Disclaimer: Not mine. Never was, never will and that's good so too. JKR knows much better how to handle her characters, than I ever could:)
This is the translation of my participation of Angels1291's last challenge on www.severussnape.de.vu, a German Snape-fic page. The topic was a blind date and the centre of the fic should, obviously, be Severus Snape. Things needed to be, or be mentioned in the fic: A want-ad, the three broomsticks, Fire-whisky, Syrup, Remus Lupin, Minerva McGonagall, love letters, three candidates, a heart attack and a hang over or a tomcat. (In German they are both called the same: Kater) Other than that we were free to let our imagination run free. In the end there were six fics and I gotta tell you, they are all very differential.
Special thanks to XiaoGui for her help and to Lucidity for her wonderful job as a Betareader.
Once upon...no blind date
Every place filled with lots of different people had the tendency to hold potential for conflicts, especially if the majority of said people were teenagers. Hogwarts, school for magic and wizardry was no exception to that. Neither was it unheard of a teacher abusing his power and tormenting his students.
There was only one thing that Harry Potter, in his capacity as half-grown wizard and 'the boy who lived' was certain of: no other school had such a repulsing and unpleasant teacher as his Potions Professor.
Severus Snape, the greasy haired, hook-nosed, scarecrow-like tyrant made a true art out of tormenting his students.
With clenched yaw and barely held back fury, Harry let the latest tirade of ugly insults wash over him, while Snape was looming over him like an overgrown vulture, commenting his potion.
"My, my Potter," the older wizard purred full of malice. "No wonder you gained your celebrity," he spat the word, as if it were something especially vile, "as a baby. Your decidedly demented mental faculties were still so retarded back then, your obvious stupidity couldn't get in the way of your actions."
Malfoy chuckled loudly somewhere to Harry's left.
Just as expected, Snape didn't reprimand him. He only seemed to get smugger by the minute, while he continued. "Perhaps Lockhart should have hexed away your brain, instead of your bone. Then maybe you could achieve more."
This time Malfoy laughed openly and the other Slytherins cackled evilly and gleefully.
Snape himself stalked to the front of the room to his desk, then spun around dramatically. "Failed, and five points from Gryffindor, for both of you, Mister Potter and Mister Weasley."
Harry heard his classmate, who had been working with him on the potion, swallow audibly, but they had both learned in the last years, not to contradict Snape.
"I can't believe him. Professor Snape basically watched Malfoy throw the Bertie Bott's bean in your cauldron," Hermione said waspishlyLH2 , while she walked with them from the dungeon towards the Great Hall, pressing her school books against her chest with a vehemence that betrayed her indignation.
"As if that had ever stopped Snape," Ron growled.
"Exactly," Harry agreed with disgust. "Malfoy is such a miserable toady and Snape seems to enjoy it too."
"One greasy git goes well with the other," Ron railed through clenched teeth. "We should cook their gooses once and for all."
"Professor Snape is a teacher and a member of the Order," Hermione protested.
Ron murmured something intelligible but the words 'questionable' and 'useless' seemed to be among whatever he said.
"We won't need to attack Snape openly, you know," said Harry. "If only we'd manage to disgrace mighty Malfoy in Snape's eyes for once..."
"Exactly," Ron interrupted. "So that he can't use Snape against us so easily."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "That will prove easy, like child's play, of course. Why don't you simply tell him that Malfoy is an unfair, mean git? I'm sure that will impress him."
"I never said that it would be easy," Ron sulked.
However – inside Harry's head the wheels had already started turning.
Astonishingly enough, it was Hermione who came upon them about a week later with an idea.
She stormed into the common room full of excitement, waving a newspaper like a trophy high above her head.
"Boys, I've got it!"
"Got what?" asked Ron and looked up from his history of magic assignment. He seemed happier about the distraction from his homework, rather than being truly interested in any of Hermione's new ideas.
"What have you got there," Harry asked with hardly more enthusiasm.
"This here." And with those words, Hermione shoved the paper between them onto the table.
"You've got the Quibbler?" Ron asked wide-eyed.
"Ahem, Hermione," Harry said carefully. "We know the Quibbler, but we thought that you weren't very interested in its content."
"Yep, not serious enough," Ron said.
Hermione sighed theatrically. "It's not the Quibbler itself that interests me, but while I was flipping through it yesterday..." She gifted Ron, who smugly grinned at her, with a scathing glare. "Luna has let it lay around and I was bored, okay? Anyway." She turned demonstratingly away from Ron and faced Harry, opening the magazine, where she had stuck a finger between two pages and pushed it under his nose. Ron, curious at last, straightened and craned his neck to catch a glimpse at what Hermione indicated.
"This is the page with the want-ads," Harry stated somewhat confused.
"Exactly," Hermione nodded, as if that all were the only needed explanation.
"I don't quite understand, Hermione," Harry said with a frown.
"You did say that you wanted to impair Malfoy's influence over Professor Snape, did you not?"
That seemed to immediately guarantee the unwavering interest of her two friends. Harry at least instantly became attentive. "Don't tell us you've found a way?"
Hermione nodded.
"But what does a job-ad have to do with it?" asked Harry, while he observed with amusement the drawn picture of a wizard, who, true to wizard pictures, waved with a miniature wand to control a vicious looking drawn dragon.
"It's not about the job advertisements. Look here," Hermione said and pointed at a few smaller sections on the lower right side of the page.
"Erotic want-ads?" Ron asked confused.
"Yes."
Harry and Ron exchanged a confused look. Hermione sighed again at their obvious lack of comprehension. She let herself fall in another chair at their table and clawed a folded piece of paper from her pocket. "Here, this should be enough to assure Malfoy won't try again to play Snape off against anyone."
Harry and Ron read the short note.
Good-looking, successful and homoerotic experienced businessman searches for the sexual alternation. You should be male, not over forty years old, slender, dark-haired and sexually open minded. I am blond, well built, in my early forties, exceedingly cultivated and sexually unrestrained. Toys and role-playing are very welcome.
L. M.
For one minute it was deadly silent, and then Harry and Ron burst out with roaring laughter.
"Draco can't be certain if it really was his father who wrote this, but he will have his doubts," Hermione said. "However, he'll hardly ask him about it. And then, he will ask himself, where his father had acquired that experience, if the want-ad was really written by him – and judging from the described preferences..."
"He will think that Snape..."
Hermione nodded "After all, the two of them apparently did attend Hogwarts together for some time and know each other well."
Ron laughed again. "This is brilliant Hermione. I am honestly impressed that you want to pull something like this off."
Hermione frowned quizzically and Harry continued for Ron, guessing his thoughts. "Ron does have a point, you know. I mean, I don't think other people will draw the same conclusions, if ever they even read such balderdash, but what about Snape? He would, were he to see it and I take any bet that he would want to get some answers..."
"He won't," Hermione said with a determined shake of her head. "We can't put a real want-ad in the magazine; only alter one that's already there. Neither Professor Snape nor anyone else will ever know of it. The Professor will be done no harm, since Malfoy will hardly go brag about it. But Malfoy on the other hand will surely cease to see his head of house in the same good light ever again."
Again, silence descended upon them for a minute before it was broken by Ron's almost reverent whisper. "You know Harry, sometimes she really scares me. So much like Fred and George..."
Finding Malfoy was not really difficult. They shared some classes with the Slytherins, after all. The harder part was to catch Malfoy alone, since he was shadowed almost constantly by those brainless brutes Crabbe and Goyle or some other thug. But even that proved to be less impossible than Harry had initially thought, thanks to a certain bewitched map.
Hidden under his invisibly cloak, Harry and his friends waited in an alcove, deep down in the dungeons, only a few steps away from the potions classroom and on the way to the Slytherin's common room. Nervous as a kneazle in a room full of rocking chairs, they observed how the tiny dots labelled with the name of Draco Malfoy, moved towards their direction. They had observed how the Slytherin had left the Great Hall with Cassiopeia Berrett, a pretty looking Ravenclaw fourth year.
His self-complacent composure and her rapturous glances she sent his way, while she was practically clinging to his arm, made clear what they both had in mind to do, and it was obvious that Malfoy wouldn't want to have his usual male companions with him this time.
The click-clack of his steps approached steadily and Harry hastily put the map away and glanced at the magazine that lay, hardly distinguishable, on the half-dark side of the corridor.
And then, when Malfoy came into view, without the girl but with an expression even smugger than earlier, a well placed 'notice-me' spell from Hermione on the altered want-ad drew Malfoy's glance into said corner just at the right time. With a frown, the blond teenager reached for the magazine and picked it up. When he recognised what kind of paper it was, his face morphed into a disgusted grimace.
However, even though he seemed even less enthusiastic than Hermione about it, her subtle spell made him leaf through it and stay stuck at the want-ads. For him, it would seem as if he'd noticed something from the corner of his eye, which had raised his curiosity. Interested, he began to read the ad. Harry and his friends observed how all colour gradually left Malfoy's face and his yaw dropped. His mouth moved as if he wanted to say something but any sound stayed locked in his lungs.
Harry heard how Ron did his best to suppress a chuckle and he was aware of the grin that played around his own mouth.
Malfoy was obviously more than shocked and Harry observed with satisfaction how his expression alternated between shame, anger and disbelief.
As usual, Hermione's plan seemed to be perfect. Everything worked according to plan and they seemed to have reached their goal...
Until a deep, cutting voice thwarted all their hopes.
"May I know what you are doing outside of the dormitories after curfew, Mister Malfoy?"
Like a dark cloud of black cloak, Snape suddenly stood in the corridor, barely three metres from them and Malfoy down the hall.
Hermione inhaled sharply, but caught herself fast enough to silence any traitorous noise. But she wasn't the only one shocked.
Snape shouldn't be here.
Harry tried to calm his suddenly wild beating heart. Snape wouldn't take the magazine from Malfoy, would he? Draco was his golden Slytherin after all. And even if he did take it, it wasn't certain that Hermione's spell would work on him too.
Like in a dream, Harry watched Malfoy's face morph into a hateful grimace, while he glared with loathing at Snape.
"I was just about to return there, Sir." He practically hissed the 'Sir'.
Snape arched one eyebrow and held out his hand. "May I see what you have there in your hand, Mister Malfoy?"
'Don't give it to him. Please don't,' Harry begged inwardly.
Draco's expression darkened even more and he threw the paper forcefully at Snape's feet. "What have you done with my father? And you'd better not deny it. I always asked myself why he held you in such high regard. He never defends anyone else so vehemently."
"Malfoy," Snape warned with a soft, dangerous voice. "Do not mistake yourself to be in a position where I will let you get away with everything." All the same he bent down and picked the Quibbler off the floor. As if some deity took a perverse pleasure in mocking them, Snape opened the newspaper precisely at the page with the want-ads. His eyes flew over the page and stayed glued to the bottom right corner - exactly on their false ad. His reaction was by far more controlled than Malfoy's but his eyes too widened at first, before his mouth grew into a small, grim line and his eyes became hard.
"Come with me to my office, Malfoy," he said calmly and turned around. When Malfoy hesitated, he threw the teenager a scathing glance over his shoulder. "Right now!"
His new tone of voice would without a doubt have frozen the great lake, and not even Malfoy was immune to it. Still glaring, but almost robot-like, Malfoy stalked into the class room in front of his head of house. Snape followed him and closed the door behind them.
"Oh no," Hermione whined." What are we going to do now? He should never have seen it."
"Calm down, Hermione," Harry tried to calm her, while musing over the possible consequences of their prank.
"He can't really do anything, right?" Ron asked, panicked. "The most he can do is to ask Malfoy senior if the want-ad was genuine, but he can't find out who did it, now can he?"
Harry looked questionably to Hermione, who was deep in thought herself. "He will certainly explain to Draco that nothing ever went on between him and Draco's father. The spell could have been cast by any sixth or seventh year. However, I don't believe that he will talk to Malfoy senior about it. It's not something pure-bloods talk about. But even if he does... In the worst case scenario it was all for nothing, and in the best, a small seed of mistrust towards Snape will remain in Draco."
"Ssh," Ron hissed suddenly as the door to Snape's classroom opened again and he stepped out with Malfoy.
All anger was gone from Malfoy's face and he smirked self-righteously at his head of house. "Thank you, sir, for not reporting me for being out after curfew."
Snape nodded brusquely. "You are familiar with the rules, Mister Malfoy. While I don't condemn occasional excursions and unfair methods of yours, I expect them to help, or at least not harm your house. Should you ever lose any points because of your nightly fits of adolescent romances, you will have to answer to me, understood?"
Malfoy's grin widened even more. "Understood, sir. I will be careful. And perhaps I can even manage to make Cassiopeia lose some house points. I know, it's not as good as Gryffindor, but I'd rather die than try to socialize with one of those."
Snape nodded and the beginning of a smirk tugged at his lips. "That, I would never ask of you. But now get going before anyone else sees you."
Malfoy turned around and hurried down the hallway, towards the Slytherin common room. As soon as he was out of sight, the smirk upon Snape's face died and with a furious expression he disappeared into his office, slamming the door behind himself.
"I can't believe it, " Hermione whispered. "He Obilivated Malfoy. "
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T.B.C.