A/N: Thank you, anyone, who reviewed, favorited or set an alert to this. It is very very much appreciated. Sorry for taking so long with this chapter. My muse has been notably absent for a while. I hope she is back for good now. :-)

2/3

Dark Forebodings

Auriga Sinistra did a little turn and looked at herself in the high mirror, smoothing her skirt down almost lovingly, fingers tracing the fabric.

"So, what do you think?" She looked at Victoria Vector expectantly, now shifting nervously from one bare foot to the other. Victoria Vector, perfectly groomed, her hair as shiny as liquid gold and her simple light-blue dress elegantly hugging her slim waist, could not help but purse her lips. Auriga's face fell as the other witch's devastated expression was not lost on her.

"Tell me the truth!" she shrieked gracelessly before Victoria could even do as much as open her mouth to speak.

"Well..." Victoria cocked her head to the side, surveying the dress as if she was desperately searching for something positive to say. "It is special..."

"Special?" Auriga felt her resolve to be a helplessly sexy, aloof goddess that Severus Snape could not help but find wildly interesting melt already. (Not that she wanted Snape to find her interesting because she found the potion's master to be a perfectly boring individual and held not interest in him whatsoever.)

"Auriga..." Victoria said and raised her shoulders in a helpless gesture that looked enviably graceful. If Victoria hadn't been Auriga's best friend, she would have surely hated her with a vengeance. Unfortunately, there was not a big crowd of best girl pals to choose from if you lived in a castle full of children and mildly insane middle- to old-aged individuals.

Finally, Victoria seemed to decide to be honest and the words suddenly tumbled out of her mouth. "It is orange, Auriga!"

"So?" Auriga took another look at herself in the mirror and only saw a frustrated-looking woman with lopsided glasses and horribly frizzy hair where she had previously imagined a veela-like fashion model.

"Auriga," Victoria strode over to stand next to her. "orange is not your color. You have a very pale complexion so I am afraid bright colors make you look as if someone had avada kedavrad you several days ago. Besides..." She tugged at Auriga's sleeve. "Those are trumpet sleeves. They went out of fashion when my grandma was in middle-school. And those lace-trimmings everywhere? You look like a curtain. You know, the kind of curtain Hagrid would choose."

Auriga felt tears brimming in her eyes. "Just because you look good in anything doesn't mean you have the right to treat me like a moronic school-girl!" she lamented. "Just go! What are you still here for? Do you want to stand there and gloat?"

Victoria looked slightly irritated then shook her head.

"If you want to get laid, you need something else entirely."

Auriga hung her head. "I am afraid I have no taste." The voice inside her head was starting to sound entirely like Snape. Bastard. She would not put it past him to sneak into her head and whisper mean things at her in her sleep to indoctrinate her with self-loathing. Suddenly, it dawned on her. "Wait. What? Get laid?"

"Well..." Victoria wriggled her eyebrows suggestively. "... a little birdie told me that you were going to the ball with a certain potion's master."

"That was an accident!" Auriga gasped but Victoria just shook her head.

"You are not fooling anyone. It is piteous really how you two are always all over each other, hurling ridiculous insults at each other to throw us off. And what a shame! I am your best friend and you don't even let me know whether he is good in the sack."

"VICTORIA!" Auriga shouted with so much outrage that her glasses were threatening to fall off her nose. "How many times do I have to tell you that I would never, ever in my whole life..."

Victoria feigned a wide yawn and gestured towards the door. "You know, if you want me to leave right away, just please continue with your shameless lies. I bet he is so spectacularly good that you worry that others might want to lure him away from you..."

Auriga gave her supposed best friend a hard long look and turned back towards the mirror.

"What if I removed the lace-trimmings and changed the color?" She waved her wand and the dress turned a screeching neon green.

"What is it with you, Auriga?" Victoria shielded her eyes, which Auriga found a bit melodramatic. Or maybe not. He own eyes were beginning to ache just from looking at her reflection in the mirror.

"I have been visiting my parents and I have watched the television", she explained with what she hoped was a little dignity. "Orange and green are quite en vogue nowadays."

Victoria huffed. "En what? I am sure one of these days muggles will look back at the nineties and be ashamed of its fashion. Now get rid of that dress. I will take you shopping. We will get you a nice gown and something to fix that frizzy hair of yours. Also, you will need heels."

Auriga's feet hurt from just thinking about it, but she was ready to give it a chance. Not to impress Snape, of course. Just to keep Victoria happy.

Contrary to popular belief, Auriga Sinistra did care about her appearance. In fact, she spent the better part of her waking hours fretting over it. The problem was that she was utterly helpless in the face of her very own overwhelming imperfection. Why trim her eyebrows when they were obscured by her frizzy mop of hair? Why learn that spell that allowed you to see reasonably well without glasses when she liked the fact that her glasses hid most of the circles under her eyes? And what the hell was concealer supposed to do anyway? It certainly did not make her lips look any better.

Victoria Vector was a fairly practical woman and apparently also well-versed in all things fashion and cosmetics. In the course of four hours, she dragged Auriga all across Diagon Alley, resulting in the Astronomy Professor's feeling as if she had been tortured. Also, she had had no say in the choice of her dress. Victoria had simply thrown a wrapped package at her and had chuckled maliciously when Auriga had dared to speak up and claim that she should be the one to choose her own dress. ("Don't be silly! I am sure it would be most beneficial to everyone involved if that matter was to be taken entirely out of your hands, Auriga.")

Equipped with magical cosmetics – having grown up largely in the muggle world, she had not been aware of the fact that there was such a variety of them -, said dress, underwear that had made her blush and a large bottle of a kind of magical conditioner that promised to make her hair silky and shiny – which was as likely as a smiling and tap-dancing Snape who was awarding points to Gryffindor on top of his lungs – she climbed the stairs to her tower and dropped the load onto her couch.

If she had known how much work being beautiful – or attempting, in her case – was, she would not have been as envious of Victoria. Her feet hurt and so did about every other part of her body. At least the angry red splotches across her face that the plucking of her poor eyebrows had resulted in, were slowly fading and she decided to make a large cup of tea and soak in the bathtub for an hour.

Fate, however, had entirely different plans. There was a knock that sounded as if someone was trying to kick in the the door and as she went to answer it, she found herself faced with Snape's tremendously sour face. For a moment he seemed distracted by either her elegantly arched eyebrows or the cherry-red lipstick Victoria had made her try but then he seemed to catch himself.

"War paint, how quaint," he rimed involuntarily and then could not hide his subsequent embarrassment.

"If you came here to serenade me with poems, I regret to have to inform you that you have no talent to speak of," she said with an evil smile just to make sure he knew that she had noticed.

"As it happens," Snape drawled, "I did not. In fact, I was forced to burden myself with your company because Professor McGonagall sprained her ankle this morning."

As usual, Auriga spoke without thinking first. "Well, and what am I to do? Perform a healing spell on her?"

Snape gave a very short and very sharp chuckle that did not sound amused in the least. "Well, no, of course not, Auriga. We do want her to be able to walk again someday, don't we?"

Auriga growled and he continued without really looking at her, which was strange. What on earth was he on about, she wondered. When he told her, her mouth fell open and she stared at him with wide-eyed surprise which prompted a curious reaction: Snape's face relaxed for a moment, then hardened again. Had he actually looked as if he found her expression endearing for a moment? Well, no, he surely had not, Auriga decided for fear of the consequences if it had not been so.

"I am supposed to teach the Gryffindors a dance-lesson? Me?" She was almost expecting him to deliver a scarring remark on her general ineptness, but instead he gritted his teeth as if in pain.

"We, Auriga."

It had to be cold up there in her tower because she felt as if a shiver was running down her spine when he said "we". Of course she had never fantasized about what could happen if they ever became a "we", because she could not bear the implications of it. He possessed the overall attractiveness of a troll, after all.

"We?" she repeated in a rather breathless voice.

"Yes," he mocked her defeated tone, then went on in a tone of voice that would not at all have been out of place at a funeral. "Minerva made it very clear that she expects her students to be able to dance properly and as such, the headmaster decided that it would be best if Filius and Pomona taught their houses together. Which leaves you and me for Gryffindor and my house."

Auriga could see her devastated expression reflected in the window behind Snape and quickly assumed a blank expression.

"I wasn't aware of the fact that you could dance."

He leaned forward slightly so she could hear his low voice. "You are unaware of a multitude of things, Auriga. Your ignorance, I daresay, is legend around here."

He was, of course, exaggerating but Auriga blushed anyway. Maybe even because of his sudden closeness. He straightened up and the moment – not that it had been special or anything – ended abruptly.

"Shall we leave?" he asked.

"What? Right now? I am not even allowed some time to lament on the overall miserableness of my life?"

"Auriga, I am sure there is no such word."

"Well, I don't care, Severus!" She had begun to feel a little flustered. He held the door open and it was clear that it was not meant to be a courteous but an impatient gesture. Resigned to her fate, Auriga followed him down the stairs and even managed to only step on his cloak once.

The Gryffindors and the Slytherins had, of course, divided into two groups and made it a point to stand in opposing corners of the room. Everyone fell silent as Snape marched in, followed by the Astronomy Professor, who looked positively defeated. And felt worse.

"Girls left, boys right," he hissed impatiently, causing several groans that he silenced with a jerk of his head. "We are here to teach you to..."

"...bottle fame, brew glory..." Auriga whispered in a very bad, very squawky imitation of his famous speech and he shot her a look that would have sent a lesser person reeling. Fortunately, Auriga was quite used to being the target of his death glare and just shrugged. Harry Potter chuckled which caused Gryffindor to be short fifty points. Auriga found that a little extreme but knew better than to contradict Snape.

"Grab a partner," Snape said and left Auriga imagining him grabbing her. How very... uncomfortable that had to feel. Grudgingly, the students shuffled towards each other. Ron Weasley, in particular, was staring at Hermione Granger as if he had never seen a female person in his life. He attempted a smirk and ended up looking as if he had just had a sip of vinegar.

"Put a hand around your partner's waist." Snape sounded as if he was pronouncing a death sentence and Auriga could not help but smile. He really was the worst dancing instructor than she had ever seen. Which was quite an accomplishment considering that the only other dancing instructor she had ever met had been a man named Stevie who loved sparkly trousers and whose voice sounded like Kermit the frog's. After Snape had taken another hundred points in total from Gryffindor and even twenty from Slytherin, which Auriga found remarkable, the cries of horror ebbed away and the boys finally put their hands on their partners' waists.

"Weasley. I am sorry to inform you that you actually have to touch Miss Granger. As bad as it would make me feel for her if I had any sympathy for insufferable know-it-alls. Now, by all means, try a little harder."

Weasley's face looked a little puffy now as he was concentrating on the apparently very hard task of slowly lowering all of his five fingers onto Granger's school robes. Hermione's face remained blank and Auriga secretly wished she had the ability to maintain an expression like that for longer than ten seconds.

"No, Weasley!" Snape droned. "Not like that! Closer. And you need to take her other hand." He rolled his eyes, flipped his hair from his face with just the right amount of openly displayed annoyance and suddenly took a large step towards Auriga.

Before she knew what was happening, he had grabbed her around the waist and pulled her towards him. She was sure he had not intended the outcome as she was caught completely off guard and gracelessly stumbled into him. Their bodies touched and the room seemed to spin around her as he swiftly caught her free hand and steadied her on her feet.

"My, my, Auriga," he said just loud enough for her to hear but the expected insult never came. Instead, Auriga was suddenly fascinated by the glittering blackness... well, the overwhelming evilness of his eyes. Instead of stepping back and allowing her to make a fool of herself, he had caught her and spared her the embarrassment. Auriga was sure he already regretted it. His hand was now wrapped around hers and she was surprised to find it was warm and dry. She wasn't entirely sure whether she had expected him to have slimy or cold hands, or even both, but this felt like a welcome surprise.

"Now, boys, step towards your partner and then turn. I will demonstrate."

Snape's grip on Auriga became even firmer and his movements were sure as he guided her through her first dancing steps in twenty years. Surprisingly, he lead her well enough to make her feel as if she had never done anything else in her life.

Snape turned his head and motioned with it for the students to try. Surprisingly, he ignored the ensuing chaos and glared down at Auriga. The scent of cinnamon was so strong inside her nostrils that she felt absolutely unable to ignore it. She had expected dancing with Snape to feel like wrestling a troll or something equally unpleasant, but this actually felt... comfortable.

"I expected dancing with you to feel like wrestling a troll or something equally unpleasant but it actually feels..." Snape interrupted himself: "Weasley! You must be the worst dancer I have ever seen!"

"Severus!" she hissed at him and he looked at her again, now slightly irritated. If there was such a thing with him as usually he went from zero to mass destruction.

"What?" he replied equally quietly and the low talking brought a surprising amount of intimacy considering the fact that they were standing in front of a classroom full of clumsy teenagers who were noisily bumping into each other.

"Have you been reading my mind?"

"No," he answered and it sounded truthful. "I do not wish to expose my own mind to the frenzied chaos of thoughts that yours must surely consist of."

She snorted and only now noticed that despite the fact that Snape had told the students to practice by themselves for a moment, he had not let go of her. Suddenly, she felt the most unwelcome desire to lean into his chest and inhale his scent. It was intoxicating. Not... of course. Not intoxicating. At all.

"Are you about to faint? I am not sure I could carry your weight, should you fall," Snape remarked sarcastically and thereby startled her out of her reverie.

"You are the most despicable...!"

"And then you simply put your hands around your partner's waist and lift them up," Snape growled, obviously not even a tiny bit interested in whatever obscenity Auriga had been about to hurl at him. She felt his hands close around her waist and was then lifted up into the air, arms flaring and accompanied by her own less than graceful shrieks.

"Your inability to carry yourself with anything resembling grace is astounding," Snape said as soon as he had managed to set her back onto the floor with surprising gentleness. "Albeit I did not expect you to be this slim."

Auriga gave him the most morose look she could master despite the violent beating of her heart – due to shock, of course – but felt inappropriately flattered by his comment. While she was fighting for composure, Snape had turned back towards the students.

"Mr Thomas, please spare me the inconvenience of having to escort you to the hospital wing with a strained back by not attempting to lift your partner." The plump girl next to Dean Thomas blushed profusely at Snape's mean comment. The potions master seemed unduly pleased with himself and turned on the music with a wave of his wand.

"Practice," he growled and moved to breeze past Auriga. She, however, would not have it.

"Oh stop, Mr Bully!" she said and grabbed the front of his robes in the event that her harshly spoken words might not suffice to stop him. The vein in his temple was becoming more prominent by the second and his left eyebrow twitched violently in fairly irregular intervals.

"What is it?" he hissed with his usual malevolence but sans his typical semantical elegance.

"You can't treat a poor teenage girl like that just because my close proximity makes you uneasy!" she burst out before she could consider the possible consequences of her words. Snape's eyes narrowed to the point where they were just black slits.

"I do not follow you."

Auriga gave him a predatory smile. "You will apologize to her."

For the first time since they had entered the room, Snape's features relaxed with something that might have been amusement had it appeared in someone less villainous.

"I am afraid I cannot fathom how you would fancy..."

She interrupted him, touching his elbow and looking deeply into his eyes.

"If you don't, I will not go to the Yule Ball with you."

Now Snape looked as if he was about to burst into undignified laughter. "My, my Auriga. How very..."

She interrupted him again. (The last person to interrupt him twice in the course of merely a few minutes had spent a week scrubbing cauldrons in the dungeons.) "I know you would not mind spending the ball standing sour-faced by the punch, but as you might remember with that supposedly brilliant mind of yours, there's a spell on that list of couples." She leaned forward to savour every little syllable of what she was about to say to him. "And unfortunately Hogwarts staff is known to trust girls over boys. So only the boy – you, in our case – is punished should the listed couple not attend the ball together. The girl, however, remains unscathed. Quite the gentleman, isn't he, our dear old Albus?"

She could see that Snape was fuming by the fact that his skin was now the color of marble and his hand was twitching into the general direction of his wand. To kill her, supposedly. He leaned down so that his breath was caressing... molesting the skin of her cheek.

"You will pay for this, Auriga Sinistra. I promise you by all your beloved stars in the sky that I will make you suffer."

Auriga smiled and found that she was enjoying this far too much. "Why, I am looking forward to it, Severus. Now go and do what you have to do before I change my mind."

Snape gave her a long dark look that strangely reminded her of a dog that was about to be punished but she just stared back in dignified silence (until a happy squeal escaped her lips, that was). He walked towards the girl whose name Auriga could not have remembered if her life depended on it and raised an eyebrow. The girl seemed to shrink into herself which added a few chins to the massive amount that was already there.

"I'm sorry," Snape said, his face devoid of any expression then turned toward Auriga who gave him an encouraging nod. "I was out of line," he continued from between gritted teeth, his hatred for the student, Auriga and the whole world blazing from his eyes. "Please forgive me."

The girl fainted.

That ball would be legendary, Auriga was sure.

to be continued -