Emerald Amber

Chapter One – Swamp Thing

He sat there quietly stirring the greenish blue mess that was suppose to be a deep purple hoping that Snape wouldn't notice that his potion was on the verge of looking like the swamp thing from that old muggle movie he'd once seen Dudley watching. He couldn't figure out exactly where he'd gone wrong though. He had followed the instructions on the board to a tee, but somehow got this mess. He glanced at Hermione's potion out of the corner of his eye and saw that her's was the right color and didn't look as if it were going to crawl out of her cauldron and attack everyone within range.

"Potter!"

Harry Potter, the boy-who-would-soon-be-eaten-by-his-own-potion, was startled so badly by Professor Snape calling his name that he lost hold of the glass stirring rod in his hand. It fell with a plop and began to slowly sink into the muck that was trying to climb out of his cauldron all on its own. Harry made a desperate grab for the rod, but only succeeded in giving the swamp thing a chance to engulf his fingers.

"AHHH!" Harry yelled loudly as he tried to pull his hand back, but the potion had began to literally try to swallow it.

"Potter! What in Merlin's name is wrong with you?!" Snape shouted as he hurried over to Harry's work space.

"It won't let go!" Harry shouted in terror. He continued tugging at his arm, but the potion had a tight hold of him. It was slowly oozing up his arm.

"Potter!" Snape shouted as he grabbed the boy by his shoulders and pulled him away from the cauldron. Instead of Harry's arm being released, the potion gained momentum in its upward climb and now reached his shoulder. Snape had no idea what to do now. The potion was literally eating his student. "Everyone out! Now!"

The students in the class all began to gather their things, but another shout from the professor and the potion making a weird gurgling noise had them all scattering from the room. The only people left behind were Hermione and Malfoy. Hermione was rapidly flipping through pages in a book trying to find a way to get Harry free. Malfoy was standing there with a look of stunned curiosity.

"Please Snape! Help me!" Harry cried out as the potion was now crawling across his shoulders and down his back. Soon, he would be completely covered in it.

"I am trying, Potter!" Snape snapped as he began casting spell after spell at the green liquid consuming his student. "Draco! Go get Dumbledore and Pomfrey now!" With one last inquisitive look, Malfoy moved to do as Snape demanded.

"Harry, do you remember what you put in your potion?" Hermione asked, still desperately flipping through yet another thick book from her bag.

"Only what it said to put in it!" Harry responded in terror. His whole upper body was now covered in the sludge like goop.

"What about stirring? Did you stir it the right way?" Hermione asked while scrutinizing a particular paragraph in her book.

"I-I thought so." Harry mumbled as suddenly his whole body was racked with tremors.

"Ms. Granger, it would not have mattered how he stirred it. It was to be a simple revealing potion." Snape replied while still casting spells at the boy.

"I know, Sir, but here it says that if it's stirred four times clockwise and two times counterclockwise, then a swipe through the middle from the bottom to the top, it changes the potion completely." Hermione replied as she watched Harry intently. The goop was now covering his feet as well. The only part of the boy not covered was his eyes and mouth.

"It says what?!" Snape exclaimed as he jerked the book from Hermione's grasp and began quickly reading the paragraph she pointed out to him. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me. Potter, how do you always end up in these situations?"

"What is it, Sir?" Hermione asked anxiously.

"Oh my gods! I don't care what it is! Just get it off!" Harry yelled while trying to frantically make his way toward the emergency shower just on the other side of the classroom. "It's starting to harden!"

Snape pursed his lips as he ignored the boy in favor of reading the information in the book. "Ms. Granger, will you please tell your friend that if he gets wet, he will be forever encased in that mess." Snape sneered as Granger's eyes widened and the girl ran to stop Harry from reaching the shower.

"Harry, you have to stop!" Hermione cried out. "You can't get wet!" She barely reached him in time to freeze the water nozzle, preventing it from turning on.

"'Mione!" Harry whined. His whole body was starting to itch. He was quickly losing all mobility. The only thing he could still move were his lips and eyes. 'And I look right stupid, too' Harry thought. One hand was reached out in front of him, his fingers in a grasping mode. His left leg was stretched out behind him. His right leg looked as if he were trying to leap off the ground. 'Great, I look like a bloody muggle superhero!'

A giggle brought his attention back to the girl standing next to him. Hermione was covering her mouth with both hands trying desperately not to laugh again. "You don't look like a superhero, Harry," she snickered before turning back to Snape. The man had the strangest look on his face as he looked at Harry.

"It itches!" Harry snapped out. His whole body was beginning to itch like the twins had doused him in their new itching powder(Guaranteed to shed skin!)

"Mr. Potter, I will never understand how you can take one simple potion and turn it into this," Snape drawled while waving a hand over Harry. "Once the solution hardens, it will fall off."

"Then what, Professor," Hermione asked softly. She didn't get to finish the whole explanation of the potion before Snape had taken her book. "Will Harry be okay after it falls off?"

"Yes, he will be fine. Although, he may find that some things are different." Snape replied with a smirk.

Harry suddenly had an uncontrollable urge to scratch his nether regions. It got so bad that he considered asking Hermione to scratch it for him.

"NO! I will not scratch your balls!" Hermione suddenly shouted. "What do you think I am? Your personal ball scratcher?! I can't believe you Harry Potter!" With that, Hermione rushed out of the room.

"I guess I said that out loud?" Harry asked his professor sheepishly. He could feel the heat in his cheeks even if the other man couldn't see it through the goop.

"Yes, Potter, you said that out loud." Severus couldn't stop the chuckle that bubbled up his throat at the horror that Granger had displayed at Potter's request.

"Your chuckling?" Harry asked in dismay. "I'm stuck inside this hardening green goop, my whole body is itching like nothing I've ever felt, I feel like fire ants are traipsing across my balls, and you're chuckling?!"

"Ah, Harry," Dumbledore's voice came from the door of the classroom. His eyes were twinkling overtime in amusement."It seems as if you have quite the problem there. Fire ants, you say?"

"Headmaster!" Harry exclaimed in relief. "Can you help me?" By now the goop had hardened to the point where Harry could barely move his lips and could no longer blink. His eyes were starting to water something awful.

"I believe I have seen this before." Dumbledore murmured as he walked a slow circle around Harry. "Yes, it is as I have feared."

"What? What's as you have feared?" Harry was desperate for the removal of this weird goop. The itching had started to slow down. Now, he felt more of a numbing sensation all across his skin.

"You will have to remain this way until it falls off." Dumbledore stated calmly. "Severus, perhaps you would be willing to cancel your next class and assist Mr. Potter when the... goop... wears off?"

"If I must, Albus." Severus sighed in resignation. He didn't mind canceling the next class, but he sure as hell didn't want to be stuck here with Potter!

"Well, I will leave you to it. When it falls off, Harry, I suggest you go see Poppy." With those final words, Dumbledore left the room with a small smile on his face.

"Seriously?" Harry whispered. "Did he seriously just tell me to 'wait until it falls off?' What THE FUCK!"

"Language, Potter." Snape drawled with a sigh.

"Language? LANGUAGE?!" Harry ranted the best he could through the goop that made talking difficult as it seemed to dry. "I could fucking care less about language, Snape! I'm stuck here covered in whatever this shit is because SOMEBODY had the bright idea to do this potion today! This is all your fault, Snape!"

Severus got an evil glint in his eye as he pulled his wand and placed the tip against Harry's lips. With a whispered incantation, the goop crawled its way across Harry's mouth. He had to quickly press his lips together so none of it got in his mouth.

"MHMOUPHOUMPH!" Harry screamed, but Severus just smirked at him and walked to his desk.

"Oh, that's much better." Severus sighed in bliss at the sudden quiet. He glanced over at Potter and saw that the boy had now closed his eyes due to the goop finally covering the last of his body. He could only hope that the potion did what it was suppose to, and not something completely different. But this was Harry Potter they were talking about. Something was bound to go wrong.