The Houses Competition
Round 2: Everybody Needs Companionship
House: Hufflepuff
Class: DADA
Prompt: [Positive Pairing] Minerval McGonagall and Severus Snape.
Word Count: 1524
James zipped through the hallway on his broomstick, schoolbag in hand. Peter stood at the end of the hallway, keeping a watch for professors coming through. Sirius and Remus sprinted beyond him, grabbing pieces of paper as they flew out of that schoolbag. Lagging behind this exuberant procession was Severus, dressed in robes several years too small, who chased after them.
"Hey, give that back!" he shouted to absolutely no effect. Severus then proceeded to trip over the hem of his too-large trousers and faceplant on the stone flooring. This elicited more laughter for the marauders.
"James, get down!" Peter shouted, his voice high and squeaky.
James twirled his broom around, just in time to see Professor McGonagall rounding the corner. The 13-year old promptly hoisted himself off the broom and on to the ground; holding the broom in what he hoped was a casual position at his side. Remus, Peter, and Sirius all walked over and turned to face the transfiguration professor as she advanced deliberately down the hall.
"Severus, pick yourself up." McGonagall ordered curtly as she passed the Slytherin on the ground.
"May I ask the rest of you what is going on here?"
Peter shuffled his feet as he suddenly became very interested in his shoelaces. Remus laid a hand on Sirius's arm as he started to open his mouth to say something that certainly would have been regrettable. James spared a quick glare at his friends for leaving him to navigate the displeasure of their head of house, but he answered smoothly,
"Just practicing for Thursday's match, Professor."
"Ah," McGonagall looked towards Severus, now standing and dusting off his trousers with his hands, scanned her eyes over the small pile of papers that littered the floor, and then returned her attention to James.
"Am I to believe, Potter, that the Snitch was hidden in Snape's school bag?"
"That was simply to provide some extra incentive to work on my speed and maneuverability, Professor," James' words elicited a snort from Sirius and a dismayed look from Remus beside him.
McGonagall's lips pressed together to form an almost imperceptible line. She drew her wand from within her robes and, saying nothing, gave it a short precise flick. James' prized Silver Arrow broomstick promptly transformed into a pile of sponges, a bar of soap, and a metal bucket at his feet, leaving him gripping empty air.
"I trust you'll finish scrubbing the trophy case with it in a timely manner. I would hate for you to not have finished in time for the game with Ravenclaw."
"We're playing Hufflepuff on Thursday, Professor," James pointed out. "If we win, we'll be in great running for the Quidditch cup," he added, hoping to appeal to his head of house's competitive spirit.
"Is that so?" McGonagall asked, "I'm afraid I won't be able to go, I'll have to be supervising detention for some students who can't seem to follow school rules."
"Professor!"
"That's not fair!"
"Which students?" exclaimed James, Sirius and Peter respectively. Remus kept quiet and studied his nails rather than look at his professor.
"I trust I'll see you in my office on Thursday," McGonagall was unyielding, "now off you get. I should hope your practice here hasn't shortened you on time to work on your Transfiguration essay."
The three Gryffindors left, waiting to unleash their murmured complaints until they were out of range of their professor's famously acute hearing. McGonagall waved her wand again, "Accio." The pile of papers fluttered off the floor and arranged themselves neatly in her hands.
"I'm glad to see at least some of my students attend to my homework in a prompt manner," she commented, looking up from the completed essay on Gamp's law of elemental transfiguration that had landed on top of the stack. Severus grimaced and walked over, holding out his hand for the pile of parchments.
"You'd do yourself a service to not go chasing them, Mr. Snape. They're trying to elicit a response."
"It's alright," Severus mumbled, reaching for the pile of papers.
"It's certainly not alright." McGonagall responded, allowing the boy to grab a few parchments from the top of the pile, but making no move to hand over the rest. "You're a bright boy and a talented student. There's no reason you shouldn't rise to a position of leadership at this school."
"Really, it's fine," grumbled the third-year, reaching up to grab more scrolls. In the process he dropped his copy of The Standard Book of Spells. Reluctantly, McGonagall handed him the rest of the parchment pile and bent down to pick up the book. Truth be told, she was worried about the clever boy who spent far too much time with ambitious friends. She considered briefly having a conversation with Slughorn about her concerns, but quickly rejected it. For all his prodigious ability as a potions master, Horace tended to take the mentor role for those students who were well bred or well connected, and young Severus was neither.
"What's this?" she asked, jolted out of her considerations by a diagram in the margin of the Charms textbook. The book was used and underlining and doodles from prior owners clearly marked the pages, but this one was clearly in Severus's neat heavily slanted writing.
The boy stopped to consider for a moment, working his jar as he debated how much information to provide. "I was working on a charm; can I have my book back now?"
McGonagall closed the book and handed it back but continued the conversation. "Can I ask what you want this charm to do?" Severus wouldn't be the first student to try to make his own charm, although thirteen was a precocious age to be trying, and the professor had seen some rather unfortunate consequences emerge from similar endeavors.
"It's a fabric stretching charm," the child replied, opening the book back to where the diagram was. "See – this bit, it's profondus, like the thickening charm. It thickens the fibers so that when you use tractus to stretch them out the fabric doesn't fray. I was just trying to build on what we learned in Charms."
"I see," McGonagall glanced at the boy's too-small robes and considered that this may have not merely been an intellectual exercise. "Very well. I can't let a third year be practicing untrialed charms unsupervised. Follow me, please."
The Transfiguration professor turned around and walked towards her classroom. Snape followed behind her silently. When they reached the door, she ushered him inside and walked over to a cabinet behind the desk. She took out a brown woolen scarf and placed it down on the desk next to a potted catnip plant. "Off you go, then."
Severus took out his wand and glanced at his professor briefly before tucking his bottom lip between his teeth as he focused. "Profunditractus" he tried, moving the wand first in a circle and then up and down. The fabric did seem to thicken, McGonagall noted, the spots between the stitches became less distinct, but the scarf grew wider rather than longer, leaving them with a piece of knitting that resembled a small rug. Severus looked deflated.
It was, McGonagall thought, a rather impressive feat for a third year to accomplish. She'd have expected an absentminded doodle of a spell to do nothing at all or to create some manner of explosion.
"Why don't you try extendo rather than tractus?" She suggested, "Extendo implies the direction in which you want the stretching to happen. I think the wand movement is fine." She paused and waited for Severus to nod before taking out her own wand and muttering "revertus." The scarf returned to its original shape.
Snape refocused his attention on the object on the desk. "Profundiextendo, " he tried, his voice quiet but with precise pronunciation. The scarf lengthened very slightly and McGonagall caught the boy's face light up for a moment before returning to its customary surly expression. McGonagall had enough experience with young teenagers to know that further mentoring would not be welcomed right now.
"I expect if you refined it a bit, you'd be able to control the amount of lengthening well enough," she suggested. "I'll leave it to you to figure that out. Off you go. It's getting late. Wouldn't want you out of bed after hours."
Severus nodded and gathered his bag from one of the desks in the front row. As he reached the classroom doorway he turned around, "Thanks, Professor." He hesitated as he waited for a response.
"If you do refine it," McGonagall suggested, "I suspect we could write it up for The Journal of Advances in Transfiguration. It's a useful trick, I'm glad you developed it."
Snape squinted a bit, as if surprised by the praise. Then he nodded and left the classroom, carefully closing the door behind him. He never did come back to write the spell up, and if McGonagall noticed he started coming to class in clothes that fit him much more naturally after that. She didn't press him for why, but she was happy to recommend him for N.E.W.T. level Transfiguration when the time came.
