The Potions Disaster
February 14th, 11:01
Snape’s POV:
Severus managed to get to the Potions Classroom with some slight staggering and only a minute late. He was always on time, but a quick trip to his chambers and two measures of Ogden’s later (his 6th in 9 hours, he remembered thinking. Since he had never hallucinated before, the delusion of Ms Granger as his replacement Seeker was a problem. Then again… Ms Granger looked solid enough.)
His pondering on that problem had caused him to lose track of time. With a curse after his Tempus revealed that he would be late for his 8th-year Potions class, he had strode quickly out of his chambers. He didn’t run. Running was for students, and he didn’t lower himself to their level.
He wished he had a Sobering-Up Potion, but Minerva and Poppy had used up the last one he had in stock, and he was waiting for the full moon to pick some Fluxweed. He made do with some Pepper up Potion and waited for the steam to dissipate. His grogginess and staggering symptoms all but disappeared, with the headache dulling slightly as he reached the classroom.
Severus threw the door open with a loud bang, his robes billowing behind him. He strode up the room to his desk and turned around, scowling at the students. Thankfully, he didn’t have to deal with the usual number of students. Only Potter, Weasley, Granger, Patil, Boots and Draco took Potions, so the room was almost empty. He had allowed them to divide themselves into pairs, with the warning that if they couldn’t keep their mouths shut when he was talking, he would change the partners.
This meant that Weasley sat beside Ms Granger, Potter beside Ms Patil, and Draco beside Boots. Thankfully, they seemed to be getting along, and the dunderheads had quit or hadn’t returned. There were very few explosions (the only one since the start of the year, which was caused by Weasley accidentally sneezing into his Essence of Insanity Potion). He intended to keep it that way.
He was surprised to see that the students had changed partners. Draco now sat beside Potter, Weasley beside Boots, and Granger beside Patil. He had an idea why Potter had moved, but why hadn’t Boots just sat beside Patil? Why was Granger seated beside Patil instead, leaving Weasley beside Boots?
He thought back to seeing Mr Weasley glaring at Potter and Draco at the Great Hall. Mr Weasley disapproved, so maybe Ms Granger didn’t, causing a row between the two and explaining the bizarre partner swap that had occurred.
Severus only realised then, as he realised he had been staring at the students for a few minutes without saying anything, that he noticed the students’ lack of silence. His routine of opening the doors with a bang and the billowing robes was usually enough to silence even the most raucous of classes. He had never had a group of students continue talking… until now.
With growing anger, he watched, arms crossed, as the 8th years continued to ignore him. Ms Granger and Ms Patil talked about their plans for the day with Mr Boots; Mr Weasley was still glaring at Mr Potter and Draco, who were… SNOGGING!. IN THE BACK OF THE ROOM!!
This was too much for him. He opened his mouth to yell at them to pay attention when Mr Weasley stood up abruptly, knocking his chair to the ground.
“OI! MALFOY!!” roared Weasley, temporarily deafening Severus and causing Draco to disentangle himself from Mr Potter.
“What, Weasel?” replied Draco, while Mr Potter rubbed circles on his back. Severus noted that they had reverted to name-calling.
“What have you done to Harry?!” yelled Weasley. Draco looked bored.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Weasel,” he drawled as Mr Potter started running his hands through Draco’s hair. Mr Weasley saw and pointed.
“THAT!” he declared, “Harry would never rub your back, play with your hair or…” Mr Weasley looked nauseous “SNOG you! If you’ve put him under some curse, I swear I’ll-”
“You'll what, Ronald?” interjected Mr Potter, abandoning his finger-combing of Draco’s hair to turn towards Mr Weasley, who started stuttering and mumbling while his face slowly turned red.
“I thought so,” he continued. Turning back towards Draco, Severus was a bit worried to see a smirk stealing across Mr Potter’s face.
“And another thing,” he remarked, “Draco did nothing to me. Well, unless you count putting his mouth on my-”
With a roar, Mr Weasley turned to Draco. He punched him in the jaw, stopping Mr Potter from completing his sentence, much to Severus’s relief.
He REALLY didn’t need to know what happened in the Common Rooms.
Draco ducked Mr Weasley’s punch and shoved him, causing him to stumble backwards and hit Mr Boots, who had been holding Boomslang Skin over his Potion. Severus, who knew that (based on the colour) the Potion wouldn’t need any Boomslang for another ten minutes, watched as it fell into the Potion.
He was curious as to what the reaction would be. He had never added the Boomslang early to the Beautification Potion, so he could only guess the effect it would have on the Potion. He discreetly cast Protego over himself. He had found that the only way to prevent students from repeating mistakes was to make them suffer the consequences of those mistakes.
Thankfully, there was no explosion. Nor did anyone’s appearance change drastically. Instead, a pink heart-shaped (Severus was really starting to hate that particular shape) cloud appeared over the cauldron, enveloping Ms Patil. He quickly vanished the cloud as he heard her coughing inside the cloud, and he could make out waving motions, which he assumed was her attempting to clear the air around her.
“Are you all right, Ms Patil?” he queried. She opened her eyes (which he only now noticed had been closed) and gasped. A flash of… something went across her eyes, but it was gone before he could begin to analyse it.
“I’m fine, Professor,” replied Ms Patil. The only way he had ever been able to tell them apart was that he only ever had one of them in a class at a time. Although, that may not have stopped them from swapping robes and attending each other’s classes. Severus was (reasonably) sure that Padma was the twin sitting in front of him.
He looked across to where Mr Weasley, Mr Potter and Draco were (still) fighting, and his anger rose.
“MR WEASLEY!! MR POTTER!! MR MALFOY!! SIT DOWN AND STOP FIGHTING, OR ELSE YOU WILL BE IN DETENTION WITH FILCH FOR A MONTH!!!” Severus roared. They sat down and looked at him. He pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the headache returning since his fury had burned through the effects of the Pepper up Potion quicker than expected.
He walked back to his desk and sat in his chair. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ms Patil stand up, but he was staring at the males who had been fighting. He was annoyed with everyone except for Ms Granger and Ms Patil. They were unfortunate enough to be in the same room, like himself, and they hadn’t done anyth-
“Ms Patil, what are you doing?” he inquired, curious as to why she had walked up to his desk.
“I think I know what the effect of the pink cloud Terry created is,” she responded. He glared towards Mr Boots, who had the grace to look apologetic. When he turned back towards Ms Patil, only his years of spying stopped him from jumping backwards. She had somehow managed to walk around to his side of the desk in the few seconds he hadn’t been watching her. She was now sitting on his desk in front of him, her back to her classmates.
“And you felt the need to sit on my desk to tell me this? Go back to your desk, Ms Patil, and tell me from there,” Severus declared, feeling the Pepper up Potion fully wear off. Unlike the Sobriety Potion (which eliminated any alcohol in the body), the Pepper up only stopped some of the symptoms of alcohol consumption for a limited time.
He felt a growing sense of alarm when, instead of doing what he told her to do, Ms Patil instead sat in his lap. She proceeded to copy what Mr Potter had been doing to Draco: she ran her hands through his hair and gave him a head massage. Her classmates burst out laughing: he even thought he saw Mr Weasley leaning on Mr Potter for support as he laughed so hard. Severus thought about how he could remove Ms Patil from his lap without actually touching her. That was a sexual harassment claim waiting to happen, and he couldn’t afford to pay a fine for anything.
He wondered what type of gas Mr Boots had created that would make someone want to sit on someone’s lap. Glaring at him, Severus decided to get rid of the witch on his lap before he wiped the laughter from all of their faces.
“Ms Granger, please remove your partner from my lap,” he growled, wanting this day to be over. For once, Ms Granger didn’t immediately jump to obey a teacher. Instead, she… ignored him, continuing to laugh.
“She’s not... my partner... Professor. I’m... dating... Ronald,” she replied through her laughter.
“I DIDN’T MEAN YOUR ROMANTIC PARTNER, MS GRANGER!” he growled at her, thoroughly annoyed with the whole situation. “I meant your PotIONS PARTNER!” he almost shrieked halfway through his statement when Ms Patil started moving on his lap. She was uncomfortably close to a… specific part of his anatomy that he didn’t want to go anywhere near any of his students.
Deciding he’d rather deal with the lesser fine of a sexual harassment claim instead of a penalty for indecent assault, he grabbed her by the waist. He lifted her off his lap, placing her on the ground and taking the opportunity to leap out of his chair. He glared at everyone who had been sooo helpful and calm during the class. He was glad that Lunch was after this class. He needed some time away from the dunderheads.
“MS PATIL!! DESIST AT ONCE!!! A WEEK’S DETENTION HERE!! EVERY NIGHT AT 8!!” he hollered. Then he remembered the pink cloud and its effect. He quickly cast Finite Incantatem on her, secretly relieved to see that odd light that had been in her eyes disappear. He turned to Mr Boots, Mr Potter, Mr Weasley and Mr Malfoy.
“As for you lot!! If Mr Weasley hadn’t taken offence at Mr Potter’s sexuality, he wouldn’t have been shoved into Mr Boots. Mr Boots wouldn’t have dropped his Boomslang Skin in too early and caused Ms Patil’s… reaction,” he snarled. Turning to Ms Granger, he continued.
“Also, congratulations to Ms Granger on her speedy obeyance of my instructions. Fifty points will be taken fro-” his tirade was interrupted by something unexpected.
Any sign of amusement fell off their faces, they stood up straight, took a deep breath and began to… sing!!
Not just any song, mind you.
“It's been seven hours and 15 days
Since you took your love away
I go out every night and sleep all day
Since you took your love away
Since you been gone, I can do whatever I want
I can see whomever I choose”
A love song!
“STOP”
“I can”
“THIS”
“eat my”
“SINGING”
“dinner in a”
“RIGHT”
“fancy”
“NOW!”
“restaurant”
Severus was yelling at them to stop singing, but they were completely ignoring. They just sang louder. He thought to himself that if they weren’t interrupting him, and if the song they chose to sing wasn’t a love song, they would sound alright.
It seemed they had decided to ignore him: every time he tried to deduct points or yell louder than them, they would just sing louder and go back to the start. He eventually decided to let them finish since he was getting sick of listening to them. It was getting to the stage where he could have sung along with them for the first half of the song. By the time they (finally) finished singing, there were 5 minutes left until lunch.
Severus assigned them all detention on the same schedule as Ms Patil, except he decided (to spare his sanity) to not have the six of them in detention tonight. As they walked out, he was thinking of having another few measures of Ogden’s. At this rate, he thought, tomorrow morning, I’ll feel like a troll is playing whack-a-mole inside my head.
Padma’s POV:
Padma’s attention was split between the three boys fighting, Terry’s Potion and Snape. He was also watching them fighting. As Harry shoved Ronald, he stumbled back into Terry, who dropped his Boomslang Skin into his Potion. In the split second before Padma waved her wand, she saw Snape cast Protego around himself.
It wasn’t necessary. A pink cloud covered her, and she waved her arms to clear it from around her, getting some in her mouth in the process. She coughed to try and get rid of it when a male voice asked her if she was all right. She opened her eyes and saw Snape standing in front of her. Hermione discreetly waved her wand, and Padma felt a slight sting at her eyes. As Snape looked at the boys still fighting, she waved her hand at Hermione out of his sight. Hermione let out a quiet laugh as Snape yelled at the lads to stop fighting.
She stood up as Professor Snape sat down at his desk. He wasn’t paying any attention to her until she stood in front of his desk. When he inquired about what she was doing, she replied that she knew what the cloud’s effect was. While he glared at Terry, she quickly snuck around to his side of the desk and sat down facing him. Although he was almost entirely successful, Padma still noticed his surprised reaction.
“And you felt the need to sit on my desk to tell me this? Go back to your desk, Ms Patil, and tell me from there,” Snape snapped. She ignored his (unmistakable) hint, instead sitting on his lap. Deciding to take a leaf out of Harry’s book, she ran her fingers through his hair, absently noting that it wasn’t as greasy as it appeared. Padma also started massaging Snape’s head, causing her classmates to burst out laughing. When he growled at Hermione to remove her from his lap (as if he wasn’t strong enough to lift her off himself, she thought), Hermione pretended to believe that he was insinuating that they were dating.
Ignoring his response, she decided to see how far she could push him. She started moving on his lap like she was trying to get comfortable, but she deliberately moved higher up his lap. She noticed that his speech almost became a shriek as she was shifting around. A few seconds later, he obviously had enough, as she was lifted from his lap as he leapt up from his chair. He gave her detention for a week then, probably remembering the “effects” of the cloud, cast an (unnecessary) Finite Incantatem on her, which only removed the spell Hermione had cast on her eyes.
As he continued yelling at the boys for fighting, before turning to Hermione for her lack of reaction, he started to say that he was removing 50 points from -. Well, they would probably never find out who or what he would have removed the points from, as they interrupted him by singing a love song (why not? It was Valentine’s Day, after all). As they belted out Sinéad O’Connor’s rendition of “Nothing Compares 2U, Snape tried to interrupt them.
When interrupting them only made Padma and the others sing louder, Snape tried a different tactic. He tried to continue taking points off them, but they had prepared for that. Padma and the others returned to the beginning of the song every time Snape started to remove points from them. After he had (unsuccessfully) tried removing points multiple times, he either gave up or decided to let them finish: he let them finish off the song, and Padma even thought she saw Snape mouthing the words of the song along with them. When they finished the song and bowed like performers at a concert, Padma cast a quick Tempus and saw only 6 minutes left until Lunch.
Professor Snape must have got a headache during their performance: he was rubbing his temples as he sat at his desk, and she thought she saw Snape staring in the direction of his chambers. He assigned everyone detention for the week, excluding tonight, meaning Padma would be in detention alone this evening. Still, at least she would have company for the rest of the week. They walked out of the Potions Classroom, thrilled to see what would happen at Lunch.
Next: Severus is hoping there won’t be another flock of owls with heart-shaped letters waiting for him at lunch… Oh, no. Scratch that. Now that he’s seen the alternative, he would prefer another flock of owls. Please come, owls! At least then he wouldn’t have to deal with…