LIGHT ME UP, ginny weasley.

↳ ooxvii

Snape's beady eyes turned to Effie, who was internally glad she faked the whole thing and nursed her arm. (Bloody hell, she should be an actress.) "Peeves?" Snape said softly, staring at the egg in Filch's hands. "But Peeves couldn't get into my office. . . "

"This egg was in your office, Professor?"

"I said it was mine, Filch!" Effie snapped again, before wincing for real this time.

"Of course not," Snape snapped. "I heard banging and wailing—"

"Yes, Professor, that was the egg—"

"The banging was me," Effie insisted, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. "Haven't you heard a human fall down the stairs before?"

"—I was coming to investigate—"

"—Peeves threw them, Professor—"

"—and when I passed my office, I saw that the torches were lit and a cupboard door was ajar! Somebody has been searching it!"

"But Peeves couldn't—"

"I know he couldn't, Filch!" Snape snapped again. "I seal my office with a spell none but a wizard could break!" Snape looked up the stairs, and then down into the corridor below, at Effie. "What were you doing out this late, Stark?"

"I was in the library, professor," She says softly, gingerly pulling out the latest copy of his permit for her to get in the Restricted Section. Well, she was on her way to the library, so. . . "Trying to figure out what the egg could want. I was on my way back to the Slytherin dorm when Peeves pushed me down." For show, she brandished her wound.

Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.

Snape stopped talking very abruptly. He, Effie, and Filch both looked down at the foot of the stairs. Mad-Eye Moody limped into sight through the narrow gap between their heads. Moody was wearing his old traveling cloak over his nightshirt and leaning on his staff as usual.

"Pajama party, is it?" he growled up the stairs.

"Professor Snape and I heard noises, Professor," Filch said at once. "Peeves the Poltergeist, throwing things around as usual, and victimizing students, and then Professor Snape discovered that someone had broken into his off—"

Effie inhaled for patience, kinda dying here, isn't anyone going to dismiss me to the hospital wing or. . . ? Wait—Wait, if Moody wasn't Moody, and someone ransacked Snape's office. . . then—then what if—

"Shut up!" Snape hissed to Filch.

"Did I hear that correctly, Snape?" Moody asked slowly. "Someone broke into your office?"

"It is unimportant," Snape said coldly.

"On the contrary," Moody growls, "it is very important. Who'd want to break into your office?"

"A student, I daresay," Snape said. Potter again, probably, Effie thinks. It's always been Potter. "It has happened before. Potion ingredients have gone missing from my private store cupboard. . . students attempting illicit mixtures, no doubt. . . "