Disclaimer: Meesa no claim Harry Potter. That's all just a little j/k j/k lol ^_~ aka JK Rowling. Those potion ingredients are just stuff from Zelda, too. Just sos ya knows lol.
SLYTHERIN BOY
Chapter Nine: What A Dizzy Dance
Severus showed up the next morning looking a bit tired. When Draco stepped in front of him (on purpose) on the way to breakfast, Severus slammed his fist into the boy's face. Bleeding from the nose, Draco growled and jumped on him. After being separated by teachers after scrabbling for a few moments, Draco was sent up to the infirmary, and Severus was carted off to the Headmaster's office. Again.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione had just settled into Potions class, when Severus arrived. He slumped into a chair and ran his fingers through his hair. He sighed deeply.
His head jerked up when Hermione looked at him. For a moment he stared at her, in all his intense dark-eyed glory, and she could practically feel his gaze. It was uncomfortable, and she had looked away before she realized why.
When Professor Jericho walked into the room, his breathing seemed to accelerate, from what Hermione could hear, she presumed it was from repressed anger.
"Today, we will be brewing a pain relieving potion. It was created in 1954 by a Mexican named Miguel Sanchez, who named the potion Amarillo. Amarillo is Spanish for 'Yellow', which you should remember, as it will help you remember that the potion should be yellow when it is correctly brewed."
Severus stared at his table-top, as she went on explaining. Finally, they were given permission to begin the lab. He went to the potions cabinet and took out an armful of ingredients. Hermione noticed that, again, he had extra ingredients. She wondered what he was doing.
When they'd all returned to their desks, she watched him from the corner of her eye. He began the potion ordinarily enough, not using the directions but simply going by his mind. Still, he seemed to be doing it correctly.
When he added the Crushed Skulltula instead of the Hylian Grass, though, she became curious.
"Eh, Severus," she said. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. He looked a bit put off at how she addressed him, which was simply because she wasn't sure whether to call him Severus or Snape.
"Hm?" he murmured.
"What are you doing to your potion?"
"Brewing it."
"I meant, what are you making instead of the Amarillo?" she asked.
"I wonder." He said.
"Can't you just tell me? It's not like I'm going to tattle on you," she said in frustration.
"I can." He said.
"Will you?" she caught his meaning.
"No." he said with finality. She gave up and turned back to her potion, a bit disappointed by his unwillingness to tell her what he was doing.
After about an hour, he sat down in his chair and pulled his books into his lap. Hermione turned to look as his cauldron gave a strange gurgle. Within seconds, the contents had turned a dark purple and overflowed out of his cauldron, spilling over the table onto the floor. He pulled his feet up into a cross-legged position on his chair. The class exclaimed as it swept quickly over the entire floor of the classroom until it was up to their knees. Hermione, Ron, and Harry'd had sense enough to climb up onto the desk, and Professor Jericho was currently trying to calm the class, the purple, foam-like substance clinging to her robes. As soon as the disgusting goo reached knee-level, there was a blinding flash of light.
As Hermione, Harry, Ron, and Severus blinked the black dots from their vision, they saw what had happened. The potion had hardened into a purple, cement-like substance. Severus let one foot drop from his chair to test it, and found that while it compressed a few inches under his feet when he stood up, it was too hard to break.
It was solid, but had a bit of elasticity. Students began screaming again when they realized that their legs were trapped in it. Even Professor Jericho let out a small squeal when she discovered she couldn't move.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at Severus, standing on top of the purple substance, before they too dropped down. It was solid and springy, and all of their classmates were trapped in it.
Suddenly, Ron started to laugh. Severus smirked slightly, and the classroom quieted down, except for Neville, who looked close to tears.
"Trapped! I can't move!" He wailed.
"Oh, calm down, Neville," Ron said. "It's only up to your knees. Hell, you could sit down if you wanted," he smiled halfway. "I'm sure Filch could dig you out eventually."
Neville whimpered, but let himself drop onto his bottom, sitting on the substance. At that moment, the bell rang for History. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville exchanged looks.
"Sorry, Li, gotta go to class," Severus said, saluting the frowning teacher.
"You'll stay right here, Snape!" She shouted, and he paused on his trek to the door. "You're going to stay here and get us out of this… whatever this stuff is! And then you're going to face Dizzy!" she said.
He lifted an eyebrow. "I'm only fifteen. I don't know how to do such a complex spell. You're the teacher, you must be qualified to handle such emergencies. Besides, luv, I wouldn't want to be late for old Binns," he winked jauntily and pushed the door open, dropping to the floor level outside the classroom. Harry, Ron, and Hermione shrugged their apologies and followed him.
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Hermione looked over at Severus, who was barely listening to Professor Vector, the Arithmancy teacher. It was an evening period, after regular classes. The class was almost over, really, at 6:34.
He looked up at her, meeting her gaze. He was sitting at the desk next to hers, and she hastily scribbled a note.
"Did that guy- Dizzy- ever show up?
-Hermione" she wrote.
She folded it and inconspicuously reached over and handed it to him. He looked at it for a moment, before looking at her and unfolding it. He seemed unsure, but when he read it, he seemed to relax a bit. He pulled out his quill and scribbled a response onto it.
He folded it and flicked it while Vector's back was turned. It arched into the air impressively and landed directly into the center of her desk. She smiled slightly, as no one had noticed, and unfolded it. It took her a moment to get used to his sharp-edged handwriting, but when she did, the message read, "Meet me at the library and I'll tell you about it.
-Severus"
She looked at how he'd scrawled his name at the bottom. It was strange to see him sign his name as that. Every time she'd seen him write his own name, it had been in the form of "Professor Snape".
"When?" she wrote.
"8?" he responded.
"Okay. I'll tell Ron and Harry that I'm studying. That should get rid of them…" she wrote.
"Yes, I am aware of their reluctance to learn anything useful." He wrote. She grinned.
"Unless Quidditch counts." She responded.
"Since when is Quidditch useful for anything but seeing Malfoy getting bludgeoned?" he wrote.
"Exactly! But don't ever say that around them, they'll go ballistic. Quidditch is probably the only thing holding Ron to sanity…"
"If that's all, he'll be nutters within the year- just think of the twins."
"Wow, never thought of that. Guess we should order a straightjacket, then, huh? To keep us all from getting blown to bits" she wrote. Vector glanced at her suspiciously. When she passed the note to Severus, Vector, thankfully, didn't see.
"Now, try telling Molly Weasley that her children need to be sent to an institution is not recommended. She is very touchy on the subject of her fledglings, and the slightest criticism on their sanity is not appreciated." He responded. Hermione stifled a giggle.
"Better be careful, Vector's getting suspicious," she wrote.
"Well, she is the suspicious type. She's always closing drapes on windows in the staff lounge because she's afraid people will be looking in them. And I've never seen her go into a room without locking it after her. She seems to think everyone's out to get her. But she's wrong! It's me they're after!" he wrote back.
"Whoops, she's looking at you now! Better stop. See you at eight,
-Hermione" she wrote.
"Alright. It's very interesting, I promise!
-Severus" he finished.
After a bit, the bell rang, and they walked in opposite directions.
****
In the library, Hermione found Severus sitting in the window box at the very back of the library. He was reading a book on Serial Murderers. She lifted an eyebrow as she walked over. He noticed her and closed the book. A picture of David Berkowitz was on the cover, and the title was "Serial Killers- Twenty Most Brutal and Bizarre"
"Severus," she said, surprised at how easy it was to say. Then surprised that she noticed. "Why, may I ask, are you reading about serial killers? Isn't that a bit morbid and disturbing?" she asked.
"On the contrary, it's quite interesting." He answered. She sat down on the other end of the window seat, which was large enough for five or six people.
"So, what happened with Dizzy?" she said. "That's not his real name, is it?"
"No, his real name is Richard. We called him Dizzy because he was always stoned and couldn't usually sit down and think straight." He shook his head.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Well, I bumped into him in the hallway, and he looked terrible!
"He's going bald, which is quite amusing since he's only 25, and he's got scars all over his face. I don't know what that's about, he must have gotten into a fight with someone in a bad way," he shook his head again.
"He looked at me for a moment, before blinking really hard. He said 'I've been smoking to much reefer,' and walked right past me! I couldn't believe it, but it was extremely funny," he grinned halfway.
"I don't know why I was so scared about it. He's really frail-looking, like he could just fall over dead at any minute. Not as intimidating as when he was licking blood of a muggle's face," he shuddered violently.
"Wow. So he didn't even realize that it was you?"
"Well, he recognized me… but apparently, he was stoned and thought he was just mistaking a random student for me. Weird, huh?" he asked.
"Definitely," she said.
"That's about it. I haven't seen Lila since this morning though, so that's going to prove to be a problem," he looked a bit apprehensive. "They're going to get me for that. Probably have me scrubbing floors for weeks, at least until I get turned back into myself and can start teaching again. And Lila will leave. God, I hate her so much," he growled.
"Woah, calm down, there. Don't need any serial killing going on, right? She'll be gone soon enough. And she seems to feel the same about you. Quite like you and Harry." Hermione pointed out.
"Oh yeah. Well I don't really hate him. I just don't like him."
"You don't like him a lot." She said. "He's never even done anything to you, you know. And because of how you act to him he always automatically assumes you're the culprit every time something strange happens."
"I know." He said. "They all do. But that's what happens when you're as unlikable of a person as me. I accepted that I was a social outcast when I was twelve years old, and grew into my role in society as the unforgiving disciplinarian. What can I say? It's who I am."
"Yes, but… you're not acting like a bastard right now…" she said.
"Well, you're different." He said.
"What? How?" She asked, her eyebrows flying up. Just earlier today, he'd been nasty to her in potions! How was she different now than she was then?
"You're not so vain or shallow or stupid as them. It's easier to talk to people who understand what I'm talking about. And it's hard to find people who understand what I'm talking about. Probably one of the reasons I stayed with the deatheaters for so long. Although evil, many of them are very intelligent, knowledge is power you know, and as I rose through the rankings I got to interact with people who don't seem as intelligent as rocks…" he said. "Eventually I realized that they were all murderers and rapists and that by associating with them and brewing potions for them I was too, whether or not I was grateful for the company, and I left. And of course now I'm the outcast of both worlds." He murmured.
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked.
"The resistance, for the most part, hates me because I was one of them. The dark side hates me because I betrayed them." He shrugged. "It's alright though. My own fault, you know?"
"Yeah." She said. "I guess." She looked at the clock. The library was going to close soon. And she still had homework to do!
"Hey, Severus, I gotta go," she said. "I have a five page essay to do for Ancient Runes," she pulled a face.
"Right." He said. "See you,"
She stood and walked away. She headed to her room, wondering about him. One moment he seemed so cold and unapproachable, and the next moment he opened up and told her things that she'd wondered about since she'd arrived at Hogwarts… it was bizarre. She wondered if he was intending to become friends with her and Harry and Ron, since Harry told her about that detention he'd had. It was like at random moments he acted like he almost liked them. Very peculiar…
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A/N: Sorry it's taken so long to get this updated. I've been meaning to for a very long time, but my summer was extra-busy, I only spent two or three days at home the whole time! And with school beginning again and Marching Band season starting, I had very little time for anything (so I'll probably end up writing only on weekends :-P) but eventually everything should get regulated again. Anyways, thanks for all the reviews, I love you all! Speaking of reviews……
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