I want you by my side.

“I just don’t understand why you would make it so complicated!” said Hermione from the corner in her over cushioned  arm chair.

Three heads turned and looked at her.

“Make what so complicated?” said Harry.

“The ending of one Professor Severus Snape, JD.” Hermione returned.

“And how do you suppose I make it less complicated, Hermione,” Harry asked.

“Well it’s simple, isn’t it? You poison his afternoon tea, you tamper with his car, you get him alone and inject an air bubble directly into his heart. Not difficult!” Hermione said matter-of-factly.

Harry, Dean, and Theo looked at her, dumbfounded. 

“What? Really. You want someone dead, you knock on their door, they answer, you shoot them! Easy.” To her credit, Hermione said this with a straight face.

“I don’t want to go to prison for murder, Hermione, I just wish that the man weren’t so infuriating!” Harry exclaimed.

“Maybe you should be more careful what you wish for, Harry,” Hermione responded.

Theo stared at Hermione and hesitated for just a moment before saying, “Hermione, sometimes I really forget to make notes not to anger you.”

Hermione scoffed, “As if I am at all dangerous., Theo!”

Theo just shook his head and wandered into the kitchen.

It was pouring. Of course it was. How could he have expected any different?

He wanted a smoke, though, and he was bloody well going to have one.

Just as he lit the cigarette, he heard the footsteps.

Light, almost silent, but decidedly behind him and walking directly towards him.

Harry sighed and took a drag, forcing himself to relax into it.

“Potter,” said the voice belonging to the footsteps: his boss.

“Professor Snape,” he responded.

“Those things will kill you, you know,” Snape informed him.

“So will alcohol and fast cars. Think anyone stops doing things with those?” Harry returned.

Snape hesitated for just a moment. “Could I bum one from you?” he inquired.

Harry silently held out the pack, then flicked his lighter under the other man’s cigarette.

“Hypocrite,” he accused.

“You saw the freshmen, Potter. And we all have our vices for dealing with the terror of people.” Snape rejoined.

“I’ve been your TA for six months, Snape. They are far more likely to come out of this scarred than you.” Harry said.

“Vices, Potter, are what keep good teachers sane, and good students in fear.” his boss replied.

“And yours is, Professor?”Harry asked.

“Stealing cigarettes off my Teaching Assistant. Now come on, we can’t catch them being late if we aren’t there ourselves.” Snape snapped back.

In which Terry turns the tables

“But there are just too many of them…” Terry was going on for the third time.

“Tough. Deal with it.” Said a frustrated and amused Hannah.

“But… Seventeen! And all of them married. And my mother there, hovering about, introducing me to all of her single friends. Who ‘just happen’ to be my age. Last year she even included single men!” he looked comically distressed.

“So don’t go. Not my funeral. But didn’t you say that all of the Boots have terrible tempers? Something about shoe jokes…” Hannah couldn’t help giggling.

Terry’s mother had called with a spur of the moment invitation to a family party, to celebrate his eldest sister’s engagement. She’d invited the whole family, and what sounded like half the city.

The trouble with it was that Terry was the only member of his immediate family who was not married or seriously involved with someone.

He groaned loudly. “Not funny, Abbott. Horrendously unfunny. Grievously sinful toward the very nature of funny.”

“Oh, it is. You have no idea how much. Just go, Terry, it won’t be as bad as all that!”

When she looked up from her tea, Terry was grinning at her deviously.

‘Oh no.’ her brain cried, but she calmly ate toast and waited to shoot his argument down.

“Fine.”

Well, this was odd. Hannah narrowed her eyes. “Fine?”

“Yes. Fine.” he paused to let her have a moment of victory before… “But if I’m going, you’re coming with me, Abbott. Come on, up, go get dressed. There will be plenty of food there.”

Hannah sat there with toast already in her mouth and stared as he left the room.

“But…” she paused to swallow. “I don’t wan-“

“Tough. Deal with it.” Terry cut her off, calling out from his bedroom.