Right, so it's taken me forever to update. Shame on me. Shame, shame, shame. But whatever, onward to the fic!

&HP&

Severus Snape knelt on the cold wooden, his black cloak heavy on his shoulders and his white mask cold against his face. The room was dark and nearly empty, but would anyone expect any less from a lair of doom?

Snape looked up as the snake-like creature at the front of the room beconed him forward. He stood and moved to the Dark Lord's throne, dropping once more to his knees.

"Ssseveruss…" Voldemort hissed. "I have reason to believe that you are no longer loyal to me…"

Severus began to sweat under his mask, but he fought against letting his body tense up. There was no way that the Dark Lord could suspect him of treachery, he had been so careful!

"Tell me, Ssseveruss…" The vile wizard began, standing from his throne and looking even more imposing. "Whom do you belong to?"

"I belong to you, my lord." Severus responded automatically, forcing awe and worship into his voice. He barely heard the spoken curse before his world was wrapped up in pain.

"NO, you FOOL!" Voldemort shouted angrily, "YOU DON'T BELONG TO ME! AND YOU CERTAINLY DON'T BELONG TO SARA EITHER!!! NONE OF US DO!"

The curse ended and Severus fell to his side, panting and shaking. He swallowed thickly as the Dark Lord took his seat.

"So whom do you belong to, Ssseverusss?" He hissed coolly.

"J.K. Rowling, my lord." Severus replied, pulling himself to his knees and staring shakily at the floor once more. "The Harry Potter stories and all characters in them belong to J.K. Rowling."

Voldemort leaned back in his throne, smirking widely. He rested his elbows on the arm rests and peered with his silently cackling red eyes over his long, thin, steepled fingers.

"Excellent." He purred.

"And that belongs to 'The Simpsons'." Severus mumbled.

&HP&

Ta-Da! Really long but hopefully amusing disclaimer! Now ONTO THE REAL STORY!!!

&HP&

The great hall was noisy as usual. Surprisingly enough, one of the usually loudest people in the great hall was completely silent. That's right, Ronald Weasley was sitting silently with his sister, both of them picking at their food disinterestedly as their friends chatted around them. Ron had an elbow on the table, propped to hold his head up as he stared dejectedly at nothing.

Seamus Finnigan suddenly finished whatever story he was telling, grand arm gestures included, and everyone around him began to laugh uproariously, everyone except Ron and Ginny. Ron just sighed noiselessly from his nose and continued pushing eggs around his plate. Ginny fiddled with her goblet for a moment before casting a sad glance down the table, where Hermione Granger sat by herself.

Hermione was sitting with a straight back, as usual, and ate calmly, one hand resting on an open book as her eyes scanned the pages. She raised decently sized forkfuls of food to her mouth slowly as she read, careful to not get any food even close to falling on the pages she held.

"Oy!" Seamus suddenly said, leaning across the table to rap his knuckles on Ron's head a few times. Ron flinched back and sent him a glare.

"Sod off, Seamus." He muttered without too much actual venom. He rubbed his head and lowered his eyes to his plate again.

"Well sorry, Ron, old chap. But I did call you and Ginny's names about five times." Seamus replied. He was grinning widely but the people who knew him could tell he was a bit concerned.

"Oh…" Ginny murmured, blushing a bit. The three of them sat in silence for a bit.

"Right, that's it! What's going on with you two?" Seamus finally asked, throwing his hands into the air dramatically and nearly smacking the fork full of food from Neville's hand.

"What do you mean?" Ron asked boredly. Seamus just sighed loudly and rolled his eyes in an exaggerated gesture.

"Oh don't even try that!" He began. "You two are both so quiet! And Ron, you always laugh when I tell my story about my angry drunk uncle Murray and the cow! So spill! What's going on?"

The area of the table was plunged into relative silence again, as much silence as a dinning hall of teenagers can contain at least. Ron and Ginny sighed, glancing at one another before peeking looks down the table at their bushy haired friend.

"Hermione isn't talking to us." Ginny finally said. "We got into a fight… A fairly big one."

Seamus sparred them a sympathetic glance, letting his eyes wander down the table to the brown haired girl as well. Before he or anyone else could speak up in sympathy or maybe ask them what the fight was about, Ron spoke again.

"Did any of you know that Hermione had a crush on me?"

Ron bit his lip as he finished, glancing around at his friends with curiosity shinning over his previous melancholy. Then there was a sudden burst of laughter from all of his friends.

"Are you kidding me, Mate??" Dean asked between laughter. "Who DIDN'T know she fancied you? Aside from your oblivious arse, that is." Ron's eyebrows shot to his hairline.

"Yeah," Neville picked up with a shy smile and a light shrug. "She's fancied you for years, mate, at least since third year. Anyone could have told you that."

"Third year?" Lavender piped up, setting down her goblet after having taken a sip. "I don't know, she seemed more affected by Ron's barbs than by anyone else's even way back in first year. She even seemed to take them worse than Malfoy's quips. I personally think that that means something. I think she's fancied him all along."

"Me too." Pravati added.

"First year?" Seamus asked, staring at the two girls with furrowed brows. "are you sure? I thought she got the crush in third year?" Lavender huffed out a breath and stuck her nose in the air slightly.

"Yes we're SURE!" She replied, sounding offended. "We're GIRLS aren't we? We know these things!"

Dean's face scrunched up at that comment and he let out a sigh. Shaking his head again he began to speak.

" 'We're girls, we know these things'?" He repeated. "Why is that always the answer when you try to debate anything with a girl? 'Trust us, we KNOW these things'."

"Well, girls know everything." Lavender replied. Seamus snorted, looking a bit irritated, as any boy usually does when confronted by a woman claiming to know and see everything.

"Really then? What's the scoring average of the German quidditch team?" He asked with a condescending smirk. Lavender rolled her eyes along with Pravati.

"We know everything that MATTERS!" Pravati retorted, sounding irritated.

"YOU'RE SAYING QUIDDITCH DOESN'T MATTER?" Seamus shouted, looking utterly shocked.

"No, quidditch matters just fine." Lavender told him calmly. "We know loads about quidditch. For instance, did you know that Victor Krum likes brown haired girls and the color blue?" She finished this sentence with a dreamy sigh.

"Oh!" Pravati cut in, "And did you know that that dreamy new French chaser is single and likes a girl who can cook?"

At this point both girls sighed again, looking starry eyed. Dean and Seamus stared at them with incredulous looks. They glanced at each other, their mouths hanging open.

"Girls are mental." Seamus muttered, shaking his head.

"We'll then lucky for you that you're never going to get a girlfriend!" Lavender cried, she and Pravati having been snapped out of their dreamy states.

"Lucky I'll never need one!" Seamus replied with a smug smirk, wrapping his arm securely around Dean's waist. Dean himself was blushing, but he still returned the gesture.

The two girls and Seamus continued to bicker but Ginny tuned them out, rolling her eyes good-naturedly. She turned her head to look at Ron. He seemed to be staring off into space, looking utterly dazed. She paused and had to bite her lip to keep from laughing as she realized that he must have completely left the room once Dean mentioned that Hermione fancied him forever.

She really didn't understand how her brother could be so oblivious to have not noticed a thing until Hermione almost literally shouted it into his face. Then she paused, staring at her brother a bit longer. No, on second thought, she wasn't too surprised that he was that dense. In fact, she thought that strangely enough, that seemed to be one of the things Hermione fancied about her brother. She snorted; they were both utterly daft.

"Ron?" A voice suddenly spoke, also seeming to ignore the three arguing people next to them. Ginny looked to see that it was Neville who had spoken.

The shy boy was now regarding Ron with a mixture of concern and amusement. He reached up and waved a hand in front of the red-headed boy's face, there was no response. Finally, Neville looked at Ginny with a raised eyebrow.

"How do we snap him out of it?" He asked. Ginny smiled at him and gave a sigh.

"Ron, Hermione's naked." Ginny said in a monotone voice. The reaction was instantaneous.

Ron shot to his feet, flailing slightly for balance as the backs of his calves encountered the bench he had been sitting on.

"WHAT??" He screeched. "WHY IS SHE NAKED??" His wide eyes darting down the table at Hermione.

Hermione was sitting where she had been sitting, and she was fully clothed as well. Professors Black and Lupin were standing by her seat; it looked as if the three of them had been conversing quietly before his outburst. That was when Ron realized that they were now staring at him with startled, confused eyes. That was when he realized that EVERYONE was staring at him. He realized that the hall was silent, and the tail end of his shouted words were still echoing out of existence around the massive room.

With an awkward cough, Ron slowly sank back down onto the bench. He turned his head to face forward and met the raised eyebrow looks from Seamus, Lavender and Pravati, whom had stopped arguing.He cleared his throat uncomfortably. He lowered his eyes to the table and picked up his fork, beginning to slowly eat his food.

"When were you naked?" Professor Black suddenly asked, glancing awkwardly at Hermione.

The girl in question flushed and stood from the table with a scowl on her face. She grabbed her bag and swung it over his shoulder.

"I have no more of a clue to what that was all about than you do." She told them firmly, walking from the hall. Professor Black and Professor Lupin glanced at each other before following her from the room.

The hall was still silent and all eyes were either trained on Ron's stiffly casual form or the now empty doorway Hermione had exited through. Even the teacher seemed frozen with forks and goblets halfway to their mouths or plates, too busy staring in confusion to lower their hands.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of silence, someone spoke; their voice echoing in the empty sounding hall.

"Well then!" Dumbledore said cheerfully, a wide smile on his face. "That was strange!" And with that he lowered his head a bit and continued to cut off pieces of chicken and raise them to his mouth. His cheerful, familiar humming continued to be the only sound in the room for a bit longer, aside from the clinking of his silverwear on his plate.

Then conversations and the clinking of utensils began to trickle back into the great hall, the words and jokes a bit awkward due to the interruption. Ron had never been happier than when the great hall finally returned to its normal noise level.

&HP&

"So," Sirius began slowly. "That crazy red head is the boy you fancy?" He asked. Hermione blushed and rolled her eyes.

"Yes." She muttered.

They, along with Remus, were walking down the hall towards the two professors' shared common room. Hermione seemed to have gotten a bit onto their better sides, though they did occasionally throw her cold looks and a snarky comment. Hermione was more than okay with this; it wasn't as if she didn't deserve every bit of it.

"And he as well as the girl sitting next to him are the ones who forced you into talking about Harry?" Remus asked, interrupting her train of throught.

"Yes." She replied, her tone taking on a bitter sound (though the bitterness was obviously not directed at either man walking beside her.

"They will have to be dealt with." Sirius commented with a cold, calm tone. Hermione looked to see him walking with a straight back and his firm eyes trained forward.

"You make it sound like you're going to kill them." She replied, only half-joking.

"It's tempting…" Sirius replied, and Hermione was relieved to see the sarcasticly amused look on his face. "But if I killed two of my students I would most likely get fired, and even though I'm crazy rich that would admittedly suck."

"Oh, Padfoot…" Remus cooed, a smirk on his face. "Are you actually admitting that you enjoy the sentimental high of teaching?" Sirius snorted.

"Of course I enjoy it!" He laughed out. "They're the next generation! As a teacher I have full access to corrupting them! That's brilliant if you ask me!" Remus rolled his eyes.

They all stopped as they reached the door to their rooms. No one moved to open the door and Hermione raised an eyebrow. She glanced at the two professors in confusion. Both looked utterly calm as they stood still, making no move towards the door handle.

"Aren't one of you going to open it?" She asked finally. Remus turned to her in surprise.

"What?" He asked.

"We can't open the door." Sirius piped up, stopping Hermione from saying anything. "You open it, our arms are full."

Silence stretched on for a bit longer. Hermione blinked owlishly as both Professors watched her calmly. She let Sirius' words sink in and let her eyes turn to look at his two empty arms that were folded casually behind his back.

"What do you mean?" She asked. "What are you holding?" Sirius scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"Air." He told her, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Hermione frowned and turned her head to look at Remus, hoping for some break in insanity. She was extremely baffled as he just calmly watched her with a blank face.

"And what about you?" She asked.

"My arms are full with the burden of keeping Sirius from doing something terribly stupid that will get himself killed." Remus calmly stated.

She whipped her head around to look at Sirius again. He shrugged calmly and nodded.

"That's a full time job, you know." He said in a matter-of-fact way. "It's also bound to happen often. In fourth year Moony, Prongs, Wormtail, and I were in Care of Magical Creatures and I was bored so I spent the whole class throwing wadded up paper at the blast-ended skewrt we were supposed to be observing." Then Sirius lmoved his arms around to the front and pulled back one of his sleeves. "That's how I got this scar!" He stated proudly.

"He also got two dates and a massive bar of chocolate from that fiasco." Remus added. Then he frowned. "And it wasn't from some form of pity at his burn either. He somehow managed it as he was chased by the bloody thing."

"What?" Hermione asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I have no idea." Remus replied with a shrug. "We just ran to go help him after the thing broke from it's cage and chased him off. We eventually found him up in a tree at the edge of Hogsmade eating some chocolate and looking over two hastily written phone numbers from some girls named Stacy and Meg."

Hermione blinked again, looking over at Sirius. He had a wide grin and a distant look on his face.

"That goblin made a really strange noise… I didn't even know that they didn't LIKE water…" He muttered out faintly.

Hermione sighed and ran a hand over her face. Remus just kept standing still, watching Sirius with an amused look. She shook her head and reached out to grasp the door handle.

"You two are so incredibly strange." She told them in a low voice as she pulled open the door. "AHHHHHHHH!"

Hermione suddenly found herself laying down, her back pressed against the stone floor. She blinked dazedly at the ceiling; blinking away drops of whatever liquid had suddenly come rocketing out the doorway in a tidal wave that tackled her to the floor.

Hermione sat up slowly, now sitting in a puddle of strange, clear green liquid. There was roaring laughter surrounding her. She looked up to see a hysterically laughing Remus and Sirius walk through the door and into their common room. Hermione frowned and pushed herself to her feet.

She followed them sulkily. Inside the room she encountered an equally hysterical Harry and Alice. Also standing there was, strangely enough, a smug looking Severus Snape.

"Do I WANT to know what I was just soaked with?" She asked, wringing some if the liquid out of her hair.

"A nice little potion lent to us by one Professor Snape." Harry told her, smugly crossing his arms over his chest. Hermione looked to Professor Snape in surprise.

"I normally wouldn't have helped another living creature not in my house but I needed to test out my new potion on a human subject." Snape responded calmly.

Hermione gained a horrified look and choked on nothing. She quickly began wringing out her clothes.

"What exactly is this potion supposed to do?" She asked frantically. Snape just rolled his eyes a bit.

"Oh, calm down." He told her. "It's not going to kill, hurt, or mutilate you." She let out a slight sigh of relief. "It's designed after Veritaserum. It will cause you to randomly shout ot harmless but potentially humiliating secrets of yours." Hermione blanched.

"Hey, you told Harry's secret!" Alice told her, "So this is a pretty fair deal." Hermione sighed in resignation.

"So what sort of secrets will I be--- I'M AFRAID OF TURTLES!" Hermione squeaked and slapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide as dinner plates.

Silence enveloped the room before Sirius and Alice both dissolved into laughter. Harry just smirked and raised an eyebrow.

"Turtles?" He asked. Hermione blushed deeply.

"One bit me when I was seven." She muttered back.

"Right… but turtles??"

"Bloody hell, Snape!" Sirius suddenly proclaimed through laughter. "I never thought that I would say this but: BRILLIANT!" Then he reached out and slapped a hand on the stoic Professors shoulder.

Snape jumped, obviously not having expected to be touched. Then the look on his face as he turned his eyes towards Sirius showed that he had expected a compliment from the infamous Sirius Black even less. Quickly his face changed to a sneer and he rolled his eyes.

"Well MERLIN, Black." Snape drawled out sarcastically, "Getting your approval IS one of my greatest dreams. I cannot express the glee I feel in this moment." Sirius snorted.

"Oh please, Snape!" Sirius replied, "You know that you think I'm fabulous!"

Snape scoffed and turned glaring eyes to look at the grinning man who still had one hand resting on his shoulder. They stared at each other for a long moment, neither man blinking or making a sound.

"Bloody hell!" Alice suddenly exclaimed. "Just kiss already!!"

All eyes were trained on the blond elf. She ignored everyone and just glared good-naturedly at the two black haired men in front of her. She crossed her arms over her chest with a huff, obviously expecting something.

"Gra!" Sirius squaked out.

He pulled his hand off of Snape's shoulder as if it had burned him. He stood stock-still, his arm still raising bent in the air and shaking a bit. He was starring at seemingly nothing with a horrified grimace on his face.

Snape hadn't moved an inch. He was simply staring at nothing with his face screwed up into an equally horrified expression. His arms were folded over his chest and his shoulders were tensely raised.

Then, without saying a word, Snape slowly unfolded his arms to let them hang tensely by his sides. Then he slowly and stiffly walked from the room. He walked through the still open door and into the empty hallway. He walked onward and rounded a corner, out of sight.

The silence stretched on for a bit longer, all eyes had turned from the empty hall to the still frozen Sirius.

"WHEN I WAS SEVEN I HAD A CRUSH ON SANTA CLAUSE!" Hermione suddenly shouted, causing everyone (aside from Sirius) to jump, but not move from the frozen dog animagus.

Then, after a moment Harry turned his head to look at her with an incredulous look on his face.

"What?" He asked.

&HP&

Ta-da. I know I'm lazy and I never update. That's why I'm so in love with every person who reads this and puts up with the ages it takes to get a new chapter.

By the way! Finished reading Deathly Hollows!!! It was sooo good! I won't say anything about it to avoid spoilerage. I can't believe it's over though! LE GASP!

Anyhoo. You know the deal, review!