Chapter 8:

Authoress: Dodge-This

Based on Idea By: PookaSeraph

Disclaimer: I own little to none of this, all credit goes to JK and WB.

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She walked forward and knocked on the door to his office.

"Come in, Miss Granger."

"Hello professor," she stifled a yawn, "Just wondering, is it supposed to be Wednesday?"

"We have some elves on the problem, they're dusting out the calendar room, a minor mishap, it will be better soon."

Hermione blinked. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

Dumbledore chuckled and offered a sherbert lemon to Hermione, at her silent refusal, he continued. "Down in the dungeons, actually, not far from your rooms, there is a calendar room. It would appear that the house elves have missed cleaning it for quite some time." He popped a sweet in his mouth. "Hogwarts does not take kindly to lax cleaning. Due to this we have had three Wednesdays this week."

Hermione stuttered, "But, how is that even physically possible?" She shook her head and snagged a sweet to calm herself before continuing. "I mean, just because the school says so?"

Dumbledore raised one white eyebrow. "Is it really that surprising? The school was built ages ago, many of its passages and powers have been long forgotten." He gently waved a hand, "It docent matter anyway. To make up for it we will be having three Thursdays, Fridays, and so on, until this is all sorted out. The Duke of Denby is actually who brought it to my attention. Was having a terrible time with his hair piece."

Hermione just nodded slowly, dazed.

Dumbledore settled into his chair. "Also, now that you have had some time to get used to your unexpected position, I just wanted to have a chat, make sure you were getting along well."

Hermione sat straighter, the comfort of something with a logical answer was setting her at ease. "The first few days were slightly scattered, scrambling to get lesson plans together. After that though, it all settled down. I'm not having much of any trouble with the students. I had expected at least some issues to come from the Slytherin seventh years."

Dumbledore nodded. I informed Draco of the situation. Because of his father's inclusion in the whole de-aging debacle, he knew much sooner than many others." He combed through his beard and sat back. "I asked him to help keep the Slytherins in line"

Hermione nodded, "That makes sense."

Dumbledore nodded, "And considering that Draco is 'in charge' of Slytherin now, much as his father was in his age, they are doing all they can to keep things settled." Fawkes yawned and awoke as the Sun peaked over the horizon. "Breakfast will be on soon. Unless there is anything you wish to discuss, I will leave you to it."

Hermione thought for a second. "You said before that my welcoming party was all right. I was considering making it possibly a monthly occasion, would that be all right?"

"As I said before, as long as students are in bed by curfew and there is no excessive rule breaking going on, it is perfectly all right."

She nodded, "And the Weasleys mentioned what they referred to as the 'I shall not shag the students' agreement..." she trailed off, hoping that Dumbledore would pick up without question.

"That was implemented many years ago, for obvious reasons. Due to the extenuating circumstances leading to your employment, I hardly think it would be fair to deprive you of social interaction that would be perfectly acceptable were you a student." He paused, and continued in a serious tone, "I do ask you to keep in mind that you are foremost their teacher, grade them fairly, and do not make me regret placing you in this position."

Hermione shook her head, "I simply wished to make sure...that is, that any, um, relationships..." she came to a halt trying to word her sentence well.

Dumbledore leaned back, eyes twinkling, "Yes, your relationship with Severus is perfectly alright. Beneficial even." He ignored the rising redness in her face as he continued. "With the looming threat of Voldemort removed, as well as the influence of James, Remus, Sirius...and Peter, Severus is becoming quite a different man," he finished, smiling.

Hermione got to her feet staring at the floor, "Well, thank you, Headmaster, I'll be getting to breakfast then."

"Please, call me Albus," he ushered her to the door.

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Hermione took a slightly meandering route to the Great Hall, for time to think, as well as time to let her face lose the lovely rose colour. She arrived just as the food appeared on the table. She settled into her seat, and opted for tea over her usual coffee, she had already toasted her nerves talking to Albus today.

"You're looking particularly pensive 'Mione, what gives?" Queried Bill. Hermione flinched, that voice, that name, it brought Ron flooding back. She shook it off, sipping tea.

Waiting for the perfect timing, she spoke, "Apparently I can shag the students." It took a moment before the desired effect set in. Charlie raggedly tried to dislodge some toast from his throat as Bill spilt scalding tea down his trousers.

"Hot! Hot!" Bill jumped to his feet and began to dance around, fanning his hands at the affected area. Felling guilty, Hermione spelled him cool and dry, before checking on Charlie's state.

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Severus watched as Hermione entered the room. She was looking distracted and thoughtful as she took her regular chair. One of the Wesley prats said something, not important, or so he thought.

With his eyes tracked on her face, he caught the next words to roll off her tongue, "Apparently I can shag the students." He blinked and took a bite of toast, watching the mayhem her words caused unfold at the Head Table.

As Hermione took pity on Bill with Severus looking on, there was one thing going through his mind. 'Well that's interesting.'

Dumbledore strode in fashionably late. Though not looking particularly fashionable. Horrid mauve ensemble. Severus shook his head and turned his attention to his eggs before Dumbledore took center stage and made an announcement."

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Dumbledore cleared his throat, and Hermione looked on from where she had just finished soothing Bill. "As you may or may not have noticed, the past few days have been Wednesday. This is not the natural order of things, though not particularly problematic. This little mix up has been addressed, and in order to make up for it, there will be a slight adjustment in the schedule." He stopped to clear his throat. "Because there were three Wednesdays this week, today is essentially Friday. So for today, you will follow a Wednesday schedule, tomorrow and the day after will be off, as for your weekend, to be followed by three days of Thursday schedule, so on and so forth, with appropriate breaks for weekends, until we are back to the natural order of things.

"In addition, next weekend will be our first Hogsmeade weekend, for third years and up." A cheer went up from the crowd of students. Dumbledore smiled. "And I expect that there will be Quidditch tryouts for this year's teams, so be prepared for that." Another loud cheer came up from the crowd. "So, on that note, enjoy your breakfast."

Bill and Charlie rounded in on Hermione, who cringed. Bill started in on her, "Firstly, that was mean," he said, gesturing to his lap. "Secondly, what do you mean you can shag the students?"

"Yeah!" Offered Charlie. Bill glared.

"Well," Hermione started, "I went to talk to the Headmaster this morning, he wanted to check up on how I was dealing. The subject of the 'don't shag the students' agreement came up, and he said the reason that I hadn't signed one was because he didn't want to deprive me of social interaction this year just because I'm a professor." She left out how he had essentially supported a relationship between her and Severus.

"Oh, if only..." Charlie said, staring over the crowd of students. Both Hermione and Bill slapped him on the head. "What?"

"You're old!" Hermione said. Charlie pretended to look wounded.

"Hermione! Dear!" Charlie threw an arm over her shoulder, "Why should age interfere with true love?"

She grabbed his arm and tossed it off, "Because it's illegal and immoral, that's why." She sipped her tea.

Charlie scowled, took his wounded pride, and poked at his bacon.

Bill grinned, "If it helps, he's probably only seventeen in terms of maturity." Hermione grinned.

"I heard that." Charlie said hautily to his bacon.

Hermione laughed and turned to jam a muffin. She was soon interrupted by a flutter of wings. She looked up to be greeted by Pie, holding a white carnation gently in his beak.

"What do you have for me?" She took the flower and smelled it, before glancing at both the flower and Pie for an accompanying note. There was none.

She glanced at both Bill and Charlie, who looked genuinely surprised, then looked down the Slytherin table, to one figure.

Severus was looking quite fixedly at his food. Hermione looked back to the flower, brought it up to her face, and again, sniffed the white carnation.

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Authoresses Notes:

Jeeze! I give in, I'll update, just leave me alone! Just kidding, though it was the constant pestering for updates that has caused me to FINALLY write another chapter to this. Given that I haven't written for this story in over a year and quite a few months, please excuse a change in writing and me totally forgetting where I was going.

In addition, I totally lost the class schedules I had planned out for Hermione, Snape, and Ginny, and I am way too lazy to do it over, so I'm just going to be winging it, please accept that people just happen to wind up where they are whenever they are.

And, at long last, here are the REVIEW REPLYS!

wingsrookie: I do feel quite chastened, your review, in addition to a rather hostile review on another of my fics, in addition to the fact that it's summer and I'm quite bored, are what finally kickstarted me. Don't hold your breath on another update too soon though.

Yuki: Not totally abandoned, just kicked out on the street for a while. I'm glad you like my Snape, I use the fact that he skipped those 20 years to do whatever I wanted with his personality.

Makalani Astral: I would assume that Draco would have told Lucy what had happened, tho thanks for the reminder I'll cover that some time.

Maethoriell: Yeah, I hate Ron. Love Rupert, Hate Ron.

ANGRY: Hee, yeah I killed Ron.

Snape-ette: I've only actually seen the first one. I stand firm in my belief that the other 2 don't exist.

barghorse: I'm glad that you're diggin the different plot. As for the Hermione Ron pair. Just give it a good thinking. Hermione is the smarted kid around, and Ron is the most ignorant, not to mention hot tempered, they just arrant a good match in my opinion.

Grey Grim: I have book 3 Brit version, so I do have some exposure to the language, I try to keep up.

To all others, I thank you so much, it was the straws that broke the camel's back to get me to update this story.