Courage {Neville Longbottom} (ON HOLD)

Chapter Twenty Nine

Severus was already in a foul mood due to the fact that he had been selected next for an observation by Umbridge. He wasn't overly fond of the staff at Hogwarts, normally keeping to himself unless the interaction was required, but at least he could say that he respected the majority of his colleagues. When it came to Dolores, she stood no chance. He tolerated her for the sake of remaining professional, but like the other teachers, he could not stand the woman's voice or her constant interrupting. She was also a complete eye sore with the amount of pink that she layered on her body as if one pink garment wasn't enough.

He wasn't happy, but the smirk playing on Kefira's face really placed him in a sour mood as she took to her seat before looking away and tending to the Longbottom boy beside her. He thought about just giving the boy detention, knowing that it wiped the smirk right off her face in an instant. Serving her own detentions didn't seem to bother her much anymore and she was incredibly good at creating potions that the punishments didn't even last long. But before he could think of giving Neville a detention for attempting to fight Draco earlier, he watched as Umbridge began to write things down without him even speaking.

"You will notice," he began, "that we have a guest with us today. "

He gestured towards the pink mess in the corner that held her clipboard in place while looking at the class with a smile. The majority of the students did not smile back in her direction, only several students including Draco and his goonies. The smirk on Kefira's face faded and a scowl replaced her expression much like the others in the room that did not want her to be there. 

 "We are continuing with our Strengthening Solution today. You will find your mixtures as you left them last lesson; if correctly made they should have matured well over the weekend..."

He instructed them to collect their mixtures and proceed with the solution before his day in hell began with the woman's obnoxious questions. 

Kefira saw the fretful look on Neville's face as he looked over his mixture with a shake of his head. "Great, I completely screwed it up," he muttered to himself bitterly. "Of all the days to get it wrong. Snape already sees me as being incompetent-"

"Neville, don't talk like that," Kefira told him. "Come on now, you're far from incompetent, you just made a mistake last class. It's easily fixable, I promise."

He was quiet for a moment, neither one of them moving to collect their ingredients for the lesson before he finally looked over at her.

"You heard what he said, didn't you?" He whispered to her. "What he said about people in the ward-"

"Nevs, you know that's not true," Kefira responded in a low voice. "You know that better than anyone else. Malfoy is just a git and doesn't have the slightest clue of what he's talking about. You know your parents aren't like that...they're beautiful people. Trust me, I can say that, I've met them."

Finally, a small smile appeared on his face before he placed his hand over hers and gave it a squeeze to offer himself a bit more comfort. However, the two were completely unaware that Umbridge's attention had left Professor Snape and was focused on them holding hands.

"Everything will be okay, Neville," Kefira reassured him. "Let's just get our things and get started. We don't want to give any reason for Professor Snape to become upset with us, especially today."

The two worked diligently, however, their focus changed later on in the class as Umbridge began moving about in the room. The majority of students looked up from what they were doing to watch what the woman would do.