Severus scowled. He was only five points behind but the letters he had were atrocious. “Z A A B K Y N J” were the letters he possessed, and he was wracking his brain for a decent point winning word. Use the free A from “Dragon” and make Bank, saving his own two As? Too short. Steal the P from “Imperio” to make “Zap”? Same problem. Baa? Not a real word. He couldn’t exchange his tiles as there were none left. There were few spots in the air where he could add words.
“Er, do you need a bit of help, Harry?”
“No thankyou Hermione, I am thinking.” His words were stilted but not unfriendly. Granger had played a hard game, but for the most part an enjoyable game. It almost felt like he was playing against Minerva at times. He was surprised by the words she had come up with. He supposed that Magi-Scrabble had the advantage of having a rather large lexicon of words to choose from. You could do any normal word and any word spell related, including those in latin, french and aramaic. To know these words and to make them out of tiles not of your choosing took a certain degree of skill, however. Applied with a positive connotation, “know-it-all” remained an apt title for this young Gryffindor.
Hermione sat back in her chair and gave a small yawn. Many of the students had filed out of the room and up to bed. Ron had watched for a small time before both Severus and Hermione told him to stop yawning so loudly when they were trying to concentrate. Severus stared at the criss cross of words and his tiles a little longer. Suddenly it came to him. He leapt up from his chair in joy whilst flourishing his wand.
“AZKABAN!” he yelled, “one, ten,” he chuckled, “five, two because it’s a double letter score, three, one and one, triple word score, that’s sixty-nine. In your face Granger!”
Hermione looked stunned for a second and then burst out in laughter. “Wow, well done Harry!”
“Harry?” He forgot for a second, then realised and formed a smile, “you can call me Magi-Scrabble master from now on!”
Hermione didn’t seem to have noticed, “you haven’t won yet you know!”
Unfortunately for Hermione, he had. Hermione was unable to obtain a score high enough after “azkaban”. Actually, Severus’s subsequent scores weren’t particularly good either. He’d been left with “J” and “Y”. They finished the game with “Harry” at 222 and Hermione at 182.
“Good game!” Severus said with a grin that spread from ear to ear.
Hermione gave a small smile, “you’re only saying that because you won!”
“Nah! You were brilliant,” Severus said in the same tone he had used before. He stopped grinning when she put her hand on his shoulder.
“You’re not still mad at me, are you?”
Severus contemplated his answer seriously before answering. “No, I’m not. I can be really immature sometimes, Hermione, I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting lately.”
“You know this is the second time you’ve felt the need to say this? I understand that you’re under stress, Harry. If you ever need to talk, I’m here for you. Don’t feel like you have to attack me.”
“Uhmm. Thanks. I’ll remember that in future,” Severus said evading Hermione’s eyes.
“Well, I’m tired, so I’m off to bed! I can’t wait for Defence Against the Dark Arts tomorrow. I hope my work gets good marks, I only have fourty-three references. Night!”
The food-web! He hadn’t finished his Snuzzlebleep food-web! Severus banged his head into the table before moaning, “why won’t I remember that hurts?”
He trundled off to bed with the resolution to get up early again, this time to finish his Defence Against the Dark Arts work. The only good thing was that tomorrow was the last day in the working week. As he drifted off to sleep he thought of all the things he could do on the weekend. The pleasant thought that despite being interminable, the week had finally passed drifted into his mind, and before he knew it, Severus was asleep.
***********
It proved to be one of those mornings in which Severus wished he hadn’t woken up. It hadn’t been light when he’d crawled out of bed and into the shower. Afterwards, huddled in a corner of the common room whilst furiously scribbling his food-web, he pictured Harry cheerfully drinking his morning tea. Undeniably a better arrangement would have been for Severus to withhold his lesson plans until Potter had finished his homework. He wished he had thought of that before the swap.
All too soon it was time for breakfast. Gryffindors were clamoring into the room, some yawning, others bright as buttons and all making a lot of noise. Too hungry to forego the morning meal, yet still not having finished, Severus gave up. His lips curled into a small smile as he mused that the worst thing Professor Flitwick could do was threaten to spank him.
Once in the great hall, Severus piled his plate full of food. Munching into an apple Severus was surprised when the Professor with a hooked nose and billowing black robes came up to him.
“Potter, I’d like to have a discussion with you at lunch time if you’re not too busy,” Harry said, successfully adopting Severus’s own seemingly polite sarcastic commanding tone. Severus stared up at him nonplussed before nodding his head.
“Okay.”
“Professor, Potter, refer to me as Professor,” Harry said, taking a look at Hermione and Ron who were staring up at him open-mouthed.
Instead of arguing, Severus simply nodded again and said, “I’ll see you at lunch Professor Snape.” Harry seemed surprised but relieved and walked back up to the head table. Severus wasn’t going to cause a ruckus presently. He was looking forward to telling the little sod off for using his invisibility cloak.
The first lesson of the day was Defence Against the Dark Arts. Trying to perfect the art of hiding behind his wand, Severus slid down in his chair and glanced nervously towards the door. Weasley similarly blushed and held his book in front of his face. Hermione sat straight-backed and proud.
Professor Flitwick walked around the tables and collected the papers. Each step she came closer, Severus and Ron slid further down in their chairs. She glanced at each of the assignments as she picked them up. When she saw Weasley’s she gave a very audible sound of condemnation. Severus could see a large ink stain over the left hand corner and Ron had even less food sources for snuzzlebleeps than Severus did. When she saw Severus’s, Professor Flitwick was obviously doubly annoyed.
“I expected far more from both of you. Ten points from Gryffindor each and you have also managed to give yourselves detention. Report here directly after dinner. If either of you fail to turn up I will take a further one hundred points from Gryffindor.” At this all of the Gryffindor students in the class turned around angrily on “Harry” and Ron. Hermione rolled her eyes and Dean Thomas waved his fist. Spanking was not the worse thing Professor Flitwick could do then.
Ron looked at Severus with a worried look. As Professor Flitwick glided away he whispered out of the corner of his mouth, “isn’t that your second detention in a week?”
Severus simply told him to be quiet and concentrated on what the teacher was saying. Technically he knew he should find this amusing, but sadly, the ambitious side of him took over. Even though they weren’t his marks to receive, he still wanted to do well. His twisted sense of pride and desire for accomplishment made him decide to strive to do better.
Lunchtime came all too quickly, and before he knew it, Severus was following Harry to his own office.