"Harry, you have to put it back."
"Yeah right, Hermione. Put back something this good?"
"Shut up, Ron. You know I'm right. This goes beyond Harry just getting grinded into potions ingredients. This is Harry getting grinded into potions ingredients, being put back together, and being grinded again."
"You're mental."
"And you're a liability."
"Does that mean you're not coming with us?" Harry grinned wickedly at Hermione.
"Coming with you to do what?" she demanded, eyes flashing. "Anyway, he's going to notice it's missing if he hasn't already. And he's going to know it was you."
Harry and Ron ignored her, huddling over the piece of parchment they'd nicked from Snape's desk earlier and read it through again.
Saturday:
9:00am Drag my sorry, regretful arse out of my delightfully warm bed to supervise six hundred little dunderheads shoving their morning meal down their pathetic gullets
10:00am Oversee idiot Longbottom's detention and attempt not to drown myself in a cauldron
1:00pm Humor Albus Dumbledore through what I don't doubt is going to end up being a six hour staff meeting without casting "accidental" Avada Kedavra's throughout the entire room
5:00pm String anyone who so much as breathes on my door up by their toes in the Forbidden Forest until Voldemort rises and falls again
"Last week I heard Flitwick telling Sprout that Snape couldn't make it to the staff party at The Three Broomsticks
because he had 'better things to do than sit around a table holding hands with a pack of imbeciles and sing 'Kum Ba Yah,'" Harry said. "And the week before he cancelled Fred and George's detention because he couldn't fit it in before five. That must be some kind of world record. I'm telling you, there's something about Saturday nights that has Snape all wound up."
Hermione shrugged. "So?"
"So...come on, Hermione, don't you want to find out what it is?"
"Honestly, Harry, I think I'd rather play tag with Grawp than try to figure out what Snape does with his leisure time," Hermione said, her eyes not leaving the page of the massive book in front of her. "It'd be safer and probably a lot more clean."
Harry shrugged. "Have it your way. But...maybe you could spare that mini camcorder your parents got for your birthday for just an hour?...or two?..." He tried to give Hermione the most genuine puppy dog face he could muster.
"Ohhh no, Harry James Potter!" Hermione slammed her book shut. "No way. Whether I'm there or not, once you get caught with a camcorder it's going to take no brains to figure out where you got it! I'd rather not have aiding and abetting on my permanent record, if you don't mind!"
Ron just looked confused.
"What's a-?"
"It's...like this camera you make movies on," Harry explained impatiently. "Dudley's gone through three of them. You just turn it on and..." He trailed off when he saw Ron wasn't following. "Remember the Omniculars at the TriWizard Cup? Kind of like those. And believe me, we'll want it with us if there's a chance we can get Snape for something."
"Absolutely not!" Hermione snapped.
"C'mon, Hermione, please? We wouldn't need it for long, swear! And I promise to..." Harry frowned. What could he promise Hermione? It's not like it would do him any good to offer over his homework or bribe her with sweets. "I'll help you knit hats for S.P.E.W. for a month!" he finished triumphantly.
Hermione studied him carefully. "Really?"
"Two," Harry replied emphatically.
"Even if you get caught, which you most likely will?"
Harry rolled his eyes. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, and yes." He paused. "It'll work, won't it?"
"It should if I put a Fenestra Charm on it," Hermione sighed. "That will keep any magic from interfering with it."
"So...you'll do it?"
Hermione bit her lip. "Okay, okay. For the elves, Harry, and that's all!" She got to her feet and tucked her text under her arm. "C'mon, let's see if we can make it work."
"Bloody hell, Ron, what are you doing?" Harry hissed at his ginger haired friend as they hurried down the corridors, after Ron had stepped on the back of his robes for the third time. He glared behind his shoulder to see Ron with the same expression of utter fascination he'd permanently fixed upon his features for the past three days as he gazed down at the camcorder in his hand.
"Sorry mate! Can't help it. How do Muggles figure these things out?" He held it out toward Harry. "I don't get it."
Harry sighed. "You don't have to. Look, give me the camera. If anything happens to it, it's not going to be Snape we'll have to be afraid of. You take the map."
"Did you get the Invisibility Cloak?"
"Yeah. We've got to hurry if we want to get anything good. Hermione said the charm will only last an hour." He slowed slightly. "Where does it say Snape is now?"
"He's in his private quarters. Blimey, Harry-" Ron started to look slightly unsure about the whole plan. "Can you imagine what Snape'll do to us if he catches us in his rooms? Somehow I think one of his week long detentions would look like a vacation in Hogsmeade after that!"
"I don't want to imagine that!" Harry snapped, who very much was imagining it and starting to feel as if a knot of Peppermint Toads had gotten loose in his stomach. He concentrated on bringing the password and wand movements necessary to get past Snape's wards forward, as he had Confunded Malfoy, who seemed to be the only student privy to such information, and gotten it off of him. "Okay, hang on." He pulled out the Invisibility Cloak and threw it over the both of them. After muttering the password and quickly performing the correct wand movements, the wards let them through and they found themselves facing a big black door.
"Now what?" Ron whispered. "It's not as if we can just knock and offer to sell him some Wizard Scout cookies!"
Harry frowned. "Do you hear that?"
They listened in unison and Harry picked up what sounded like a loud, echoing sappy overture that would sometimes play in the background of the old romantic movies Petunia thrived on so much, and just barely over that-
"Is that overgrown bat crying?" Ron whispered incredulously.
"Only one way to find out." Harry aimed his wand at the door. "Penitus!" he muttered, which would enable them to walk right through the door without being immediately detected. The only downfall to the spell was that it would activate any sensory charms an individual had placed over their home, and Harry didn't know if Snape had set those up. He didn't let out his breath until they were safely on the other side and all thoughts of security vanished from his mind.
They crept around Snape's velvet couch, exchanging what was something between absolute aversion and hilarity as they took in the scene before them. Snape, bawling hysterically at what Harry had correctly guessed was an older, romantic film, tears flooding down his face as he shoveled handfuls of what Harry could identify as a mixture of caramel popcorn and Cheetos into his mouth from a baby blue colored bowl decorated with grinning bunny rabbits that, to Harry and Ron's horror, matched exactly the fleece pajamas he was currently wearing. They followed his attire all the way down to his abnormally long feet, which were adorned by enormous plush bunny slippers. Slipped securely under one arm was an emerald green stuffed dragon with pink spikes and a pink collar, that read, if Harry squinted carefully enough: Pinky.
The shock of it all almost caused Harry to forget the video camera, which he quickly switched on and aimed in Snape's direction, wondering at the same time how Snape managed to keep his big screen television in working order. Next to him, Ron was practically turning blue, trying to hold in either wild laughter or tears, he didn't know which and they watched in both disgust and awe while a mountain of Snape's snack mix spilled from his mouth as he quoted passionately along with the movie.
"I forgot my key."
"Jenny, I-I'm sorry..."
"Don't."
Ron's and Harry's eyes looked about ready to pop right out of their sockets as Snape threw both his bowl in the air, poor Pinky flying five feet back behind the sofa, and shot to a dramatic standing position on the couch as he howled out,
"LOVE MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY!"
At this, he dropped back down, face in his hands as he sobbed madly, rocking back and forth as if grieving a deceased spouse.
Ron tugged at Harry's sleeve frantically, indicating that they needed to book it. While capturing the whole scenario on film seemed equivalent to winning the lottery, he didn't think he could take much more, and Harry didn't disagree. He stopped the camera and was about to shove Ron back toward the door when he heard a strange noise and took in Ron's expression.
One he recognized very well.
Ron was about to sneeze.
Harry's eyes widened as wrapped his arm around Ron's face and tried to get both of them to the door before all hell broke loose.
"Ahh-"
"NO!" Harry mouthed desperately to Ron.
"Ahh-"
"NO! RON, HOLD IT IN!"
"Ahh-"
"RON!"
"CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The Invisibility Cloak flew upward and Snape, who had just fished a stray handful of his Cheetos and popcorn mixture that had escaped to the insides of the couch and crammed it into his mouth, swiveled his head in a dangerously slow fashion toward the source of the interruption, his cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk. His eyes bulged diabolically at the sight of the-Boy-Who-Was-About-To-Die and the Weasley that would follow.
Multiple things occurred at once.
Harry and Ron forgot how to run.
Snape rose to his feet menacingly, his half chewed snack exploding out of his mouth and spraying the two partners in crime and went from looking as if he had stumbled into a horror movie with the killer still there to how he had when Fred and George Weasley had charmed his hair neon pink, unbeknowst to him but blatantly obvious to everyone else. He had walked around with it for a full day until Alastor Moody, who could see through hair charms just as well as Invisibility Cloaks, had alerted him of his predicament.
And Albus Dumbledore came through the Floo in a bright purple nightie with a hippogriff jumping over the moon on the front, a stuffed dragon identical to Snape's clutched under his right arm, and a bowl of lemon drops and gummy bears tucked under the other.
"Ah, Severus!" he exclaimed, catching sight of the two Gryffindors. "How kind of you sacrifice your Saturday evenings for the good of student bonding-"
At the term "student bonding," Snape found his voice.
"POTTER! WEASLEY!"
The roar pulled Harry and Ron from their paralysis and they tore out of the room and into the corridors, not feeling much safer as they had in front of Snape's couch, as they could hear him in hot pursuit.
"FIVE THOUSAND POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR!"
"I'd have tea with Aragog over this," Ron whimpered as they ran. "I didn't even get to finish my last will and testament, and I was going to leave Hermione all my books..."
"Shut it, Ron!" Harry hissed before he realized where they could go to avoid immediate death. "Ron! The Great Hall!"
"I'm not exactly hungry at the moment, thanks-"
"Not for food, you idiot! Snape wouldn't dare finish us off us front of all those witnesses!"
Without waiting to see whether Ron was agreeable to this plan or not, Harry hurtled toward the Great Hall, flew through the doors, and found his seat with Hermione at the Gryffindor table. Ron sank into the chair on Harry's other side just after.
Hermione stared at them for a few moments, her expression blank, and to Harry and Ron's relief, she seemed to decide it was better not to ask.
"Just...give me my camera back and we'll forget this ever happened," she said.
He had managed to shield it in his robes and hang on to it throughout the chase; he was about to hand it back to her when the doors burst open with a force that nearly ripped them from their hinges, and a murderous Potions Master, teeth bared and eyes blazing, started closing in on them.
Silence fell over the entire Great Hall. Snape froze, mid-advance.
An unidentifiable sound was heard from the staff table and all eyes followed it. All formalities aside, Minerva McGonagall was clutching her stomach, tears running down her cheeks as she wept with mirth. Lupin and Hagrid began to chuckle. Snickers started echoing throughout the Great Hall until nearly everyone individual, staff and students alike, were sick with laughter. Snape was still paralyzed, one foot in the air, the other on the ground, as his colleagues and students took in his slippers and pajamas, now crusted with snack food. To top it off, Dumbledore had been only seconds behind Snape, holding Pinky out for the world to see and asking loudly why he had left the stuffed dragon behind.
"I guess I don't have to ask if you got anything good," Hermione whispered to Harry and Ron.
"Nah," Harry said grinning. "I think it's as good as it gets right here."