This story was written by several members of the Post-MiM Facebook Role-Playing game. We hope you have as much fun reading it as we did writing it!

Authors (by character played): Aurora Sinistra, Shannon le Fay, Carol Marlow, Nina Doyle, and Eileen Snape-Bagman.

Valentine Dream

The tall, dark wizard sat off by himself at the long staff table, ignoring his coworkers as he silently ate his breakfast. He hated Valentine's Day with a passion, absolutely loathed it. Honestly. Chocolates, cards, and numerous sickly-laced confessions of love. Ridiculous in his opinion.

Then, an owl flew in and perched itself on the back of his chair holding a letter out to him.

He swatted a hand towards the offending creature. Didn't it see that he was busy?

But the bird seemed quite persistent. With much agitation, it again thrust the letter out to the surly man, as if commanding him to take it.

Snape glared, but reluctantly took the bright red envelope with a sneer.

Breaking the seal, he opened it, clenching his teeth when the envelope suddenly flew into the air.

He could only look on with barely contained horror as it began to sing in a voice he didn't recognize. "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey . . ."

Hundred of eyes snapped to him instantly.

'But you don't know, dear, how much I love you, so don't you take my sunshine away!' Merlin's hairy sack, it was a singing Valentine. Would the humiliations that made up his life ever end?
When the horrid song finally ended, he thought his humiliation was complete. He was wrong. There was a message too.

"Without you, we'd be incomplete" was written in flowery cursive.
Without giving a name, the letter burst into thousands of glittering heart-shaped pieces and floated down on top of him. As giggles issued from among the throng of students at their tables, a few of his 'esteemed colleagues' began to choke back chuckles of their own. Minerva looked far too amused at the situation, which only served to add fuel to the steadily rising fire of wrath that was building within him. With a low growl and a death grip on his wand, he stood up abruptly with every intent to billow menacingly out of the Great Hall. He didn't get far.

"Ah, Severus," loudly spoke a voice from the middle of the table, a voice that could only belong to the Headmaster. "Sit." The voice paused for a moment. "There's no need to rush out because of an admirer." The speaker likely ignored the sound of Severus's jaw clenching loudly in response.

"I have a potion to attend to, Headmaster, as well as a batch of Veritaserum to get started on. Hopefully, the house elves will not get careless and spill some into the pumpkin juice... again. I'm sure we remember what happened last time." Half of Gryffindor gained detention with that one, and he had had so much pleasure at seeing almost every Weasley among them.

With one last glare at the now worried looking students, he continued out of the Great Hall. If Potter was responsible for this, he would pay.

After taking as many points from Gryffindor in double Potions-never had he enjoyed having Potter for two hours than he did today-just to ensure that if Potter was responsible he suffered, the Potions master headed down the long darkened corridor. If he had been any other man, he would have chuckled at the sight of Gryffindors jumping out of the way, parting the hallway as he headed up to the Great Hall for lunch. Whoever had the gall to send him that singing Valentine from before wouldn't do it again. Of that he was certain.

As he entered the hall through the teachers entrance, all conversation stopped as if a switch was thrown. Narrowing his eyes in a silent challenge, he let his gaze sweep the hall, daring any student to meet his gaze. But it wasn't the student tables he needed to worry about. Laying at his normal spot on the table was a heart shaped pink box.

As he took his seat, a stifled giggle disguised as a cough rang out in the silence. Snapping his head to the left, Minerva was gifted with one of Snape's trademark glares. "Something funny, Minerva?"

"You seem to be rather popular today, Severus."
Snape sneered at her before sitting down, but was interrupted by her giggles.

"Now come, Severus. Everyone in here is waiting for you to open that little box."
He gingerly picked up the box and tossed it towards her. "Then you open it."

The older woman caught it and pushed it right back to him. "It's your present. You have to open it."
He growled at her and tossed the package onto the table, waiting for the food to appear. However, par for the course on this day, rather than the usual Hogwarts fare that came at lunch, sickly sweet things materialized. Among the usual lunch-hour dishes designed to keep students fueled for the day so they wouldn't fall asleep in classes (though to hear Professor Binns, none of it worked), there were also trays of chocolates filled with thick, gooey mixtures, or cakes with two inches of pink and red colored icing. It was enough to make his stomach turn.

And turn it did as yet another owl flew in. It dropped another blasted red envelope in his lap. His dignity barely kept him from running from the room and screaming.

Like the one this morning, the envelope jumped up once more directly in front of him before starting its horrid singing. Instead of the "You are my sunshine" ballad from earlier, this song was rather slower and far more somber sounding.

"Wise men say only fools rush in..."
If Snape were any other man, he would have leaped from their chair and ran out of the room. Luckily he was not any other man. He was the feared Potions master of Hogwarts. He made Hufflepuffs weep, Ravenclaws swear, Slytherins whimper, and Gryffindors flee. It didn't matter that Elvis was one of his and Lily's favorite Muggle musical artists as children. He would not let this affect him. He wouldn't.

Grinding his teeth, he picked up his fork, glaring at the students and waiting for the song to end. When it had, another insipid message followed. 'I really can't help it, you know," the Valentine professed before, once again, it burst apart. This time, however, it became a shower of pink, red, and white flower petals that fell around him and the table, landing in his plate and in his limp hair.

Death would come quickly for the one responsible for this. A slow and most painful one. He would relish the moment that the person who dared to cause him such embarrassment screamed in agony and begged him to finish their miserable life!

A snicker could be heard from the Gryffindor table. Severus was out of his chair, swooping down on the poor soul who dared to laugh, in a matter of sheer moments. "'Mr. Potter."

Harry looked up from his plate and into the angry obsidian eyes of his most hated professor. "Yes, sir?"

A mask of confusion, no doubt a ploy to try and trick him, came over the face of James Potter's lookalike. "Sir?" the boy asked.

"You find these sickening displays made at me humorous, Mr. Potter? Do you find them 'funny'?" he questioned the spawn of his nemesis.

"No, sir, I wasn't really." Harry could of kicked himself for picking this moment to laugh at a dirty joke Ron just told, Of course the greasy git would think Harry was laughing at him.

"Don't bother lying, Potter, especially to me. Ten points from Gryffindor," Snape snapped, as he turned with an elaborate billow of his shadow colored robes, and strode with long steps from the Great Hall. This was irrefutable proof, in the Professor's mind, that Potter as behind this. He would make him pay, oh yes. He would make him pay dearly.

Snape stood outside the teachers' entrance to the Great Hall. He couldn't bring himself to open the door just yet. Who knew what would be waiting on him this time. A fluffy bear, maybe? Another box of chocolate? Flowers? And, of course, there was bound to be another singing letter. Shaking his head, he silently berated himself. He faced Voldemort and a dozen Death Eaters, and here he was afraid of a stupid Valentine.

Stealing himself against what awaited him, he pushed open the door. With his wand in hand, he walked with determination to his seat at the High table, intending to hex whatever awaited him to pieces.

Thankfully, the table was free of any paraphernalia. Not a single heart, flower, stuffed toy, or piece of candy was waiting. Not even a scrap of paper was present. Slowly picking up his fork, Severus was about to spear a potato when Dumbledore spoke, causing him to jump and the fork to clatter noisily to the table.

Some of the staff chuckled at him, and were favored with glare number 56, also known as the "just wait till you're sick and don't want to be bothered by Poppy, because I'm conveniently not going to have any pepper-up potion on hand" glare.

"Severus, I have a surprise for you," the meddling old coot said, his eyes twinkling.

How Severus wanted to pick up his fork and stab the old coot, save himself a load of trouble that came with being near the wizard.

"And what, pray tell, is it, Albus?" His eyes narrowed when the wizard beckoned for someone to approach. When he noticed the small cupid approaching, he swallowed harshly. Forget Voldemort and protecting the brat for Lily. He was going to murder that brat! He sat firmly rooted to his chair when the cherub opened its mouth and started to sing. A large cake appeared beside the cupid, standing taller than the table. While sitting down, Snape could barely see over it.

Dumbledore clapped his hands once and every banners changed. Staring back at him, Snape saw his own glaring face on a pink background surrounded by dozens of moving hearts.

"Severus Snape," the white wizard spoke with a large smile. "It has been decided that for your valiant efforts-now, now-don't interrupt me." He quickly cut off the protesting modest wizard. "Now, where was I? Oh, yes." He cleared his throat. "With all of your valiant effort in the war efforts, namely defeating Voldemort single handedly, Severus Snape, all of Hogwarts has decided to be your Valentine as a way of us thanking you. Congratulations, Professor."

With the little cherub still singing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" complete with all of the hand gestures directed to Severus, the top of the cake burst open and to his amazed horror a bald, noseless decaying form popped out. Snape didn't know whether to be horrified of seeing the Dark Lord coming out of a pink cake wearing only a red speedo or if he should just laugh and reserve the bed next to Lockhart in St. Mungo's.

"Do you plan walking through the door, Severus, or just staring at it all day?" Minerva asked going around Snape while shaking her head. "And you take points from my Lions," she uttered.

Snape cleared his throat rather relived that someone has disturbed his daydreaming, if one could call such a horrifying scenario a daydream. It was more of a nightmare really. With a calming breath, he followed Minerva into the Great Hall. What he saw was far worse than he could have imagined.

The End

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