Author's Note: A glutton for punishment, are we? Yes, even after that I have another one. I apologize if Snape is slightly out of character.
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Snape Solves Some Painful Riddles
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Severus Snape had been in the greenhouses, getting a few potion ingredients. He was intending to head back to his office, perhaps venting his bad mood on any students who happened to get in his way. He didn't expect his way to be blocked by a large and unexpected creature, which had approached unseen in the gathering dark.
She had the head of a human female, framed by a glossy thick lion's mane. Underneath the head was the body of a lion. She was a sphinx, and an extremely large one at that, staring at him out of large dark eyes.
"Out of my way, creature," Snape snapped.
"No."
Snape's cold black eyes narrowed. "I said out of my way, you stupid creature," he growled. "Before I curse you and make you!"
"No. If you can ask me a riddle to which I do not know answer, I will move. If you curse me, I fear I will be less inclined to oblige you," the sphinx answered.
Snape scowled. She had a point. "Fine," he said at last, figuring this beast could not know much about potions. "What is the difference between aconite and wolfsbane?"
"Different words."
"Wrong!" Snape announced. "They are the same plant, which also goes under— "
"Are they not two different words?" the sphinx wanted to know. Her brown eyes were narrowed over a furrowed brow, and she did not look like a joy to find himself in a fight against.
"Very well, shall we try again?" Snape asked prudently. The sphinx nodded, and they tried again. Snape asked her most of the questions he could think of to torture first-years with, and the sphinx appeared to know a great deal about simple potions, using wordplay on anything she did not have an answer to.
Midnight had passed, and Snape was getting desperate. The sphinx was apparently merely getting bored. Finally, however, the potion's master took a chance. "If I asked you to the Three Broomsticks on Friday night, would you accept?" he asked, hoping the sudden change of subjects would startle indecision from her.
The sphinx was indeed confused. "I . . . don't know. Would you ask me?" she wanted to know, confused and slightly pleased. In the moonlight, her face flushed.
"That's something you don't have an answer for, I see," Snape answered with a nasty grin. "Now let me by!"
"Sure," the sphinx said, moving.
Snape sighed with relief and started to head within Hogwarts. However, he caught the sphinx's cry. "I will say yes! I'll see you Friday!"
...
Snape spent the remainder of the week wondering how the sphinx got more than a theoretical question out of it. He didn't have the slightest idea, and therefore eventually gave up in disgust.
His mind turned then to getting out of it. Simply not showing up, while probably the simplest course of action, was likely to get him savaged by an angry sphinx. He considered transfiguring the sphinx, but he couldn't think of anything small and disgusting enough to turn her into, after all the trouble she's caused him. As for curses, anything short of Avada Kadavra would only get him savaged.
As the prospect of dating a sphinx put him into a truly horrible mood, the subject of potions became unbearable, even to Slytherins. It wasn't that he was any harder on them— as if he missed the chance to take points off the other three houses, anyway— but the way he swooped around muttering in every class was frightening, especially to younger students.
Finally, on Thursday night, Snape came to the conclusion that he would just have to go. He certainly had no intention of asking her out again, and would be ready for the body-binding cure in case she be too disappointed.
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Snape reluctantly left the castle on Friday evening, dressed how he usually was— he certainly wasn't bothering dressing up for a sphinx. He wished that the creature would simply not show up, despite the fact that, living in a school, someone would have found out and started a rumor that not even a sphinx would date the potions master.
Why him?
The sphinx, however, did show up about ten minutes later. She appeared to have carefully groomed herself earlier that day. Her thick mane appeared much glossier in the late afternoon sun than it did in moonlight, and it might not entirely be the light. She smiled when she saw him.
"Let's just get this over with," Snape growled.
...
The appearance of a sphinx caused something of a stir in the three broomsticks. The appearance of Snape a few moments later caused a greater one. Snape had a date? He was glad no student could see him now.
They sat down, and in a few moments someone came over and asked them what they would like.
"I could do with a calming draft," Snape muttered, glaring at the dark brown eyes over the table."But as you don't serve potions, just get me tea."
"The sphinx appeared to be considering her order. "Its part a half-solid put on the breakfast table, part an intoxicating drink."
"Oh-kay."
The server left and Snape spent the next five minutes glaring daggers at the sphinx. The sphinx examined the interior of the three broomsticks with great interest.
Finally, someone returned with tea for Snape and jelly and meade for the sphinx. "What is this?" she demanded to know, looking annoyed.
"I'm afraid," Snape said dryly, "that people order literally in order to get what they want."
Never tell a sphinx that now isn't the appropriate time for riddles.
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On Monday morning, it was on the house notice boards that there would be no potions that day.
"I wonder why," Ron Weasley commented to Harry and Hermione. "Snape's never been sick before, has he?"
I heard somewhere that he had a date with a sphinx on Friday night," Hermione replied. "Sphinxes are very temperamental, and if you answer a riddle wrong, they'll savage you."
Harry and Ron grinned at each other as the three headed down to breakfast.
...
Author's Note: Loki has decided that Hermione is too smart for this stupid a fanfic, and therefore the three main characters will disappear until such time as she feels motivated to write a chapter pairing Ron with the Loch Ness kelpie disguised as a veela.
A Further Author's Note: For those of you that were wondering, yes, the sphinx was asking for a butterbeer. I'm open for suggestions on what to do next, by the way. Cheers!