Title: Quiangular

by: malcious lufoy

rating: PG

disclaimer: I think that by now, all of you can tell I am not J.K. Rowling. And if you think I am, i'm really flattered.

note: Thank you all for the (mostly) great reviews!

VioletEyes- Yes, you will find out what a quiangle is...not in this chapter, though...hehehe. (Don't worry, it's in the next one after this.)

Geena-Waters- Thank you for reviewing it! I get insecure if I think no ones reading it.

Vanyaria Darkshadow- I'm so glad you enjoyed it so much! First time I'm put on a favorites list...this calls for celebration! (pulls out noise maker and toots it randomly) Thank you also for reviewing my other fics.

Hekate- There is more...and you'll get it in this chapter if no other! Heh heh heh...but I don't want to give it away.

Terra4- Yes, there is much explanation of a quiangle, confusedly, at first, but I think I got it across...ish.

Silverthreads- Since you have paid the accpeted fee, I shall now dole out anoher chapter. Continue reading!

AestheticSham- Sorry if you found it offensive, or anything. I do have terrible grammar, and the characterization is supposed to be exaggerated and/or extreme...that's the whole fun of writing a humor fic. Actually, I don't know why I'm even writing this if you didn't like it, since most likely won't read it again.

Anyways...on with the story!

Harry was standing outside the door to Professor Snape's office, wondering if he should just bolt for it, and take his chances with failing.

He'd prefer the latter, but then again, Hermione would probably never let him hear the end of it. He could just imagine her voice getting shriller as she lectured, 'Harry James Potter! You could have gotten help, you could have tried at least to understand it, but you were to cowardly to endure one unpleasant evening with Professor Snape. You brought this on yourself!'. He shuddered.

Now resigned, he bravely knocked on the door, hoping against hope that Snape wasn't there, but apparently he was.

"Come in." Harry gulped. He didn't sound very happy. What was he thinking! Of course he wasn't happy! This was Snape! He was going to kill him! He gathered up his courage, though, and pushed the door in.

"Calm down, Harry ol' boy, just go in there, and everything will be ok, yes everything will just be..." He stopped talking to himself, as he heard a familiar (and hated) voice say,

"...no wonder you're in such a foul mood, the dynamic of this room is just to imbalanced. Your desk is positioned at the wrong angle, disturbing the flow of the positive energies in the room."

It was then that Harry saw that the person who spoke these words was Draco Malfoy.

"Potter!" He yelped, wondering if the other had heard what he just said. Narrowing his eyes, he asked, "What are you doing here?"

"I just wanted to talk to Professor Snape." Harry quickly glanced at the other out of the corner of his eye. Snape was perched on his chair, almost looming behind aforementioned desk, looking tired, irritable, and ready to take it out on the nearest Potter in sight. He looked up and gave Harry a baleful glare.

Draco looked back and smirked, as Harry gulped. "Well, Potter," He drawled out, "I hope you have fun."

The door slammed shut. It does not sound final. It does not. Nope, not at all, Harry thought. What was that above the door? Was that an...inscription? He squinted for another look. 'Aba don all hope al ye w o ent r here.'

"What is it Potter?" Snape said through clenched teeth. Harry whipped his head around.

"I have tomorrow's lesson to plan, Hufflepuff quizzes to grade, and a meeting with Dumbledore about the new DADA teacher for next year. I also have several very long essays to grade on ointments. I'd like to get those finished as fast as I can, to inflict as little pain upon myself as possible while reading them." His voice was silkenly deadly. "This had better be important."

Harry shivered. "Um...err...well, you see Pr-professor,"

Snape brought his hands up to rub his temples in an attempt to relieve himself of the pain of hearing the boy speak. Bad enough that he had to go with decaffeinated coffee today, and bad enough that the headmaster had been particularly cheerful this morning, and wanted to inflict that cheerfulness on him- but Potter, the last person he wanted to see right now, was here, in his office. His sanctuary in which he could scowl and glower to his hearts content. "For godsake, spit it out. It's likely that you're infecting me with your stupidity, so I would like to get rid of you as fast as possible."

"Um, yes. I was...kinda hoping you'd do me a favor. Well, you see, Sirius-" At each word, the painfully throbbing vein in Snape's head increased. He rubbed harder. "he uh, well- he, err, told me I should talk to you. You see, it's... about my Arithmancy-"

Snape cut him off. "To long. I'm afraid you'll have to leave. I can already feel that sucking vortex of doom that you seem to think is a brain pulling away all intellect from my mind." His eyes roved around the paper strewn desk. "Ah! here's it is." The potions Master had a nasty, maniacal gleam in his eye, as he picked up the plastic letter opener and looked directly at Harry. "Let's use it on something suitably fleshy." And gave the other an evil smile.

Oh shit. Shit shit shit, Harry thought, trying to back away.

---------

A voice from nowhere started speaking, "Is this the end of Harry Potter? Will he escape from the grisly malicious clutches of The Professor?"

"Meep."

The voice continued. "Who will help him with Arithmancy? Find out when Silence of the Potter continues."

"Oh, shut your trap." Snape said to the mirror at the top of the ceiling, chucking Hogwarts: A History at it. He turned back to Harry. "And did you just say 'meep'? Meep?"

Harry gulped. That probably wasn't a good idea, since the business end of the letter opener was awfully close. (So what if it was plastic? It was Snape. He could probably decapitate with a straw, and dismember with a crayon) "Err..yes Professor. Um..could you put that down, now? It's surprisingly close to my...uh, throat."

"Say it quickly, or else I might get really irritated." His dark eyes glittered, as the pointy end looked even pointier then before, as it veered towards Harry's jugular.

"HelpmewithArithmancy!" He yelped.

Snape dropped the letter opener back onto his desk in surprise. "You, want me, to help you with arithmancy." He said incredulously.

"Um, yes?" Harry cringed away as the other man laid his hand down on the desktop, surprisingly near the letter opener. He was trying very hard not to stare at it. Though, he did admit, Snape had a surprisingly graceful hand. Even when clutching a weapon of DOOM.

Snape gave him a look. "You want me, who isn't even your head of house, who isn't even an Arithmancy teacher. Help you, one who's brain is so small, you have to forget everything in the past five minutes so it won't explode with the effort." He said, voice velvety and deadly.

God his voice could really paralyze you... Harry thought, locked in place. "Sirius said you were the best at it in school." He said quickly, hoping that buttering him up with compliments would help.

"You can't butter me up with compliments, Potter. I'm not a piece of toast." Snape replied, shooting the other a glare, though he did look a bit mollified. The boy's godfather was a declared arithmancy genius.

"Uh...please help me?" Harry really didn't think it would work. Though maybe he would enjoy him begging, since everyone seemed to think Snape had one of those strange dominace-submission complexes. Though if you thought about it...

"Why, now that you mention it, I'd love to!" Snape said.

"Really?" Harry said hopefully.

"Yes, really, Potter, it is my very dream and desire." He replied, sarcasm thick enough to eat with a spoon, sop up with cornbread, and then lick off the plate with it and call for seconds.

"Oh..um, you're not serious, are you?"

Snape simply stared at him. "I will not dignify that with an answer. Now, where were we? Ah, yes." His eyes alighted when he spotted the letter opener, and started to pick it up again.

Harry frantically searched his mind for a way to leave without one of his limbs hacked off. Ron and Hermoine would come in for Potions and wonder whose arm was in a jar on Snape's desk until they saw that he was blatantly missing one. "I'll...I'll scrub cauldrons for a month!"

The hand stilled, as Snape listened with interest.

"Um...two months!" The Potion's Master raised his brow elegantly. "And I'll peel all the shrivelfigs!" The eyebrow rose even higher.

"Err...and gut all the flobberworms!"

Snape gave him a satisfied smile. "Very well then. Be here at seven tomorrow. You may leave now."

Harry scrambled away, in relief. He quickly made his way to the office door, and closed it behind him, sighing, coming away from the meeting curiously flushed. "Well, that was bizzar. At least the worst is over, though."

He realized then that he would have to spend the next two months doing really nasty chores in the Potions classroom with Snape watching his every move and breath.

He sighed. "Why does always this happen to me?"

-------------------------------

Back in the office, Snape sat behind his desk, fingers steepled evilly, as he smiled, in satisfaction. He got out a list from the top drawer of his desk, and went down the it, checking off each of his chores as he hummed.

"Hmm...cleaning cauldrons, Potter. Stacking jars of bubultor pus...Draco Malfoy. Peeling Shrivelfigs...Potter. Scrapping gum off desks...Terry Boot. De-gutting frogs...Colin Creevy." There he stopped, to look at what was left. He tapped his chin with the quill. "No one to gather blast-ended skrewt's venom..."

A knock at his door interrupted his musing. "Um... Professor? I'm here about my detention..."

Snape smirked. "Come in."

--------------------------------

"So Harry, how'd it go?" Hermione asked him. He had come back to the common room after the meeting with Snape, not saying a word to any of them. He'd just plopped down on the sofa to warm himself by the fire, and was now curiously reading Hermione's History of Magic essay.

"Hmm...how many inches was our essay supposed to be? I only did twelve."

Distracted, Hermione started lecturing. "Really Harry! Weren't you paying attention? Your mind is like a sieve! Not even a normal sieve, one with only one really big hole in it. Professor Bi-"

She was cut off. "Hey Harry, how'd it go?" Ron asked, coming down the stairs.

Harry continued. "But wasn't this supposed to be on the Feldeghast uprising in 781 AD?" He looked at Hermione questioningly, since she had added an extra five inches on the negotiations beforehand.

"Well, yes, but I thought it would be irrelevant withou-"

"Wait. Hermione." Ron cut her off again.

"What? I'm trying to explain my paper to-"

"Harry's never interested in your papers."

Ron was forewarned about what she was going to say by her 'lecture stance' (TM). "Humph. Just because you, Ron Weasley, never felt any need to improve your essays, doesn't mean that you should prevent Harry from doing better!" Ron winced at Hermione's piercing voice. "Besides, you both always ask me all sorts of ques-"

"Yeah," he cut her off, "but we usually tune you out as a mild buzzing noise. We only talk to you about your essays to distract you. So why is he paying attention to what your saying now?"

Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "What did you say?" her voice was dangerous, but, unable to see the glaring, fifty foot flashing neon sign indicating danger, Ron ignored her.

"So, Harry, why won't you answer us? I'm amazed you didn't come out without a limb severed. Or possibly decapitated." Hermione hit him with Hogwarts: A History.

"Ron Weasley! Did you just say that you completely ignore all the well meant advice I give you on how to write your essays? Mild buzzing noise? See if I ever help you with anything ever again!"

"Ow! What'd you do that for? I was trying to help Harry get over his trauma, but no, you just had to interrupt this well meant male-bonding moment with you freakish girlie vibes, didn't you?"

"Oh, I see, it's my fault. And freakish girlie vibes?"

"Yeah...freakish...like Lucius Malfoy wearing embroidered pansies."

"You shouldn't be the one to talk...and pansies? What does that-"

"Shut your pansies!"

Hermione looked incredulous. "What kind of comeback was that? What kind of comeback was THAT?"

The bickering was interrupted by the rustle of paper, as Harry looked up at them from the essay. "Don't ask me to talk about it. I'm trying to get over the trauma by suppressing it in a tiny ball till it's too much and I freak out in the middle of a supermarket ten years later."

"Oh, well, then it's all right then." Ron said.

Hermione hit him over the head again.

Harry sighed. It wasn't so much that Snape had threatened him with an extremely pointy object,(though that had been scarring) or that he had actually agreed to do two months of disgusting grunt work for Snape in the dungeons in winter. So much as that the Professor had seemed...well, kinda...sexy in that dangerously looming sort of way.

I did not just think that. I did not just think that. I did NOT just think that! Harry started panicking, but his mind then automatically blanked and rewound-

So much as that he had seemed...dangerously loomingly psychotic, in a sexy sort of way.
Wait...that didn't seem right- so his mind blanked again, and rewound-

So much as that he had seemed...menacingly dangerously maniacal. In a psychotically sexy kind of way.

He shook his head, as he subconsciously wiped his memory and rewound and tried again-

So much as that he had seemed...Psychotically dangerous in a mad- killing-spree I'm a crazy lunatic who owns an Uzi to shoot cockroaches- .....kind of sort of sexy way.

"AGHH!!!" Harry screamed, springing to his feet, and banged his head on the wall. Hermione and Ron looked up at him in surprise. "Hello! You're supposed to be helping me suppress it! Suh. Press. It." He said to his inner subconscious, each syllable emphasized by a bang.

Ron shook his head. "I think it's to late. He's already gone bonkers. It must be a virulent disease, being crazy." He said to Hermione. She nodded sagely, then went back to her essay.

---------------------------

Harry woke up early, head woozy. After repeated blows to his brain, he had finally suppressed enough to his satisfaction. Well, more of forgotten everything in the spinning, dizzying pain, or maybe that was the brain damage talking...well! What ever it was, it had completely cleared his mind for today.

He slowly sneaked out, gathering with him his arithmancy book, and some parchment and quills, not wanting to disturb Ron, knowing his friend would grill him like a piece of steak for answers about yesterday's interview. He should have been, by all rights, sleeping in today, but... he had to go and actually learn what Snape was blabbing about this time, instead of tuning out. Harry shook his head, Sirius would pay! Ohohohoho...just he wait, when he least expected it, Harry would get his payback...he gave an evil grin, disturbingly like Malfoy's.

The dark haired boy slowly crept down the hallways, and went down into the dungeons. He paused, beside Snape's doorway, wondering if he should wait until the Potion's Master was in a better mood. Realizing that that would entail standing there for the next ten years, or unless Snape was on ether (there were rumors...), he bravely went in, preparing for the worst.

"Profe-" He started to shout, but the door to his office was closed, and a sign was posted on it for him, reading:

Mr. Potter, you will proceed to the old History of Magic classroom on the third floor, in the fourth corridor. It is the first room on the left. I will meet you presently.

Well, that was a relief, he really didn't know if he was ready enough to meet Snape at seven in the morning on a Sunday, when the man clearly wanted to leave his weekends student-free.

Harry followed the directions, climbing up to the third floor, and went straight to the old classroom. He opened the door, and looked inside. There was nothing but some old desks, and a dusty blackboard. Windows lined the whole room on the left side, letting through a flood of morning sunlight into the dusty room. No Snape.

Well, there was nothing to do but wait, then. He sighed and walked to one of the desks, plopping down his books onto the chair, and sat down. Waiting for what seemed like hours, the boy had already managed to fill up a whole page of his notebook with doodles, when Snape all of a sudden burst in.

The door slammed open with a bang, and left a harried looking Snape coming through the doorway like a whirlwind. Harry looked gobsmacked.

"Ugk..." He strangled out of his throat.

The professor deposited his books onto a nearby desk, and whirled around to face Potter.

"What is it, Mr.Potter, that leaves you in such shock?" He asked, eyebrow tilting upwards, mockingly. His voice laced with amusement. "And did you actually just say ugk?"

Well, Snape was wearing what appeared to be some well tailored slacks, and a white shirt with cuffs rolled back. And was the collar slightly unbuttoned? He could even see the faint hollow of the other's throat. Harry really didn't think Snape even knew how to unbutton things. It just didn't seem likely to be built into his internal Snape-mechanism. Harry was pretty sure that there wasn't an unbutton button in Snape mechanics. How...how could this be?

"You...your clothes, Professor! They...they're different!"

Snape just simply rolled his eyes. "Yes, Mr. Potter, I'm sure the whole world just loves to wear the same scratchy wool outfit in all weathers, everyday, for 365 days out of the year. Unless you're Santie Claus..." He muttered the last, wonderingly. Snape shook his head. That was the ether talking. Damned oral surgeons! Surgery on oral wasn't really real surgery anyways! Play computer generated music while I wait for half an hour with nothing but cheap magazines, then leave late and high on drugs. Not unlike the seventies...

Harry blatently ignored the Santie Claus comment, his brain absolutely refused to compute that Snape, of all people, had said the word 'Santie'. "You mean you actually have other clothes?" He said, incredulous.

The Potion's Master simply gave him a look.

"Sorry I asked," The other mumbled.

Snape said exaggeratingly patient, and slowly, as if talking to a four year old child, "Yes, Mr. Potter, I have other clothes. I also do not sleep in a coffin, and contrary to popular belief, I do wash my hair. Now, would you like me to read you a story next time you go nighty-night?" His voice cutting and sarcastic.

Harry pretended to brighten at the idea, knowing that it would annoy the other man to no end. "Now that you mention it..."

Dark eyes narrowed at this, "If you wish to improve your Arithmancy marks, I suggest you do nothing to antagonize me further."

"Alright alright...jeez, can't you take a joke?" Harry muttered, more to himself then in a response. Snape gave him a look as if to say, 'Are you joking?' Harry looked up from his notebook, and took another closer look at his professor. He looked...slightly different without all those billowing robes. In fact, you could actually tell Snape looked like a normal human being, instead of an over grown bat. (Or a robot, depending on the rumor.)

The pale morning light that filtered in through the windows had accentuated Snape's pale skin with actual color, as well as the hectic climb he took when going up the stairs. His 'new' set of clothes showed his profile to an advantage. The pants were fit close, but not tight, and in combination with a distinctly distinguished looking starched white shirt...he looked almost handsome. Attractive, even. Err... Harry shook his head. Did he just think that?

"Mr. Potter!" Snape said sharply, for the second time. "As interesting as my attire is, I'm sure you would like to get on with this? Unlike the rest of the world, I would like to spend as least amount of time with you as possible." He said sarcasticly, as the words rolled off his tongue.

Snape wasn't sure he was getting through to him, though. The glassy look in those green eyes made him feel...distinctly uneasy. Really, the boy looked absolutely clueless! First, he had to rush to finish the solution that had been simmering all night for his new batch of calming potion, (he seemed to go through it at surprising speeds) and then, rush off to the dentist and the horrific transition after the appointment, in which the ether absolutely refused to wear off. Then Dumbledore had caught him talking to his sock, because he thought it was another person. Now to top it off, the boy doesn't even pay attention when he speaks to him!

After a long pause, (in which Snape tapped his foot a lot, the other looked puzzled, and increasingly confused) Harry spoke. "Err...what, professor?"

"Well? You said you had a problem with Arithmancy. What is it? Additions with runes? Proportionalitles?"

"The quiangle."

Snape went stiff, then sagged down into a chair. "Of all the things to choose.." he muttered, while shaking his head. Knowing Potter, it would probably take the next millennia and the third coming of Christ to even get him to understand. Unless he strangled the boy first.

"I've tried to do quiangular triangulations without knowing what a quiangle is, but..." Harry tried explaining.

Snape shook his head. Perhaps if he started off with the basics, then they could go from there if he still didn't grasp the concept. "Well, Potter. Get out your book."

Harry took it out of the stack beside him, while Snape picked it up, and flipped through the pages. Hmm... well, he could try to explain it through the graphs first.

He laid the book out on Harry's desk and walked to the chalkboard, whipping out his wand. With the tip, he drew out the entire graph in the arithmancy book onto the board, exactly the same in detail.

"Now, Mr. Potter," He said, leaning closely over Harry's shoulder, pointing to the drawing on the graph. "You see how this line intersects this line? That is the exact middle of the quiangle. The center of the quiangle is the exact location of the fourth, non-existant side."

With the Professor's shadow over him, Harry slightly shifted the book towards the light of the window. He followed the dashed line to the exact spot where Snape's finger was resting on the point of intersection, thier hands touching slightly at the center of the picture. "But, what I don't understand, is how this can be here? If you count the sides up, there are four of them. It just looks like some sort of deformed box. That's not a triangle at all."

Snape looked exasperated. "It is not a triangle, Mr. Potter. It is a quiangle. It's supposed to have four sides."

"Isn't that a square, then? And how can there be a non existant side? I mean, if it's there, it's there."

"It's not a square because there aren't four sides. The fourth side doesn't exist in the same place as the other three." It was then that Snape left and went up the the chalk board, and pointed with his wand at the graph. "See? The line is dotted. Therefore, it indicates it is not existing in that place."

"But that's not a dotted line! That's just a dot in the middle of the triangle."

Snape rotated the picture sideways, with his wand directing the movement of the pitcure drawn on the chalk board. "If you look at it from the side, then you can see that it makes a dotted line, a fourth side."

"Then what's that other dotted line?"

"That? Just ignore that. That means nothing."

"But wait, which dotted line is the line that's the fourth side?"

"There is no fourth side, Potter, it's indicated by the dot."

"Then what is the dotted line?"

He rotated the picture again to the front. "The dot."

Harry's brain absolutely refused to make anything out of the picture in front of him. In fact, this made less sense then Lucius Malfoy doing yoga.

(an hour and a half later.)

"Ok, so if the dotted line is the dot, which is the fourth side, then how can it not exist if it exists somewhere else?"

Snape said irritatedly, "Because it's not in the same place."

"But if something isn't in the same place, that doesn't mean it isn't there. That's like saying the pencil in my room upstairs doesn't exist because it's not here."

"But that exactly what it's saying," Snape said, hoping for some sort of understanding.

Those hopes were dashed. And probably then minced, and puréed. "But it is there."

"Oh, nice argument," Snape shot out, his voice carefully modulated to drip with sarcasm. "Because it is."

"Well, it's not as if you're explaining it any better!" Harry spat back, angrily. Really! A half hour of frustrating wrangling got them nowhere.

The Potion's master threw up his hands in defeat. "Fine. We'll try something else."

(an hour and a half later)

"Here. Now you try." He said, handing the younger man a piece of chalk.
They had been, for the past half hour, talking about how to draw a quiangle. And the harder Harry tried to understand, the more confused he got. Maybe if he payed less attention, he would understand more. Yup. That's what he was doing wrong.

Snape sighed, and rolled his eyes. "Now, hold the chalk between your thumb and forefinger. Then, press it to the board in front of you, and drag the chalk across to make the pretty shapes." He said very carefully, and slowly.

Harry glared at him covertly, eyes darting back towards Snape. There was no need to mock him when he was actually paying attention for once.

"Now stop glaring at me covertly, and draw it already." The other responded, in a bored tone. As interesting as teaching arithmancy to Potter was, he'd rather be gagging and choking to death on Trelawney's perfume. She'd probably be happy to hear that. But he did promise the boy he'd try to help him, though that was difficult when he refused to draw out the graph! "Mr. Potter."

"Alright alright! Stop harrying me." He snickered at this though. "Pun intended." Snape just stared at him. Was he really that easily amused?

Harry sketched out the picture, and added a dotted line for good measure. "Err..." He said, looking at it. He moved back so Snape could see the black board.

"That," Snape said, looking at it, "is not a quiangle. That is a square."

"No! It's not a square, see? It has a dotted line there. That means that side isn't there. That's clearly what dotted lines are for."

Snape gave an exasperated sigh. "No, you drew a square with a dotted line for one side. This," He picked up the chalk, and started sketching out another picture beside it, "is a quiangle."

He stared at it dumbfoundedly. "But that's just a triangle with a dot in the middle." Well, Harry did admit that it was an extremely strange looking triangle that seemed kinda warped in that I-was-on-acid-while-I- drew-this sort of way. Or maybe ether.

"Now, draw it again." The Potion's Master told him, taking Harry's hand in his and placing the chalk in the other's palm.

Harry sighed. "Can I use the colored chalk?" He asked meekly.

"No. White is a perfectly fine for what you are doing. The other ones are too fun. Arithmancy is not supposed to be fun- or educational." His tone uncannily like Hermione's when lecturing.

Thus, Harry picked up the chalk again, and drew another picture right next to Snape's.

And Snape seemed to get immediatly frustrated at what he saw. The boy had been paying attention. He even seemed to be thinking, for the short while his rusty little brain could do so! How come he wasn't grasping the concept? "No no, you foolish boy! That is not a quiangle. That is a triangle with a dot in the middle." Hadn't he explained this already?

Harry looked at the two, his green eyes narrowing, and flicking back and forth between the two pictures. The older man stood there watching him. The hard look of concentration made Harry's face serious, the green eyes glittering with the effort to understand, and with frustration that he couldn't. He looked...almost charming. Snape realized he had been staring to long, and looked away shaking his head.

Harry looked at the pictures one last time.

They were identical.

"What's the difference?" He asked, voice incredulous.

Snape looked at him in astonishment. "Can't you see? It's clearly there. Mine has inter-dimensionary space, and yours does not." He picked up his wand from the desk, and waved it at the chalkboard. His picture automatically rotated to the side, and around again, to which Harry saw the same deformed looking shape that Snape had shown him before on the graph.

"Now look what happens, when I try to shift yours." Snape waved his wand at Harry's picture, but nothing happened.

Harry looked disgusted. "Oh, pish pash!"

"Pish pash? Did you actually say...pish pash?"

"Does this mean that I won't have to do this anymore?" He asked the professor hopefully.

Snape gave him an incredulous look. "What, in any part of that sentace, could you have taken to mean that?"

Harry sighed, looked at the board again, and picked up his chalk.

---------

"No, no, no. That's a disfigured rhombus."

Harry then took an eraser, and made one side have a dotted line. "There, now it's a quiangle!"

"No, now it is a disfigured rhombus with a dotted line for a side."

"But the fourth side is non existing."

"No, this picture still has four sides!"

"But it has a dotted line! A dotted line!"

"Wait, that looks nothing like the other triangle you drew." Harry told him.

"Of course it does!" Snape said, insulted.

"No.... there's a dotted line instead of a dot."

"The dot is the dotted line, Mr. Potter."

"But, then this," He pointed to his rectangle, "Has to be a quiangle too. It has a dotted line!" He protested.

"But your dotted line is not a dot!" Snape said sharply, for the seventh bijillionith time.

"Aghhhhh!"

"Maybe we should try something different."

(Two hours later)

"...so you see, the quiangle has three sides, with three angles, but also four sides, and a fourth angle. Well, actually five, if you count that everything is symmetrical..but we won't get into that. The fifth side in the quiangle is Arithmancy far more advanced then anything then you'll ever need to learn." Snape explained. His sleeves were now rolled up to his elbows, as he leaned over the desk, tracing out different pictures for different combonations, onto the parchment. It was exhausting to say the same thing over and over again, and still not get any progress.

Harry leaned over the other's arm to study the pictures. "How can there be three sides, and four angles, and four sides, with three angles?"

"Because the others are non existant."

"If they don't exist, then wouldn't it just be a triangle?" He asked, green eyes hard with concentration, trying to make out anything from the picture. A shape, a figure, a friggin' bunny, for godssake! Anything minutely recognizable.

Snape pushed back his hair from his eyes in frustration as he leaned over the papers. "No, because if that were all, then it wouldn't be a quiangle. The fourth side does exist, just not in this place. It exists in the fourth dimension."

"How can there be a fourth dimension? And how come only one side is in this fourth dimension, and not the whole thing?" This was utter nonsense. How could anyone understand anything that Snape just said? It was like he was speaking gobbledegook. He was also no closer to finding out what a quiangle was then doing the Irish jig naked in front of Malfoy.

"The fourth dimension is also non existant." Snape repeated for the billionth time. For god's sake, what did it take to pound this into that little pea-brain? A hammer? Some wrestling and a steel chair? "It doesn't exist on physical earth. Just like the fourth side. And if the whole thing were in the fourth dimension, it wouldn't be a quiangle!"

"Well sooory, Mr. it does exist and it doesn't exist and the dot is the line which is the whatnot and the whoo-ha that isn't there!"

Snape shot up from his chair, and glared at the younger man. "If you came here only to ridicule me with the most badly plotted insults known to man, then you can leave!" He said darkly, pointing to the door. His eyes glittered with suppressed anger.

Harry got up from his seat, walking up to the other. "Fine!" He said, looking directly at him. They were so close that both of them could hear the harsh, labored breathing of the other as they faced each other down. The air crackled with contained tension. "I've had enough of this! You don't intimidate me any more. And at least my life isn't so sad that I have to plot insults all day long." And with that he whirled and left.

Snape stood in the classroom, breathing in and trying to calm himself. And the fact that he found Potter strangely compelling at that moment, he simply chalked up to the ether.

----------------------

End

Sooo....what will happen next? Heh heh heh....you'll have to wait to find out!!