Chapter Fourteen: I'd like to Plead Temporary Insanity
Once I'd realised that I was being made Potions Master of Hogwarts, it took me a further few minutes to realise I was being made the actual. Potions. Master. Of. Hogwarts. Sweet Merlin's beard, that kind of thing you just did not get used to. Well, I suppose Severus had, but that's entirely beside the point. The point was that I was going to run around the room, squealing and giggling, no matter how many times Severus told me to stay still and shut up before his eardrums burst and he got a neck injury from watching me run circles around him. Eventually, he growled like a lion before it pounces and cast a full-body bind hex on me. Running at the time, I smashed into a bookcase and fell backwards. Unable to shield myself from the onslaught of books falling on me, I turned my eyes to Severus and gave him the strongest, most evil glare I could muster from my frozen, completely stationary position. That poop-head. Eventually, he wandered over as though I were a book he was thinking of perusing, and looked down at me.
"You know," he said slowly and dangerously, "it is tempting to leave you like this. Merlin knows I could use a break."
I made a high-pitched squealing noise in the back of my throat, which had been mercifully left out of the curse, and he smiled slightly.
"You're right, I think," he said, turning his wand over in his hands. "I find that I'm missing your incessant whining already. And your incompetent babbling. And not to mention your habit of staring off into space every four seconds." Oh, I did not stare off into space every four seconds. I may have had a slight habit of going off on mental tangents, but they were barely noticeable. He lifted the curse, and I stood up, pushing the books off me as I did so.
"I do not whine incessantly, or babble incompetently. Is incompetently a word? I think it is, and if it's not I'm going to make it one just to prove you wrong."
"What?"
Okay, maybe I'd said all that a bit too fast for the human ear to recognize it as being actual words and not just a high-pitched buzzing. But damn it, my point still stood. "Don't worry," I said, brushing myself off. "I was just talking about some extremely intelligent and not at all incompetent stuff that I wouldn't expect you to understand." Ha! Take that, Mr. I-Think-I'm-So-Smart. Instead of being knocked to the ground by my wicked zinger, he simply raised an eyebrow and stared at me. Well, I was sure that the knock-down was building itself up. There was no other explanation.
"I see," he said eventually. "Well, don't hurt yourself."
Oh, fabulous. He had a retort and even though it wasn't that great, it was better than anything I could come up with. Or… was it? "Yeah? Well you suck!" Oh, bloody hell. Way to prove a point.
"I suck, do I?" he said, he words sounding very strange coming from him. "Well, perhaps you'd rather I was still at St. Mungo's, lacking a memory." Hmm. I had to line this up perfectly. Once I'd shifted myself a few inches to the left, I charged at him. I saw his eyes widen in surprise, but he didn't have time to cast a shield charm or even raise his arms in defence before I barreled into him, sending us both flying onto the springy mattress of the bed. I snaked my arms around his torso and tightened until he was gasping for breath, and only then did I relent. I was like a boa constrictor with my affection. It was coming at you, and chances are it would kill you, but that's what you get for underestimating me.
"Don't. Be. Stupid." I said the words as sternly and deliberately as I could, so that he could learn his lesson. Damn it, he was going to learn it, even if I had to beat it into him with a lead pipe. "Don't even begin to think about trying to suggest something like that. For all you talk about me being stupid, sometimes you say the dumbest things I've ever heard. I love you, and nothing will ever change that, do you understand me? Ever."
He was staring at me as though I'd gone mad, which was probably reasonable, considering that I'd just tackled him and nearly asphyxiated him before yelling at him. Go team sanity. "Remind me again why I'm condemning myself to a lifetime of this?"
"Because you love me," I said, relinquishing my iron grip on his waist. "And it's making you do harmful, self-destructive things like marrying me."
"Sounds reasonable," he said, putting a hand on the side of my head. Ha! He conceded! I won that round. Now, all I had to do was to win approximately seven thousand more, and we'd be even. I let out an exhalation of breath, feeling quite contented lying there. My head was lying at a very uncomfortable angle and I wished I had a pillow under it, but that was just the price you pay. My neck was kind of starting to get faint bendy-pains though. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Damn it. I lifted my head up and used the power of my super-amazing neck muscles to keep it straight, but that had the side effect of drawing Severus' attention, as I probably looked a bit stupid with my hovering head.
"Erm…" I said, casting about for an explanation. "Do you know… what the time is?" Ha! I'd managed to distract him with my incredibly cunning feminine wiles and he was completely powerless to stop me.
"Yes, it's just gone nine," he said. Oh, bloody hell. I was late for my own very first class as actual Potions Master of Hogwarts, holy crap, and he knew it. I could see he was loving it, trying to keep the cold smile off his face. "You'd better run, or you'll be late."
"Oh, shutup," I muttered, giving him one of his own crushing glares before running out the door. The last thing I saw was him trying not to laugh before I slammed the door shut behind me, running along the corridor to the classroom. I had to admit, it was a lot easier to get to classes now that I'd started staying at Severus' place at nights, instead of my own rooms a few floors up. In a manner of moments I was in the classroom, panting and out of breath while students milled around the locked door, muttering amongst themselves. It seemed that the case of the locked classroom door was a mystery to them, as Severus (or Professor Snape to them) had always been positively early to class. I managed to choke out a breathless 'hi' with a smile before going to unlock the door. With the keys that I'd left in the drawer of my bedside table. Idiot! Stupid, stupid girl. I'd never even had to bring my keys along before, as I'd always had Severus to let me in. "Er… okay, so I've just left my keys in my room, I'm… I'm going to go and grab those, and then we can make a potion, or something."
A potion! Bloody hell, I hadn't even thought of what to assign the students to make for today. Understandable, though, as I'd had barely half an hour's warning before my first class. It was really quite unfair, I thought to myself as I walked quickly back from whence I'd come. I burst back into the room and Severus stared. I'd been gone for such a short period of time that he hadn't even stood up from where I'd knocked him down.
"You know, it is generally accepted that the lessons go for an hour," he said, smirking at me with one eyebrow raised. "Not four seconds. Unless the potion you're having them make is just boiled water, and in that case, I'm sorry to break it to you, but that's not really a potion. That's just boiled water."
"Shutup!" I cried again, in an odd high-pitched tone. I clamped my mouth shut and walked over to the bedside table, trying to slip the keys into my pocket so that he wouldn't see. He did, though, and got even smirkier. Which isn't an actual word, but I'm going to pretend it is because that's what he did. Then, I did the only thing I could do. I held my head up high, looked down my nose at him as though I hadn't forgotten the keys, and walked right back out of that dungeon with as much dignity as I could muster. Which, considering the circumstance, wasn't very much.