There was an odd chill about the castle's dungeons, it made Fred's spine tickle and George's hands to shake a little. Nevertheless they were excited to meet their Potions professor, they had heard about him from Bill and Charlie. The twins thought he might be in need of a good laugh.
The door slammed open as they were about to take their seats; a Slytherin in the back row gasped audibly at the sight of the man making his way to the front of the classroom. He had lanky, greasy hair and a pale face that made him look like an anorexic vampire. He lived up to his nickname as a dungeon bat with his robes billowing behind him.
Fred sniggered as he began to speak about bottling fame and brewing glory, George playfully slapped his arm and shushed him.
"Now, now Freddie, we must give the man a chance to explain the delicate workings of achieving glory," he said with a straight face.
"Of course my dear, though I do say we've got a fair shot at fame with our dashing good looks, oh look he simply cannot take his eyes off us already," Fred shot Snape a goodnatured smile which was returned by a smirk.
"I see another batch of students has been contaminated by the Weasley family," he spoke in a low voice.
Fred and George's eyes hardened as they stared at Snape. Snape merely sneered at them before deducting ten points from Griffindor.
The twin's looked at each other before deciding they definitely had to do something about the old prune. It would all begin tomorrow.
Snape glared at the Griffindor table every morning as if it were a ritual to begin his day with hatred. The rest of Hogwarts thought he probably found it enjoyable and let him be. Of course, with the arrival of the Weasley twins, all that would soon change.
Severus found it slightly unnerving that the entire Griffindor table was now staring back at him with their mouth open for a second before bursting into collective laughter that made them look like fish that had washed ashore. They were draped around each other and the table as the laughter slowly infected their surrounding tables. To his left he heard Dumbledore let out a giggle he had been stifling while Minerva cracked a smile at him.
Snape turned around to find a crown floating in the space above his head and a pair of large bat-like wings flapping. The words Griffindor is number one were spread around the width of the crown which had stopped rotating around his head. His face matched the colour of the words as he whispered to Dumbledore to stop laughing.
"Oh Severus, you always had a terrible sense of humour," Dumbledore replied.
"Barmy old man, I'll be in my lab," Snape muttered.
"Not afraid to perpetuate stereotypes then, are we?" Dumbledore shouted after him.
Snape was already on his way down the staircase.
The class sniggered as Snape walked into class. He shushed them by immediately beginning a pop quiz to assure them of their low worth. Fred raised his hand and Snape raised an eyebrow, he had just asked a forth year question that surely the red haired boy in front of him wouldn't know the answer to.
"Mr Snape, yesterday you said you would teach us how to brew glory and all that jazz, but I think the real question is, can you teach us to swish?" Fred began before Snape cut him off with a dangerously quiet voice.
"It's Professor Snape to you, you insufferable little mutt," he said.
"Yes, Professor, that's very kind of you and everything but you haven't answered my question, how to you achieve such drama," he smiled at his potions Professor.
"Out!" Snape screeched.
Slowly Fred and George eased themselves from the bench and made their way outside, their plan was working.
The next day was even worse for Snape, while his morning went uninterrupted he found himself dealing with the Griffindor first years after lunch. The twins had decided to change their hairstyles.
Gone were the straight red heads of hair, now replaced by mops of lanky, greasy black hair much like his own.
He didn't bother to say anything when prompted by their smiles and wiggling eyebrows. He just held his head in his hands and sighed. He needed to get drunk more often.