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Afternoon Tea
Albus (Percival Wulfric Brian) Dumbledore was sitting in his office at his desk drinking his tea and twinkling at his present companions. There were always these couple of moments of silence at the beginning of their meetings, when everybody was simply staring at each other, and enjoying their hot beverage and biscuits.
"Let's get to business," Snape was first to lose his patience. Perhaps he was having a bad day. No wonder, really, especially with his negative attitude towards everything. "The tea isn't this good."
"Very well, my dear boy," the old wizard chuckled, knowing very well how much he hated to be called that, and finding the subsequent narrowing of his eyes and quiver of his mouth rather entertaining. "Who do you want this time?"
"One of mine and one of yours, I say," Voldemort offered, biting off the head of a Ginger Newt, demonstrating his continuous evilness.
"We already tried Alastor and Bella," Dumbledore commented. "For some reason, it didn't work out as well as we expected."
"I wouldn't complain," Voldemort shrugged. "At least I didn't have to listen to her screeching for a while."
"That's because you didn't get hexed, slapped, and yelled at by every Healer in St. Mungo's who was unfortunate enough to step into Alastor's room," Albus winked. "Really, I never knew he hated hospital beds that much."
"Those beds are indeed a bit uncomfortable," Voldemort agreed.
"We could just use the Goblet," Snape suggested after another period of silence.
"Wonderful idea, dear boy!" Dumbledore exclaimed, beaming at him. He rose from his chair and walked over to a cupboard by the wall, lifting out of it a goblet much like the one used at the Triwizard Tournament. He placed it upon his table, and took his seat again, looking expectantly at the two wizards sitting in front of him.
"Severus, will you do the honours?"
Snape sent him a dark look, but nonetheless reached into the cup and drew out two slips of parchment. He stared at the first one, then at the other, then raised his eyes to glare at the Headmaster again.
"You jinxed the Goblet," he accused the old wizard, who only laughed at that.
"You did," he repeated determinedly, "you said yourself you would like to get those two together."
"Who?" Voldemort asked with curiosity and snapped the parchments from Severus' fingers. "Oh. We've done them already, but then again, it was quite entertaining."
"You just can't accept failure, can you?" Snape was busy sneering at Dumbledore. "You couldn't get them together last time, and now you want to try again."
"Of course I want to try again, dear boy," Albus twinkled. "Try, try, try until I finally get it done. I'm not known for giving up easily. But if you think I jinxed the cup, you can always draw again."
"And I will," Snape stated, reaching into the goblet again, not bothering to put the two slips back in first.
This time Voldemort managed to grab the pieces of parchment from him before he had the chance to look at them, and sending his Dark Lord a dark look, he had just opened his mouth to protest when his Master snorted.
"Your call, Severus," he hissed his name, mostly because it was a good name to hiss. "Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger, or Neville Longbottom and you?"
"What?" Snape exclaimed. "Longbottom and me???"
"Perhaps we should do that," Voldemort pondered. "We haven't tried this one before. I mean, there was you and Potter, but…"
"Don't remind me of that," Snape groaned.
"I think you did good," the Dark Lord patted his shoulder. "I've never seen the Potter brat quite so terrified of you, or anyone for that matter, than when you tried to give him a kiss."
"Not one of the best moments of my life," he muttered darkly.
"Oh, Severus, give it up," Albus snickered. "We all know you enjoyed yourself tremendously chasing after him all through the castle. Although you might have looked where you were running because you did ruin a rather romantic moment between Tom and Miss Lovegood."
"Oh!" Voldemort exclaimed, recalling that incident. "Yes, you did do that. I mean, I had almost managed to woo her over, when Potter ran past us screaming, and we still could have continued our rendezvous had you not knocked us down in your hurry to show Potter your true feelings for him."
"Yes," Snape suddenly gave an evil smile, "the chase was quite entertaining. But unfortunately, I managed to corner him in the end."
"It was just a little kiss," Albus waved with his hand. "But can you remember the look on Harry's face after that whenever you two were in the same room? Most amusing, I must say. Had to hold back my laughter on a couple of times."
Voldemort sniggered, but then squirmed a bit in his chair and looked restless.
"What's wrong, Tom?"
"Nothing, Albus," he stopped fidgeting. "I'm just having some friends over in the evening, and I'd like to be back in time to do a little cleaning up first."
"Very well, Tom. We have indeed strayed from our path," Dumbledore nodded seriously. "So, Severus, who is it going to be – Miss Granger and Mister Malfoy, or you and Mister Longbottom?"
Snape gave him a long hard glare.
"You win," he announced at last, gritting his teeth.
"Wonderful!" Albus exclaimed. "So Miss Granger and Mister Malfoy it is! Any plans on how to get those two together?"
"I can give them detention," Snape volunteered.
"Really?" Voldemort sounded surprised. "I thought you never gave your own House detention?"
"Normally I don't," Snape confirmed. "But I can make an exception. Besides, he's getting more and more disrespectful towards me lately – thinks he can get away with anything. And the quality of his schoolwork is going down as well."
"Not that I actually read his essays," he added after a small pause, "but it's really hard not to notice when all of it is covered with doodles."
"I could give them some assignment," Albus suggested. "Something about house-unity, or extra-credit, or something like that. Or I could simply lock them together into some room or broom closet. Or I could… Severus, when you give them detention, can you send them to the Forbidden Forest to pick some flowers?"
"Yes," Voldemort agreed, "and you should throw a masquerade! I'd really like to have one."
"That's an idea. But I thought you just had one yourself?" Albus inquired.
"It was a disaster," the Dark Lord admitted sadly.
"Why so?"
"Everybody came dressed as angels."
"And that was bad?"
"Have you ever seen Wormtail in the costume of an angel?" Voldemort questioned. "Consider yourself lucky."
"I've seen him in the costume of a mouse, though," Albus recalled. "And that wasn't too bad."
"I will send them to pick flowers and you will throw a party," Snape summed things up. "What about you, my Lord?"
"You could give him the assignment of seducing one of Potter's sidekicks," Albus suggested.
"But what if he picks Mister Weasley?" Voldemort was concerned.
"Hmm, you're right," the old wizard admitted, falling into thought. In a few minutes, however, he brightened up again. "I know! Severus, you could tell Mister Malfoy that Miss Granger is a good kisser."
"Yes, she really is," Snape replied dreamily.
"You could tell young Draco that she is a better kisser than the Weasley boy," Voldemort offered.
Snape snapped out of his dreamy reverie, and blushed, while Dumbledore was looking especially pleased for some reason.
When the Professor noticed that, his eyes widened a bit in horror.
"Don't you even dare try to set me up with Ronald Weasley!" he gave the Headmaster a dangerous glare.
"Who? Me?" Albus asked innocently. "That idea had never crossed my mind. Honestly."
When Snape's look got even more doubtful, he thought to add, "Although now that you did mention it…"
Twinkling at his dear boy, Albus wondered whether he had ever seen Severus looking quite so sour, but his current expression beat even that after finally cornering Harry and doing his duty. Then again, after that incident he had looked like he wished nothing more than to jump off some tower, while now it seemed like he had finally figured out what he wanted for Christmas – a nice strong Avada Kedavra, and he wanted it right this second. So providing that the tower was high, the difference wasn't really that big.
Dumbledore gave a mental evil smirk. Perhaps he could start his very own very secret very wicked campaign. Perhaps he should convince Tom to join it as well.
"When is your next Hogsmeade weekend?" Voldemort suddenly asked.
"Coming Sunday," Dumbledore replied. "Why? Do you want to ask me out on a date?"
For a fraction of a second evil overlord Voldemort looked like his deepest and darkest secret had been revealed, but then he bit off the head of another Ginger Newt, and the moment passed.
"No, I just thought I might come and kidnap Miss Granger and place her under the care of young Malfoy," he explained his plan.
"Poor Draco," Snape noted with an extra evil grin. One of those doodles had been about his hair. And it hadn't been a particularly nice doodle.
"Better not," Dumbledore declined politely.
"But Albus! You know there isn't any better situation for romance to boom than being held in captivity and chained to some dungeon wall! And that means she can't just hex him and put a mighty stop to all our ingenious plans."
"You might have a point," the Headmaster nodded. "But we can't do it at our next Hogsmeade weekend."
"And why not?"
"My dear Tom, have you ever managed to throw a ball in only one week's time? Besides, the children must get a chance to buy themselves costumes, and we do need Miss Granger to look more alluring than ever, don't we?"
"Fine," Voldemort agreed, seeing the reason in that. Perhaps if he had given his minions more time to prepare, the outcome would have been better. "The Hogsmeade weekend after that?"
"That might do. Or perhaps I could send Miss Granger to retrieve something for someone from somewhere?"
"Hey!" Snape announced, jumping up and raising his finger in triumph, then recollected himself hastily, sat down, and looked like none of it had ever happened. "I mean, the Dark Lord—"
"Call me Marvo," Voldemort interjected.
"—could simply kidnap them from the forest when I send them there to pick some flowers."
"Yes," Dumbledore was nodding enthusiastically. "And then you could blame Draco for fraternizing with the enemy and lock him up as well. Then they have to work together in order to escape."
"But then I can't command him to seduce her!" Voldemort exclaimed.
"True."
"You could tell him you will kill him unless he seduces her," Snape suggested.
"True."
"Or you could simply take away their wands and lock them together into a broom closet."
"Tru— wait, where would you keep your brooms then?" Dumbledore seemed slightly concerned.
"We don't have brooms!" Voldemort smiled happily, then frowned. "But we don't have a broom closet either."
"You don't have a broom closet?" Albus asked in horror.
"Terrible, isn't it?" Snape drawled, although it actually was rather awful because in lack of a decent broom closet people did the things they usually do in broom closets elsewhere. Like in the kitchen. Getting his morning coffee was a true ordeal for him, since he never knew who he could find sleeping on the floor. And an angel's costume wasn't the worst thing Wormtail could wear.
Speaking about Wormtail, he could suggest turning his room into a broom closet, since there wasn't much difference anyway, but knowing his evil overlord, Snape had a pretty good idea who would be getting a new roomie then, and that was out of the question.
Meaning that the Fortress of Doom probably needed some reconstruction. Starting with its name.
Lord Voldemort placed his teacup to the table with a mighty click, showing off once again his continuous evilness, and stood up.
"It was nice seeing you, Albus (Percival Wulfric Brian), but now I must really get going," he gave an apologetic smile. "I did tell Bella to clean up the place but knowing her she will definitely forget to dust the upper shelves again."
"Don't be too harsh on her," Dumbledore spoke in her defence, showing that he didn't protect just the innocent. "I'm sure she's doing her best."
"I'll probably just take her knife away for a couple of days," Voldemort shrugged. "See you later then. Oh, and Severus?"
"Yes, my Lord?"
"Get some eggs on your way home, all right? I'm making pie tonight."
"Yes, my Lord."
"Goodbye!" he chirped cheerily once more, gave them a little wave, and slipped through the window, where his noble steed, Billy, was patiently waiting for him.
"He does know that magic carpets are illegal, doesn't he?" Dumbledore wondered, watching him fly away.
"Yes," Snape replied.
"Good. With all his desire to show off his continuous evilness, it would be rather sad if he didn't."
"Yes," Snape replied darkly.
"All right, Severus, my dear boy," Dumbledore turned around, rubbing his hands together. "It's only us now. What do you want to do?"
"Leave and go brood on my own?" he offered.
"Nope," Albus grinned.
"Stab you through the heart with a poker?"
"No," Albus Percival grinned.
"Put on some music and swing ourselves crazy?"
"Bingo!" Albus Percival Wulfric grinned.
Snape made a sour face, then shrugged and joined Albus Percival Wulfric Brian on the newly created dance floor. A little swing never hurts.
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