Severus Snape set down his razor on the side of the sink and stared at himself. Cuts, everywhere, little nicks and scrapes across the jaw line like someone marked hidden treasure. The thought made him grin - the hidden treasure beneath these little red lines was only crooked teeth and dark magic. His smile faded as he continued to study himself. The severe lines of his face were angular, bony in the dim light of the ensuite bathroom and tired besides. He'd needed to think, to focus, and he did that best late at night, stalking the halls or pacing back and forth before Eri.
He sighed, and with a wave of his hand healed the cuts, grimacing as the skin pinched together for that second of pain. Pure vanity.
But Hermione was coming in tonight after supper to practice, and Severus wanted to look nice. Presentable.
After all, this was going to be the one of the last times she would see him for quite a while. Once the project was approved - and Severus was under little doubt she'd charm the senior members of the education committee just as easily as she charmed everybody else, if by charm you meant overwhelm them with recited facts and strong-willed enthusiasm - there would be little need for the bushy haired beauty to visit Hogwarts, and even less to seek out the Potions Master.
He shook his head and turned away from the mirror in disgust. He really was acting like a moping, teenage boy, and it had to stop.
The meals, the classes, the corridors - everything in his day bleared into one long smudge as his mind chugged away, trying to find a potion worth of Hermione's demonstration. It had to be something simple enough that it wouldn't explode or poison anyone even if the measurements were made incorrectly or it was left boiling for too long or short a period - such was a standard requirement of any first year class, and for Hermione's experiments in unqualified teachers it was even more important.
At the same time, the potion had to be embarrassing to get wrong. A cloud of red smoke wouldn't mean much to the viewers - Severus had never found Ministry employees to be particularly bright, Eri being the exception. Turning the demonstrator into a pig or a frog wouldn't be too hard, but required more complicated potions.
Severus was so caught up in his thoughts that he missed Henry McDuffin throw something up into the air, slice it on the downward arc with his knife, and gape in horror as the shorn half tumbled away from him and into the cauldron.
He was just awake enough to witness Henry completely fail to catch it (after three comical grabs, and at one point a bounce off his wrist) and upset the cauldron. Severus' instincts, dulled by months of peacetime, lack of food and sleep, and his preoccupation, only managed to shield half of the room - the half that Severus himself was in. The concoction - because Severus would never stoop to calling something born of chaos a potion - bled across the floor as fast as Mercury, but the students leapt aside and nobody was touched.
Nobody, of course, except poor Henry, whose skin was turning a fantastic shade of pink.
"50 points from Ravenclaw for gross incompetence, McDuffin," snarled Severus, his rage overtaking his fatigue. "And 50 from Hufflepuff for doing nothing to stop this madness."
McDuffin's table partner, Elsie Mild, opened her mouth to complain - and then bit her tongue. McDuffin's skin brightened in tone until he was a hot pink a Barbie would have been proud of - quite bright enough to start a headache brewing in Severus' forehead.
Then the colour thickened, and blue swirled down from McDuffin's head, casting clouds of purple like ink across his neck and hands.
Severus thought.
"Out," he growled. "Not you, McDuffin. Stay where you are."
"Sir-" McDuffin looked around him, still sprawled half in the puddle of failed burn salve. "I'm really sorry."
"Save it. Your gross incompetence inspires in me the idea that the Sorting Hat may, in fact, finally need to be put out of its misery. Where in Ravenclaw did you get the idea that horsing around in Potions was a good idea?"
Pouting, McDuffin stood up and slumped against the desk. "I just… wanted to impress Elsie. I… You won't care."
To Severus' intense surprise, the hot pink flared up again, tinging the edges of McDuffin's ears and cheeks.
It was some kind of mood sensor. At once Severus' brain kicked into high gear. "What did you add?"
"It was just a…"
"What?" Severus prompted. "I need to know, so as to know whether you're going to expire in a few minutes or get covered in boils, or loose those good looks of yours-"
McDuffin blushed again, the colours swirling so much that Severus felt sick. He averted his gaze, staring at the grey liquid as it crept across the floor. He would need to extract this memory and study it.
"A lime, sir."
"A lime, McDuffin?"
"Yes sir. I… My father decided he wanted to study Muggle alcohol, sir. He… He was teaching me how to make cocktails."
"I see. And did such instruction include such showmanship as befits a circus act?"
"A bit, but… most of it was based on this video game Elsie was telling me about."
"Video game, McDuffin?"
"… Fruit Ninja."
"So you believed yourself to be some kind of ninja?" Severus let the question float on the air, McDuffin's face so scarlet that it almost lit up the room. "Don't worry, boy. It's alright." As the face before him relaxed into a ghostly cream of shocked relief, Severus quickly took advantage of the lowered guard, sweeping across the room to stand almost nose-to-nose. He was careful to avoid touching the boy - he didn't need his nose shining red with embarrassment like a certain reindeer. "But if you ever horse around in my classroom again, I will give you so many detentions with Filch you'll start calling him your third parent. Am. I. Clear?"
"Yes sir," McDuffin managed to stammer out. "I really am sorry. Sir."
"Good. Now, go have a shower and get to your next class."
McDuffin swallowed, and then nodded, running away in his damp socks and shoes, his books clasped under one silky blue arm.
Pulling out a new sheet of parchment, Severus began scrawling across it the Ministry form he knew almost off by heart, the pen barely rising from the page. With a sweep of his hand, head still buried in the patent application, Severus wandlessly Levitated a pinch of floo powder into the fire underneath one of the cauldrons closest to him and requested Minerva's office.
A harried looking headmistress answered, her hair so tightly caught against the top of her head that it was a wonder it didn't pull it off with the tension.
"Minerva," Severus said tersely. "I need you to cancel all my lessons for the day. Can you find a replacement? I had third year potions after lunch, and first years again in the final period - Slytherin and Gryffindor, so send someone willing to endure endless bickering."
"Severus… are you unwell? In as many years as we've worked together I've never known you to take time off-"
"Better." Severus interrupted, smirking at the disembodied head. "I think I know what Hermione is going to brew during our little demonstration."
AN: Merry Christmas!
