The Agony of Professor Snape
It was a fine, fine day at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger were running to Snape's dungeon, hoping they won't be late for class.
As they skidded into the room, they saw Snape sneering at them, utterly furious that these three little Gryffindors dared to be late to his class again.
"SIT!" he roared, pointing to three vacant desks. He then walked around, his wand held out and barked, "We are going to be brewing Memory Potions today! So all you stupid, bratty, annoying kids get out your cauldrons and work!" Snape then pointed his wand at the board so sharply sparks flew at the end. Instructions appeared on the blackboard.
Within five minutes, Neville Longbottom had blown up another cauldron.
"LOOONNNGGGBOTTOOOM!!!" Snape roared. "HOW DARE YOU!" Snape swelled up and took several huffs and then yelled, "CLEAN UP THAT MESS YOU MENTALLY DERANGED BOY!" Snape strolled over to his desk and got out a packet of cigars. He then started smoking, taking deep puffs, and trying to calm himself.
"Um, Professor Snape?" Hermione Granger raised her hand.
"What?" Snape said, his eyebrows furrowed.
"You seem distressed, do you want to---"
"Of course I am distressed!" Snape said, waving his arms like a windmill. "All because of you happy little Gryffindors! You cause me grief! You cause me terror! You cause me mental illness! Because of you, I have taken up chain smoking! Because of you, every night I must go to the Hog's Head for five firewhiskeys! Because of you, little Gryffindor, I find stupid little notes on my back saying 'kick me, I'm Snapey' and 'Sevvie's Butt' and 'Turn me around'! This is taking years off of MY LIFE!" Snape said, waving his cigar around and accidentally setting his robes of fire. "AHH! Now see what you did!" He put it out with a bit of water from his wand.
Everyone in the class stared.
"What are all you looking at?" Snape sneered. "Let me tell you something, every day I get stupid letters in my cute little bat shaped mailbox in the teachers' lounge. I always get the same letters. Letters with parodies of me. 'Snapey, Snapey, Snapey, you make me want to break'," Snape's nostrils flared. " 'Snape, I'm sick of your leer, go get eaten by the Giant Squid'."
Ron's cheeks turned pink.
"And who," said Snape in a dangerous voice, "is putting love letters in my beautifully shaped mailbox?!" Snape did a sort of angry dance. "Every day, some idiot puts letters in there telling me that they want to be with me! Do you know," he lowered his voice in a deadly whisper, "that your smart little pranks nearly gives me a heart attack?"
Snape finished his cigar and took out another one.
"I am SICK of being TORTURED BY YOU SILLY LITTLE STUDENTS!" Snape said, nearly pulling out his greasy hair. "I am sick of finding COCKROACH CLUSTER in my food!"
Harry lowered his head.
"I AM SICK OF FINDING STICK FINGER COMIC DRAWINGS OF MYSELF ALL OVER THE PLACE!"
Snape took another puff. "I am the Potions Master! Every, single, year I have suffered disappointments!" Snape started numbering them off with his fingers, "One, I never, ever get the damn Defense Against the Dark Arts job!" Snape glared at everyone. "Two, Weasley is never expelled! Three, Potter is still alive! Four, Ms. Granger always corrects me and makes me look like an idiot!"
The whole class shifted their heads over to Harry, Ron, and Hermione for a moment and then continued to stare at Snape.
Snape rounded up on the students. "Do I look stupid?!"
No one answered that question.
"Five, I never get a raise! Six, Slytherin hasn't won the Quiddich Cup for years because of stupid Potter!"
Snape glared at Harry with the deepest loathing. "Not ONLY did you take away my Order of Merlin in your third year, you've also managed to steal my potions from my cupboards…" Snape then cornered Neville. "I have been ridiculed more than any other teacher! I have been a boggart wearing your grandmother's clothed and stupid stuffed vulture hat!"
Snape then did another angry dance. "THAT'S IT!"
He then waved his wand at his desk and potions cabinet and said, "Pack!" They arranged themselves neatly into two trunks.
"I QUIT!" Snape said and stormed out of the building.
There was a loud silence after the door banged shut and then all the Gryffindors broke out in cheer.
"Snape is finally gone! We're free!" Ron raised his hands up in victory. "Ha, Harry! I knew the cockroach cluster would do the trick!"
"I wonder who wrote those love notes to that greasy slimeball," Harry pondered.
"Who cares?" said Seamus. "He's gone, we're free!"
Only Hermione seemed a little hesitant. "I don't think we're being very fair," she said rationally. "I mean, he quit because of us. What would Dumbledore say?"
"Honestly, Hermione, be cheerful. Whoever we get as our next Potions master is ten times better than Snape!" Dean said doing a happy dance with Seamus and Lavender.
Ron started a chant, "Snape is gone, Snape is gone, Snape is gone…"
The Slytherins were all hesitant. This was their favorite teacher! This was the teacher that told off all the Gryffindors! This was the teacher that bullied Potter!
They sat there, disbelieving what had happened.
* *
Two days after Snape left on what he called a "Soul finding journey", Dumbledore assigned a new teacher. It was a woman, with the name of Professor Darsy.
She was fat with hair flying in all directions and walked in class lazily.
"Get out your books," she slurred.
They got out their books.
Hermione looked absolutely disgusted.
Ron and Harry looked at each other, unsure of how to react.
"Read," Professor Darsy said while stuffing her face with chocolate frogs.
They read.
The next day, Professor Darsy slurred, "Read."
They read while Professor Darsy drank and then passed out in her chair.
"Absolutely disgusting!" Hermione said. "I am not going to pass my exams this year!" She never looked more scared in her life.
Ron and Harry shrugged.
"It's an easy class," said Ron happily, singing the "Snape is gone" chant underneath his breath.
The third day, they all got out their books, preparing to pretend to read, but Professor Darsy staggered around passing out tests. "Write," she ordered before returning to her seat and drinking again.
It was an extremely difficult exam. Even Hermione had trouble. There were questions like, 'What was the third word in paragraph six on page 121?'
"This is ridiculous!" Malfoy said. "If my father every finds out---"
"You fail." Professor Darsy interrupted.
"What?" Malfoy said, disbelieving what he heard.
"You heard me," Professor Darsy said, taking a swing of beer. "You talked out of turn, you fail."
Malfoy muttered something about "my father" and then shut up.
* *
There was a meeting about Professor Snape in the Gryffindor common room that night.
"I hate Snape, but I can't afford to fail Potions and my final exam!" said Seamus. "At least I scraped a 'P' or maybe an 'A' when Snape was teaching."
"Oh no," Hermione said, her knees shaking. "I am going to be in the N.E.W.T class and I cannot fail potions!"
"We have to find Snape and Snape-nap him back to Hogwarts!" Ron declared.
There was a murmur of agreement.
"Who here wants to go?"
No one raised their hand.
"Well," Hermione said in a bossy sort of voice. "Someone has to go."
"You can go," said Lavender.
"Alone? I don't think so."
"We'll all go," said Dean. "We have too. We have to get that slimeball back."
"But you heard him, he was miserable here."
"So?" Dean argued. "We were miserable too. He was miserable, we were miserable. It all works out."
"Where do we go?" Parvati asked.
They all shrugged.
"Why don't we ask Dumbledore?" Seamus said.
"Who's going to ask?" said Harry.
"You can." Neville said. "We'll come with you, but you can talk."
The meeting ended at three am in the morning. They had finally decided on a plan. They were going to find Snape, Snape-nap him back to Hogwarts with a bag, and force him to be their Potions teacher again.
Then, they trooped over to Dumbledore's office.
They stopped at the door.
"Er, what's the password?" asked Ron.
"Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Beans," said Harry. "Lemon Drop. Peppermint Toad. Come on, help me! Think of all the sweets you can!"
"Fizzing Wizbees!"
"Droobles Best Blowing Gum!"
"Toothflossing Stringmints!" said Hermione.
"Acid Pops!" said Ron.
"Ice Mice"
"Sugar Quill!"
"Pepper Imps!"
"Butterbeer!" someone called out. The gargoyle sprang to life and they all stepped into the spiral staircase, rotating upward.
Harry knocked on the door.
They waited.
Harry knocked again.
"Professor Dumbledore?" Harry called.
"Professor Dumbledore!" Lavender shouted.
"Professor Dumbledore!"
"Headmaster!"
"Professor, are you in there?"
They knocked on the door for quite sometime before a sleepy looking Dumbledore wearing magnificent bed robes came to the doorway.
"Yes?" Professor Dumbledore asked.
"Oh, sorry Professor!" Hermione said. "We-we…"
"We want to know where Snape is!" Seamus said.
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow and Harry thought he saw a small smile.
"Oh really?" Dumbledore said. "Well, he said he went on a 'journey to get away from those heartless students and to find my soul' trip."
They stared. Hermione gave a dry sob.
"Where is he?" Ron asked.
"I believe he has taken up living on a boat for awhile, sailing in peace." Dumbledore answered. "Now if you can excuse me, I have to get back to bed. It is quite late don't you know?"
Dumbledore then turned, humming and closed the door softly.
The Gryffindors looked at each other.
"Come on! Let's go! Everyone pack some money and get a large bag! Get your wands!" Harry said. "We're going Snape hunting!"
* *
They looked high. They looked low. They looked somewhere in between.
Finally, on the fifth day wandering in the streets of Germany, Lavender cleared her throat and said, "Harry, don't you think Snape would be somewhere in water if he was on a boat?"
"Oh yeah…" Harry said, comprehension dawning upon him.
You see, this is what happens when you leave a man in charge during a trip. Now Harry might be brave and noble, but he does lack common sense every one in awhile.
So Ron took over as leader and they wandered to Scotland's lakes and then they wandered to the edge of Europe, skimming the ocean.
"Ron," spoke Hermione. "Didn't we pass by that dock an hour ago?"
"No," Ron snapped, craning his neck and they flew on their brooms.
"We're lost aren't we?" said Neville in a sort of hopeless voice.
"Excuse me, we are not lost." Ron said.
"Sure we're not," said Parvati in a very audible whisper.
You see, this is also a side effect when you leave a man in charge. He will never, ever, under any circumstances, admit he is lost. He would rather die with pride than to find his way. Nor would he ask for directions in that sense.
"Oh come off it," Hermione snapped at Ron. "We should not be scanning the shore line. We should be scanning miles away from it. My guess is that Snape just drifted along as far away from land as possible to be alone."
Hermione took over as leader and after an hour, they spotted a small figure on a boat down below.
"It's Snape!" said Dean pointing to the small shape.
Indeed it was, a greasy haired Snape was wearing a straw hat and sitting at the very edge of his boat with a fishing pole.
"SNAPE!" Seamus yelled. "Snape, it's us! The Gryffindors!"
"ARG!" Snape screamed and fell overboard.
"Oh," said Seamus. "Oops."
Snape swam back to his boat and started piloting forward as fast as he could, shaking his fist at the crowd of Gryffindors on broomsticks.
"Get away from me!" Snape said. "Get away from me, you interfering Gryffindors! I want to be alone!"
"No! You have to come back to be our Potions teacher!" said Lavender.
Snape tried to go faster on his little boat.
Hermione whipped out her wand and said, "Impedus!"
The boat's engine choked once, twice, and then died.
"ARG!" Snape screamed, kicking the engine. "Work! Work!"
They landed on the boat and Seamus threw the bag over Snape and then they tied Snape on to Harry and Ron's broomsticks and started flying back to Hogwarts.
"Get me out!" Snape's muffled voice said within the bag. "I don't want to teach! I don't want to! Get me out!"
"No way!" said Dean. "We hate our new Defense teacher! Snape, you're coming with us!"
"Stupid GRYFFINDORS!" Snape screamed.
The crowd of Gryffindors (and Snape tied in a bag) flew into the direction of the castle, led by Hermione.