Harry and Ron were carefully hidden under Harry's invisibility cloak as they made their way to the Slytherin's common room in the dungeons. They thought that they should take a leaf out of the infamous Marauder's book, and pull at least a prank on the evil Slytherins while they were still at Hogwarts. This decision was made with loads of help, advice and encouragement from Sirus Black of course.
Everything would have gone smoothly up till the point when Ron managed to trip and fell noisily when his big foot got caught in the excess fabric of the invisibility cloak. As expected, the notorious Mrs Norris appeared suddenly out of nowhere. Staring at the two rule- breakers in front of her, she started to mew louder and louder if that was possible.
" Quickly, Filch will be here any moment!' Ron hissed as the two boys struggled to cover themselves with the cloak again.
"Ouch! Ron, that's my foot!" Harry exclaimed, " Let's hide in that corner before Filch gets here".
With that, they hurried along the dimly lit corridors of the dungeons and pressed both of their frames into a sunken hole in the wall. If only they knew what the consequences would be like later, they would rather face Filch and his cat. As soon as both of them pressed their backs against the hole, the wall gave a sudden lurch. Before any of them could react, they fell backwards and rather painfully onto the ground, landing with a loud thud.
"Well, that was close, don't you…" Ron's voice trailed off, eyes widening with fear. His mouth did a most impressive imitation of a dying goldfish as he took in the scene in front of him.
"Definitely," Harry replied, sitting up. " Ron?" he questioned when he saw that his friend's face was paler than Death itself.
"Erm, Harry.." Ron's voice quivered in a strange high pitch. "What?" Harry turned around and saw what had terrified him so much.
Sitting comfortably in front of them was Hogwarts' most feared Potions Master, Professor Severus Snape. He had in his arms a small black kitten and he was regarding both Harry and Ron with a venomous glare. To top it all, their dear Professor was topless, only clad in dark green trousers.
"Well, well, well. Look what we've got here." Snape drawled in his silkiest and deadliest voice. Harry and Ron stiffened in fear and bless Merlin, had the common sense remained silent. They did not really trust what would come out of their mouths now. They did not know what troubled them the most- the image of their Potions Master topless or the image of him cuddling a small kitten or the fact that they were caught after curfew by him.
" I, er, we.. we were.." Harry stammered as he and Ron staggered backwards slowly.
"GET OUT!" Snape snarled.
"Yes sir!" Both Harry and Ron almost made their way to the wall(door) before Snape's voice reached them again. "And let's make it a 100 points from Gryffindor and a week's worth of detentions with Filch."
Hearing that, Harry and Ron could only gulped nervously, hoping against all odds that their fellow housemates would not find out that they were the culprits for losing that much of points as they went their way.
" Dunderheads" Snape hissed as he watched the wall closed again, leaving them in privacy once more.
"Severus, that's a bit harsh. 100 points?" Hermione Granger now sitting calmly in her Professor's laps enquired. They were both very, er, busily engaged when they heard the wall opening. Immediately, Hermione switched into her Animagus cat form, allowing Snape to carry her. She was very surprised when she saw Harry and Ron's head popping out from the invisibility cloak. Seriously, they should have known better than to be so careless.
Snape smirked, caressing her hair. " Well, 50 points for breaking the curfew and 50 points for interrupting us, my dear." Hermione only giggled at his remarks and she snuggled into his arms, smiling contentedly when he placed a kiss on her head.