Disclaimer: I still own nothing.
AN: No offense taken by anything a reviewer has said. I agree that my Snape has been out of character on a few occasions and my only defense is that J.K. has never had him in a romantic relationship in any of the books. We can only guess at how he would act if he ever were to be placed in that type of situation based on how he has acted in other situations and on a day to day basis.
This is my guess, that he would become slightly more open in private and that if he trusted someone enough to allow them entry to his private life, he would let his guard down enough to be distracted and not notice her "playing" with his hair, at least the first time. I do hope and believe that his response/revenge was very in character though. LOL. I may have to revise that chapter and delete the makeup part, but I stand by the braids. Constructive criticism always welcomed, how else am I to know when I have something wrong or have someone out of character.
I have to apologize to Mark Darcy, I am still trying to make sure I use too and to correctly. I just don't trust the grammar checker on word! Also Mark Darcy, glad everything went well with you! Thanks to all whom take the time to read and review, my email address is on my profile and I welcome any and all messages.
Sorry for the long note!
Chapter 45 My Funny Valentine
But don't change a hair for me
Not if you care for me
Stay little valentine stay
Each day is valentine's day
Frank Sinatra "My Funny Valentine"
Valentine's Day arrived on an icy Monday morning. The house elves had tried to make breakfast festive by serving heart shaped pancakes. Star was trying to chew on the ruby heart pendant Snape had given Alexis. She distracted the teething dragon lizard with a piece of bacon and dropped the jewelry under her robes. Hopefully out of sight out of mind.
Snape was glaring at the students in between taking half of the breakfast Alexis served herself. The morning mail arrived with a great fluttering of wings. Snape was busy replacing the sausage Alexis had served herself with fresh fruit slices and didn't even glance up until Alexis tapped his shoulder. Looking where she indicated he saw owls jostling and jockeying trying to be the first to make their delivery.
"What is the meaning of this?" Snape demanded.
Alexis' was removing packages and notes from the owls and passing them tidbits and hurrying them on their way, "They are all addressed to you, Severus."
"But who are they from?" Snape snapped.
"Open them and find out," Alexis snapped back.
Snape picked up a lurid pink envelope that as soon as he broke the seal, heart shaped confetti burst out and a squeaky voice began singing: "Roses are red; violets are blue, Happy Valentine's Day to You!" looking furious Snape incinerated it before the song could continue.
He looked at the rest of the large pile of envelopes and packages suspiciously. Alexis handed him a heart shaped box of chocolates with a tag declaring: Sweets to the Sweet Severus Snape.
Alexis opened a card before Snape could stop her, "How sweet. 'You've Got A Beautiful Mind! The Rest Of You Is Pretty Sweet Too! Signed A Secret Admirer' Is there something you want to tell me Severus?"
"What do you mean?" Snape asked slightly distracted as he opened another box to show heart shaped cookies with red icing and white icing piped on saying 'Be Mine'.
"Just who might this secret admirer be? And does she know you are married?" Alexis demanded.
"I don't know," Snape said as he opened another card that burped glitter into his face causing him to sneeze repeatedly. The card then jumped out of his hand and folded itself into an origami cupid with Happy Valentine's Day on it in red glitter.
"You don't know who she is or you don't know if she knows you are married?" Alexis snarled.
"What?" Snape tried to follow what Alexis had asked but another package had opened itself and started blooming pink carnations.
"Severus Snape I demand to know who is sending you all of this stuff."
"I haven't the foggiest," Snape was trying to grab a package that was emitting a loud whistling while jumping along the top of the table.
"So, there are so many possibilities that you cannot even narrow it down to one person. Severus I am very disappointed in you," Alexis exclaimed as she threw a handful of cards at him and quickly left the Great Hall.
As she was exiting a house elf was entering carrying a large bunch of wizard balloons. The heart shaped balloons, changed colors from red to pink to white. There were long skinny ones that would tie themselves into different balloon animals. The cupids actually shot small arrows that floated around until they found someone to shower confetti on. Snape watched in horror as the elf approached the staff table and headed straight for him.
"Professor Snape, Sir, Gappy is told to give you these," the tiny green being grinned and forced the strings holding the balloons into Snape's resisting hand before hurrying away.
Just then there was another flurry of owls flying into the room, all heading for Snape with more packages, cards and letters. Snape stared in disbelief as the table in front of him was quickly covered in a small mountain of pink, red and white.
Snape was running late for his first class. He had resorted to calling Slinky and having him take care of the heap that had spread to take up a quarter of the head table. He burst through the doors of the potions classroom with his trademark snarl, "Settle dow…" trailing off as he scowled at the flowers, candy and cards that littered his desk, "What is the meaning of this mess?" he demanded.
Silence reigned; you could hear the cauldrons bubbling and nothing else. There wasn't even the sound of twenty odd students breathing.
"If someone does not tell me who put this garbage on my desk the whole class will have detention for a month," Snape threatened.
Finally one brave student raised a tentative hand.
"Yes, Mr. Darmer?" Snape sneered.
"Professor, they were already here when we came in," he managed to stammer out.
Looking around at the terrified students, Snape was about to continue with his tirade when the door to the classroom opened again and admitted a stocky dwarf dressed up like cupid and carrying a ukulele, "Oye, I'm looking for Severus Snape?" Every finger in the room pointed to the front of the class.
"Very well then, Severus Snape this one's for you," and he began to strum the ukulele and sing in a surprisingly clear voice,
"There's something good in everyone
But some find bad is much more fun
And go about their lives with zest
Not thinking how they hurt the rest
While those who claim to be so good
Don't always do the things they should
Which shows when all is said and done
There's good and bad in everyone.
Happy Valentine's Day."
"Crickey, I've got to find a different line of work," they heard him mutter as he headed out the door. He was passed on the way out by another dwarf coming in, "Hiya' Frank."
"Monty, I see you've still got that damn uke? When are you gonna' learn how to play the harp like a normal cupid?"
"Bite me," was the last thing they heard from the first dwarf.
"Some people have no pride in their work. Okay, who's Severus Snape? I got a singing Valentine for him," Frank declared to the room at large.
"Get out of my classroom now," Snape hissed.
"Can't. If I don't deliver I don't get paid and I got mouths to feed. Now be quiet and let me get this over with," the dwarf told the fuming professor as he strummed his harp and began to sing:
"Like man doth gaze upon a star
I view your beauty from afar
For if much closer I should be
Imperfections I may see.
I'm sure that you don't have a squint
And that your mouth won't need a mint
But to see you as I think you are
I'll keep on gazing from afar."
With a final flourishing strum on the harp, "There you old sourpuss that wasn't so bad now was it," before storming out of the room.
Snape glared around at the gaping students, "Get to work, the assignment is on the board," with a flick of his wand instructions were on the board. He stormed up to his desk and sneered in disgust at the red, white and pink packages and envelopes covering every available surface. Snape noticed that no one was working, "Well, what are you waiting for? I told you to get to work," he growled.
"Professor," one of the students managed to get out, "is that the potion you really want us to work on?"
"Of course," Snape turned to look at the board and found instead of the memory potion, there was now instructions for a love potion written up there complete with hearts doting the 'I's', "not." He flicked his wand and the board was erased and another flick had the correct potion instructions, "Now get to work before I start taking points."
Word spread quickly to avoid Snape at all cost. Students who had potions class that day were falling ill in shocking numbers. The infirmary was full of patients moaning from vague pains and stomach aches. There was also one lone cupid dwarf with singed wings fussing as he waited for Madame Pomfrey to fix the burn on his shoulder. He had been trying to finish his song and hadn't ducked quickly enough so Snape had gotten him with a flambé hex.
By lunch time Snape was ready to explode. One of the cards had contained a bluebird of happiness that kept trying to land on his shoulder and sing to him. The little blighter was wicked fast and Snape hadn't been able to hex the aggravating thing. The dungeon had some new scorch marks and the bird had pooped on Snape's shoulder in retaliation when one of the hexes had managed to catch his tail feathers on fire, but nothing was deterring the tiny avian from his appointed task.
Snape had made his way to lunch, still trying to catch the damn bluebird. He hadn't seen Alexis all morning and was hoping that she would be at lunch. Storming into the Great Hall and stomping up to the front table, he scowled and glared at anyone who so much as dared to glance in his direction. He was relieved when he saw Alexis sitting in her usual seat petting Star and allowing Aniya to eat fish eggs from a saucer.
"Severus," Alexis greeted him coolly, "have you managed to figure out who is sending you all these Valentines and if so have you informed her that you are no longer single?"
"Alexis," Snape growled, "if I had even the slightest clue as to who was doing this they would be," Snape never got to finish his sentence because another flurry of owls began dropping even more packages, cards and flowers in front of him.
One of the boxes burst open upon impact and a fluffy silver cloud poured out of the rip in the box and floated until it hovered directly above Snape's head, where it started raining liquid drops of sunlight. Where ever the drops landed teeny, tiny flowers sprang up, soon Snape's shoulders and hair looked like a mad florist had hexed him.
Alexis waved her wand and the flowers were gone, the cloud remained no matter what she tried and it kept raining, but now the drops just faded as soon as they landed, "Severus, I will not have my husband wandering around the castle with another woman's gift floating over him. Get rid of it," Alexis hissed, "or find somewhere else to sleep tonight," and she turned her back on him and began eating her lunch. Stabbing her potatoes as if they were rivals for her husband's attention; taking viscous bites of a chicken leg as if she wished it were the mysterious sender of the gifts.
Snape was fuming as he silently made room on the table for his plate by shoving most of the deliveries off the table and onto the floor. Upon hitting the floor a number of the boxes broke open and a cacophony of songs, poems, and sentiments, sung, spoken and chanted assailed the Great Hall.
Alexis shot Snape a furious look as one box began screeching, "Your smile is the smile of an angel, your voice is as soft as a harp. I'd give you French kisses, my darling, But your tongue is far too sharp."
"Obliverate," she snarled with a sharp poke of her wand watching in grim satisfaction as a pile of ash replaced the pile of paper, candy, and flowers on the floor effectively ending the noise, "Who wants to kiss you and who is calling you darling?"
"As far as I am aware you are the only one who has expressed any interest in kissing me," Snape tried to reason with the enraged woman.
Alexis stated, "That is not entirely true. If I remember correctly on our wedding day, I walked in to find a woman plastered to you like sticking tape, trying to chew your face off. If I find out that Sirena is behind this madness, there won't be enough left of her for a funeral."
Snape thought about it for a moment, "I don't believe Sirena is behind this. She would have nothing to gain by it."
There was another loud fluttering of wings, but this time instead of owls, it was a flock of doves and love birds flying straight towards Snape. The birds flew an intricate pattern and then one after another dive bombed him, dropping the roses they had carried in their beaks.
"Severus, you had better," a soft plop distracted Alexis, looking at her shoulder she discovered that at least one of the birds had delivered something to her.
Snape uttered a quick cleaning charm and removed the large white spots from her robes.
Alexis gave him one last look and left the room.
Severus stared after her planning all of the hexes he would use on whomever was causing his wife such angst and him such aggravation.
Remus strolled over to Snape, "Severus, I never knew you were so popular," he teased.
"Oh just shut up and help me figure out who is doing this," Snape gnashed out through gritted teeth.
Snape's day just went from bad to worse. The cards, packages, flowers and candy kept coming. Every class he would empty his desk and as soon as he turned his back, it would fill up again. The bluebird was still chasing him around, the silver cloud was still raining on him and now to add to his misery, a giant pair of red lips was floating behind him throwing kisses at him. Remus had been absolutely no help, "Sorry Severus, not my area of expertise, I don't get the faintest hint of dark magic," before escaping to his own classroom.
He had finally warded the door to his classroom so that no one wearing wings could get in. Every so often he would look up and see a frustrated dwarf beating on the invisible barrier and shaking an angry fist at him.
The last class of the day was dismissed. Large stacks of envelopes, teetering piles of candy boxes, enough flowers to make an allergists' convention giddy, and various unopened packages littered the room.
Slinky popped in, "Professor Severus Snape go to dinner. Slinky will be happy to clean up this mess," Slinky waved his hand and the bluebird gave one last cheep of surprise before disappearing, the silver cloud burst into a rainbow and then faded away, and the giant red lips kissed off.
"Thank you Slinky," Snape made his way to the Great Hall wondering what new disaster might await him there. Alexis was in her seat and when she saw him cloud free she gave a large happy smile.
Taking his chair next to her, Snape settled down to hopefully enjoy a dinner free from any type of Valentine's Day gifts.
"Severus, thank you so much for getting rid of all that stuff. I'm sorry I acted so jealous," Alexis squeezed his hand under the table.
Snape just nodded: glad that Slinky had been able to get rid of everything for him before dinner.
Much later that evening, a cloaked and hooded figure snuck into an out of the way corridor to meet with co-conspirators. The three individuals rendezvoused in a deserted classroom high in the West tower. Cobwebs and dust were the prevalent décor in the forgotten room.
"You did an excellent job. Here is the last of your money," the cloaked individual said handing a bulging bag to one of the other two figures.
Turning to go, a question arrested all movement, "Most folks would wait until April 1st to pull a prank of this magnitude, why didn't you?"
A chuckle escaped the confines of the hood, "Why be predictable?" and then there was nothing but a smudged sweep in the dust on the floor to indicate another person had been there.
Fred looked at his twin, "That Snape is one lucky bastard."
"Yes he is Forge. Not many wives would go to such effort to make Valentine's Day so memorable."
"Yes indeed Gred, yes indeed."
AN: All rhymes and poems from http:www.itsbullfrog dot com
