Work to Do

"Umm... Mione?" came the nervous voice of Ron from behind Hermione's Potions journal. He always had that tone when he needed a favour. Sighing, Hermione delicately folded her reading material and looked sternly into Ronald Weasley's blue eyes. He gulped.

"Yes?" She had been enjoying a nice article on the collaboration of Charms and Potions in a recent study when he'd rudely disturbed her. No doubt to ask for something stupid.

He seemed to shrink on the spot under her gaze. "I was wondering... Snape left the syllabus for second years, and he said I'm supposed to explain the properties of Kappa skin..." Hermione definitely knew what was wrong.

"This is second year stuff, Ron. You don't know it? You did your NEWTs and OWLs!" Ron definitely looked like he regretted bothering her. "Go look in the textbook!"

Sweat seemed to drip from Ron's freckled forehead and trickle down his face to wet his robes. "Thing is, class starts at eight." Quivering on the spot, Ronald knew he was in for it. He didn't even know why he'd applied for the temporary position of Potions professor, out of all the jobs available. He absolutely hated Potions.

But it was for a good cause. He would suffer teaching and relearning from the damned Potions textbooks again just to be with his Mione. Harry was now settled with Ginny, busy starting his own little family. And Mum was nagging him to start his, being the only single Weasley left. If Mione married him, he would go back to the Hit Wizard job, and she could stay at home and raise the kids. No cats though. He had been ready for bed one night and found grotesque brown poop-like objects on his pillow. She'd have to give Snarks away or something.

Hermione, on the hand, was positively fuming. Ronald Bilius Weasley had bothered her reading, asked her a stupid question, expected help, and was now standing there, daydreaming about Quidditch, without a doubt. "RON!" she shouted, rousing him from his thoughts. "You're daydreaming – you're not even paying attention. Go do it yourself!" She stormed off, and Ron groaned.

He'd have to do some quick reading or bring the textbook into class.

In fact, it was the first class that the students of Hogwarts had ever had in which a teacher didn't know his or her material. The students were greeted with the sight of a redhead with a disarray of textbooks in front of him, looking extremely befuddled.

"Hello, I'm Professor Weasley, and I'm taking over Potions right now," he managed to belt out while avidly scanning the textbooks for anything concerning Kappas. Despite this, he noticed a hand sticking up in the rows of students. "Yes?"

"Where's Snape?" piped a voice, near the back.

Ron had heard some rumours floating around. Some said that Snape, the old greasy bat, was indeed a vampire who had skin problems after staying in the dungeons for too long. Lack of Vitamin D, they had said, whatever that meant. "He's on sick leave. Now turn to..." he glanced at his page, "page 115 to make an infusion and then an effusion of Kappa skin and Gillyweed."

Another hand, a rather excited one though, popped up. Ron pointed to it, and a girl's voice asked, "Isn't Kappa skin and Gillyweed just a base? What are we going to do with it?"

Oh boy. Think, Ronald, think!

That isn't my job! Hermione is the one who thinks around here!

Well, Her-my-on-ee isn't here right now. It can't be that hard, can it?

Oh, shut up.

"We're... going to use the base next lesson." Well, at least he'd defused a potential problem. Now all he had to do was to find what they could make with the base.

The rest of the class went off quietly as Ron congratulated himself for passing the first ten minutes without chaos. However, there was always bound to be destruction by some second year. There was a Neville in each year, after all.

An explosion caused a cauldron to ricochet off the walls, and the superhot pewter burned through the teacher's mahogany bench. Ron barely stifled a scared squeak. The culprit, a small dirty blond boy named Oliver Treadway, Gryffindor, was covered in a muddy glop that seemed to be multiplying on his skin.

With surprising intelligence, Ron extinguished the fire, and turned to the boy. "It's okay."

But what he did next was extremely stupid. The kitten watching in the rafters wanted to slap his own forehead with his paw and also scratch the 'teacher'. "Evanesco," muttered Ron, and the kitten, as well as the rest of the class, watched in unveiled horror as the scene unfolded.

It was one of the basic rules of Potions safety that most Potion accidents that ended up on skin could not be cleaned with an 'Evanesco', especially dried Kappa skin used as a Potion ingredient, thought Severus. The spell reacted violently with the Kappa skin, and if the Evanesco was strong enough, it could be explosive.

Ronald Weasley had somehow missed the bolded letters stating, "Never Evanesco Kappa Skins."

As soon as the spell hit the muddy boy, a wave of energy pulsed out, throwing Ron into the dungeon wall, rendering him unconscious. Oliver, however, was untouched, looking extremely frightened, with a pink tint in his cheeks.

Even Severus could smell it from the rafters. The boy had emptied his bowels in fright. Traipsing across the rafters, he headed in the direction of the Infirmary. The students were probably too stupid to get Madam Pomfrey, and Ronald Weasley, their teacher, was unconscious.

The dunderheads couldn't get worse this year.

---

Ron looked up, groaning, his eyes greeting a pair of onyx ones. He screamed.

"Close your gaping mouth, Mr. Weasley," growled Snape. "You'll wake up the other students." Ron promptly clamped his mouth shut.

"Wh... What are you doing here, Snape?" he stuttered, finally noticing the hawk on Snape's shoulder.

Severus Snape felt like strangling the boy. He had just blown himself across a classroom, endangering a class full of students, got Hogwarts into a load of trouble, and had the nerve to ask why he was here. "You did something extremely reckless and stupid today. The Board of Governors will be coming up in the next few weeks."

Severus Snape had decided to visit the Infirmary to see if the rumours were true. A teacher had forgotten something so basic that a second year knew – and had nearly killed himself. But this was Weasley, Snape corrected himself, and you could never expect a Weasley to remember anything but Quidditch.

He didn't understand why Albus had chosen to hire Weasley out of all the people applying for the job. Lucius and the rest of the Board would storm in soon, disrupting lessons and all that, trying to destroy Dumbledore's credibility.

Which reminded him – he would have to deal with Lucius' snooping in Hogwarts. Ever since Draco had wandered off, maintaining his neutrality (he was a Slytherin indeed), Lucius had to do everything himself.

And plus, Severus needed to exact his own personal revenge. He was the one who had helped find the information for the Dark Lord to create the curse that he and Hermione were under. Perhaps with some persuasion, he would hand over some tidbit of information.

By this time, Ron realized Snape was, oddly, spacing off. "Snape?" he asked curiously, waving his hand in front of his face.

Severus snapped out of his thoughts and glared at the boy. "That's Professor Snape to you, Mr. Weasley. I'm the one who is the Potions master after all." And with that, he swept out of the ward, leaving a disgruntled Ron ready to spew curses.

---

Hermione found herself days later, looking over an old Charms tome, with the kitten sprawled over her lap. He seemed to be napping, but she could never be sure. Severus was an ex-spy, and like Moody said, he always held constant vigilance.

Her fingers ran through his fur, stroking him like she used to do with Crooks, and almost like Crooks, he gave a contented purr, nudging his small head against her hand.

Severus, though enjoying this moment, was worried about other things. Lucius Malfoy was to be in Hogwarts soon, along with his chuffed and well-bribed board members. One mishap, one accident, and they would soon hound Albus to sack the teacher and somehow step down from his position. So far, Lucius hadn't succeeded into taking down the old codger. But Malfoys always had some sort of trick up their sleeve.

Lucius would especially be looking out for Hermione's misdeeds. He had always had some sort of vendetta against her, probably because she was Muggle-born and had always bested Draco. Draco had fallen from grace and was probably in hiding by now – word would have gotten back to the Dark Lord that he had lost a potential follower and backer.

He could hear her sigh desolately. "I should've told Ron the properties of Kappa skin when he asked, Severus. Then he wouldn't be in the Infirmary right now and the Board coming down on us. They're going to fire Ron for sure."

His feline head turned to her face, slate eyes scanning her expression. Perhaps he had a little work to do before the Board came. A little something concerning a dunderheaded Weasley.

---

"Luciusss?" hissed a sibilant, cold voice in the dark corner of a room.

"Yes, milord?" Platinum blond hair down, Lucius Malfoy bowed in front of Lord Voldemort, weak from his last round of Cruciatus.

The snake-man seemed pleased about something, as he gave a rather contented hiss. "You will be visiting Hogwartsss ssoon, I believe. Sssee how our fellow Sssnape is doing. I would like to ssee the fruitss of my success."

"Yes milord." With that, Lucius Malfoy Disapparated from the spot and found himself in a regal conference room, with a table of older, extravagant-looking wizards awaited him.

Lucius' tight lips formed a twisted smirk as he faced the grim-faced wizards. "Gentlemen, I believe we have work to do."