A.N.- Kind of a sequel to "Cucumber". I guess I'm making a story salad.
Severus found himself staring at it repeatedly while trying to grade the third year essays. He had found it just sitting there on his classroom desk after lunch. He hadn't even touched it. In fact, for a good long while he pretended it wasn't there. He realized he would be forced to deal with it after he had spent a good half hour trying to glare down a roomful of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw fourth years who couldn't seem to keep their mouths from dropping to the floor as soon as they saw the damn thing. "It" was a shiny black, gold-leafed apple sitting on the corner of his desk.
No one gave him apples. Ignoring for a moment that this wasn't an ordinary apple, who could possibly even dare to leave him an apple, of any kind? It was probably some nitwit of a first year Slytherin thinking they could bribe their way into his favor. However, bribery usually works better if one knows just who is trying the bribery, and as there didn't appear to be any note attached Severus was looking for a better explanation.
He was still looking two days latter. By then the whole school had heard about the Potions Master's Eris Apple. His black Eris apple. Usually Eris apples were a beautiful gold color and a primary ingredient in particularly strong love potions. Nobody seemed to know what one would use a black Eris apple for, but giggles about Snape's possibly "darker" sexual appetites seemed most popular.
Harry and Ron were very much enjoying all of the Snape bashing. They had spent all of breakfast announcing how much more grossed out than the other they were about the "greasy git" and his kinky perversions. It hadn't been until Hermione had suggested that they both seemed a little too fascinated with discussing the Professor's sex life that they had stopped. Actually, to shut them up took the words, "Clearly you two are smitten. Maybe if you ask nicely, Professor Snape could find enough rope to tie you both up to his bed." Ron satisfyingly choked on his sixth piece of toast.
Hermione knew exactly who had left the apple. Frankly, she was surprised that Professor McGonagall hadn't yet told Snape herself. Hermione hadn't known her Head of House to ever have been timid before. Nonetheless, Professor Snape had been exceptionally spiteful the past couple of days and things were getting out of hand. Apparently, Hermione would have to be the one to take care of this
That evening she made the long, lonely trek to the dungeons. Her reluctant pace gave her time to think. Really, all this fuss over one little gift. Didn't he know how useful the black Eris apples were? The black apples were a charm (some would say curse) that the Goddess Minerva had placed on the Eris Apple trees. Just one apple each year on every Eris tree would grow black instead of gold. These apples would then be useful for improving memory and reasoning skills instead of making love potions. Professor McGonagall had collected these "wisdom fruits" for a number of years for obvious reasons. She sometimes even gave them as presents. How could Professor Snape not know this about someone he'd known most of his life? Wasn't he supposed to be a SPY?
This ironic little thought cheered her sufficiently so that knocking on the door to the Potions class room uninvited was absent the usual, possibly healthy, level of fear. She expected the door to be whipped open and a snarling head to poke out. Instead she stood waiting six whole minutes, listening to the loud pounding of her own heart. Maybe she was lucking out. If the professor wasn't here, then she didn't have to talk to him, right? Feeling a little more relaxed she turned to go and at that moment, the door did whip open and a snarling head poked out of the narrowly opened doorway.
Hermione gave a pathetic little yelp of surprise when she found herself eyeball to eyeball with a glaring, looming Severus Snape. The sudden closeness brought a tiny flash of memory of her hand on his next to a grimy kitchen sink. That brief moment was the whole reason she was in this mess. That persistent memory had led her to unthinkingly give him the Eris apple that Professor McGonagall had given to her. She was really wondering why she had done it now that he was trying to squash her into the floor with his stink eye. She had to say something.
"I wanted to tell you about the..."
"I'm sure you would love to spend hours telling me everything you know, Miss. Granger. I, however, do not have the time to listen to your silly prattling. Five points from Gryffindor for forcing me to suffer your hubris outside of the classroom."
Before Hermione could reply, the door was slammed in her face. Left without alternative, she ran all the way back to the Gryffindor common room and the girl's dormitories. She pulled the curtains closed all around her bed to hide her splotchy, teary face. That prick! He didn't even let me explain why I was there! I should hex his bloody hair purple. Hearing the pillow-muffled screams from Hermione's bed, Lavender showed an unexpected degree of intelligence by leaving the room quietly and quickly without bothering to try and get the other girl to "talk about it".
One week of an irritated and snapping Hermione later, the boys were baffled to see her smile at breakfast. They'd been clueless to figure out what was wrong with her the past few days and now suddenly, she was back to happily telling them to make sure and finish their Herbology assignments. Glancing at each other they passed a look that read, PMS for sure, mate and promptly forgot about the entire incident.
However, hidden in Hermione's second year charm's book was the real reason for her sudden mood change. There, nestled inside the overly-underlined text was a note that had this morning been attached to a small vial of gray, lumpy Reason Redoubler potion that she had found on her nightstand. Written in spiky letters, the note read: I trust you know how to use this.
Hmm, hoped you liked it.
A.N. Eris Apples - I made this up, but I was inspired by greek mythology. Eris is the Greek goddess of discord. Upset at being snubbed a wedding invitation, Eris threw a golden apple inscribed with "to the fairest" into the wedding ceremony. A prince of Troy (who was just a goat herder at the time), Paris, had to pick between Athena (roman counterpart Minerva, goddess of wisdom), Aphrodite (goddess of love) and Hera (goddess of ... nagging, j/k! Hera was the wife/sister to Zeus). Paris chose Aphrodite because she promised him the most beautiful woman in the world as a wife. This started the Trojan war since the woman, Helen, was already married. Opps. It's all in Homer's Iliad, so go read it if you haven't already.