Boggart This
By Bambu
Disclaimer and Author's Note: I own none of the JKR Potterverse. In this instance, I only own the idea behind this series of vignettes and the placement and choice of the words. Written in 2011, this was initially intended to be a stand-alone one-shot, but I was talked into extending it. The linear progression jumps several months between the second vignette and the last.
~o0o~
Severus Snape looked down his hooked nose, a genetic gift from his father, and speared the errant journalist with a scathing glare. "What potions did you take?" he demanded.
Her eyelashes fluttered so hard Snape wondered whether the brainless twit had something caught in her eye.
The young woman arched her back, stretching her neck in what she assumed was an alluring posture. Snape thought she looked like an ostrich draped in a lurid green fabric more appropriate for upholstering a sofa rather than clothing a human.
She pursed her lips, and breathlessly responded, "I haven't taken anything, Professor."
Snape maneuvered himself behind his lectern, wanting to keep something substantial between him and the idiotic woman who'd rushed into his classroom with a bundle of parchment flailing in her luridly polished fingers. "Why does your voice sound as if Albus Dumbledore has pulled all the feathers from Fawkes' tail?"
The woman pouted, visibly disappointed by his reaction. Then, with the resilience of a Crup, her voice changed to something a bit more brisk, but the eyelids kept fluttering. "What did you think of the story? Isn't it just too, too adorable? Now everyone will know what a kind and gentle soul you have, and how you've been misunderstood all this time."
Snape recoiled, looking as if he'd just swallowed a Hippogriff ... whole. Abruptly, his wand appeared in his hand, and he swished and jabbed. "Riddikulus!" he shouted at the streaky blonde sporting artificially red lips.
A shudder ripped through the woman's body, and suddenly she morphed into the spitting image of a thirty-year old Harry Potter wearing pink bunny slippers and a nappy!
"Severus!" Hermione skidded to a halt in the doorframe, her eyes narrowing at the image of her best friend dressed in such an absurd manner.
Immediately, baby Harry's bottle green eyes homed in on the newest person in the room. He strode in her direction, when suddenly, like a twirling dervish his body spun, faster and faster, until his body blurred and he was no longer Harry.
Instead of where Harry had stood, the amorphous figure had split in two. Now there were two Severus Snape's in the room, but the one closest to Hermione wore Death Eater robes and blood dripped from his hands.
Hermione's face blanched.
Then her wand whipped into action. Within thirty seconds, the Boggart was dispatched into a cauldron levitated into position by Snape, and Hermione sealed the Dark creature inside.
One of Snape's eyebrows arched interrogatively, and Hermione asked, "Drink?"
His only reply was to gesture toward his office, and silently Hermione led the way. Three minutes later, she and Snape were seated on either side of his desk, sharing a fine bottle of Australian Merlot.
"Care to explain, Hermione?" Snape asked.
"It's a long story," she replied, hesitating to reveal her secret.
He smirked, and said, "We have all night."
~o0o~