Title: Potions Room Chaos: There's a Hole in the Bucket!
Author: malcious lufoy
Rating: PG-13
Classifications: Humor
Warnings: Language use by Snape and..gasp! MacGonagall!
Author's notes: I really didn't know what to rate this..it was pretty light, but there's some words towards the end that ain't right for PG...so on the safe side I go! I'd really like feedback, so review review review (did I say reveiw?) me!
Summary: The potions room is in chaos, Snape is beset by neon pink fire, and Harry is clueless. Done to the wonderful song of, There's a Hole in the Bucket.
The potions room was in chaos, of course! Tables overturned, potions splattered all over the place, students fleeing in horror, papers everywhere! The moment he left it unattended, something goes horribly, (Snape looked over at the gaping hole in the wall) horribly wrong.
This was all Dumbledore's fault. Important business... can't wait...have to see you now, interrupting him in the middle of his lesson! Of course, the old coot hemmed and hawed about it, but the whole point of the meeting had been to inform him of the fact that he would be yet again passed over as a teacher for Defense Against the Dark Arts.
And he had purposely called him in to tell him during a lesson, so he'd be stuck worrying with horror about what those little brats would be doing to his preciously organized (alphabetically and by properties) ingredients. Therefore, not able to take his wrath out on Albus himself, over the fact that he wasn't to get the vacant DADA position.
"Clever old coot." He muttered. Of course, Snape would never have admitted that to anyone else.
And after an offer of tea, the Headmaster had the gall, the gall! To smile and give him that 'knowing' look, and say,
"Why, Severus, I do believe it's time you go back to your classroom." He paused, looking thoughtful and wise. "You should probably get there as fast as possible."
Of course, it was then that Snape realized (after fuming inwardly about the new DADA teacher) he had left a room full of adolescents unattended while making if that's what you would call throwing in all ingredients in a five foot radius into a cauldron, he thought, their potions.
"Excuse me, Headmaster," he said, while trying not to look to horrified as he rushed to the door.
"Of course, dear fellow, I hope you aren't to angry about the new Professor to much!" He said cheerily.
Gods, was he irritated. When was he ever not irritable? Loud sounds, stupid children, people questioning him all the time when he had other things to do, and people touching his things annoyed him in the extreme. In what circle of hell was I ever made to become a teacher? Oh yes, this one... He thought, as he stormed down the hallway, trying to suppress the horrible images of what possibly could of gone wrong while he was gone.
He had absolutely no idea what horror was to await him, back in the dungeons.
"Professor! Professor, your room! The potion, acid!... holeinthewall!" A hysterical student running down the hall informed him before sprinting away.
Though the warning was somewhat disjointed, he had gotten the gist of it.
Look at this! Someone, someone had mucked up their potion again, (Snape glared at Longbottom, and Granger for not making sure Longbottom did his potion right, for once) and it had melted out of their cauldron, and splattered on the walls as well.
The distinctly acidic mixture was now eating through the floors, the walls, and one corner of the ceiling. Students were clearly trying to get as faraway from the mixture as possible, climbing on desks, sitting on shelves, and the ones nearest the door were trying to flee, flee for their lives.
Sometimes he had wished Voldemort had finished him off. This was one of them, closely tailing the time Dumbledore had set up a surprise birthday celebration for him, involving pink part hats, and slide shows and cute pictures of him from when he was a baby.
"Snape!" He turned his head , and through the hole in the ceiling, he could see MacGonnagal peering down into his classroom.
"Or what's left of it," he muttered to himself.
"The solution is spreading, and soon the whole floor will give way!" The Transfiguration teacher yelled.
"Then evacuate." He snapped, glaring up at the ceiling. "I have no time to deal with you, whilst I try and bring this," he gestured to the cacophony of ingredients spilled, desks starting to melt away with students on them, and his precious student files in danger of being destroyed, "to order!" And then he promptly ignored her.
The professor sniffed the air, and that particular acidic scent gave him cause fore relief. At least he knew how to deal with this particular mess-up. The solution could be stopped by simply splashing some water on it, actually, that would break down the potion, simply reducing it to lemon concentrate and sugar. In fact, that's how he made the most smashing lemonade at MacGonagall's Christmas party last year....
He shook his head. "Potter!" He yelled, looking a the boy, standing uselessly in the middle of the room.
The aforementioned boy jumped, looking horrified by the fact that furious!Snape was using his Glare of Near Death (he couldn't kill a student, more's the pity) upon him.
Harry, hoping to live through his sixth year, properly cringed subserviently, and tried to crawl away. The cause for this was that, unlike what Snape thought had happened, he was the one who had concocted the potion that started to burn thought his cauldron and desk, and books.
Snape, however, knew none of this. His wand was now out, as he used some freezing charms on the places the solution was gnawing though, and trying to keep the bottles and jars of ingredients on the floor from escaping their confinement.
"Get that bucket over there and fill it with water!" He shouted this command at the boy, as he frantically tried to stop the jars of volatile ingredients from opening.
Harry just stood stock still for a moment, with an almost dumbfounded expression on his face.
"Move boy!" The Snape barked, his face contorted with fury at Harry's momentary lack of wits. It was to this voice that he jumped over the desks and picked up the bucket in the corner by the shelf, and went to get some water.
"But there's a hole in the bucket, professor," He said, the metal bottom was eaten out by the solution. Snape was to busy to notice, trying to get students out of the way so he could cast an unbreakable charm on the ingredient bottles. "Professor, there's a hole in the bucket, professor!" He shouted, trying to get his attention. "A hole!"
"Then fix it you idiot!" He shouted above the cacophony, since MacGonagall's students were scrambling, noisily he might add, out of the way of the gaping hole in their floor. Harry stood there, bewildered and not knowing what to do. "You idiot, fix it!"
He looked puzzled, as Snape shouted in horror as Dean clambered past and stepped on a bottle, releasing its contents as it swirled ominously towards his files. If it made it there, he would have to spend days, nay, even weeks trying to sort out all the student information that went in there. That amount of time reading about nothing but the little brats he had to teach....he shuddered involuntarily.
"With what shall I fix it, professor?" Harry gestured to the bucket. "Professor? With what shall I fix it, professor, with what?" He looked around in panic, trying to find anything.
"With straw Potter, oh, Potter, with straw!" He pointed forcefully towards the hay bale near his desk, finger jabbing at the air, as he pushed students from his way, trying to get clear aim at the ingredients on the floor, but it was to late. Once it touched the acid solution, it sent of explosions in the room, adding to the confusion, and overturning one of his file cabinets. Snape gave out a cry of anguish.
Harry looked confused. "But the straw is to long, to long, Professor, to long."
The poor professor was frantically trying to gather as many papers as possible from the drawer, to preoccupied to try and listen to Potter's inane voice shouting above the ruckus.
"But the straw is to long, professor to long."
"Oh, for godsake, you idiot boy! Then cut it, Potter, Potter cut it oh, Potter, cut it."
"With what shall I cut it, professor? Professor, with what shall I cut the straw, professor, professor with what?"
As if it couldn't get worse, MacGonagall had stepped to the edge of the hole in the ceiling, trying to asses the damage, and was now falling through while students were attempting to jump from their desks to near the fire, to Floo their way out.
"A knife!" He yelled in frustration at the boy, as he levitated MacGonagall so she wouldn't fall into the solution itself. "With a knife Potter. Potter, oh Potter, a knife!"
"But...But... the knife is to dull," He said, looking at the short knife that he used to cut potions ingredients with. He tested to blade with is finger. "To dull, to dull, but the knife is way to dull, Professor to dull!"
Snape was to busy casting immobulus charms at the acid and now that Professor MacGonagall was here, she helped him cast some more freezing charms. God help me boy, that knife can't be duller then you're wits!
"Then sharpen it Mr. Potter! Mr. Potter, then sharpen it Potter, Potter, sharpen it!" MacGonagall replied, as she threw off her shoe, which had dipped in some of the acid on the floor. The desks were starting to sink, the mixture melting the legs, and students crouched on them, trying not to fall off.
"With what shall I sharpen it, Professor? With what shall I sharpen it?" He looked around, trying to find something he could use. Perhaps a spell? "Professor with what?"
"With a stone, you dolt! Potter, you dolt, use a bloody stone! Potter, a stone!" He shrieked, as he retreated towards the doorway, as the liquid started to encroach upon where he stood. It was already biting it's way through those bottles of ingredients that had been missed when he aimed some unbreakable charms at them. MacGonagall was also losing space, backed into the area by his desk.
Harry picked up the stone, feeling it. 'But the stone is to dry, Professor, Professor! But the stone is to dry, professor to dry!"
Snape had little time to wonder at the idiocy of the recent line of questioning, as he was busy putting out the small, colorful fires that were springing from the morass of potions ingredients that broke free of their jars.
"Bloody hell!" Snape exclaimed, as he tried to take out the scintillating neon pink fire that was trying to climb up his robes. Other then being visually abrasive, it was starting to bleach his precious robes into an unpleasantly bright turquoise color. "Then wet it you fool, you nitwit! You dolt, then wet it Potter, you fool, wet it! And splash some one me while you're at it!" He then tore off his robe, and tried to beat out the fire.
"No! Snape, you asshole! You just got some of the acid on your robe!" The transfiguration teacher shrieked. MacGonagall was trying madly to put out the fires with her wand, but she tripped in one of the cavities in the floor from the previous explosion.
Potter's face was utterly horrified by his house head's language. His face was shocked looking as if she were on fire. And indeed, she was. "With what shall I wet it? Snape, with what shall I wet it, oh Snape with what?!" Harry then pulled MacGonagall up and beat the fire on her out with his own robe.
"With water! With water, Mr. Potter. Mr. Potter, with water!! Is that so difficult for your puny brain to understand?" It was then that he saw the other teachers at the school coming to his aid, except they were to far down he hall to come in time. Different, volatile ingredients already making the room even more chaotic then it was before.
"With what shall I carry it, Professor, Professor? With what shall I carry it, Professor, with what?"
"The friggin' bucket! Mr. Potter, Mr. Potter. Carry it with the friggin' bucket, Potter. Potter, the bucket!" Snape was flying wildly about trying to suppress the minor explosions that toppled the rest of his files over, and the fur that was growing from the stone floor along with the gaudy changes in color and the random groups of plants that were now rapidly shooting up, through his desk. He also had to levitate several students before their desks gave way to the potion making it's way across the floor, and push them towards the door.
"But there's a hole in the bucket, Professor. Professor, there's a hole in the bucket, Professor a hole."
"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Snape snapped. "Descendo Aquarius!"
And with the flick of his wand, water started pouring in a shower from the ceiling, taking out the fires and neutralizing the acid.
The room went silent, as everyone stilled, in relief. Snape looked around him, at the ruined desks, he lost files, his robes now a ruin. The first thing he did, was take up the bucket in the poor boy's hand, inspect it closely, and whopped him up the side of the head with it.
"OW! What'd you do that for? I didn't do anything wrong this time!"
Snape simply stared down at the young man, and then sat down in the corner with his head in his hands, trying not to cry (Of course, that was just a figure of speech, he would never really cry. Except, perhaps, if the students found out about that incident of the pink tu-tu curse with Albus and the giant mango....).
It was now that all the teachers in the hall rushed towards the door, finding students clinging to their desks, Snape utterly exhausted, his pants stained a bright green from the fire, an injured looking Harry standing in the middle of the room, and MacGonagall slouching by the desk.
Dumbledore came inside, and curiously tasted some of the mixture from the wall. "Why, Severus, this is just lemonade."
Snape looked up in disbelief at the Headmaster, glanced around at the room, at his pants, looked at Harry, and the bucket.
He got up, and slowly made his way towards Albus, face blank of any emotion, and stood straight in front of his employer. He looked him straight in the eye.
His voice was deadly quiet. "You had better get me a sprinkler system next year, Headmaster." And that was all he said, before walking out of the classroom door, to collapse wearily on the wall- before laughing hysterically.
End.
Hope you enjoyed that as much as I did writing it!