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Chapter 19

Mischief Managed

Disclaimer: Much as it pains me to admit, I don't own anything that came from JK Rowling's pen. If it isn't in her books, it's mine!!!!! All mine!!!!!! Muahahahahaha *cough cough* Ack! Stupid evil scientific genius laugh... ::mutters about taking said laugh back to the evil genius store where it was bought::

AN: I'm back! Woo hoo! Thanks to a horrific bout of writer's block, as well as being very sick, I couldn't get anywhere on this story. I hope you enjoy this chapter and that it was worth the wait. The next chapter will not be out anytime soon, as my sister found a plot hole (and a pretty big one). So, it will take a while for me to fix it, seeing as how it's very difficult to write this story. As soon as I get a good line going, I lose it by the time I sit at the computer. Or I get interrupted at work by a customer, which is where I write most of this story. ^_^

Thanks to everyone that's reviewed!

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  Snape looked over the students as they entered the Great Hall the morning after the Dueling demonstration. He had found himself placated by the spectacle of watching the other professors go through the same process that he had the previous morning. Most of the instructors were far worse than many of the older students, and for the first time he had heard of the class he was glad that everybody would need it. It was one thing to know and to teach, but it was a completely different thing to do.

  Now he was waiting for Aeryn to finish her meal so that he could speak to her. He was hoping to set up a time when they could work on the Silmaron potion again. In spite of the awful fact that she was as chipper as a hummingbird on sugar water, her brain worked well enough. He wouldn't admit that to anyone, and had had a hard enough time getting himself to acknowledge that fact.

  Finally she stood, pushing her chair away from the table to go stand next to Snape. "You ready?" she asked, one of her hands hiding a yawn.

  He arched one eyebrow at this, but didn't say anything. It wasn't his business, and he had the feeling that even one word would launch her into... whatever....

  The two of them made their way to the special potions room and crossed over to where the potion they had previously made was set. The color had changed slightly from the bright red it had been when it was hot to a kind of puce color now that it was cool. He had been hoping that it would stay the same color once it was no longer being heated, but something wasn't quite right.

  "When did the color change?" he asked the woman beside him.

  "About five. It changed between 4:30 and then." She tossed him an inquiring look. "What do you think it could be?"

  Snape frowned. There were three ingredients that could have done this, as well as two timings that may have been off. Finding out exactly what the problem was for that, as well as why the potion kept opening up portals in different spots, would take a lot time than he had counted on.

  "Tonight," he started to say.

  Aeryn looked at him. "To work on the timing?"

  He gave her an odd look and wondered if she could read minds. Instead, he nodded in agreement. "Yes, if we wait until this evening, I may have been able to work on what should have or haven't been added."

  "Mm." A noncommittal answer such as he would expect from Dumbledore. "Then how about I see what ingredient may have been the problem. I don't have a class until just before lunch, and I know you've got one in fifteen minutes."

  The eyebrow lifted again. "Studying my schedule?"

  Aeryn smirked. "And I'm sure you haven't looked at mine to know when to avoid passing me in the halls?"

  She had got him there. He had done the same thing for Potter.

  "Besides," she went on to say, "this way we could figure out when we would be able to work on the potion. Other than that, you can not see me the rest of the day except at meals."

  Snape gave her another odd look, this time tinged with a little admiration. The woman thought a lot like a Slytherin. It made working with her a little better than before. Nodding, he left her working on the potion and headed to his classroom.

  His first class was the seventh years' combined class, and while he missed having Draco in the class he was glad that he and Potter weren't sniping at each other anymore in his presence. Frankly, that could be tiring just listening to it without having to break it up.

  Readying himself for his class, Snape took a moment to think about the problems they were having with the Silmaron potion. He knew that Dumbledore was counting on using that potion to move to wherever Voldemort was without having to resort to portkeys. Portkeys were notoriously difficult to make and were expensive if you bought them to modify. If he could find the problem with the timing, they would be able to test the potion tonight, and while it would please him, Dumbledore would be able to start the plans they had come up with.

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  Harry held back a snicker as he watched Aeryn and Snape bickering at each other. He knew they had been working for at least two hours before he and Draco had come to see what they were up to. It obviously was a bad time to interfere, so the two of them slipped out of the room and headed over to their library. It would be worth the extra effort to look for the answer they were searching for, rather than interrupting the two volatle potions brewers.

  An hour later, he and Draco were discussing what they had found when Harry felt eyes on him. Looking over to his right, he found Circe sitting still as a statue, the kneazle's large eyes focused on him. Harry stared back at it for a brief moment before turning to look at Draco.

  "What?" the blond asked.

  Harry shrugged his shoulders. "Why do you think Circe's behaving like that?"

  Draco laughed. "She's Aeryn's familiar. Who knows why she's doing this."

  Frowning a little bit, Harry looked back at the cat-like creature. He reached out to pet her, knowing just the right spot to rub, when Circe leapt gracefully off the table, just out of Harry's reach.

  "Come back here," he muttered under his breath at the kneazel.

  The smoky-colored animal just gave him a look before wandering off towards the door, completely ignoring her bickering witch as she passed through the open door into the main hallway of the wing.

  Harry sent a glance back at Draco, who was laughing to himself, nose buried deep in one of the 'Mad Martin the Muggle' comics that Ron had been so fond of in first year.

  Well, he wasn't going to get any help from that quarter, and definitely not from Aeryn, who seemed to enjoy baiting Snape as much as Sirius did. It wasn't like he had to have company on an adventure, but from having Ron and Hermione with him for the first six years he'd spent at Hogwarts he knew that it made it better with companionship. Still, Circe looked like she didn't want to wait to lead Harry to wherever with a stop for his friends, who were currently in class with McGonagall.

  Five minutes later, Harry found himself down a corridor only covered in one of his nighttime jaunts. He and Marty had been down this particular hallway, and they hadn't seen anything he would think would spark the interest of a kneazel. Of course, this was the creature that seemed to share Dumbledore's obsession with lemon drops, to the curious amazement of the rest of those the kneazel let near her. Circe stopped in front of a door that Harry could have sworn was open last night, pawing at it before giving a soft mew. As soon as he got to the door, the kneazel jumped to his shoulder, wrapping around his neck, her front paws protectively around his neck. Shaking his head in exasperation, he grabbed the door handle, and pulled his hand away quickly. Tempted to stick his burning fingers in his mouth to cool them, instead he pulled out his wand. Putting up a hasty shield, he blasted the door open.

  Draco hid his smirk until he was sure that Aeryn and Snape had left. There was something just so hilarious about watching those two that had him in stitches. Only Marty shared the joke with him, Harry usually defending Aeryn against anything that Draco had to say regarding the situation. That was what he liked about Marty. Well, one of the things. She seemed to share his sense of jumor, and she found talking about Quidditch just as boring as much as he did. While he loved the game, his father had been the only reason why Draco had gotten onto the team his second year in the first place.

  The other pair of their quartest had paired off early in ther confinement, already having been working together. He knew that there was nothing beyond friendship between Harry and Aeryn, but they were as close as The Boy Who Lived had been with Weasley and Granger. So that had left Draco and Marty just a little bit alone at first. Then, as the training got more intense, he had come to rely on Marty as being the sensible one in the group. More often than not, she was the voice of reason when it came to things like taking a break. Once he had realized that, Draco found that he liked spending time with Marty when the other pair were deep into all things Quidditch.

  When they had come out into the 'real world,' Draco had discovered that he felt far more comfortable around Marty than even Zabini. The other Slytherin boy in his dorm had been the keeper of Draco's sanity more often than not over the last year or so. Now he felt ages older than Blaise, a fact that had startled him. Then Blaise had brought up the fact that Marty often hovered whenever anybody was around.

  Now that they had, more or less, settled into a pattern, Draco hadn't seen as much of Marty as all four of them had different tasks to accomplish. But, if Draco really needed to talk to her, he could usually find Marty in the hospital wing helping Madame Pomfrey.

  While they had been so industriously studying in that room, each of them had discovered a new talent. Draco had been surprised when he learned that he was quite able to manipulate latent magicks. He was even more surprised when they found that Draco could use this ability to help Marty with her talent of using healing magicks. At first, Draco had resented Harry and Aeryn's use of the more 'offensive magics,' as Draco liked to call it. They were able to take active magics and throw them back, or in Harry's case, to use it to magnify his own. Then Marty had shown him just how he could use the latent magic in enchanted objects to change them, and in doing so, use none of his own energy.

  He had been the first to uncover his hidden talent, and it had only been after the first 'year' they had spent together that anyone had noticed Draco had been using the magics of the books they had been studying. The book had clued Marty in, seeing as it had been a book written by Salazar Slytherin, and Draco was his chosen champion, as Helga had termed it.

  After that, all four of them had stopped the 'book learning' for a couple of months. And from that point on there had been a connection. Now, sitting next to Marty, he began to appreciate her all over again as she smiled at him, a shy movement of lips. Draco smiled back at her before shuffling just a little closer, and picked up his comic once more.

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  Snape swore the damned mutt was grinning.

  He knew he should have just left well enough alone when he saw Potter running by with an oddly-colored orb floating behind him. Actually, he first should have stopped talking to Negre. Not that their conversation... well, argument... hadn't been without its merits. Snape didn't want to admit, even to himself, that the woman was actually starting to grow on him. Instead, he would rather subject himself to the Cruciatus curse than say something like he was acting most un-Slytherin like.

  Now he was stuck in the headmaster's office as 'The Gryffindor Contingent' celebrated the key to Black's freedom.

  It was also the chance the Order had been waiting for. The obvious hole in the school's wards that had allowed the rat through them – as well as the 'return' of Peter Pettigrew back from the dead – would get the Ministry to finally take some real action, not any of the paltry amount of protection they had set up when The Four returned. Or disappeared. It had certainly taken them long enough for them to do something. And then, when The Four had offered to up the amount of protection offered by the wards, the Board of Governors had reverted to their conservative methods and refused to let them do so.

  Even though Mundungus Fletched had been appointed as interim Minister until such a time they could hold an election, he and the rest of the Order members from the Ministry had still been in the minority. With the rat as evidence that Voldemort had indeed returned – more than two years ago instead of the two months the 'Ministry' had said he had – it would be a bittersweet victory. Many of the Ministry members had dismissed the fall of Azkaban as a group of Death Eaters trying to make people believe their Master had returned when it was obvious that no such thing had happened. It was just a plot to 'terrify all of wizarding Britain.'

  Snape, as well as the rest of the Order, had been a lot more than a little peeved when the Ministry had discounted the evidence that he had gathered from his work as a spy. It wasn't just a walk in the park to stand among Voldemort's followers, just knowing that you could be exposed as a 'traitor' to their group at any time.

  Looking at those in this office, he figured he would mentally work on the new batch of Veritaserum both Albus and the Ministry were probably going to want, instead of going over his thoughts on the Ministry. He was almost to the point where the four grams of basilisk scales needed to be added when he felt eyes on him. Looking up, Snape found four sets of eyes on him. Sending a sneer at the mutt, he raised an eyebrow, letting Dumbledore discern his question, knowing that the old man knew what he was trying to ask.

  Dumbledore nodded in answer.

  Standing up, Snape bared his teeth at Black before leaving the room. For this, he didn't require the presence of Dumbledore's little potions princess. It was only for Dumbledore.

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I know this is a little shorter than the previous chapters, but I wanted to get this out. Thanks to everyone that has reviewed!!!!!