Disclaimer: I own the things and people you don't recognize. Everything else ... not mine. Property of JKR and many other peoples. Anyway, there is a quote in this chapter that was said by Germaine Greer, and the first reader to review and can tell me what the quote was will get a prize. The prize: I will incorporate one of your ideas into my story somehow! Keep it small, though. Like one scene or something. Not plot-changing. If it's plot-changing, I will disregard it and go on to the second reviewer to get it right. All those who do get it right will be acknowledged. Happy Hunting!!
A/N: HELLO!!!!!!!! Yes, I'm back again. Meg's got out her whip. I'm writing again. Yahoo!!!!! --
Lol I'm kidding. I love writing. Okay, enjoy!! BTW: Meg is NOT my muse. She is my slavemaster!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Heh ... yyyyyeah. Read and review, my friends!! OH – don't forget to look for wacky (wacky?? Who says wacky?? Besides Meg??) wacky quotes in this chapter!! Hehehehehehehehe ...
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After the hilarious and (afterwards) embarrassing rendition of "I'm Too Sexy", Hagrid, upon his return, calmed the boys down. Now, as they trooped back inside, the girls were wishing that they could have whipped off their own shirts, as they were still dripping wet, cold, and secretly displeased that the boys had all calmed down.
All thirty-odd students, boys and girls combined, were dreading the class they had next. They were soaking wet, shivering, and wondering nervously what the professor would have to say to them when they got cold water all over his classroom. Of course, this could only be Snape, and they could only have Potions next, in the cold, dank dungeons.
Typical luck, Harry thought sullenly as he slouched down the stairs with the rest of the class. Just typical. I get dragged unwillingly into a crush of sopping guys, and not girls but guys, didn't even dry off from it all, and now I have Potions. He sighed. Typical. Arrggh.
Sure enough, as everyone expected, as soon as the first few students dripped into the dungeon classroom Snape frowned. "What on earth are you doing?" he snarled, making them wince. "Why are you all wet?"
"Well ... see ..."
"It's not our fault, Professor."
"I will accept no excuses! You have five minutes between classes – go change!" Snape snapped viciously. Then the rest of the class came in, all soaked, and he turned red, then three blotchy different shades of purple. It was an interesting colour blend on his sallow face. Some students stared at him in fascination, while others hid their faces to avoid being yelled at during the imminent explosion.
"All of you?!" he yelled. Slowly everyone in the class nodded, cringing and shrinking backwards slightly in anticipation. He did not disappoint them. "Are you out of your minds?!" he roared, spitting. "A single extra drop of water in a potion can totally destroy it! Have you all gone mad?! There are five minutes specially slotted in between classes so that first-year students can find their way around! You all know the way here! Why did you not take advantage of the extra time to go up to your dormitories and change your clothes?! What class are you all coming from?!"
"Please, Professor Snape, it's not our fault. We just got out of Care of Magical Creatures –" began Malfoy, but Snape rounded on him and cut him off mid-sentence, something he had never done before.
"Professor Hagrid got you all wet and forced you to stay so late that you had to come straight here and drip all over my room?" Snape bellowed. "I highly doubt that is the case, regardless of my opinion of that class!"
"He didn't get us wet, the cat did," said Dean helpfully. Snape whipped around, eyes narrowed.
"Oh, it was the cat, was it? What cat?! Has Professor Hagrid acquired a new pet that sprays water at its victims?!"
"No, for heaven's sake, Severus, he doesn't spray water. They were just giving him a bath," said a female voice from the doorway. Everyone turned to see who the speaker was, and Snape's face turned a motley of more different colours.
Professor Blackstorm smiled. "Actually, that would be quite amusing to see him spray water at his victims ... I should mention that to him. Anyways, you wouldn't mind terribly if I sat in on your class, would you?" All the male students in the room suddenly had vacant, spaced out expressions on their faces. Hermione rolled her eyes, noticing this. Professor Blackstorm continued. "I mean, since I'm a new teacher and all, I just wanted to get a feel for how everyone else goes about their schedules. I'm not sure if I can get the class to pay attention quite yet."
As she said this last sentence, her gaze flicked oh-so-amusedly towards the staring students, and she bit her lip as if trying not to laugh. A few people giggled quietly, and the smile was instantly wiped off of the attractive professor's face as she glared at them. The giggling stopped.
"Well?"
"Oh – erm – yes, of course," Snape gurgled, in a rather strangled voice. Professor Blackstorm nodded at him.
"Thanks," she said, and swept off to the front of the classroom, conjured a comfortable-looking black chair, and sank down on it, facing the class. She placed her chin on her hands and regarded them through slightly narrowed eyes, inspecting every inch of every student and taking in both the fact that they were standing around stupidly, and their unfortunate appearances.
"Right. Where was I?" Snape muttered. As the students hurried to their seats, they gaped in wonder. Snape was never flustered, never forgot where he was or what he was doing or saying, and never allowed himself to be interrupted. What was going on here?
Hermione raised her hand. Snape glared at her, sneering, "What do you want, Miss Granger?"
"You were just about to start the lesson, Professor."
He looked suspiciously at her for a moment, then cleared his throat. "Yes. Today's lesson. You will be learning how to make a Palantir potion. This potion is useful in –"
"Many different seeing spells," finished Professor Blackstorm. "It is used by pouring the mixture into a bowl and naming the place or person you wish to regard."
"Yes. Thank you. Professor Blackstorm. Are you going to interrupt me every time I begin a sentence?"
"It's likely," the woman nodded, expression neutral. Snape sighed, eyes closed, and breathed deeply. Then without a word of complaint he turned back to the class and told them that the instructions were on the board and that they had less than an hour and a half because they'd wasted so much time at the beginning of class dripping all over everywhere and if they wanted to complete their potions they had better go getting I mean get going now WORK!
And the class got to work.
As they went about silently preparing their potions, Professor Blackstorm turned to Snape and looked at him oddly as he began to mutter to himself. Heads looked up as they noticed that he was talking.
"Love, love, love -- all the wretched cant of it, masking egotism, lust, masochism, fantasy under a mythology of sentimental postures, a welter of self-induced miseries and joys, blinding and masking the essential personalities in the frozen gestures of courtship, in the kissing and the dating and the desire, the compliments and the quarrels which vivify its barrenness."
She stared at him for a moment, then started to clap politely. He snapped out of the stupor he apparently had been in and looked at her oddly. "What are you clapping for?"
"I'm applauding you. That was a fine speech."
"What speech?"
"The one you just said. About the stupidity of love?"
There was a long silence in which everyone stared at Snape, and he stared at Professor Blackstorm. This seemed to last about ten minutes, but was really only about one. After the long while, Snape breathed five words.
"... I said that out loud?"
The class erupted with raucous laughter. No one could help it. Snape blushed furiously. It was odd, insane, and unexpected, but no student in that classroom had quite the same amount of respect for him again after that. Knowing this, Snape swallowed his humiliation, forced his face back to its normal colour, straightened his back, clenched his fists, and roared.
"SHUT UP! BACK TO WORK NOW!" he bellowed. When the class saw the murderous look in his eyes, the respect – or fear – returned immediately, and they all shut up and hurried back to work. "Twenty points from Gryffindor! Twenty points from Slytherin!" he barked loudly.
Ron's mouth fell open in protest. "But –"
"Make that FIFTY points from Gryffindor!" Snape shrieked. "And if I hear one more SOUND from this class, it will be one hundred!"
Simultaneously, Harry and Hermione slammed their hands over Ron's mouth to ensure that he shut up. Snape glared darkly at the three of them, but didn't take any more points off. Thank god for that, thought Harry to himself. Not even three weeks into the school year and Snape had already taken over seventy points off Gryffindor.
"Uh, 'scuse me?" said Professor Blackstorm. Snape turned around and glared at her.
"Yes?"
At that moment, there was a great clatter from outside in the hall. It sounded much like a cat being tortured combined with claws on stone. Professor Blackstorm rose to her feet.
Shadow burst into the room, yowling his little – gigantic – heart out. If one could describe the look on his feline face, it would be one of anguish. Utter anguish. His fur was braided in many places, and all the braids were tied off with tiny pink bows. There was also a much larger bow on top of the poor cat's head that had fallen off slightly and was hanging rather lopsidedly off one ear.
Professor Blackstorm's eyes widened, and at first the class was afraid that her wrath would come down upon them – but no. It was worse. Frightening. It was something she did so rarely that it didn't look natural.
A slow, humongous grin spread across her face as she stared at her giant black pet. It had stopped running and was standing in the doorway of the classroom, its tail hanging limply, its eyes wide, its ears drooping pathetically, pink bows glittering.
She laughed.
A long, hysterical laugh escaped Professor Blackstorm's lips, and she had to steady herself with one hand on Snape's shoulder so she didn't fall over with mirth. (Snape, to put it bluntly, blushed again, but no one was looking at him.) Shadow sighed, walked sullenly over to Professor Blackstorm, and dropped like a stone to the floor, hiding its great head under its paws and looking utterly defeated.
Professor Blackstorm, still snickering, knelt down beside it and started petting its head sympathetically. "You poor baby ... did you have fun outside?" More snickering. "I should get Hagrid to bathe you more often. You really do smell nice. And your being dirty is all your fault, really." More snickering. "You poor little thing."
"Get back to your work!" Snape barked, not taking his eyes off of the giant braided pink-bowed cat. "Go on now, before I have to take off even more points."
For the next approximate hour and a quarter, the class tried their level best to get their potions together and properly assembled before the time was up. The only sounds in the room were the clinks of jars, bubbling of potions, and the snickering of Professor Blackstorm as she undid the braids in Shadow's fur and extracted pink bows.
By the end of the class she had undone all the braids and had placed every last bow into a pile except for the larger one on his head. As she lifted her hand to pick this one off, she smiled, shaking her head. "I still can't believe they put pink bows on you, Shadow. Pink bows! Pi-"
Suddenly Professor Blackstorm went very pale. Her eyes widened. She dropped the bow. "Great. Mother. Goddess. I was handling ... PINK!" she exclaimed, now having the attention of the entire class. She leapt to her feet and jumped backwards, staring in horror at the pile of bows on the floor beside her cat. Incidentally, it was almost smirking. Professor Blackstorm flew into a fit and ran around the dungeon, saying, "Goddess, Goddess, Goddess, oh Goddess, contamination! CONTAMINATION! Get it off get it off get if off get if OFF!"
She grabbed the robes of the person closest to her – who happened to be Ron – and started pawing furiously at his shoulder. Ron, admittedly, wasn't displeased. When she saw the look on his face, she recoiled slightly, and muttered frantically, "Must ... decontaminate ... pinkness ... you!" she cried, pointing at Snape and running at him.
As she wiped her hands on his robes, Snape stood up a little straighter, but still had a look of utter bewilderment on his face. "Er ... are you quite ... all right? My robes."
Professor Blackstorm ignored him. Once she tried wiping her hands on his hair, stopped instantly, looked at him, and said, "You need to have a shower," and continued pawing at his robes. When she had finished, she glared murderously at the pile of pink bows.
Scowling darkly, murder in her eyes, she advanced on them, and at first it looked like she was about to attack her giant black pet, who was lying beside the bows, but no; she scooped them all up in her hands, looked around wildly for a place to put them, and landed her gaze on Snape's desk.
"No wait don't that's –!" Snape tried to warn her, but to no avail.
In one swift motion she dumped the lot of pink bows straight into Snape's cauldron, filled with Palantir potion, and the whole thing exploded.
KA-BOOM!!!!
After about twenty seconds, the smoke cleared somewhat, and a rather odd scene was revealed.
Snape stood behind his desk, face blackened, eyes closed, breathing long and hard breaths to keep himself calm. Professor Blackstorm was not marked at all, but was leaning over the destroyed cauldron with a triumphant expression on her face.
"HAH."
With that, she dusted off her hands, and marched out of the classroom, leaving it in the midst of total chaos and disarray. A few seconds later she came back in.
"And if any of you bring pink into my classroom ... the cauldron!" she hissed, pointing at Snape's blackened desk for emphasis. She stalked out again.
Three seconds later, she popped her head back in. ... Again. This time she beckoned to Shadow, who was – if one could put a name to a feline face – grinning. "Come, Shadow!" she said, and the giant cat trotted happily after her as she left the classroom for the third and final time.
Harry, Ron and Hermione all glanced at each other (Ron and Hermione glared just to glare).
"This class is now over. You are all dismissed. Please get out of my sight by the count of five or I may not have control over my actions. One. Two. Three. Four."
The entire class had vacated the premises when he opened his eyes and said "Five."