(A/N: I was going to post this for Halloween last year, but didn't finish on time.
For added fun, why not try a drinking game? Take a sip of whatever you got everytime you see the word bubble gum.)
The Mischief Managers
Chapter 1: The Super Bubble Gum.
Pink bubbles expanded until they burst like pimples within cast iron walls. The entire potion filled laboratory B with the sort of sugary sweet fragrance that came a little close to crossing into nauseating penicillin territory, depending on whom you asked. Dying torch flames flickered. Spiders kept dropping into cauldrons that had been left to cook over night, because the pest control refused to lose more lives.
Clothed in a white lab coat and protective goggles, Remus fished out a black widow spider with a steel poaching ladle and dropped it in the sink. Yes, it made him a hypocrite but he couldn't care less right now, when he was trying to up his potions average. A potions average of a measly 7 points was just too humiliating for words, he was the laughing stock in the book club because of it. And in over a year he'd take his OWL's so he needed to work at improving now.
But he so didn't like potions class. He just couldn't stand cooking anything that contained eye of newt, even if they were free range eyes. For so long he had thought he'd just have to live with being perpetually mediocre, until he had come across a book called Veganify, which so far actually lived up to its promise of providing ethical alternatives to common ingredients. And it was thanks to this book that he could not only improve his marks, but also brew the product of his dreams: the Super Bubble Gum. This super bubble gum wasn't going to be like the ordinary mass produced bubble gums. This bubble gum wouldn't break under his teeth, it would expand infinitely and not burst from the tiniest little puff.
The potion had only cooked for one hour and would very likely require many, many more. But being a little impatient tonight, Remus could not resist for the twelfth time in ten minutes picking up the 20 mm sorbet scoop and drop a chunk of potion in a glass of cold water just to check if the consistency had changed at all. But the little unsolid ball fell as flat as ever to the bottom of the glass. It was getting late and the troubleshooting guide had already reliably informed him that it needed more time and so he began to pack up to call it a night, just leaving the potion where it was.
The potion bubbled like an upset stomach, lonely in the fading light with only bats and spiders for company. That was until Snape poked his head through the door to lab A. Now that he knew that he was at last alone in the entire potions dungeon, he snuck up to the unsupervised potion, stuffed a fist of gummy bears in his mouth and watched the pink bubbles erupt.
A notebook that had been foolishly left behind gave him information he could easily have figured out on his own.
"Super Bubble Gum." he snorted. "Let's see what makes this so super. 'Elastic bands for stretchiness, a slinky for bouncyness, a balloon for air retainment'..."
Snape had to laugh at the idea that somebody that couldn't even make instant coffee could create a bubble gum with one of these qualities. He tossed away the notes and poured the last of his gummy bears into the potion, thinking that anybody who was so stupid to leave it unsupervised deserved to have it destroyed.
"Woopsie!" he said as he watched the gummy bears sink into the thick brew and transform the neon pink to a dull grey.
He dropped the package in the potion as well and returned to his cooking Gullibus potion in laboratory A, now inspired to create his own super gummy bears. Then he became filled with rage when he realised that gummy bears weren't remotely versatile. It just couldn't be denied that, as far as practicality went, gummy bears sucked and bubble gum was awesome and Snape hated that weird freak so much for it! Oh yes, he knew what a weird freak he really was and he would have liked to warn everybody he came across, but until he had solid evidence he couldn't do that. And speculation, no matter how well grounded in logic it was, just didn't qualify as evidence. Thinking of all this, of how awesome bubble gum was, of how such a weird freak was so much more popular than he was and even had his own body guards, just made him so outraged he kicked a rat so hard it died. Then he took that rat and dropped it in the potion as well.
