Hard to Come By

Chapter 6

You did not expect such a wonderful surprise.

When you walk into the potions classroom, there in the very front where one lone desk used to be, there are two. To the left hand side, walking in, there is a small but heavy black desk. Neighboring it is Snape's bigger desk.

You lift your hand to your mouth, utterly shocked as you inspect it further. He has it set with stationary and a small potted ivy plant that sits happily on the left side of the desk.

You walk around the back of the desk and see there's plenty of drawer room. One was even big enough to fit your bag. You look at the stack of papers in the middle of your desk and realize it's the syllabuses.

You put the shock aside and quickly start to lay a paper in front of every open spot on the tables. When you finish, you stand at the front of the class and look over your work. Every spot had a syllabus, all neatly laid out.

Not too long after you're done, the man of the hour shows up. You can't help to contain your excitement at the desk, the feeling coming back all over again, "Professor Snape!" You exclaim as he walks in, "I love the desk. Thank you so much for accommodating!"

There's a shift in his eyes and he gives you a nod, "you're welcome Miss L/N." His eyes scan the room and see that you set the papers out like he asked of you.

He walks up behind his desk before taking a seat and you do the same. "The first class we have is a mix of first and second years. Shouldn't be too difficult, many of them have had me before," Professor Snape starts to inform you. "We have about 30 minutes before they are released from their dormitories. Do what you will in your free time, just do not leave the room," he instructs you and flips open a journal of his.

"Okay," you whisper quietly and pull out the advanced potions book and flip to the page you left off on. You're almost finished. As long as snape doesn't need your help with anything too crazy, then you should be able to finish it before the end of the day. All that fills the room is the quiet turning of pages and it's quite peaceful.

That is until the children file in.

"Oh looks like they're getting here early," you say gently and close the book for a moment. "Marvelous," Snape groans out next to you, obviously sarcastic.

You giggle a bit and imagine him doing this before every class. Complaining about having to teach it, even though he cares.

As the students start to file in you stand up and walk to the door to greet them all for Professor Snape. He never usually did this but the other professors do most the time and you thought it would make his class seem less scary, having a kind face greet the students.

You get a lot of smiles and waves back as they enter. Most the children are talking about their summer and all good things and everything is going well.

"I hate the dungeon bat's class," a blonde boy complains rather bitterly. He's one of the last few boys to enter the room so you take the chance to turn around, and with a flick of your wand, you send a sharp hard gust of wind to smack the boy in the back of his head.

He turns to your and sees your brows furrowed in an angry expression and your lips in a tight line. You slowly walk into the class room when you realize no more kids are coming, and close the door.

"Despite me being the smiling face that greeted you at the door," you continue not projecting your voice, but loud enough for everyone to hear, "don't say anything you wouldn't say to your professor himself in regards to your opinion of him. It's highly unprofessional," you turn your gaze to the boy, and see he's a Slytherin, "and low class." You turn and walk to your desk with your head held high, just like you used to when you were a student yourself. You see Professor Snape's eyebrows raise at you as he nods his head, approving your assertion of power on the boy and your ability to correct.

"All yours," you say nicely to Snape, only for him to hear, and take your seat at your desk, opening your book again.

This year Snape has decided to give his classes a diagnostic test right out the gate, just to see how much all of them know from previous years or experience. With the results it'll hopefully help you refine his lesson plans for the term.

You hand the students out their tests as Snape goes over the syllabus. Plenty of them groan in response to the amount of work that will need to be done, but Snape ignores their complaints and assures them that as long as they take comprehensive notes and do the assignments, they need not be concerned. And it's true. Professor Snape's class has quite a work load but the way he structures his lessons and how everything flows together makes it easy to understand.

When the students start their tests, Snape returns to his desk and takes a seat. You're not sure if you're excited for your first day or burnt out on the end of the book but you can't focus on reading it right now. Of course your are to remain quiet so you grab a smaller piece of parchment from your desk drawer and a quill and start to scribble a note. You fold it up like a little bird and sneakily charm it and watch and it silently flitters towards Professor Snape and land on his journal page.

His head lifts slightly when it lands next to his hand and looks over to you, curiously. You grin and give him a cheeky thumbs up before he unfolds and reads the note.

You did great! This is going to be a wonderful term ;)
Two thumbs up from me

He seems to bite the inside of his cheek then look over to you again and sees you're now holding up two thumbs. You hear a quick expel of breath,like a chuckle, which he covers up by a sigh.

He scribbled something down on the paper before folding it how you did and sending it fluttering back to me.

Such a dainty thing coming from Professor Snape is funny. You wonder if he passed notes like this during his school years. It stops gently on the page of your book and you quickly unfold the note.

Will your attitude remain this bright when you assist me in grading all these tests?

You side eye him and quickly scribble a response and send the paper fluttering.

Oh but of course professor. That's what I'm here for.

After reading the note he immediately places it in his desk drawer before pointing at the open book on you desk and throwing a look. You can all but hear him getting onto you for not doing your work. You think you've blown through this book pretty fast, he didn't have to be so rude about it.

You roll your eyes and scoff at him, rest your chin in your hand, following his instruction anyways.

You can feel his glare drilling holes in the side of you head but you can't find yourself caring. You know that writing notes back and forth isn't a top priority but he doesn't need to be treating you like a student.

*

Seeing Miss L/N smack the young Malfoy boy gave Severus a strange sense of pride, on top of that it was hilarious. Though his thoughts shouldn't stray as such, the way her face scrunched up in anger was indeed, might he say, adorable. She's got a fire to her, that girl.

Working with her may be a bit more difficult than he anticipated.

Then her little fluttering note. Compliments again. When he looked at her the sight made a chuckle slip, but he quickly recovered. Two thumbs up.

Severus thought of how to write her back, accept and thank her or ignore or deflect. He reminds her of the work that would be coming to her by the end of the day to try and dampen her spirit slightly. Keep things strictly professional, but she doesn't flinch. Instead she, of course, is more than happy to assist with the mind numbing task of grading papers.

His last option to cut off this conversation is to treat her somewhat like a student. The one thing she doesn't want to be seen as. He places her notes in a safe spot in his desk then gestures to the book that's been laying in front of her.

And despite what he warned her of in the past, she rolls her eyes and scoffs at him before eventually doing what she's been told.

What a little brat.