Severus Snape's Revenge
The dreaded four sat by the broom cupboard, talking and laughing loudly. They hadn't noticed him. Yet. He tried to keep his head down, and let his greasy, black curtains cover his face. As he opened the cupboard door, he thought that he had succeeded in avoiding his tormentors, but no, he felt someone's bony hand grab his cloak, and haul him into their chattering ring.
"Snape!" James cried, as all his friends started to snigger. "So good to see you! Ooh, got a new wand, have we?" he seized the wand poking out of his pocket, "What is it, Snivellus, eh? Will mummy be upset if it… accidentally breaks between my fingers?"
"It's oak, 10 ½", Demiguise hair." Snape murmured, still keeping his head down.
"Demiguise? Demiguise? Ha!" James said. The others hadn't yet realized what he was laughing at. "The thing it's best at is transfiguration, and look how good it is at that-" James flicked Snape's wand at a nearby stone, and slowly, like it had every objection to what it was meant to be doing, turned a lurid shade of pink, and grew a short green lump on its side. "That," exclaimed James, whose friends were now in heaps of laughter, "Is meant to be a flower!" Laughing, he held Snape's wand out for him to take back. He reached out for it, but James whisked it back. Murmuring under his breath, he threw it as far away as he could, for Snape to go and retrieve like a puppy dog. It could have been a lot worse. He should be thankful for not having a broken wand…
"And then, he threw it right over to the Whomping Willow - I mean, it could have killed me, nevermind the wand! I could hear their laughing and jeering as I walked away..." Snape said, sighing as he retold his unpleasant encounter.
"Don't listen to those tossers," Lily muttered, placing an arm round Snape's shoulder. He blushed, and resisted the urge to mover closer to her. Detecting an akwardness, she put her hands neatly back on her lap. "Let me see your wand, you have to be sure it isn't broken before you start casting spells again." Snape passed Lily his wand and waited as she examined it for a few seconds. "Yeah, it's okay, but don't be too rough with it," she said, pushing it back into his pocket. "You really ought to do something about this, Sev. What they're doing, it's awful -"
"Lily! C'mon, we're late for Potions!" one of her friends shouted, eyeing Snape suspiciously.
"I'll be there in a minute!" she replied, gathering her books, slightly embarrassed by her friend's rudeness. "Bye, Sev." She ran to catch up with her friends, her shiny hair rippling behind her in the wind. Snape sighed. He had no chance. Swinging his satchel over his shoulder, he slowly walked to Potions alone. He never walked or sat with Lily any more – her friends made it too uncomfortable. He could see Potter's gang entering Professor Slughorn's room, laughing at some private joke that seemed to have something to do with a group of Ravenclaw girls sitting on a bench in the corridor.
Snape followed them in and glanced around the room, looking for a place to sit. Sighing, he saw that the only available seat was next to Sirius. He reluctantly sat down, trying to look inconspicuous, but unfortunately Sirius alerted his friends of the new-found entertainment sitting next to them. Sirius pulled the stopper on a large glass beaker lying on his desk, and as he could tell from the awful smell of petrol wafting out from the bottle, it was bubotuber pus. Snape could guess the one-liner Sirius was about to reel out.
"You might need some of this to cure those monsters- oh, sorry, spots on your face!" he sneered, smothering his page in the smelly liquid. Pettigrew giggled shrilly for a little too long, then stopped abruptly as Professor Slughorn entered the room. Snape would pay a million galleons to see Black or Potter as embarrassed as they made him feel.
"Oi, Snivellus," he heard James whisper, "you better give those in for us!" He dumped a mound of papers on his desk – four lots of last week's homework, each of wildly varying quality.
"I'll be wanting your essays on the different uses of Erumpent parts at the end of this lesson, please." Professor Slughorn announced to the class. It was then that Snape got the idea… "Now, last lesson we were discussing why Garroting Gas had the effect on people that it does, Lily, do you know?"
Smiling, Snape took the top two pieces of parchment off the pile, both labeled with James's name. He surreptitiously slid them into his bag, propped up beside him. He glanced to his right to check they weren't looking at him, but thankfully they were all engrossed in Slughorn's endless waffling. He took a quill out of his satchel, and as quietly as possible started writing on a new piece of parchment.
'Some of the Many Reasons why Professor Horace Slughorn is a Total Twerp,'Snape began to write, 'by James Potter. There is a great wealth of compelling evidence to suggest that Horace Slughorn is an idiot. The first thing that springs to mind is that last week, I stole vast amounts of Swelling Solution from his supplies, and, being too dim-witted to have noticed himself, he simply assumes that the culprit will own up, and is himeslf too lazy to investigate the issue further. The second testament to Slughorn's stupidity is that he has not yet detected Remus and I making Wolfsbane Potion at the back of the classroom every month. In conclusion, my verdict on Professor Slughorn is: yes, very stupid indeed.'
He spent the rest of the lesson perfecting the passage, taking care to write convincingly in Potter's style – easy for Snape, who had heard enough of Potter's insults to do a realistic impersonation. Pleased with his handiwork, he placed the sheet of parchment on top of the rest of them. All the things the essay claimed James had done were absolutely true, which made his scheme even more pleasing.
"Yes, Avery, which explains why the gas is, of course, non-lethal. Thank you everyone, after placing your homework on my desk, you may all go." Grinning, Snape dropped the papers on Slughorn's desk. He watched his face contort into a grimace, as he read through the paragraph. "Potter, over here, now, please." He heard him say, fiddling with his walrus-like moustache.
Lily would be awfully upset with him if she found out... but she didn't need to! He knew he'd pay for it sooner or later. What the hell, it was worth it!