again. Oh the indignity! He hated not being able to touch things and he hated it when his pupils giggled or laughed when he was forced to walk through objects.

This had happened a bit too often in the last two weeks, he decided, He had never had to remind fifth years to leave the door open for him before. How could they forget after they had been doing it for four years?

Giving up his small hope that somebody might still open the door for him he gathered as much dignity as he could muster under the circumstances and floated into the classroom.

He was greeted by loud giggles and sniggers just as he had expected. Casting an angry glance around the room he caught the triumphant grin on Severus Snape's face. Aha! That was the reason for his troubles.

He gave Severus a reprimanding look.

Severus smiled back angelically.

He'd have to talk to Dumbledore about Severus. With a mental sigh Binns turned to read out the register.

As always some pupils insisted that he'd gotten their names wrong. How could that be possible? He always wondered. He had all their names written down on his list and he prided himself in remembering the name of every student he had ever taught and after nearly three hundred years of teaching that was really a lot of people.

He ignored the complaints as always. Sometimes he wondered why the kids never could think of a new way to shorten his lessons. They ought to know by now that he didn't fall for the 'You got my name wrong.' game.

But he didn't have time for that anyway. He needed to get at least half of the werewolf - vampire wars done by next week or he wouldn't get all of You-Know-Who's story in before the OWLS.

He put down the register and started his lecture. The pupils leaned back to listen. As always some of them did either not understand the importance of what he was teaching or they just couldn't concentrate that long.

Well, they were very young after all. He couldn't expect them all to understand these things. Binns ignored their whispering as he always did.

But the whispering got louder. Binns had to concentrate on blocking it out. No, he wasn't going to react to their unimportant chatter.

What was that all about, anyway? He listened in with half an ear for a moment and heard something like '... father ... death eater ... Voldemort....'

Voldemort! - He'd better stay out of this.

But after a while he got curious again. The talking had grown even louder and had nearly turned into shouting.

He turned to write on the blackboard. (It was especially enchanted so he could write on it without having to hold a piece of chalk, which he couldn't do.) And once again he listened. Something about sweets, money, house points and a fight? Odd combination.

Well, it was none of his busyness.

He returned his full attention to the blackboard and the names of the most important vampire leaders during the first werewolf - vampire war.

Suddenly there was a loud bang behind him, followed by the sounds of several objects falling in rapid succession and excited shouting from many students.

Now, this was getting a bit too much. Binns turned around to see what was going on.

Two boys were rolling on the floor fighting. Several others were about to join in.

For a moment Binns stared at them. Never before in his almost three hundred years as a teacher had a fight broken out in his class. (A/N - The students had always been to sleepy from his boring lectures.)

Shouting angrily at the children he raced over and tried to pull the fighters apart.

The sudden outburst of the usually so phlegmatic ghost was enough to stop Gregory, Vincent, Blaise and the girls from joining the fight. They stood motionless staring open mouthed as Binns tried to pull apart Draco and Severus.

That however proved impossible as his hands went right through the boys, who didn't even seem to notice it in the heat of the battle.

Binns tried shouting at them, threatened them with detention and got more and more desperate as they continued to ignore him.

He realised for the first time that being dead was a certain disadvantage for a teacher. What should he do? What could he do?

And then he realised that there were things that he could do that a living person could not. He floated up through the ceiling and through several walls and poked his head through the floor of Dumbledore's current classroom.

Dumbledore's pupils screamed with excitement. Potions theory had been extremely dull until this moment, almost as dull as history of magic.

"Help!" Binns said to the surprised headmaster. "They're fighting in my class and all I can do is walk through them."

For a moment Dumbledore was confused. Then he remembered which class Binns was supposed to be teaching.

He cast a look over his own pupils and made his decision.

"Class dismissed." he announced.

Loud cheers erupted all over the room and everyone raced for the door. The headmaster still managed to be the first one out.

He raced down to Binn's classroom setting a new school record for speed in the hallways and burst into the classroom.

It was not, as he had feared, all the Slytherins who were fighting. Only Draco and Severus were rolling on the floor while the rest were just cheering Draco on.

Draco could use the encouragement, too. He was obviously loosing this fight. It seemed only pure rage kept him from surrendering at all.

"SEVERUS!" shouted Dumbledore grabbing the boy's arm and pulling him back as hard as he could. "Let him go!"

Severus obeyed immediately. He stood up looking at the headmaster rather apologetically.

"Sorry." he stated softly.

Draco got up with some difficulty. He must have hurt his leg in the fight. Luckily Dumbledore managed to grab his arm with his free hand before he could throw himself at Severus once again.

'Now, what am I to do with them?' Albus thought. 'Right! Send them to the headmaster's office. ... Wait a minute. ... I am the headmaster.'

"All right, you two, accompany me to my office. The rest of you sit back down. You can continue with your lesson, Professor Binns," he said nodding at the ghost who had been watching his actions looking a bit embarrassed. "I'll take care of the troublemakers."

Severus and Draco followed Dumbledore through the empty halls casting quick nervous glances at each other, looking away whenever the other noticed. After all they weren't talking to each other. The other didn't even exist. No.

"Sir?"

"What?" demanded Dumbledore unnerved.

"I forgot my hedgehog in class. May I go back and get him, Sir?"

"No, you can get him later."

"But what if Professor Binns locks up his classroom? Greenie would be locked in overnight. He might get scared."

"He can't lock the classroom. You both left your books in there." Dumbledore reminded them.

They reached the office and Albus told the boys to sit down. They did so nervously once again glancing at each other whenever they thought the other wouldn't notice.

Dumbledore had to hide a smile. Maybe there was a chance these two could be friends yet.

"Severus, didn't you promise me to be nicer to Draco? Didn't you say you were going to try to make friends?"

Draco looked up at Dumbledore surprised, then over to Severus. He had thought that Severus' promise to be nicer had been a general one pertaining to at least all the Slytherins. Why would Dumbledore make Severus promise to be nicer only to him personally? Did they think that he was behind all the attacks on Severus? But that was mostly Blaise's doing!

And what did Dumbledore mean by 'make friends'. Draco knew that he wasn't exactly a pleasant person to be around. Severus would certainly never want to be his friend. Then again Snape always had been surprisingly nice to Draco.

Severus looked down at his toes unable to meet Dumbledore's eyes. He didn't even know himself what exactly had gone wrong.

"I tried." he said softly to his toes. "I really tried to be nice, but it didn't work."

Dumbledore began to wish that they had gone back for the hedgehog. Maybe if Severus could hold his pet he'd be able to actually talk to him. Sighing he turned his attention to Draco, a boy he never really knew how to handle.

He knew that it couldn't be easy to be Lucius Malfoy's son and pitied the boy for that, but, he realised suddenly, he had never taken the time and made an effort to actually get to know Draco. He had ignored most of the Slytherins in favour of the Gryffindors. And HE had always accused Snape of being unfair? At least Snape had done so consciously and by choice.

Well, it was no use lamenting over lost chances now. He could only try to do better in the future.

'And you can start by talking to Draco right now!' he ordered himself. "So why were you two fighting, anyway?"

"The little thief stole my transfigurations essay!" shouted Draco angrily.

"I did not!" protested Severus.

"And then he called my father a death eater.

"You called me a thief."

"Well, you are a thief! Everyone knows that!"

Suddenly Severus grinned.

"I never said I wasn't. I am. I just don't like people to say so and your father is a death eater and you know it. He just doesn't like people to say so either."

Dumbledore sighed heavily.

"Alright, will you two please stop insulting each other?" he asked.

Silence.

He decided to interpret that as a yes.

"Now, Severus stole your transfiguration homework, Mr. Malfoy?"

"Yes." Draco stated calmly.

"No!" shouted Severus. "I only stole Millicent's. I'd never steal from you."

"You already did!" screamed Draco enraged.

"You wouldn't share your sweets. And anyway I gave them back."

"Oh? And what about my money?"

"Money?" asked Dumbledore alarmed.

"Alright, so I owe you. You'll get it back."

"Severus! You steal money from your dorm mates?" Dumbledore nearly shouted despite his resolve to stay calm.

"Just that once and I'll give it back. I promise."

Dumbledore stared at Severus fighting his rage, not trusting himself to speak.

"It's not like Draco can't afford it." protested Severus pouting.

"How much did you steal, Severus?" Dumbledore asked with forced calm.

"Twenty galleons." Severus admitted softly again talking to his feet.

Albus wordlessly handed Draco twenty galleons out of his own pocket, but continued to stare angrily at Severus.

Severus didn't move.

"Mr. Malfoy, you may leave, now. I will however take ten points off Slytherin for starting a fight during class."

Draco looked from Dumbledore who was obviously seething with barely controlled rage to Severus who was making himself as small as he possibly could still staring fixedly at his feet.

Maybe it wasn't a good idea to leave those two alone together right now.

'I shouldn't have mentioned the money.' he thought.

Could one get expelled for stealing? Could Severus get expelled at all? If he did where would he stay until they could turn him back?

Could Draco refuse to go? Probably not.

"Thank you, Sir." he mumbled defeated.

He could only hope that Severus would be alright. Should he wait for him outside? No, he couldn't do that. After all he hated Severus.

But where should he go all alone? Then it hit him: This was the perfect time to go and talk to Ginny without his classmates finding out.

Draco nearly ran out of the headmaster's office headed straight for Gryffindor tower. He'd wait near the entrance until Ginny came by and finally get her to listen to him.

Dumbledore remained silent just until the door closed behind Draco. Then he exploded.

"Are you completely out of your mind?! Stealing from pupils!"

Severus blocked out his voice reciting complicated potion recipes in his head ...

Finally Dumbledore had to calm down. He had shouted himself hoarse.

"You've got detention with Minerva for the rest of the week." he announced more calmly.

"Yes, Sir." mumbled Severus still not looking up.

"And you will return Mr. Malfoy's homework to him."

"But I haven't got it!" shouted Severus. "I'm telling you: I didn't touch his essay. He probably just misplaced it."

"Don't lie to me, Severus!

"I'm not lying!"

"Severus! I've had enough of it. I'm very disappointed. Now, get out of my sight!"

Severus said nothing. He got up and slipped out of the room as quietly as possible. How was he supposed to know where Draco's homework was? He only wished he had Greenie with him.

He returned to Binn's classroom which he found still open.

Binns stared at him angrily as he picked up Greenie and held him close.

"Just take your and your friend's stuff out of here and lock the door, will you." hissed Binns.

"He isn't my friend." said Severus without looking up at Binns. "I don't have any friends."

But he did pick up Draco's bag and books as ordered and took them back to their dorm with him.

Draco showed up in the common room a while later looking very beat up.

"Hey, what happened to you?" Severus greeted him. "I didn't give you that black eye."

Draco carefully felt his right eye which was indeed beginning to turn black and scowled at Severus.

"None of your business." he snapped.

Blaise grinned triumphantly. Finally Draco was fighting Severus without outside stimulation. He had been worried by his lack of interest in that battle.

"Oh, come on, Draco!" said Vincent from the other end of the room. "We can all see that somebody beat you up good. Tell us who."

Draco said nothing obviously feeling uncomfortable.

"We're your friends, Draco." Gregory reminded him. "Tell us what happened and we'll help you take revenge."

"Yeah, let's go hit the guy!" exclaimed Vincent with an eager gleam in his eyes.

"Alright, I'll tell you." conceded Draco sitting down beside his two bodyguards. "But you have to promise not to laugh at me."

"Laugh at you? Never!" promised Gregory at once.

Draco grinned despite the fact that that made his split lip hurt. Good old Gregory. Stupid but loyal.

"It was Potty and the weasels." he said quickly to get it over with.

"I thought you liked the Weasleys?" teased Severus who had joined the group uninvited as usual. "Especially the youngest."

"It wasn't Ginny. It was her brothers." scowled Draco. "I was only trying to talk to her, but she wouldn't stop. So I caught her arm and held her. She squeaked and Potty and the redheads came running and nearly killed me. You'd think I'd harmed her."

Blaise, Vincent and Gregory looked expectantly at Draco waiting for more, but he had nothing else to tell them.

"You scared her." explained Severus calmly.

"Scared her?" asked Draco. "I like her, Severus. Why would that scare her?"

"Because you're a Slytherin? And maybe the fact that you've been teasing her and her brothers for years might have something to do with it?" Severus asked back ironically. "Oh, and you shouldn't have grabbed her. Most people react badly to being caught and held by somebody who's stronger than they are. It makes them feel helpless, you know."

"Oh!" was all Draco could say to that.

He remembered how Ginny had slapped him when he had backed her into a comer in the hallways. Suddenly it made sense.

"Then how do I get a girl to stand still long enough to ask her to go out with me?" he asked Severus after a while.

Severus burst out laughing.

"Don't tell me they all run away whenever they see you." he giggled. "I didn't know you're that ugly."

Draco ground his teeth in anger. He really shouldn't have asked Severus for advice.

"They don't all run away. Some of them even run after me. Pansy's all over me most of the time. But I don't want to go out with them. I want Ginny. And Ginny keeps running away."

"Well, in that case you'll just have to convince her that you're not dangerous first." stated Severus. "Good luck!"

"Okay." said Gregory. "Now that that's settled let's go and beat up the Weasleys."

Gregory, Vincent and Blaise jumped up eagerly, but Severus shook his head at them.

"Bad idea." he told Draco. "If you want Ginny to like you, you'd better be nice to her family."

"All of them? Even Ron?!" exclaimed Draco horrified.

"I'm afraid so." nodded Severus.

"Well, alright." decided Draco reluctantly. "If that's the only way. Come on guys. Let's go get my books back from Binns instead."

Again Severus shook his head at them.

"Why not? What's wrong with getting my books back?"

"Nothing. You just can't do it..."

"Why not?" shouted Draco.

"Just let me finish my sentence, will you! You can't do it, because I already got them."

Draco stared at Severus.

"You already got them? What did you do to them?!" he shouted fearing the worst.

"Nothing. Binns just wanted to be rid of them and I had to get Greenie anyway. They're up in the dorm on your bed."

Draco immediately raced up to check on the condition of his books. He found everything lying neatly on his bed in perfect order. Nothing was missing. In fact there was one object to many.

"Severus, that isn't my transfigurations essay."

"I know. It's Millicent's. I don't know where yours is. So I thought you could copy this one if you don't find it."

"You expect me to copy Millicent's transfiguration essay? Millicent sucks at transfigurations. Couldn't you have stolen the essay of somebody who's actually good at this stuff?"

"McGonagall would never believe I wrote it if I did."

"Oh. Well, maybe I can use it as a basis for a new essay. I might be able to write faster that way." decided Draco.

"There is one thing I still don't understand, though." he asked a few minutes later. "If you didn't steal my homework then who did?"

It was nearly midnight when Severus once again got up and sneaked out with an excited little green hedgehog in his arm.

He sneaked through the dark, cold corridors carefully listening for any sounds that might warn him of patrolling teachers or Filch. Greenie's spiky little body felt warm and comforting. Even though Severus feared that a badly timed sniff might betray them it was a good feeling not to be completely alone on this adventure.

This time was much riskier then when he had tried to raid his own office. This time he had further to go and was headed for the more popular regions of the castle. Most teachers disliked the dungeons and stayed away from the potions classroom, but the library was a very comfortable place and the danger of running into a teacher there was much higher.

Still after his nightly encounter with the headmaster Severus didn't dare to return to his office if he could avoid it and the poison in his classroom made it impossible anyhow.

Severus listened carefully before he turned another corner and ...

... ran straight into Mrs Norris.

The cat fixed him with an angry glare. Any moment she'd turn and run to Filch. Why hadn't he remembered that Mrs Norris could move about completely noiselessly. He should have had a plan ready in case he ran into her.

A sudden idea struck him just as the cat was about to turn. Quickly he drew out his wand.

"Infante." he whispered.

Mrs Norris turned, saw her own tail flick by and grabbed for it. It twitched away and she let herself drop to the floor all four paws reaching for her tail tip.

Severus grinned at the cat rolling around on the floor chasing her own tail.

"There, you try going back to childhood for a change. By, by kitten!" and Severus took off before anybody else caught him.

The spell on Mrs Norris would hold for only a few hours, but he didn't want to run into Filch after hexing his cat. A week's worth of detentions with McGonagall was just about as much as he could take and if Filch dragged him to Dumbledore's office in the middle of the night and woke the headmaster, that sentence would most likely be doubled.

Strange, as an adult he had actually liked McGonagall, had almost considered her a friend. Of course they had had their little friendly rivalry, but they had gotten along fine. Now he was terribly afraid of her.

Finally he reached the library door. No light shone through the crack under it.

"Good." he whispered. "We made it, Greenie. We'll get the books we need and then with a little luck we'll be back in bed in no time."

"Sniff?" made Greenie.

"Sure, don't worry. Come on in."

Severus turned the handle and walked in. The light from his wand fell straight on Dobby's face. Why was the house elf sleeping on a desk in the library?

Unluckily Dobby proved to be a light sleeper. The light woke him instantly.

"It ... yawn ... already morning?" he asked drowsily.

"No, no. Go back to sleep." answered Severus softly hoping that the elf wasn't fully awake.

But Dobby snapped to attention suddenly remembering his surroundings and duties.

"What Sir doing in library at night?"

"Nothing, we just couldn't sleep." Severus tried to explain edging back towards the door.

"Who we?" Dobby asked confused.

"Me and Greenie here." Severus indicated the hedgehog on his arm.

"Sirs are not supposed to be in library at night. Dobby must sound alarm!"

"No, Dobby! Don't!" Severus shouted racing towards the librarian's desk in a desperate attempt to reach the alarm-paperweight before Dobby.

Dobby of course was both faster and closer. He hopped onto the desk and grabbed the little carved frog. Loud croaking sounded all through the library and, as Severus knew very well, in every teacher's quarters as well.

'Oh, no!' thought Severus. 'Two weeks with McGonnagall.'

"What happened?" Dumbledore asked still a little disoriented at being woken up so abruptly. "Dobby?"

"Mr. Snape Sir and Mr. Greenie Sir are not supposed to be in the library at night Professor headmaster Sir." The house elf explained. "Dobby had to sound alarm, Professor headmaster Sir."

"Mr. Greenie Sir?" repeated Dumbledore looking at the hedgehog with an amused smile.

Severus was relieved to see that smile. Maybe the punishment wasn't going to be all that bad after all.

"Yes, Professor headmaster Sir." confirmed Dobby.

"Well Mr. Snape and Mr. Greenie, that will be 100 points off Slytherin. For each of you." announced Dumbledore.

"Each of us? But Greenie's not even a Slytherin!" protested Severus.

"He lives in Slytherin house and he is Slytherin green." explained Dumbledore twinkling. "That seems very Slytherin to me. Dobby please see to it that the library remains magically locked at night from now on. And you Severus: If you ever sneak in here again I'll confiscate your wand. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Sir." mumbled Severus.

Well, at least he hadn't gotten any more detentions.

Once again the fifth year Slytherin boys were woken in the middle of the night by Dumbledore bursting in and dragging Severus back to bed. Only this time Severus was still holding his hedgehog.

"Hey, you're not going to let him take that noisy spikeball to bed with him, are you?" protested a very sleepy Blaise when Dumbledore just turned and walked out after tucking in Severus.

"That's my hedgehog. I can take him wherever I like!" protested Severus.

"No you can't!" shouted Vincent.

Dumbledore took one look at the angry faces of the three boys and decided to walk out and close the door behind him. Let them settle this whichever way they would. He was too tired for this.

"As I explained to you last week catar like werewolves are creations of Salazar Slytherin." Remus Lupin told his class at the beginning of the last lesson on Thursday afternoon. "Like werewolves they are able to transform into animals. Namely into big wild cats such as panthers and leopards. ..."

Severus suddenly got up strolled demonstratively through the room to the wastepaper basket and threw something in. He turned and took a detour back.

"... Slytherin created them in order to have better soldiers for his army. The werewolves were a failed experiment to him. They only turned into wolves during the full moon and then they could not be controlled. ..."

The wastepaper basket exploded into a shower of multicoloured lights that flew through the entire room leaving coloured spots wherever they landed.

Draco looked over to Severus in surprise. An everglow firecracker? Who'd ever heard of that? Or was that Severus' own invention? What kinds of things could one achieve through potions?

"... Therefore he created another race. One that can transform at will and does not loose their minds when transformed. The catar are therefore no different from animagi. ..."

"Yes they are!" shouted Severus enraged. "The cat is part of their personality and they have it's instincts, which animagi do not!"

"... No different from animagi except for the fact that they have retractable claws even in their human form. These claws however are well hidden. You can not recognise a catar in their human form by the way they look. ..."

Severus' neighbour suddenly jumped up screaming having suddenly discovered that his hair had turned bright purple.

"... In fact it's impossible to recognise them unless in a medical examination and even then only when you know what to look for. It is however very hard to define if the catar are dark creatures or not. ..."

The girl sitting in front of Severus squeaked and started scratching her back. 'Itching powder?' thought Draco. 'Where did he get that?'

"... They were originally created through dark magic, but they are not evil creatures by nature. Their bite is no more dangerous than that of any other cat of that size and they usually aren't aggressive unless threatened. ..."

A large green paper aeroplane hit Remus straight in the face leaving a green smudge on his nose.

"... In fact they are known for their extraordinary patience and curiosity. They can have children with humans, both muggles an wizards, but those children will always be catar. They are in no way different from pure blooded catar. The reason for that extreme dominancy of the catar genes hasn't been fully explained yet. ..."

With a loud crash Remus' DADA book clashed against the wall on the opposite side of the room.

"... The Roman Catholic Church however defines the catar as dark monsters and used to hunt them down and burn them much as they did witches and wizards. Unlike their attitude towards us their view of the catar has not changed and those few who have been able to escape their prosecution remain in hiding. ..."

Justin Finch-Fletchley tried to grab his book back out of the air and pull it back down, but Severus' spell was stronger. The book floated over to the teacher's desk hovered above Remus' head for a moment and then dropped. Remus ducked away just in time.

Justin jumped at Severus and pushed him against the wall.

"Justin, please let go of Severus and get your book back!" Remus ordered to everyone's surprise. "Class, open your books on page 346 and start reading. Severus please follow me to my office."

"Page 346 is a picture!" Pansy Parkinson informed Remus.

"Then read page 347."

"Severus, what is going on out there?" Remus asked as soon as he had closed the door behind them.

"You are ignoring me." stated Severus calmly. "And I have things to say. Have you ever really met a catar? I don't think so, because you've got some of your facts wrong. But I have. I know a lot about them. Let me tell!"

"You're not a pupil, Severus. I don't see why I should teach you. Albus can demand that you sit in on my classes, but I don't see why you should be forced to participate."

"Because I want to. Because I'm bored and because it's rude to ignore people." shouted Severus.

Remus looked at him considering his words.

"Are you feeling neglected?"

"Yes!"

"And if I let you help me, be my partner, you will stop disrupting my class."

"Yes!"

"All right partner, come on."

The class stared at them as they walked back into the room side by side. What had Professor Lupin done to Severus? Had he given him detention? Deducted points from Slytherin? Threatened him? Talked to the headmaster? Given him extra homework?

Remus looked at silent frightened faces. He smiled.

"Now class, Severus tells me that he's actually once met a catar. As I told you they are very rare and hiding so very few people ever have a chance to meet them and Severus has promised to tell us all about it." he announced proudly.

You could have heard a pin drop as Severus walked over to the teacher's desk sat on it and began to tell his story.

The next Monday morning before breakfast Albus Dumbledore called Severus to his office.

Severus was worried. What had he done this time? He couldn't think of any particularly bad prank he had played over the weekend. As he entered he realised that the headmaster's face was unusually serious.

"Whatever it is I didn't do it." he announced hoping to convince Dumbledore of his innocence.

"No, you didn't do anything. It's quite all right." said Dumbledore gently.

That didn't sound good.

"What's wrong then? Have you finally found the cure?" he asked, but knew that Dumbledore would have a very different expression if that were the case.

"No. Um... How's my little friend Greenie?"

"Greenie's fine." said Severus looking down at the little fellow who was sitting in his cage on the boy's lap. "Stop beating around the bush. Tell me what's going on. ... Sir."

Albus felt a tiny spark of joy at hearing Severus almost forget that he was angry with him. Maybe in a little while everything would be back to normal. Then he remembered why Severus was here.

"So how do you like being a child again? It must be fun."

"No, it's not." Severus answered without hesitation. "I'll be glad to go back to my old life."

"But you've gotten rid of the dark mark and you might have a new chance at life. You could start all over again. Do things differently if you want to."

They both knew what 'things' he was talking about.

"Are you trying to convince me that I don't want to get turned back?" Severus asked sharply.

"Well, there are certain advantages to your new life and..." Dumbledore broke off suddenly.

Severus looked at him through narrowed eyes.

"There is no antidote, is there?" he said voice trembling with fear.

"Well, they're still claiming to work on it at Durmstrang, but I suspect they're just experimenting with the deadly quality of the potion. The others all agree that there is no solution, but to let you grow up naturally." Dumbledore explained gently. "Severus, I ..."

"NOOO!" cried Severus tears streaming down his face.

He grabbed Greenie's cage tightly with one hand and took off running.

Dumbledore jumped up and raced after him but by the time he had rounded his desk and reached the door Severus was already out of sight. Where could he have gone?

Albus knew that he had to find him and calm him down, but where should he look?

No 'Still to come-section' this time. I don't want to tell what's gonna happen next yet. (Kind of defeats the purpose of a cliffhanger, don't you think.) Please R/R