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The Toad’s Shadow

Chapter Four

Snape, after returning his lab back to perfectly cleaned and organized, retired to his private chambers. Three hours later, the clock only moments away from striking five, he was lying wide awake in his bed. He couldn’t get her out of his head. He had seen her almost every day for seven years, but had never paid her much attention. She had been a little attractive in school, but her reclusive tendencies drove away many Slytherin guys; to his knowledge, she hadn’t dated anyone while at school.

Yes, she had been attractive in school, if you were a hormonal teenage boy; so where did the woman who had just been in his office come from?

Snape rolled out of bed just as the clock rang out five o’clock in the morning, convinced that sleep would forsake him, and rose. The second year Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors would have an impossible pop quiz that morning.

---

Sicily buried her head under her pillow to escape the first faint rays of sunlight. She sighed contently, snuggling deeper into her warm bed. She pulled her head out from under the pillow, thinking that she really did owe Professor Snape something. She opened her eyes and rolled onto her chest, gazing through the windows into the lake. She caught a glimpse of the giant squid propelling itself through the deepest region of the lake, no doubt searching for breakfast. Sicily decided that since she didn’t know very much of anything about the man, her simple “thank you” she had given him last night would be enough. She pulled the covers a little higher, and drifted back to sleep.

---

That morning, after writing a five page long pop quiz for his second year class, Snape sat at breakfast, snarling at the Daily Prophet’s front page. He found the article detailing Umbridge’s “instant success” appalling. McGonagall had practically thrown it into his lap the moment he had sat down.

Snape found it odd, yet not surprising, that the praise and acclamations, though completely off-the-mark, went completely to Umbridge, with no mention at all of Madame Sicily being at Hogwarts.

The woman who, apparently to the Ministry, did not exist, was once again receiving her orders from the toad-like witch. Sicily didn’t seem near as pleased as the Ministry, the Minister and Umbridge did; her icy cold glare had returned, replacing the warm energy that had been radiating from her only moments before. Snape strained to hear Umbridge’s words over the clamor of the Great Hall as it began to fill with students.

“I suppose I’ll just have to begin my inspections, though you have still failed to retrieve all the files I asked of you.”

“I apologize, Dolores,” Sicily said coldly, an eyebrow raised as if in challenge for Umbridge to continue to berate her. Umbridge did not.

Sicily gave the woman a curt nod, which was more like an irritating twitch, and spun on her heels, stomping loudly from the room.

---

The next week and a half was horrible for Sicily. If she had made any positive connections with any of the faculty at Hogwarts, Educational Decree Twenty-three had utterly destroyed them.

Trelawney scurried out of her path, looking terrified and more bug-eyed than usual every time their paths crossed. Sprout and McGonagall were actually openly hostile to her. Flitwick, who had at least been cordial at first, had suddenly taken to making excuses to leave every time she entered the staff room. The rest of the staff simply continued to give her the cold shoulder.

All, except Professor Snape; the man seemed to be following her when he wasn’t teaching. Perhaps it was just mere coincidence that their paths were continually merging with one another. Then again, Sicily had been in the Ministry too long to put too much stock in mere coincidences anymore.

That morning, Umbridge had asked her to accompany her to that day’s classroom audit. Sicily walked three steps behind the toad to the dungeons, directly into Professor Snape’s classroom. The man was sitting behind his desk, hardly glancing up as the two women strode in. Umbridge took a seat in the back of the classroom, and Sicily wandered towards the darkest corner, which, unfortunately, was directly behind Snape’s desk.

---

Snape felt the edge of the woman’s robes sweep over his boots as she silently faded into the darkness; she almost succeeded, for she was decked solely in black.

He didn’t like feeling as if he were surrounded, but he only took a deep breath, steeling his nerves for what he was sure was to be one of the worst classes in his career.

---

“You will notice that we have a guest with us today,” Snape said in a low and irritated voice.

Sicily’s head jerked around to stare at his back; once again, she had been forgotten in her little, dark corner, which was exactly what she had wanted. She watched him motion to the dim corner of the dungeon, where Umbridge sat, balancing her clipboard on her knee.

“We are continuing with our Strengthening Solutions today. You will find your mixtures as you left them last lesson; if correctly made they should have matured well over the weekend- instructions--” He waved his wand again. “--on the board. Carry on.”

To Sicily’s relief, Umbridge spent the first half hour of the lesson making notes silently in her corner, allowing the class to proceed as usual. It seemed that Snape was doing his best to ignore her presence as much as possible as he swept among the students.

Sicily sucked in breath when she saw Umbridge rise from her seat and begin making her way towards the professor, who was hovering over a Gryffindor’s cauldron. “Bloody hell... no...” she whispered, knowing how harsh Umbridge could be during her audits.

“Well, the class seems fairly advanced for their level,” Sicily heard Umbridge say. She closed her eyes, holding her breath, hoping that the woman would stop with that poor-excuse of a compliment. “Though I would question whether it is advisable to teach them a potion like the Strengthening Solution. I think the Ministry would prefer it if that was removed from the syllabus.” Sicily let out a low moan and opened her eyes.

She watched as Snape slowly straightened upright, suddenly towering over Umbridge. Sicily could tell the man was resisting the urge to curse the woman on the spot; she knew, because she had seen the same expression on her own face so many times before.

“Now... how long have you been teaching at Hogwarts?”

Sicily’s nostrils flared; Umbridge knew the answer to that! What had been the point of Sicily tracking down all those files from the library archives if Umbridge hadn’t even looked at them?

“Fourteen years,” Snape said, his expression unreadable.

“You applied first for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, I believe?”

Sicily began resisting the urge to leap from her shadows and strangle the woman she now, though unwillingly, called “boss.”

“Yes,” Snape said quietly.

“But you were unsuccessful?”

Sicily rolled her eyes as she heard Snape reply, “Obviously.”

Umbridge began to scribble more notes on her clipboard. Sicily wanted nothing more than to shove the clipboard and her notes down the woman’s throat; Umbridge wasn’t auditing, she was beginning to humiliate Snape in front of his class, and in Sicily’s book, that was going too far.

“And you applied regularly for the Defense against the Dark Arts post since you first joined the school, I believe?” Okay, so maybe Umbridge had read Sicily’s reports, yet that fact did not cool Sicily’s rising temper.

“Yes,” Snape said quietly, barely moving his lips, looking extremely angry. Sicily stepped from her shadowy corner, moving towards them, unaware of her attentions as her fingers brushed the silver handle of her wand; Umbridge was obviously enjoying torturing the man. She had seen the same expression on the toad’s face when she delivered the Minister’s orders stating Sicily’s “promotion” to Umbridge’s understudy and colleague- the orders that cost Sicily the majority of the power she had worked so hard to gain. And Sicily was going to start to thunder over Umbridge’s happy parade of power if it continued much further.

“Do you have any idea why Dumbledore has consistently refused to appoint you?” asked Umbridge, her quill poised over her notes.

“I suggest you ask him,” Snape answered jerkily.

“Oh I shall,” replied Umbridge in turn with her fake, sweet smile.

“I suppose this is relevant?” Snape asked, his black eyes narrowed; he was now aware that Madame Sicily had now moved from the corner to only inches behind his left shoulder.

“Oh yes,” Umbridge said. “Yes, the Ministry wants a thorough understanding of teacher’s - er - backgrounds.”

Snape’s eyes had become mere slits, and Sicily caught the man’s fingers twitch, as if itching for his wand. Sicily stepped beside him, chin tilted up defiantly. If Umbridge was going to be cursed, it was going to be she who threw the spell.

“Dolores, enough,” she hissed.

Umbridge had begun to open her mouth to ask another question, but instead, her jaw hung open loosely as she turned to Madame Sicily.

“Excuse me?” she asked sweetly.

“Enough,” Sicily repeated, well aware that all eyes, including those of the students, were now firmly on her; she tried to not tremble as she wondered why she had ever stepped out of her hidden corner and spoken. “His file from the school’s archives had perfectly detailed the answers to all of those questions. And you also had my summary of the files, also detailing those same facts. You, and the Ministry, already have a thorough understanding of Professor Snape’s backgrounds, so I’m sorry to point out, Dolores, that you aren’t being entirely objective in your auditing, and if you had conducted your previous audits in this same manner, it would be my advice that you would need to audit those professors again. I was also under the impression that while the Ministry does indeed want a background check on all teachers and other staff here at Hogwarts, the Ministry was wanting these audits to be conducted in order to evaluate the lessons and curriculums.”

Silence filled the room as everyone waited with bated breath to witness Umbridge’s reaction. The woman continued to stare at Madame Sicily for a few more moments, then turned away in a huff, and began questioning a Slytherin girl about the lessons.

Sicily retreated back to her dark corner, not meeting Snape’s gaze as she sank back into her hiding place and safe haven.