Breathe. Just breathe. You've done retail before, Johnson, this is nothing different. Just selling things to people. People that are usually idiots. Nothing that you haven't done before. Except your boss is Snape!

Taking her own advice, Angelina paused on the path to slowly inhale and exhale a few times before continuing on the winding path. Hyacinth Elixirs seemed to be coming up awfully quick today and Angie couldn't help but wonder if it was just her nerves eating away at the path. She'd been a little off all day, stumbling all through rehearsal and spilling tea all over her mother, although it had made her shut her gob which was an improvement from the sermon she'd been receiving on the evils of Divination. It had initially amused Angelina that her Muggle mother shared the same opinion of Divination as many of the wizards she knew, then after twenty minutes it had been much less titillating. Now, she was standing in front of a not-as-cute-as-she-remembered building.

Stopping in in front of the entrance, Angelina paused again to breathe and shake off her jitters. They wouldn't do her any good. Think of it like a performance or a Quidditch game. Don't hesitate, don't overthink, and don't be intimidated. Putting on her game face, Angelina entered the shop.

Seeing no one in the shop, Angelina entered and closed the door behind her and made her way towards the back room, "Mister Snape?"

Severus smirked to hear tentative footsteps heading towards the back. "Indeed, Miss Johnson." He stepped out in front of the door just as she got there, forcing a scowl upon his face. "You're only ten minutes early. When one is early, it would perhaps do to knock. You might startle someone otherwise."

Angelina quirked an eyebrow, her nervousness forgotten in the thrill of a verbal spar, "If I startled you, Mister Snape, than either my skills have improved or yours have lessened. Besides, it's a shop. Be prepared for visitors, it does tend to happen."

Moving to the front counter, Angelina inspected her new domain, rather liking the old-fashioned register, "What are my responsibilities? Is there anything I should do while I am not occupied with customers? Shelving to be done or something?"

Snape smirked and quirked an eyebrow. This would be interesting, to say the least.

"Well, as much as I'm sure you were hoping to have a job where you would merely talk to the two or three people who come in for two or three minutes each, I'm afraid you are going to have other responsibilities. You may start today by studying the potions I have regularly on stock, what they do, what the main active ingredient is. It's all in this book." His smirk grew as he pulled a large, dusty tome from the counter. "Let me know when you're done so that I can quiz you."

He watched as her eyes grew wide, and looked at him in shock. "A small jest, Miss Johnson. Familiarize yourself with the shop. You'll be asked to keep records of what we're getting low on. If the potions have an expiry date, let me know a week before they expire so that I may brew more. I'll also ask that you keep the shop neat. If I finish potions, yes, I'll have you place them on the shelves. Now, was that too much information at once? Should I repeat myself and enunciate more clearly?"

"As much as I would love to listen to your dulcet tones all day, Mister Snape, I believe I have some work to do," she retorted and began inspecting the shelves, straightening out vials as she noted the way they were categorized. First by usage, then alphabetically, the vials were then arranged by expiration date, nothing too mind boggling. She had half-expected Snape to have some archaic system that made sense only to Potions Masters, this practical approach was a relief.

Noticing that her employer had not retreated back to his lair but continued to watch her, Angelina turned to confront him. She hated being watched while she learned or studied something. And people looking over her shoulder. Actually, hovering in general just bothered her. "Don't you have work to be doing?"

"I need to ensure you're not going to screw everything up, Miss Johnson. Yours is the house that produced Neville Longbottom, after all. Even the Hufflepuffs were better at Potions than him. You could be cut from the same cloth." He smirked, knowing that he was annoying her, and enjoying it immensely, "And, as your boss, I have every right to ensure you're not going to turn my shop arse about face. Yet if you are so certain that you do not need any assistance, keep your ear out, and do not make any mistakes." With that ominous warning, he swept to the back, his robes billowing behind him. He smiled as he entered the back room. She was going to be amusing to work with. Very amusing, indeed.

Neville Longbottom, indeed. I've never melted a cauldron in my life and he bloody well knows it.

Angelina scowled and turned away from the shelves, placing herself behind the counter to shuffle through the mass of loose parchment in the shelves below. One would think someone as meticulous as Snape would keep a better organized front desk. As she pulled out random notes and old request forms, an empty potions vial that had somehow gotten mixed up in it all rolled off the shelf and shattered on the floor.

Oh bollocks.

Swearing a blue streak, Angelina turned to look for a broom and dustpan. It would figure that something like this would happen on her first day. Mentally, she began a countdown as she scrambled to contain the mess:

3....2....1...


"Miss Johnson," Severus called from the back room, "What did I say about my shop and arse about face?" He smirked, imagining the look on her face, and finished the meticulous stirring that the Pepper-Up Potion that he'd been brewing. He strolled out to the front and saw her looking frantic, holding a broom in one hand. "Just like a common Muggle, the witch reached for a broom before thinking of her wand." He pulled out his wand, and made quick work of the mess, leaving her holding the broom and looking foolish. "Are you hurt?"

Feeling the fool, Angelina returned the broom to its place, quelling the urge to beat her boss with it, "I'm fine, Mister Snape, thank you for your concern. I would be better, however, if random vials weren't being strewn about the shop where they should not be. I was only trying to organize the confusion below the register."

Reaching for the broom had been a natural reaction. All her life, her mother had stressed the pointlessness of using magic to do something that could be accomplished with a perfectly good tool. Even her father, a wizard, had done many things the Muggle way, only resorting to magic for extreme or special cases, when only magic could get the job done. She had never had issue with this lifestyle and had continued it. Angelina did not appreciate being mocked over it, especially by the professor that told every class that he had little use for silly wand-waving.

"Good. And Miss Johnson. Call me Severus," having decided not to aggravate his employee any further today, he retreated back to his room. If she was going to be of any use to him, he had to keep her relatively happy with the job. Pausing, he did something rather uncharacteristic. "Miss Johnson. Come back here a moment."

When she followed him, he placed a small bag of coins in front of her on his brewing table.

Good humor renewed by confusion, Angelina looked between Snape and the bag, "Well, Severus, I promise I wasn't hurt, you don't owe me any blood money."

Then, quickly rethinking her position and the fact that her compulsion spell on her landlord was wearing thin, she added with a faint grin, "Although, if you truly insist..."

"I'm not giving you money for that. I am giving you your pay for the first two weeks upfront. I had a sense that you could use it early. Do not play me false with this, Miss Johnson. You are welcome to return to the front now."

With that, he turned his back, unsure how this would go over with the former Gryffindor, but at the moment not caring. She'd been screeching her thoughts of panic over a bad day since she stepped into the shop, and now they were at least quiet. He looked behind him to see her, still standing there, staring. "You'll find it's a fair rate of pay. Now get back to your job. Preferably without breaking anything else."

Bloody man got a kick out of shocking her, didn't he? Taking the bag, Angelina backed away from the table muttering a simple thank you before moving to retreat to the front of the shop. Then, changing her mind, Angelina turned, "Call me Angelina, and I'll stop breaking things when you stop leaving them where they shouldn't be."

Returning to her post, Angelina set her money below the register and went back to her job. Shaking her head, Angelina thought this was going to be the strangest job ever.

Not bothering to tell her that the vial she'd broken had been a present he'd received from Dumbledore, especially for holding Pensieve memories, Snape merely enjoyed the silence that her cease in thought-yells had brought. Besides, he had a few dozen of them, as the old man had seemed to think Severus misplaced them. Where he got that thought from, I have no idea. "Angelina," he said her name softly, trying to get a feel for it. Yes, that would do well. He was going to enjoy watching her interact with some of the more abrasive customers. Anyone who could be as blunt to him as she was, was going to be very well suited to this job. He smiled, stirring the potion, clockwise, anticlockwise, anticlockwise, clockwise. In an hour or so, he'd offer her tea, just too see that flicker of amazement again. Chuckling softly, he continued his work, listening carefully for sounds of distress.