Severus, I've got an idea!
“I’ve had a simply marvellous idea!” Professor Dumbledore announced to the almost empty staffroom one delightfully sunny morning in July.
“Oh no,” groaned Professor Snape, mentally calculating how much effort it would take to somehow procure a tower in the Yorkshire Moors to hide himself away in. Too much, he concluded mournfully.
He looked around for Minerva to rescue him from the situation, but she was busy supervising Fred Weasley’s detention for blowing up the Transfiguration classroom last Tuesday. Filius was similarly engaged, which left him to the star-spangled mercies of their esteemed Headmaster with zero backup. Even Pomona was nowhere to be seen on a day like today. She was most likely trying to grow moonlace in the Forbidden Forest if he knew her at all.
Albus was still talking, “I think next year we should set up an obstacle course in that ruined duelling chamber on the third floor under the pretence of hiding a precious magical artifact and see how many students make it to the end by the Leaving Feast.”
Severus blinked, “That… might not be the most dunderheaded thing to come out of your mouth, Albus.”
The migraine-inducing man chuckled genially, “That, my dear boy, is practically a glowing endorsement, coming from you.”
He scowled.
Albus ignored him.
Settling a large roll of parchment onto the arm of his chair, he dipped a phoenix-feather quill into his favourite bottle of violet ink and prepared to take.
“So, Severus, what sort of obstacles should we include?” he smiled.
Severus pointedly ignored the ‘we’ in the headmaster’s statement and mused aloud, “You should make the entire corridor out of bounds. Then it’ll attract everyone’s curiosity if you announce it at the Feast and they’ll have to pass that mangy squib and his monster of a cat first.”
Albus sent him a warning look at the latter half of his sentence, but clearly didn’t disagree as he wrote the suggestion down on the parchment in an excessively loopy script without complaint.
“Shouldn’t you have invited Minerva to be here for something like this? You know as well as I that she would enjoy being involved.”
“Severus, my dear boy, she’d only try to stop us,” he argued in that condescending manner he was so fond of. “Besides, this is a you-and-me thing. You know – like a bonding session! We can get the others involved later if we need their help on an obstacle.”
He was pretty sure that if there wasn’t an incredulous look on his face before there certainly was now after hearing Albus say that.
Since when did they do ‘bonding sessions’? That was, like, teenaged girl stuff. He was six months away from his 31st birthday, and here he was being invited to do ‘bonding sessions’ with his boss.
That was it.
He wanted to retire. Now.
“Where can I hand in my notice?” he muttered.
Albus laughed, “Oh Severus, you are funny sometimes. Come on, we need more ideas. A locked door that’s out of bounds is hardly an obstacle course. We’ll be a laughingstock if it’s left like this. You’re clever – think of something that no-one in a million years would get past.”
“A riddle where the answer is the correct potion out of a whole row to get you through a fire doorway, but all the potions are actually poisons and the correct potion is locked in a drawer in my office,” Severus deadpanned.
“Ooh, ooh, ooh!”
“Is this the part where you tell me it’s your secret desire to be a monkey?”
He was ignored.
“I’ve got an even better idea, Severus!” Albus cried, “What if we make them drink a whole bottle of vodka and then they have to try and pick up the real potion among a load of hallucinated doubles?”
“…”
“Oh alright. You’re no fun sometimes, you know that? Maybe you're right and I should’ve asked Minerva to do it. She’d understand me; she’s Scottish. Can we at least make some of the decoy bottles alcoholic?”
“Albus- I- You know what, fine.” Severus caved in the face of the Headmaster’s pout. “We’ll do that. But maybe you should consider going to see Poppy about this.”
“I am not an alchy,” he gasped, betrayed.
“Suure,” he nodded unconvincingly.
“ANYWAY, moving on. Do you think Minerva would mind if I got a puppy?”
Severus swore he had whiplash from all the rapid topic changes.
“What a truly…excellent…idea. Include one of Hagrid’s beasts as well. That should liven things up.”
“Severus,” Albus whined, “I feel you’re not treating this with the respect and seriousness it deserves.”
His face turned a dangerous shade of purple, and the Headmaster hurriedly carried on speaking.
“You’ve got some great ideas though! Did you know that Hagrid has a Cerberus?”
Groaning, he regretted ever approving the whole idea in the first place. “As in – giant, three heads, likes to eat kids? That sort of Cerberus?”
“Yeah,” grinned Albus, “Isn’t it great?”
“What’s it called? If it even has a name, that is. Although it belongs to Hagrid, and Merlin knows he names every living or once-living thing he comes across,” he added the latter half of the sentence in an undertone, but he was sure Albus still heard him.
“He’s called Fluffy and look! Here’s a photo of him!” Albus waved a piece of paper in front of his face. “Isn’t he adorable Severus?”
He had to admit, the baby Cerberus did have a kind of charm. Once you got past the excessive amounts of drool and the three slavering heads and the- Who was he kidding? It was gorgeous.
“Alright, fine.” Severus said reluctantly.
Albus actually cheered out loud and then ran off to ‘tell Hagrid the good news’. Dear merciful Merlin, what on earth had he gotten himself into now?