Professor Snape was pacing up and down the dungeon during Double Potions on Thursday. It was unnerving Gwen, her hands shaking as she added far too much asphodel to her cauldron. She was fairly sloppy at potions to begin with and she didn�t like the addition of the nervous jitters Snape was so aptly providing her.

Her mind was obviously elsewhere, aptly caught between two boys as the average sixteen year old mind usually is. Professor Snape noted the return of her hazy, daydreamy demeanor. He meant to snap her out of it by riding her in class.

He was breathing down her neck, she could feel the hairs prickling where he was staring at her. Her hand jerked sharply and she knocked a vile of foul smelling fluid on the floor. She sighed, this was not what she needed. She closed her eyes, trying to gather her composure and as she was about to grab a rag to clean up her mess she heard Snape whispering wickedly in her ear.

"Princess Guenivere would like someone else to clean up her mess for her perhaps?"

"I was about to get it professor." She said tersely. The students sitting around her pulled away reflexively; they had all seen this type of scene play out before. Gwen would open her mouth a little too far and Snape would lit into her something fierce.

"Your delay is going to ruin my dungeon floor."

"I don�t believe olive juice has any acidic properties professor and I don�t see how it could stain, it hasn�t been sitting there long enough. If you�ll let me clean it up now then it definitely won�t and we wouldn�t even have to have this discussion."

Snape�s deadly smirk fell and an even deadlier look came into his eyes. But Gwen was too busy pushing his buttons to notice that she already had him racing in the red. He reached a hand into his robes and pulled out his wand. The rest of the students gasped and pulled even further away. Gwen never broke eye contact with him. She was one of the few who didn�t fear him.

Snape pointed his wand at the spilled pile and whisked it away. His eyebrow arched. "For your impertinence Ms. LeFey, 20 points from Gryffindor. And for your continued attitude problem in this class, detention."

Gwen continued to stare him down until he finally broke away to lecture class on the proper administration of the potion they�d just made. When she finally sat back down upon her stool she had to wonder if all the trouble was worth it.

To be continued in Episode Twenty Three