Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters. Too bad…

Potions

Even after almost seven years of teaching this class, Severus Snape prided himself in knowing that he was still able to inspire fear in his pupils. In fact, he wouldn't be surprised if last year's graduates still shrank at the sight of him. There was no doubt that he was the inspiration to many of the first-years' nightmares.

Being imposing, rude, scary, sneaky, and a whole bunch of other unpleasant things gave Severus Snape an outlet for his frustrations, of which he had many. It also made him terribly exhausted by the end of the day, not that he showed it. By dinner-time of every weekday, Severus wished he could just skip the meal and go to bed. He would, if it weren't for the fact that Albus required all the staff to attend dinner. After that, he took care of his duties as Head of house, patrolled corridors and graded papers until the words blurred on the paper. Then he finally went to bed.

You may ask what made Severus Snape do all these things and waste all that energy on innocent students. That doesn't mean you'll ever find an answer.

There was one good reason for this routine, even though the pros and cons were definitely disproportionate. Severus Snape never had nightmares.

It was a bit ironic, and he always chuckled (in his head, of course) when he thought of how he gave students nightmares to banish his own.

Due to many years of practice, Severus had a certain technique that never failed him. His rule of thumb was to never be predictable.

He always burst into the classroom when least expected, whether two minutes late or twenty seconds early, and managed to always get at least one student to jump out of their seat(mostly Neville.) and several others to flinch in surprise and, probably, apprehension. He would always take points away from the student or students for disrupting the class, which usually led to a shortness of points in Gryffindor's house. This of course always made his day a little more bearable, at least until he had to deal with third-year Hufflepuffs.

Now, as Severus stood in front of his Seventh-year Griffindors and Slytherins, he smugly took in the nervous twitches and shifting eyes. Some Gryffindors boldly had their chins up, but he could almost smell the fear on them(And it wasn't because he had a big shnoze). Taking a silent breath, he suddenly started in on his lecture.

"Today you are going to be brewing a potion that will take all your concentration and effort if you are to make it correctly. And you will make it correctly, if you don't want to be in detention tomorrow." At this he allowed his eyebrow to rise, as if daring them to question him. "Who can tell me about the Modica Novus?" He asked, knowing what would most likely happen.

True to form, after a hesitant moment, one student's hand shot up. Severus rolled his eyes, and then narrowed them as they landed on the student who had caused him so much ire last night. And there was nothing he could do about it either. Miss Granger had Dumbledore's protection. "Yes, Miss Granger?" He managed to grit out.

"The Modica Novus, also known as the refreshing potion, revitalizes whatever it is applied to for a limited amount of time. Depending on the brewer, the potion usually lasts between two and four hours. Many people have tried to make the potion permanent, but-"

"Yes, Miss Granger." Severus interrupted. "We know you're smart. You can write a book about this potion on your own time." After a smug look at her resentful stare, Severus continued. "This potion will test you in ways the N.E.W.T.S will never reach, so if you can make this, you can make anything they throw at you." He threw a nasty look around at the class, just because he could. Then he waved his wand at the board and the directions appeared, which most of the students promptly wrote down. "You know the drill. There will be silence in this classroom."

With that said, Severus sat at his desk and started grading papers. Maybe he could do enough that he got enough sleep for once tonight. Then again, with Miss Granger's detention…

He delved into the papers with reluctance. Third-years were hardly better than First-years. Every now and then he would glance up at the class, satisfied that nothing was going too wrong. There were no smoking cauldrons yet, at least.

Severus managed to finish grading all the essays before the class was over, and walked around the class silently, observing the students as they added the last of their ingredients. Even Neville's potion was adequate, if barely. The potion was supposed to be a cool blue, and his looked teal. Something was bound to happen though.

Severus was walking past Miss Granger's desk as she added her last ingredient. It was the perfect shade of blue of course, but Severus checked it thoroughly for anything he could find wrong. Just as he started to straighten from leaning over her cauldron, he heard a slight cracking sound. Both he and Miss Granger looked up in time to see a piece of the dungeon ceiling falling. It plopped into her potion, and, even before they could do anything, it splattered all over the both of them. Severus was only glad that this happened after the step that required the potion to cool. Scalding potion was not very comfortable on the skin.

Of course, neither was a cooled potion. He watched as Miss Granger wiped some of the slimy potion away from her eyes and blink at him. It was too bad he couldn't assign detention for this. "Mr. Malfoy, I want you to stay behind in class today to make sure everyone turns in a labeled sample of their potion. Miss Granger and I are going to the Infirmary." With that, he grabbed the messy cauldron with the chunk of Hogwarts in it and trudged out of the classroom, Miss Granger following behind obediently. He was glad the mess stopped at his waist, as he didn't have to worry about the potion squelching around in his shoes.

When they arrived at the Hospital Wing, Madam Pomfrey only had to glance at Severus' sullen expression before pointing towards the door that led to the shower rooms. Of course there were four separate rooms, so they wouldn't have to take turns for who used the shower.

Severus sighed under the hot water. He always enjoyed his showers, no matter what comments were made about him not taking them. It was a daily ritual he performed every morning, like one would drink coffee to wake up. And it did wake him up. His disposition stayed less sour than usual at least until the first class started.

He ran his hands through his hair and over his face, making sure to rid any evidence of the potion accident. They would use what was left in the cauldron to troubleshoot if they had any bad reactions to the potion.

Soon enough he was finished, and reluctantly turned the shower off. He grabbed a fluffy white towel and started to dry off, absently ruffling his hair with it before heading towards a small pile of clean robes the elves had laid out for him. Dressing, he didn't even bother looking in the mirror before heading out of the room, not wanting to see his ugly mug until he had to.

He waited on a nearby hospital bed for five more minutes before Miss Granger came out. Of course, it would have taken her much longer than usual to clean out the potion from her hair. He looked at it, and noticed it was different somehow. Was it just him, or did the Bushy-haired Know-it-all not look so bushy-haired anymore? He blinked, but just before he could observe her features more closely, she interrupted.

"Your hair!" She exclaimed, looking surprised.

"Please don't tell me you've never noticed its condition before, Miss Granger. One would think you were slacking on your observation skills." He said sarcastically, not wanting to hear an inadvertent insult from the one student who had never called him names.

"No-No Professor! It's just-your hair-it's-it's…beautiful." She managed to get out.

As he stared at her in genuine astonishment, Severus tried to think of a more peculiar situation in his life. He couldn't think of any.