The Potions Master's Smile
Harry woke with a start.
"Nightmares again, mate?" Ron said sleepily as the others groaned with irritation at having been woken so early.
"Sorry, was it that obvious?" Harry replied sheepishly.
It was true. The nightmares had been getting worse. Sometimes he would dream that Hogwarts had become a battlefield, that Professor Lupin was dead, his hand clutched in another, more feminine hand though her face was blurry and indistinct, both lying so still as he tried in vain to wake them. Or he'd dream that his godfather was in one of those stage magician acts, only when the magician turned around, it was Bellatrix, and she cackled as she threw a blanket over Sirius, who smiled back at Harry with his usual devil-may-care grin before disappearing completely, never to return.
After the horror that had been his fourth year, culminating with being forced to literally watch Voldemort appear in all his terrifying glory, Harry was ready for a quiet year at Hogwarts. But with the new, toadlike Ministry-appointed Defense professor, he was sure that the year was not going to be an easy one even though he hoped that Hermione had merely been exaggerating when she'd said that the Ministry was interfering.
Surely, with Dumbledore as headmaster, there would be no surprises. At least, that is what Harry desperately hoped, but he'd been wrong before.
Realizing he wasn't going to get much sleep now that he was fully awake, the nightmares still swirling uncomfortably in his head, Harry decided to get dressed and take a walk. Ron was already snoring by the time Harry had finished pulling his robes over his head, and both Seamus and Dean had put on the ear mufflers they'd nicked from the greenhouses after that unit they'd done on mandrakes. Neville, on the other hand, was reading a book, his face so engrossed on the page he was looking at that he didn't even look up when Harry waved from the door.
Out of habit, perhaps, Harry brought the Invisibility Cloak with him. He didn't put it on just yet, though, merely tucked it into one of the pockets inside of his robes. Though it wasn't against the rules to walk around the castle in the mornings, there were some benefits to not being seen.
He'd been looking at some paintings of a number of dogs, which merrily ran and gamboled through their paintings (which were set close together, apparently to keep them from running through the other moving portraits and bothering their occupants), when he heard a strange, gruff noise from around the corner. Turning abruptly, he ducked into an alcove and pulled out the Cloak. The sound was coming towards him, and he only had a moment to throw the cloth over his head before a dark leg came into view and Professor Snape came around the corner.
Harry suppressed a sharp intake of breath. The last thing he wanted to do was give the Greasy Git an excuse to take points from his House.
But wait...what was wrong with Snape's face?
Harry goggled.
The normally sour-faced Potions master was laughing, his eyes crinkled in mirth. It wasn't a nasty laugh, either. It changed the man's face so much that, had he not been wearing his customary voluminous black robes, Harry would have wondered if it was someone else.
He needed to follow Snape and figure out what was going on.
He padded as quietly as he could behind the man, worried that the Potions master would hear him, but Snape didn't seem to notice him one bit.
They reached the front doors to the castle, but instead of going outside, Snape turned the corner and went down some stairs that Harry had never given much thought to traveling before, however, his curiosity got the better of him.
He turned the corner just as Snape swept around it ahead of him and watched as the man knocked on a door in a strange cadence to have it pulled open. Harry only narrowly made it in before it slammed shut and pressed himself against the wall, his eyes adjusting to the gloom.
"Very amusing, you two," Snape said, chuckling richly, "but you'll have to try harder than that."
He pulled something from his robes, which he placed on the table in the middle of the room.
"Aw, c'mon Snape, don't be like that!" A familiar voice said, somewhat poutily.
"Yeah, we worked all week on it!" Another, nearly identical voice, grumbled from the shadows.
"Well, then," Snape said, smirking, "looks like you two still need some work."
He pointed his wand towards the ceiling and a bright light shot out from the tip of it, lighting a circle of candles, which lit the room. Harry nearly yelped in surprise when he realized that there, leaning casually against the table across from Professor Snape, were the Weasley twins, Fred and George.
"What...the...hell?" Harry whispered.
"C'mon Snape-y, tell me what you think about our flatulent fudge!" Fred said, pulling out some brown squares.
"Get back to me when you can make a cartoony cloud emit from the desired area, even better if you can get it to make other noises besides the customary farting sound," Snape replied with a smirk.
"Oh, you mean like this?" George said, popping a square into his mouth.
Moments later, a giant pink cloud erupted from the back of his robes with a sound like a rooster's crow.
"Smells like...strawberries?" Snape asked, grinning conspiratorially. "Well done! You two have truly improved upon the original. Ten points to Gryffindor!"
Harry's jaw nearly hit the floor. Not only was Snape talking with the Weasley twins as though they were old friends, but he was awarding points to Gryffindor? Was he still dreaming? He pinched his arm hard and bit his tongue to swallow the cry of pain that threatened to leak out of his lips. Nope. He was wide awake.
"That's not all, Snape!" Fred said with a laugh, "We have been using some of the firsties in Gryffindor as guinea pigs...er...I mean test subjects...er...you know, what I mean. We pay them, in any case! Anyway, so we just came up with these!"
He held out a small round ball that looked like a lemon drop.
"Is...that what I think it is?" Snape said, his smile growing slightly sinister.
"Oh you'd better believe it!" Fred and George began to grin almost exactly the same way.
"I call them Loopy Lemondrops!" Fred crowed.
"I thought we were going with Ludicrous Lemondrops!" George said, crossing his arms irritably.
"Whatever!" Fred said, "You tried the last one, so it's my turn, I guess."
Fred popped the sweet into his mouth and instantly, his eyes began to bug out of his face, twinkling a rainbow of colors that made his corneas look almost like disco balls. Meanwhile, he was saying things deliriously in a strange, stream-of-consciousness sort of way.
"Ah, and then I went over here with Morgana Dewitts and we did this, and that and I gave her pumpkins a squeeze, if you know what I mean! Wink wink nudge nudge and all that!" Fred garbled, stumbling around a bit.
George rolled his eyes as his brother embarrassed himself thoroughly, but Snape was laughing so hard that tears had begun to roll down his cheeks. He steadied himself by leaning against the table, his thin form curved over as drops of moisture hit the table's surface.
Finally, George pulled out an orange candy and thrust it in Fred's mouth, which seemed to reverse the effects.
"You get the first bag, free of charge, Snape," George said, presenting a large bag of the yellow objects, "and, of course, a bag of the counter-candy, if you ever have the need for it."
Snape tucked the bags into his robes and gave both boys high-fives, which nearly made Harry pinch himself again.
"Good job, you two! I expect to see more good inventions from the two of you!" he said, turning to go, "oh, yes, I forgot, before I go..."
"Yes?" the two boys chimed together.
"Professor Umbridge's office's password is the same as it was the year before. She, for some reason, cannot seem to figure out how to change it." Snape smiled in the gloom as he took a step towards the shadowy door, "I figured that you two would be best suited to make the most of this information."
"Right you are! Until next time, then, Snape! It was good to see you." George said, waving as Fred started whispering things under his breath to his brother.
"Oh, and Snape?" Fred called out, a moment later.
"Yes?" Snape turned, his face free of anger or malice.
"How'd the talk with Dumbledore go? Did he listen to you, finally?"
"He says that, if all goes well, I should have the Defense position by next year, and after that, if his damnable plans go, well, as planned, I should be free."
"Yeah, we heard about the position being cursed," George said, scratching his head, "Aren't you afraid you're going to...get hurt?"
"It's a good thing I'm a Potions master, then. I wouldn't worry too much. Once you've got enough stock, I advise you to open your business, boys. I'll be sure to write a scathingly positive review." Snape turned and raised a hand. "I'll see you two later in class. Give that heinous bitch hell."
"We will!" The twins called out and Harry nearly tripped as he ran out of the door before it slammed closed once more.
Harry let Snape disappear around a corner and stood outside the door wondering just what he'd just seen. Snape's smile was practically etched on the inside of his eyelids, though. If he hadn't seen it himself, he wouldn't have believed it was true.
Harry tucked the Cloak into his robes and walked slowly to the Great Hall, still pondering on the relationship between the Weasley twins and Severus Snape, who had been nothing but horrible to everyone from the moment Harry had laid eyes on the man.
From that day on, Harry looked for traces of that relaxed, happy smile in vain. And, one year later, after Snape had said those terrible words and blasted Dumbledore from the top of the Astronomy Tower, Harry wondered if it had indeed been some sort of dream after all.