"So, Severus, how's life treating you?" A voice spoke nonchalantly from the doorway.
"Shut up, mutt." Snape replied icily. "What strange medication does Dumbledore have you on now?" He was NOT in the mood for any conversation, much less one with a stuck up half-breed.
They were in the teacher's lounge, and Severus was extremely frustrated. For the past two hours he had been trying, and failing, to coax a house elf into getting him some coffee.
One hour earlier…
"ALL I WANT IS A BLEEDING CUP OF CAFFEINATED BLISS!!" The potions professor shouted, pointing his wand threateningly at the disobedient little scrap of magical being.
"Dobby is not needing to do whatever Mister Snape is wanting Dobby to do, sir! Dobby is a paid elf, is Dobby."
"Well they obviously don't pay Dobby enough if this is the way Dobby is treating his superiors." You could practically hear his teeth grinding together as he stared at the house elf in a quiet rage. "So either quit or get me what I DAMNED WELL WANT!!!"
"Only if Mister Snape will be being nice to Mister Harry Potter, sir." Spoke up the elf. "Mister Harry Potter is being Dobby's friend, and Dobby is wanting to help Mister Harry Potter."
"Screw 'Mister Harry Potter'! I woke up at 4 in the morning and I do not want to have to wait three freaking hours before getting something to drink!" He advanced on the house elf. "Coffee. Now. Or there will be a certain house elf head hanging on a plaque in my bedroom at this time tomorrow..."
"Dobby will only be getting Mister Snape coffee if Mister Snape PROMISES to be nicer to Mister Harry Potter." The tiny elf stood his ground.
Snape growled under his breath something about 'death by tea cozy'. But he gave up his grumbling eventually and, throwing up his arms in defeat, let in to his coffee-driven urge.
"Aagh! All right, all right. I will refrain from giving Mister Potter a detention in the first two minutes of potions class."
Dobby glared.
"First three minutes?"
Dobby continued to glare, this time brandishing a magically glowing finger in a not-so-subtle manner.
"What do you want me to do, throw him a freaking PARTY?"
"Dobby is thinking that that would be being a very nice way for Mister Snape to be nice to Mister Harry Potter."
"Oh yeah? Well… forget it!!!"
The fight went on in much the same way for several long minutes, until Dobby finally tired of it all and disappeared in a poof of magic, leaving behind a still caffeine-deprived Severus Snape.
Now…
"Well, I can see you're in a pleasant mood." Remus noticed out loud, walking past where Snape was sitting with his head on a table and retrieving a coffee mug from a shelf stacked with them. Dumbledore had picked out the coffee mugs himself when he had first put them in the teacher's lounge God only knew how long ago, and the selection was extremely wide-ranging.
Lupin chose a relatively normal one, with blue and brown polka dots on a sickly yellowish-green background. Engraved on the side of it were the words: "Warning! May induce vomiting!"
Well, it was relatively normal compared to the OTHER mugs.
"You're very observant, werewolf." Snape muttered sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "So why don't you go and observe someone else."
"I just came to get a cup of coffee, Severus, so relax."
At the sound of the word 'coffee' Snape's head shot straight up. Eyes bloodshot, vein twitching, he glared at a fairly surprised Remus Lupin.
"DON'T. SPEAK. OF. COFFEE. IN FRONT OF ME!!!!!!" He spoke in a close to yell, not caring how many other rogue teachers or students woke up because of him.
"Woah, Severus, relax! You're going to give someone a heart attack! Namely myself."
"That would be no loss to the world as far as I can see." He gritted out, vein still twitching. "And don't call me SEVERUS!!"
A silence followed this in which Remus proceeded to conjure up a coffee pot and some hot water and coffee filters. Snape watched, tense and quiet. He gripped his wand tighter and tighter as Lupin first began to make his coffee, heating up the coffee pot magically.
After several minutes, when his coffee was finally ready, Remus turned around to ask Snape where the sugar and crème was. But what he was faced with was Snape's overly long nose in his face, and a short-range glare that would send an old man into an earlier than usual grave. As it were, Lupin nearly dropped his coffee.
"What?! Haven't you ever seen a magically altered coffee pot? Dumbledore put it in the teacher's lounge yesterday. It was some announcement about giving the house elves less work. Some house elf named Dobby suggested it."
Snape continued to stare at Lupin, eyes glazed over. In a monotone, he whispered, "I really want to hit something right now."
Lupin wisely took a step back, looking slightly uneasy. "Well, conjure up a punching bag or something." Getting an idea, he held out his ugly coffee mug. "Here, want some of my coffee? I can get some more later."
Severus, desperate, reached out to grab the proffered cup. But Lupin moved it away, tutting as he did so. "Now, now, my friend! You must learn to be nicer! Remember to say 'Plea-!"
"DAMN YOU TO HELL!!!" Snape shouted, lunging at the hapless professor. The two tumbled onto the ground, Snape punching all the way.
At this point, the other teachers were entering the lounge. And the sight that met their eyes was appalling. Chairs turned over, coffee mugs scattered and broken, and two of Hogwarts' finest sprawled on the floor trying to strangle the life out of each other.
"Oh dear!" Flitwick exclaimed.
"Goodness gracious!" Sprout murmured.
"BLOODY HELL!" McGonagall shouted. Everyone turned to stare at her. She blushed profusely. "… ahem…. I pick up a few bad habits from my students…"
"Quite all right, my dear, quite all right." Dumbledore amended. Turning to the scene again, he sighed. "Petrificus totalis!"
Lupin and Snape suddenly stopped fighting. With a snap, they both went as straight as boards and lay there on the ground. Unable to move.
"Well, this isn't very dignified, now is it? Gentlemen? Do you have anything to say for yourselves?" The only reply that came from the two professors was a sort of moaning and squealing, due to the fact that their mouths were glued shut.
"No? Well than, I suppose we must leave you here. At least until one of you apologizes for messing up our beautiful lounge." Dumbledore gestured to the mess. The two men on the floor muffled a protest, which was ignored.
"Now, who wants some coffee?" McGonagall exclaimed, and with a flick of her wand she started the coffee maker up again. The strong smell entered Snape's nostril, and with a growl of defeat he closed his eyes.
When the spell was finally taken off of them, it was five minutes before each of their classes were to start. Cursing the cruelty of their headmaster, the two ran out of the lounge to their respective classrooms. Snape only stopped to send Lupin a particularly nasty hand gesture, who reciprocated it.
Snape hurried into his classroom just as his students were beginning to come in. Sitting at his desk and rifling through his papers, he swore when he realized that he had left his lesson plan back in his rooms. Despair, however, turned to smugness as he devised a fitting lesson plan right on the spot.
Turning to his students, who were chatting amongst themselves, he silenced them with one patented glare. They quickly quieted. Snape gave a detention to Potter anyways, maliciously remembering his little chat with a certain house elf that morning.
Sighing, he began writing instructions on the board. When he was done, he turned and was unsurprised to see Granger's hand held firmly up in the air.
"Yes, Miss Granger?" he asked, steeling himself.
"Uhh… professor? The instructions you are giving us are not for any magical potion?"
"Oh? And why would you think that?"
"Because, professor, those are instructions for brewing coffee."
"Exactly. And all of you are to hand this assignment into me at the end of class. Just fill up my mug." And with that, he conjured up a giant mug that was bigger than his desk. Sitting it beside himself, the potion's master proceeded to lie back as the sweet smell of caffeine permeated his brain. Take that, you bloody house elf. He thought grimly to himself, smiling evilly.
The students watched this, and some whispered to each other. "He's finally gone bonkers…"
The End!
A/N
….Yeah…. REVIEW! CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM AND COMPLIMENTS WELCOMED!!! … but please, do not flame…