Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Challenge fic for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Challenge/Competition [History of Magic]
Prompts: Bathroom; Someone must brush their teeth while in the shower; Trio Era; Oliver/Katie; Severus Snape; Humor; I don't want to go to class!; Having a nightmare.
And The Greenhouses Challenge [Stargazer]
Severus Snape's Slice of Life
Severus Snape was not a happy man
He had woken up late and had walked into his bathroom to find that the bits of potion that had fallen onto his robes had expanded to make his entire bathroom wall look a horrendous pink colour that made Severus violently flinch every time he managed to catch sight of it. He would prefer to be blind than to see that colour. It reminded him of that Umbridge woman and that thought in itself was enough to make him feel like retching. Violently so.
He had banned the house elves from entering his quarters so they had not been able to clean up the mess and last night he had been too tired to make sure his dirty robes had landed in the basket that would take it to the house elves to be washed. Thus the blasted substance some foolish first year had managed to concoct had in fact expanded to cover his walls. Snape snarled furiously.
He had been forced to brush his teeth in the shower to avoid retching, only after using the strongest cleaning charms he knew to remove the pink substance. He would have to send some house elves into his quarters to get the mess cleaned up. He could not possibly clean it up himself, he had neither the time nor the patience with such nonsense. That was what they had house elves in Hogwarts for anyway. The thoughts of having anything that was not specifically inanimate in his room without him being there irritated him but there was no way around it this time and that displeased him greatly.
Dumbledore had then called him to his office to speak about his findings during the Death Eater meeting the afternoon previous. Snape had nearly snapped at the old man, that meeting would mean he would have to grab something to eat and not have the proper breakfast he enjoyed as he did not have a free period that morning. The Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw group of first year students that had probably already heard of his reputation. Snape smirked, most of those Hufflepuffs would be terrified of him before they had even met him as was his reputation.
Dumbledore had been dressed in his usual garish manner that had nearly given Snape a headache so he had opted on not looking at the older wizard. The entire day was starting to seem like a nightmare and the first class of bumbling fools had not even seen him yet. Dumbledore had prattled on and on about things that Snape did not really care much about. He had stopped paying attention to the old man once he had somehow managed to get onto the topic of his favourite beaches. He was just waiting for an excuse to leave the Headmaster's office as soon as possible.
The bell had finally rung and Snape quickly excused himself and exited the office as fast as he possibly could. His nightmarish day continued as he caught sight of two lip locked Gryffindors on his way to the dungeons. It was quite frankly disgusting and Snape found himself shocked at how little air the two needed to survive. He was mildly shocked one of them had yet to pass out from lack of oxygen to the brain. Perhaps that was why Gryffindors tended to be so mind-numbingly stupid – loss of brain cells from partaking in such activities.
"Mister Wood, Miss Bell, as amusing as it would be to watch you two pass out from lack of air, your current activities are making me ill. Detention, both of you," Snape hissed as he passed them.
Oliver and Katie jumped apart with an impressive speed and gawked at the Potion Master's retreating back in shock.
"We should go to class," Snape heard Katie whisper softly.
"I don't want to go to class though!" Oliver replied.
"A weeks worth of detentions for the both of you for bunking class in addition to your previous detention," Snape called out with a sadistic glee. "I shall add more if Professor McGonagall tells me you two never arrived at her class."
His mood had improved slightly despite his mental scarring. He had given detentions to Gryffindors. That was always a pleasing exercise and always lifted his mood as if he took house points he knew Dumbledore would probably only replace them at the end of the year for some heroic deed of Potter's or his group of friends. No one could retract a detention though, except the teacher who had given it and Snape would never retract a detention he had given, especially not for a Gryffindor even if they did not deserve the detention.
"Inside!" he barked at the students waiting outside his Potions classroom.
The terrified First Years hurried to comply.
Ah, he could inflict such terror on to students that many never forgot it even years afterwards. That was definitely something he took pride in. When your past students saw you outside Hogwarts and did anything to avoid you, you know you are doing something right. Every student needed a healthy dose of fear.
The first years had seated themselves and Snape started with his usual introductory speech he gave every year. He usually kept it vaguely the same and each and every year he received exactly the same reactions from each of the houses that he received in the years previous.
The Gryffindors blew him off, the Hufflepuffs trembled in their seats, the Ravenclaws sat straight up in an effort to show their intelligence and the Slytherins simply smirked, knowing they would not get into any trouble during that class as Snape was their Head of House and would help them if they needed it. The option was of course open to the other houses but no one knew of it and even if they did, they probably would not want to spend all that extra time with the "Dungeon Bat."
Snape was just about to think that the day was finally looking up when the trembling Hufflepuff whose table he had just passed managed to make her cauldron explode with something that did not even look close to what they were supposed to be making.
Snape growled at the Hufflepuff that was covered in a garish orange colour.
The Hufflepuff squeaked in terror.
Snape growled in frustration. It was a nightmare, he was back to square one.