When Hogwarts Celebrations Get Out of Hand
Summary: The morning after a celebration at Hogwarts, Headmaster Dumbledore finds an unusual flurry of activity in the potion master's chambers. AU disregarding HBP, somewhat OOC, fluff piece. Rated T for initially suggestive implications.
Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. Therefore, I do not own Harry Potter. I'm just playing with her toys, so don't get the wrong idea.
Three Hogwarts students stood in a shadowed alcove of the Great Hall. They were talking in whispers while casting surreptitious glances to assure no one else wandered close enough to overhear. One boy was shaking his head as he told his companions, "I still say it'll never work. He'd sooner believe that you and I…"
The other two students both made disgusted faces at the speaker. "He certainly wouldn't believe that," replied the second boy in the group, a bit snappishly.
"Would you like to make a little wager on that? I say he'd sooner believe I would than he would."
"There's no way he'd believe you would. You're on!" replied the second boy, and after a pause for the two to shake hands while their companion rolled her eyes, that boy continued, "Okay, now here's the plan…"
Professor Severus Snape, potions master at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, woke with an irritating headache. Climbing out of the massive four poster immovably installed in the bedroom of his suite as Head of Slytherin House by some previous occupant, the Professor quickly threw on a robe and made his way out to his sitting room.
Bleary-eyed and with considerable pain in his skull, the man was oblivious to everything except the cabinet where he kept his stores of Headache Relief potion. He was just swallowing a vial of the nasty-tasting concoction when he heard a chuckle from behind him.
Scowling in irritation, he turned to face the only person who could possibly have the audacity to invade his private quarters this early in the morning. "Headmaster," Snape said curtly, hoping the man would just say what he'd come for and go away.
"Well, Severus, I see that the students weren't the only ones who drank the tampered punch last night," the Headmaster's eyes had that usual annoying twinkle even the early hour couldn't diminish. His amused tone leveled a bit when he added, "We're still trying to locate quite a few of them, you know. Your assistance would be much appreciated."
The Potion's master sneered, "The dunderheads are still here at the castle, aren't they?"
The Headmaster inclined his head slightly and said, "Yes, from the wards, we know none have left the castle grounds."
"Then you don't need me to look for the brats. They'll turn up. I have far more important matters to attend to than tracking down missing delinquents who had too much to drink. Good-day, Headmaster."
But before he could further urge Dumbledore out of his chambers, there was a yawn from the doorway behind him. Shocked beyond words, enough for his eyes to widen before he regained complete control of his expression, Snape turned to find Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson emerging, scantily clad, from his own bedroom. Snape frantically tried to recall how the night before could have logically concluded with two half-dressed Slytherin seventh years spending the night in his chambers. He frowned as no such scenarios came to mind.
"Severus, aren't you coming back to bed, it got cold when you left," Draco whined.
"What is the meaning of this, Mr. Malfoy?" Snape snapped, outraged.
"Not a morning person, are you Professor? You were much more pleasant last night," Pansy added, cheerfully, before giving the currently too-stunned-to-resist professor a soft pat on the cheek, and dragging Draco over to curl up with her on the couch.
"Severus?" The headmaster asked, his tone questioning, "I see now why you were so keen to get me out of here. What is the meaning of this highly inappropriate display? Surely you haven't been abusing your position as Head of Slytherin right under my nose?"
"I…I don't know, sir. I know this looks, well, I assure you, sir, this isn't what it looks like!" Snape spat, still frantically trying to recall what was going on. Unable to recall anything of the night before, he abruptly snapped at the students.
"Mr. Malfoy, Ms. Parkinson, explain your presence in my private chambers!"
Before he could insist on an answer, however, he saw movement from the corner of his eye and was even more appalled to see Blaise Zabini emerging from the bedroom and making his way over to the kitchenette's cabinets and rummaging about. The boy found a cup, helped himself to the coffee the Professor had the house elves leave every morning, and went to the couch. He put an arm around Pansy and leaned in to her, sipping at the cup. At that point Snape gave up on finding any logical explanation and assumed it was all a very strange nightmare.
Turning back to the Headmaster, Snape realized that the man's eyes were no longer sparkling, and Dumbledore, one of the greatest wizards since Merlin himself, was beginning to look angry. He could feel the man's power radiating out through the room in waves. So he wasn't asleep, Snape thought, but it was definitely a nightmare. The professor gulped noisily. "I…Sir, I…"
"I demand to know what's going on! Spiked punch or not, this is completely unacceptable! Give me one single reason not to dismiss you from the school this instant, Professor!"
"Oh, Professor Dumbledore, how nice to see you!" came a fourth voice from the bedroom. Emerging from his bedroom in a Gryffindor red nightdress that left too little to the imagination was yet another student.
"Miss Granger?!" Snape's jaw seemed to come unhinged and kept opening and closing with no sound emerging. Hermione winked and blew him a kiss from the doorway.
"That's it! Pack your things and get out!" the Headmaster shouted.
"You can't do that, Headmaster, it clearly states in the Hogwarts Book Of Rules and Regulations that consensual student-teacher interrelations are not sufficient grounds for dismissal of said staff member unless the student or students involved are underage," Hermione said, in her best know-it-all voice. Snape gave a slight whimper and began to look faint.
The Headmaster blinked rapidly at her and then heavily took a seat in a chair across from the slew of students on the couch. He started to look even less angry and more plainly bewildered as Ginny Weasley wandered out of the bedroom from behind Hermione and actually stood on tiptoe to kiss a flabbergasted Snape on the cheek before joining the others on the couch.
"Just how many students spent the night in here, Severus?" Wandering out and blushing convincingly while making his way over to join the rest, was none other than Harry Potter.
"NONE OF THEM!" Snape was now twitching slightly, eyes wild. But then, as his gaze fixed on a yawning Harry, his expression narrowed and he suddenly regained his equilibrium.
In his normal smooth and confident tone, he continued, "I assure you Headmaster, this is all the students' doing. If for some unfathomable reason you believe that I would touch students from Gryffindor, let alone from my own House, and I admit it wouldn't be the first time a Weasley spent the night here," unnoticed by the professors, Ginny and Ron exchanged a disturbed glance, "I suppose there isn't much I can say. But you know you can believe me, Albus, when I say there isn't enough alcohol in the world to cloud my judgement so far I'd sleep with a Potter." Severus Snape smirked. They might have thought they were clever, but the students would have to work a lot harder to get the drop on a man who'd been the butt of most of the Marauders idiot stunts.
Harry's expression at this statement was a bit hard to decipher, as if the boy couldn't decide whether to be insulted or relieved at the professor's lack of interest. Draco interrupted any dilemma he might have been pondering, however.
"You know, Uncle Severus, you really shouldn't knock it until you've tried it," the boy said. Catching on, Harry, sitting directly to Draco's left, leaned in and kissed the other boy deeply, long enough to make nearly everyone in the room uncomfortable before murmuring, just loud enough to be heard by the professors, "I wuv you, too, Drakey-poo."
There was a rather loud thud as the potion master hit the floor, unconscious.
"Ugh. Alright, Potter, pay up," Malfoy said, not so surreptitiously wiping at his mouth.
"I've really got to stop making bets with you, Draco. I was sure we had him freaked out beyond rational thought with Hermione quoting rules at Dumbledore in that silly nightgown," Harry grumbled.
"Almost doesn't count, your idea didn't work. Even with everybody else here, he knew because of you. I was right," Draco said, grinning cockily. Harry muttered something indistinguishable, still discontent.
"Yeah, yeah, maybe next time you'll finally win one. But probably not."
Dumbledore coughed, and looked back and forth between the students in front of him, all of them giving him mischievous grins of one stripe or another. He shook his head and a somewhat subdued twinkle entered his eyes again. "You know, children, I'm really beginning to feel that things were much safer at this school when Voldemort was alive and plotting and house rivalries kept your mischief focused on one another."
"That really hurts, Professor Dumbledore," Harry pouted.
"Not as much as it will when I'm done with the lot of you," came the growl from the floor.
"Ah, Severus, don't be too harsh with them. After all, I do believe you got off lightly. I'm not quite sure what they did to our esteemed Professor Trelawney, as she won't tell me, but the poor woman has been hiding under the tables in her classroom and brandishing teacups threateningly at students who so much as look at her for weeks. At the time I supposed it was another of Sybil's delightful quirks, though now I rather suspect these students had something to do with it." Dumbledore leveled a mildly stern look at the students on the couch over the rims of his half-moon glasses.
Completely unabashed, Hermione snickered, "That was mine, and so was whats-his-name that had the defense post before he ran off screaming."
The Headmaster gave them an appraising look, "Should I be worried?"
"Nah, we only let Hermione have the Professors we really can't stand. Besides, we haven't even done McGonagall or Flitwick yet, so you're safe. For a while," Harry said brightly.
"Oh dear," the Headmaster replied, sounding more jovial than truly worried.
"I told you, I told you we should have just expelled them all, but you wouldn't listen," came from the floor where Professor Snape was now sitting up, rubbing at the back of his head.