As always, my gratitude to Cecelle. She never fails but to make me look better in print.
Wednesday: 9 January 1985
“Stop by for tea,” Dumbledore had said.
It was pointless to refuse the invitation”an order really. He agreed to stop in for a minute or two in an attempt to forestall one of Albus’ lavish cakes at supper.
‘I’ll be lucky to get away with less than an hour or two,’ Snape muttered to himself after the old wizard broke the connection.
At three Severus made his way to the Headmaster’s office. He felt as if he was being dragged through the corridors by some invisible force, while his fingers tried to find purchase on the stone walls, as he screamed at the top of his lungs: ‘Noooo, I don’t want to go!’
He knew what was waiting for him when he arrived at the aerie: a great many very sugary cakes, biscuits, and pastries. He wasn’t singled out for this treatment; every staff member had to endure the insanity.
The Potions master honestly thought Dumbledore purposely arranged multiple meetings during the week, just so he could have an excuse to order heaping platters of sweets. After every meeting, Snape went away with a headache from the sugar foisted off on him.
The aggravation built as he went at a snail’s pace; he hoped to come across someone doing something wrong, so he’d have an excuse to not ride the steps up to the Headmaster’s office.
Damn, I should have gone by way of Hagrid’s hut. Some student is always straying over there. It would have been worth the walk. He’d purposely travelled a long and not quite circuitous enough of a path.
He soon found that he was standing before the statue, the gateway to Dumbledore’s suite.
“You could do me a favour and refuse to admit me,” he said sourly to the griffin. It swiftly swung aside in a gliding motion.
“I didn’t think you would,” he muttered, and stepped onto the step. The old stone stairway spiralled upward. “I didn’t think Hell was up.”
The old wood door, battered and scarred from a thousand years of use, swung open, and revealed a room crowded with the rest of the staff, all wearing hideous paper party hats
.
“Surprise!” the chorus called out. Confetti rained down on the Potions master’s black hair. Albus pushed a hat onto his head and said, “Happy Birthday, Severus!”
He was definitely in Hell.
Thursday 9 January 1986
It was his birthday, and Severus Snape finally reached the point where he’d either pull out all his greasy hair or blast the dungeons into rubble. The final nail in the coffin was a new infestation of pests in his potions stores. He’d spent the past several years attempting to do battle with this recurring bother.
Severus had finished giving final instructions for the potion his first year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs would be attempting. He felt quite confident they would be able to deal with a simple Boil Cure Potion with a minimal amount of attention. When he’d sent the group to his cupboards to collect the necessary ingredients, he picked up a stack of scrolls to grade.
Loud shrieks of fright followed by the rapidly approaching scrabble of feet alerted him that something unusual was occurring. The students rarely came closer to him than they needed to, except to turn in their assignments”even his own Slytherins kept a respectable distance.
“Silence!”
With his wand out, he pushed past the crush of prepubescent children and approached the cupboard with caution.
“No,” wailed one of the timorous Hufflepuff girls. “Don’t open it!”
With a snap of his wand, the door opened. Little hairy black things swarmed out into the room.
A renewed chorus of shrieks drilled into Severus’ ears like an ice pick.
“Doxies!” he hissed through clenched teeth. The boxes of porcupine quills, dandelion puffs, raven feathers, dragon scales, and smothering moss were shredded masses of drool.
Damn, and damn again!
The doxies quickly spotted a new food source”the students’ uniforms. The children swung at the pests with anything they could reach, including the scrolls on their professor’s desk.
“Coughlin,” Snape snapped at one of the Ravenclaw boys, “you are to find Mr. Filch and inform him there is an infestation he needs to deal with. When you’ve done that, you and the remainder of this class will write two scrolls”due next lesson”about the damage vermin can cause to potion ingredients.”
“Yes, Professor Snape,” Coughlin said and ran for the door.
“Not yet, you fool! I have to immobilize the doxies before you open the door, or they will infest the entire school!” With the slash of his wand, the doxies fell heavily to the stone floor.
“Out,” the Potions master ordered.
The students were remarkably quick in exiting their dungeon classroom.
Severus moved as a force of nature into the upper regions of Hogwarts. Barely restraining the urge to run up the moving stairs, Snape felt no such restraint with the door.
“I’m leaving,” he stated abruptly, turned on his heel, and sped back down the moving staircase. He did not know, or care, if Dumbledore objected to this unexplained behaviour.
Without stopping to gather his outer robes, Severus Snape trekked through the snow to the tall entry gates. Once outside of the protective wards, he Disapparated into a void of nothingness. Three heartbeats later, the Potions master appeared in front of The Leaky Cauldron.
A stiff Ogden’s won’t do me any harm, he thought petulantly. In fact, I deserve it.
A few wizards looked at him oddly. Catching his reflection in a window, Snape realized his hair stood out from his head where he’d pulled at it in his anger. Casually, he patted it into place. The drink was nursed for a good fifteen minutes while he thought about what else he could do to fend off both magical and conventional pests in his stores.
He realized that over countless years, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry must have lost countless”more than countless!”amounts of Galleons in potions ingredients to the vermin.
Slughorn should have been doing more to lay down a line of defence, Snape thought. Except he was too busy climbing the social ladder of the wizarding world.
Replacing the cup on the bar, Severus Snape left the Leaky Cauldron and wandered down Diagon Alley.
A crush of ginger-haired children ran about their harassed looking mother. He recognized Molly Weasley.
“Fred, George, if you touch one more...” the witch threatened as she drove them down the street.
“Minerva wasn’t joking. There are... one, two, three, and four more of them! I might just slit my wrists,” he muttered quietly to himself, as he watched them disappear into the crowd.
Severus looked more closely at what the boys had been touching”an owl. He was across from the Magical Menagerie.
He crossed and stood to study the various creatures that hung in cages along the storefront. There were owls of all varieties, ravens, and hawks making all sorts of noise.
Probably relieved that those brats are gone.
An owl, though it could see in very dim light, wasn’t quite right for the narrow confines of the dungeons, Snape concluded and entered the shop doors. He gave the place a cursory look.
A case of poisonous orange snails rested on the counter, next to an irritated looking cat. He closely inspected the snails.
Perhaps.
The cat jumped off the counter and wound its body around his legs. He gently pushed it aside and walked over to a terrarium of toads.
No. Definitely no.
Snape moved over to a large case of black rats. They were playing some sort of game.
Definitely no. I don’t need to add to the problem. Perhaps a good snake will deal with the rodent problem.
The cat leapt onto his shoulder and pushed its large flat face into his.
Yellow fur all over my robes!
Severus reached up to remove the creature. Two immense golden globes looked directly into his molten eyes.
Snape froze. This was no ordinary housecat; this was a kneazle. The kneazle rubbed its head against his large hooked nose and purred a loud, rumbling purr. Its claws were needle sharp and drew small rivulets of blood from the Potions master’s cheek.
“It’s not bonded with nobody in a month of Sundays,” the purse-faced clerk said and reached to relieve his potential customer of the pesky animal.
It hissed and batted with extended claws at the wizard’s hand. “That kneazle barely allows us near to feed it.”
“Clearly you know who you want,” Snape said to the kneazle before turning back to the clerk. “How much?”
Nursing a clawed hand, the man replied, “I’d ask fifty Galleons, but you might not take her off my hands. Twenty”I’ll take twenty to be rid of her.”
“Done!”
“You’ll want a cage to carry her in.” The clerk turned toward a display of wicker carriers.
The kneazle purred and wrapped her tail around Severus’ neck. Clearly she didn’t think she needed to be in a small prison.
An hour later, after returning to Hogwarts, the Potions master named his new kneazle Diana. Named after the Goddess of the Hunt, she’d hopefully be as efficient as her namesake. Severus made a little bed for her close to the door of his personal rooms, but she had her own mind. She promptly trotted into his bedroom and leapt lightly onto his bed. He couldn’t but admire her single-mindedness.
Riding his shoulder, Diana was shown one of the areas Snape wanted her to patrol for vermin. More quickly than he’d hoped, Diana sped underneath a low piece of furniture. Snape heard a tussle and squeals”then nothing. The kneazle reappeared with a Strapstack in her mouth. She placed it at her master’s black-booted feet and was off again. An hour later, a two foot pile of Strapstacks was placed in a rubbish bin and magically disposed of.
Diana was off again; she’d found yet another infestation of doxies. Snape immediately fire-called Mr. Filch to come and remove them.
In the Slytherin common room, the kneazle zoomed in on a nest of mice. Some of Snape’s students stood gap-mouthed as the sturdy Diana dispatched ten mice before their eyes.
The Potions master returned to his classroom to grade scrolls. Tawny Diana sat on the corner of his desk, her short, stubby tail flicking minutely at the tip. There was a knock on the closed door.
“Enter,” Snape said.
Minerva McGonagall entered and stopped in her tracks. Tilting her head, she looked over the tops of her square eyeglasses.
“Is that a kneazle?” the witch asked slowly. The Scottish lilt was strong in her words.
“Yes,” Severus replied evenly.
“She wasn’t here before,” the Transfiguration professor stated.
The kneazle knew she was the centre of the conversation. She rubbed her cheek against the great hooked nose affectionately before turning to stare back at the witch.
“Certainly you didn’t come to admire Diana? Did you want something, Minerva?” Severus asked as the long fingers of his hand played with the kneazle’s tail.
“I came to ask if you’d support my choice for Head Boy next year. He has the marks and is well like by the other students,” the witch said as she ticked points on her fingers. “Well, by most of the students, that is. Johnson has received good comments from his teachers”including you, Severus.”
“If I agree to support you, what will you do for me in return?” he asked slowly.
“What is it you want?” she answered, her tone suspicious.
“You could try to keep the Headmaster from presenting me with one of his hideous birthday cakes today.”
Minerva McGonagall perched lightly on the corner of the desk. “You couldn’t just ask me to move Hogwarts somewhere warmer, could you? Or for Ravenclaw’s goalkeeper to suddenly become spatially confused in the next Quidditch match against Slytherin?”
“You’ve been known to accomplish the near impossible,” Severus said smoothly.
The witch blushed deeply. “Don’t you try to charm...”
Professor McGonagall was interrupted mid-sentence by a crash of cymbals and horns, and confetti that rained down in streams. A four foot cake, iced in Slytherin’s colours, floated serenely into the room.
Diana leaped onto the Potions master’s shoulder. A growl sounded deep in her throat.
“Save yourself!” Severus Snape whispered into one of the kneazle’s ears.
“Happy birthday!” the Headmaster cried out joyfully.
Severus found himself wearing a party hat. As did Diana. He tried to remove the hats only to find them firmly fixed to both their heads.
“Albus!” the Transfiguration professor said firmly. “Remove that kneazle’s hat; it isn’t dignified!”
“And it’s dignified to make me wear one?” the young professor protested snidely.
“Just cut the cake, or he’ll have you wearing that hat until tomorrow morning,” the witch advised from the corner of her mouth.
Defeated, Severus reached for the knife that Minerva had Transfigured for him, and cut through the thick green and silver icing.
"The cake isn't nearly as vulgar as it was last year, Severus," the witch said quietly.
"Let's see if you can say the same when your birthday comes round," the Potions master replied with a smirk.
"You know full well my birthday is during the summer holidays." Professor McGonagall said nervously.
"I know full well your birthday is in October!"
"You wouldn't....!"
"Oh, but I would," Snape said with a chuckle.
"Severus Snape, you are Slytherin to the core!"
"And proud of it!"
Damnable Words by talloakslady
Chapter Notes: “You could do me a favour and refuse to admit me,” he said sourly to the griffin. It swiftly swung aside in a gliding motion.
Chapter Endnotes: I found to meet the word per chapter requirements; I needed to combine two chapters.