The next week began predictably
enough, everyone having settled into the rhythm of the school term. The first
set of assignments were beginning to trickle back to the teachers and as a
consequence, tables piled high with scrolls of parchment were beginning to
become a familiar sight in the staffroom.

Pretty much everyone taking
Muggle Studies was enjoying themselves, much to Amelia’s delight, which
unfortunately meant that they’d put more than usual into their first batch of
homework. While she was greatly impressed by this effort, she found herself
beginning to wish that her students would stick to the page limit.

Hermione had quickly reached the
conclusion that Divination was a complete waste of her time and spent a good
amount of Monday lunchtime in Amelia’s office,
alternating between impersonating Sybill
Trelawney and fuming about Snape’s latest
attacks on Neville. The story of the Boggart had apparently not been to the
older wizard’s taste, so he was taking every opportunity to bully Neville; one
advantage of his fury from Amelia’s point of view, was that he immediately
vacated a room whenever Lupin entered it. The two of them had made great use of
this the previous evening and had successfully chased the Potions Master around
the castle in a delightful fit of childishness.

Hermione was regaling her cousin
with an energetic impression of Sybill sighting the Grim when Remus wandered
in. Once he’d informed her that Harry and Ron
were looking for her she hurried off, rather embarrassed. The two adults managed
to contain their mirth until the office door had snapped closed, but then they
roared with laughter.

When they’d pulled themselves
together Remus pulled up a chair, saying “I take it that Miss
Granger has a healthy respect for Sybill.”

Amelia
rolled her eyes. “They’ve certainly got on the wrong side of each other. I
believe Sybill insulted book learning almost as soon as they sat down.”

“Ah. Well no wonder Hermione
can’t stand her, I should have guessed…” he chuckled.

“I take it that you were less
than impressed with the subject in your own third year?”

“It just seemed unscientific,” he
said, shrugging. “Of course, it wasn’t Sybill back then, it was Professor
Nottage; he was pretty good as a seer, but a
bloody awful teacher. He used to talk in such a soft voice, and at such a
length, that none of us ever managed to get anything done in class, which more
or less trebled our homework.”

“We had one of those in year
seven – sorry, first year – for Geography. I more or less memorised the
textbook that year… colouring the maps in when he wasn’t paying attention was
quite fun though.”

Remus chortled. “I hear that
Sybill has a practice of killing off one student a year… possibly in the hopes
of one day being proved right. Minerva was livid.”

“Hermione was pretty steamed,
too,” she agreed. “She picked on Harry this
year.”

“What?” cried Remus, standing
suddenly.

“What on Earth’s the matter?” she
asked in mild alarm.

“It’s just – Black, he’s been
sighted nearby, and with a prediction like that – you know the Ministry thinks
he’s after Harry –” he was becoming increasingly
agitated.

“But it’s Sybill!” she cut in, anxiously. “According to Poppy, she’s
predicted the death of one child every year since she got here, and every one
of them is in perfect health!”

“Yes, but with Black on the loose
– well, she may be right – Harry could be in
danger!” he was pacing the room now, his long strides making quick work of the
limited floor space.

Amelia
held his arm, halting his progress.

“The only thing Harry
is in danger of right now is dying of natural causes,” she bridled a little
under his incredulous gaze. “Oh, look! If Sybill waits long enough she’s bound
to be right eventually. There’s no real reason to suppose that Black
has business with Harry or anyone else at
Hogwarts, no matter what the Ministry say.” Although she sounded confident, Arthur’s
words sprung unhelpfully to mind ‘He’s at Hogwarts…’

Remus turned to look at her then,
and she saw real fear in his eyes.

“Is there?” she demanded.

“Well…”

Amelia
felt her demeanour cascade from incredulity to concern.

“Look, Hermione and Ron
look out for him; if someone’s going after Harry
I can’t see either one of them stepping aside to let him through.”

They sat back down, closer to the
fire; it seemed to Mel that in the firelight her
scruffy Professor had aged suddenly.

“Sirius Black was a big supporter
of Lord Voldemort,” he began,
quietly. “You know of Harry’s claim to fame, I
assume? It’s only natural to assume that Black would want to
kill the person who, to all intents and purposes, destroyed his master.

“They say that when Black
was caught,” he continued, slowly, and it seemed that the words wounded him a
little, “he was laughing. He’d just murdered thirteen people and blown a
residential street apart. He was fairly deranged when they took him to Azkaban,
I can only imagine what twelve years in that place did for his handle on
reality.”

He shuddered, and they were quiet
for a moment, Amelia struggling to imagine the
possibility of being able to go madder than a giggling mass murderer; Remus was
apparently lost in his own thoughts.

“That’s not the worst of it you
know,” he said darkly, a shadow having clouded his already sombre features.
“The night that Harry’s parents were killed,
they had been hiding from Lord Voldemort
for some time. Black served them up to him on a platter. If he
hadn’t, well… they may have been here now.” And Harry
and I wouldn’t be alone, he thought, bitterly.

“They’d been school friends, you
see, and James and Lily
trusted him completely.”

Amelia
realised that her hands were pressed against her cheeks and quickly removed
them, leaving faint white fingerprints on her skin.

“Remus… that’s awful – there are
no words…”

“And now, with Black being
sighted so close to Hogwarts and Sybill’s prediction.”

They looked at each other for a
moment in the flickering firelight.

“I don’t think we should make too
much of it…” Amelia began slowly, as Remus’s
eyebrows arched skywards. “The school is surrounded by Dementors, drenched in
protective magic and full of talented witches and wizards – even if he did come
for Harry, he’d be caught before he crossed the
entrance courtyard.”

“He’s eluded Dementors before…”
retorted Remus, apparently determined to cling to his discomfort. Amelia
lost her temper.

“Oh for Gods’ sake Remus, it was just
a cup of tea! My primary school teacher could make better predictions than that
old fraud!” she snapped, exasperated. She stood up abruptly and walked back to
her desk. “Anyway, don’t you have class in a few minutes?” she demanded.

“I do actually,” he said,
somewhat meekly. Her expression softened a little.

“Look, I’m sorry. Black is a real
threat, but Harry is well protected here, and I
don’t think we should allow some false prophesy go to our heads – particularly
when by all accounts Harry isn’t letting it go
to his.”

His features softened.

“You’re probably right… though I
may speak to him – just to see how he’s doing!” he added, seeing her dander
rise again. “I was good friends with his parents; I owe it to them to see he’s
alright.”

Seeing that Amelia
still looked dubious he decided to lighten the mood. With an altogether too
calculated air of innocence he added, “It’ll just be a cup of tea,” and
retreated at top speed, narrowly avoiding the cushion that rebounded off the
wall next to his head.

0o0o0o0

Having marked her fifth-year
students’ initial project plans, including an uncharacteristically thorough
example from the Weasley twins, Amelia headed
down to the staffroom, passing a cloud of angry Snape as she did so, his cloak
billowing out behind him.

She watched him stalk down the
corridor in bemusement before shaking her head and entering the staffroom; it
was as if every stone in the building had insulted his mother.

Poppy Pomfrey was occupying a
chair near to the newly Boggart-free wardrobe and was doing her level best not
to meet the eyes of Professor Dockrill,
who was ostensibly hiding behind his own beard. The room’s only other occupant
hadn’t noticed Amelia come in.

Sybill
Trelawney, as draped with amulets and shawls
as before, was stood in the middle of the room, muttering to herself in
confusion.

“I can’t imagine what it was I
said… perhaps his star is in the wrong quarter, after all Saturn is rising this
week… I’ve told him I’ve seen it, but he just won’t –”

Poppy, sensing a chance for escape
stood, and with as straight a face as she could muster, put a comforting arm
around Sybill’s shoulders.

“You could always double-check
the cards, my dear – or consult the runes –” she glanced at Professor
Dockrill, who was suddenly very interested
in the embroidery on his sleeve (and desperately resisting the urge to comment
on said ‘runes’), “to see what the best way to approach the problem could be…”

Sybill looked up, apparently
overjoyed. “Do you think – that could be it you know! I’ll go directly!”

With that, she turned to rush out
back to her trapdoor-guarded tower, shawls and jewellery whirling around her
like some demented exotic dancer; Poppy only just dodged back in time to avoid
being caught in the various layers of chintz.

She squinted at Amelia
through her inch-think, bottle-ended glasses.

“Oh my dear, it’s good to see you
again so soon – you must beware my dear, I sense your path runs into darkness.”

Sybill swept past an astonished Amelia
and into the corridor beyond.

“Well,” sad Poppy, apparently at
a loss.

“What in Gods’ names was that all
about?” asked Amelia, not sure if she was more
perplexed by the alleged seer’s general behaviour or of her casual, if vague,
assessment of the perils of Amelia’s immediate
future.

Professor
Dockrill, who had been startled out of his
detailed examination of his somewhat ornate cuffs, rolled his eyes.

“She rather enjoys making
dramatic proclamations at people, I shouldn’t let it worry you… and as for the
rest, well!”

Poppy reclaimed her seat and Amelia
followed suit. Poppy and Martin exchanged
knowing looks; Martin, she noticed, was now
grinning.

“Go on,” she prompted. “You can’t
just put that out there and leave me hanging.”

“Sybill has, how shall I put
this: a long standing affection for Severus,” explained Poppy.

“Claims to have seen them
together in one of her ‘visions’,” Martin put
in. “Severus has been made perfectly aware of her intentions
on several occasions – some of them rather publicly. It’s safe to say that he
doesn’t return her affections –”

“Quite clearly.”

“– but she won’t give up.
Understandably, the whole situation makes him deeply, deeply uncomfortable.”

“And although it makes anyone
else in a two-hundred metre radius equally uncomfortable,” Martin
interjected, that tell-tale twinkle in his eye, “it’s also bloody hysterical!”

“Martin,
really!” admonished Poppy, slapping him playfully on the arm, though she
herself was smiling. “Now, if you two will excuse me, the Ravenclaws are trying
out for the quidditch team today – I’m expecting some spectacular injuries.”

“Perhaps you’d join me for a cup
of tea, Amelia,” proposed Martin,
watching Poppy bustle off. “I’d love to hear what my brother’s been up to
recently.”

Amelia
warmly agreed and followed her colleague towards his office in the base of the
western tower. As they crossed into the first floor corridor all of the torches
snapped out quite suddenly and the windows clouded over, leaving the two
teachers – and several abruptly unhappy students – in pitch darkness.

After a few minutes of confusion
the source of the charm was located in the form of two sixth-year Hufflepuffs,
apparently determined to put some of their innate creativity into terrifying a
few hapless first-years. After daylight had been restored and detentions doled
out, the two colleagues continued on their way. Behind them a Ravenclaw first
year remarked to her friend, “I wouldn’t want to meet either of those two in a
dark alley…”

0o0o0o0

Upon entering Professor
Dockrill’s office, Amelia
was once again struck by the similarity between the two brothers; the room
reminded her strongly of her bright college days. Two Lewis
chessmen were gurning at one another and biting their shields on the wizard’s
desk; there was a suit of armour in the corner, currently being employed as a
coat rack; a selection of swords and battleaxes were leaning against the room’s
many bookcases. To her growing delight, Amelia
noticed that every inch of wall that wasn’t taken up by bookcases was covered
by maps – many of them familiar.

She was reminiscing about muddy
boots in distant, rain-soaked fields when she caught sight of a trio of
familiar faces, grinning and waving out of their frame. She grinned,
remembering her old tutor and her somewhat cantankerous partner in crime. There
was a model of a dalek next to the picture; it appeared to be engaged in combat
with a tiny plastic knight. Some things must just run in families, she
mused as Martin strode back in with a proffered
mug of tea, which she graciously accepted.

The teachers spent an absorbing
afternoon discussing the various sites and finds they had in common, Martin
often revealing magical aspects of the North Atlantic of
which Amelia had hitherto been unaware.

Their discussion ended with Martin
lending her a fascinating book on the use of magic during the Pictish-Viking transition
in the Northern Isles. She was still engrossed in this two evenings later,
contentedly curled up with a mug of tea in an alcove overlooking the Clocktower
courtyard.

She was at that point
particularly intrigued by a reference to an Iron Age tablet recording the names
of indentured House Elves when she was rudely disturbed by the sudden
appearance of Severus Snape,
who, with a whirl of his robes, flattened himself against the wall of the
alcove in apparent terror.

Amelia
reflexively reached for her wand – her recent conversation with Remus having
made her battle-anxious – but Severus shook his head,
desperately. Perplexed, she raised her eyebrows, questioningly, one hand still
hovering over her wand pocket, book grasped tightly in the other.

The noise of an opening door and
the patter of determined footfalls answered her query and she rose, about to
speak, but Snape waved frantically at her to be silent. The footsteps paused
some way along the corridor, and then out of the darkness came a tremulous
voice:

“Severus,
darling, where are you?”

Realisation dawned and Amelia,
who was in danger of being engulfed in the hilarity of the situation, cocked
her head to one side and gave Snape a questioning look. His dark eyes pleaded
with her and he appeared to be attempting to disappear through the wall.

Amelia
moved out into the passage before Snape could stop her, face carefully
confused, book poised as if Sybill had simply disturbed her quiet reading.

“Sybill? Is everything alright?”

Professor
Trelawney, visibly startled, checked
herself.

“Oh – yes, my dear… I’ve been
looking for Severus, did you see him pass?” a shadow of
suspicion crossed the seer’s face. “He’s not back there with you is he?” she
demanded, moving forward purposefully; behind her, she glimpsed Severus
slide down the wall in dread.

Not wanting to become entangled
in a truly bizarre love triangle, Amelia raised
her hand to halt Sybill’s progress and said, in mock disappointment, “What, in
my cosy little alcove? No, no. I’m afraid there’s no such starlit tryst in
store for me this evening, I’m afraid.”

Amelia
glanced at Sybill’s absurd glasses and took a gamble.

“He dashed past me not five
minutes ago – said he needed some plant extracts from Pomona from one of his
classes – something about Albus instituting a last minute change to the
schedule…”

“Oh, well…” the other woman
began, distractedly. “If he’s on the Headmaster’s business, then… Herbology,
you say? Hmm…” she appeared to come to a decision, and with a flurry of shawls
made a beeline for the greenhouses, calling “your aura is showing kindness
tonight, dear,” over her shoulder as she departed.

Amelia
sat back down in the alcove and surveyed her fallen colleague before,
succumbing, at last, to silent laughter.

Snape, still slumped across from
her, glared at his rescuer from between his fingers for a good thirty seconds
before he too began to laugh.

They remained thus for some time:
one slumped against a wall, the other against a window, tears of silent and
unexpected laughter streaming down their faces, trying not to catch one
another’s eyes in order to prevent their peculiar situation from worsening.

Once they had regained some
semblance of composure they stood, Amelia
collecting her things, Severus his thoughts.

“You know, I was beginning to
think you couldn’t laugh,” she glanced up him, his sneer wavering for a moment
as he appraised his new colleague.

“I consider many things at which
people laugh unfunny – and I have my rather dour reputation to think of,” to
her surprise, Amelia noticed his eyes sparkling
with mirth. “I tend to keep my amusement to myself.”

“Well I’m glad you chose to
share.”

He nodded graciously, sneer still
firmly in place.

They walked together towards the
main staircase, silently contemplating their new alliance.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Hmmm?”

“For distracting her – she
doesn’t give up.”

“You could tell her that you
don’t feel that way about her…”

Severus stopped
dead and turned to Amelia in frustration.

“I have told her, time and time
again; she just won’t take no for an answer –”

“You’ve told her then, that her
love is unrequited?”

“On many occasions – I don’t know
how much plainer I can be!” he threw his head back in irritation. “It’s getting
absurd. I know the staff are laughing at me, and now the students are beginning
to as well.”

Amelia looked the frustrated man
in front of her up and down and decided, rather on impulse, that he needed her
help.

“Look,” she began, “if you need
somewhere to escape for a bit, come and hide in my office – I’m sure Sybill’s inner
eye won’t find you there.” Seeing the hesitant expression on the older man’s
face, she added. “You could bring your marking, or a good book, or –” she
smiled, remembering an earlier conversation, “just have a cup of tea.”

Severus appeared
to be considering this.

“And in return?”

“Pardon me?”

“It has been my experience, Miss
Brown, that people seldom do things for
others – particularly those who are new to a place.”

Stung and affronted, Amelia
snapped, “Oh, you Slytherins! Well, if you don’t need my help!”

Severus had the
decency to look sheepish – her offer was tempting, after all. Despite her
defiantly chirpy manner and complete inability to stifle her own amusement, he
had seen on several occasions his new acquaintance’s absorption in books. At
least she has the ability to be quiet, he thought.

“Sorry, I suppose I do.” He
looked for a moment as if he were about to say more, but apparently thought
better of it.

“… I guess you could teach me
some potions – I mean, you are aware of my… situation, and the scuttlebutt is
that you really know your way around a cauldron.”

He nodded his affirmation with
raised eyebrows, possibly at her weird turn of phrase. Again they walked in
silence for a time, until, as if unsure his mind was in one piece, “Did you
really just say ‘scuttlebutt’?”