Launching Ships, Chapter 6

The detention with Professor Snape would have been the best part of Fred's day, if it hadn't involved scrubbing cauldrons. The three pranksters arrived a few minutes before they were required to (a first) and scrubbed something that looked rather like flobberworm mucus mixed with purple chunky clam chowder out of a stack of spare cauldrons with only a few complaints (also a first). Fifty minutes into the detention, when even Fred was starting to lose patience, the professor smirked.

"I believe that is enough for now," he said, and the three troublemakers gratefully laid down their sponges and scrubbers, and laid down the sea-serpent-skin gloves that they had been borrowing to make sure that the potions residue didn't melt their hands.

"There are two more cauldrons left," George commented.

"Are you volunteering to clean them?"

George yelped and shut his mouth, and then watched as the smirking Potions master waved his wand and silently cleaned the last two cauldrons. All three boys stared at him.

"We could have just banished them the entire time?!" Lee asked, affronted.

Their professor's smirk widened. "I could have, considering that I know the specialized charms. You could not, unless you wanted to suck the cauldrons into non-being too."

"Can you teach us?" Fred asked, excited. He actually enjoyed learning new things, if they were interesting. (Unlike most of what they learned in classes, unfortunately.)

"I could..." Fred could sense a "but" coming up here "...but I won't. If you go on and become Potions Masters yourselves, then maybe I'll think about it."

Fred huffed, but covered his irritated amusement by reaching over and picking up the backpack he had brought with him. Inside, layered with stasis charms, was a basilisk liver and a limblet, cut into neat quarters (the whole thing wouldn't fit into the backpack, and Fred and the other two didn't really want to answer Mcgonagall's questions should she see an honest-to-goodness basilisk limblet sticking out of his bag). "Here you go, Professor. As requested."

Professor Snape's fingers twitched, and it was clear that he was restraining himself from grabbing it out of the boy's hands only because such a thing would be too much undignified for him. As it was, he took it as soon as Fred handed it to him and unpacked it at once, as excited as a child on Christmas morning. "T-thank you." To his credit, it was only a slight stutter, and he had just received two extraordinarily rare and expensive ingredients. Fred, however, was extremely pleased that he had managed to make the dour and dangerous Professor lose his cool. He watched as Snape undid the stasis charms, undid the conjured brown paper that the ingredients had been wrapped in, and simply looked at the ingredients within, staring at them as though they were more precious than rubies. Which they probably were, though they didn't look it. One (the liver) was reddish-pink with purple veins, while the limblet quarters were covered in apple-green scales and looked, for all the world, like oversized atrophied iguana legs. After a moment of simply looking, Snape regained control over himself enough to set his new toys on his desk, and then to turn back to his students, who were all pretending that they hadn't noticed his lapse. Then, with a wand-hand that trembled only slightly, he summoned a packet of something and handed it to George, who was the closest twin. "Bellatrix's hair," he told them, a faint smile hovering about his lips. "These," he said, handing them four more packets, "are Mcnair's, Dolohov's, both Lestranges' and both Carrows; they are the worst of the lot. The rest of the Death Eaters are much easier to accost, of course; I can get their hair from the source."

The pranksters' eyes widened. Then Fred (and George) impulsively hugged him. Professor Snape could probably not have been more astonished than had the two of them slipped a pickled flobberworm eyeball down his back. He stiffened, and both twins let go at once, though unapologetically.

"Sorry professor. But thank you! Seriously!"

"You...are welcome," the wizard replied, still evidently a little shaken up. "I would very much like to see those imbeciles as thoroughly humiliated as possible. I only wish that I could get something of the Dark Lord's."

"Well, we can start with this. And...the potion only needs something from the person the drinker is going to fall in love with, so we could actually give it to Voldie. Not sure who I'd want to inflict him on, though, honestly! Oh, and does this particular love potions work on werewolves?"

"You invented it, I couldn't be sure," Snape replied. "Although I would assume it would work fine, unless said werewolf was transformed, since wolf metabolisms work differently. What do you have in mind?"

"Feeding some keyed to Bellatrix to Greyback," was Fred's calm response. "That's what we wanted it for in the first place! Chances are she would not want Greyback hitting on her, and she's the kind of witch who would hex first and ask questions later, so..."

"So Greyback would be out of the running."

"And how do you propose slipping a werewolf with superhuman senses a Class 7 illegal potion? He'd smell it a mile off!" Despite the disbelief, there was a sparkle of interest in the Potion Master's normally cold black eyes.

"Jazzy," was all George said.

"Pardon me?"

"House elves. Bellatrix is warded against house elves, but Greyback isn't, and I remember learning in COMC that house elves can spell potions and food directly into your stomach, if necessary. So I can just call Jazzy, and she'll help spell it into his stomach. He'll never even notice until he is already drugged!"

"I...that is actually a very good plan. Five points to Gryffindor, provided it works. I would very much like to see Lestrange's face."

Once again, all three Gryffindors stared at him for a moment. Not that it was a lot of points, but coming from a teacher who was literally known for favoring his house at the expense and to the exclusion of the other three, it was a very big concession, and all of them were literally only containing their internal jumping-up-and-down out of newfound respect for their teacher. "Thank you."

Professor Snape acknowledged their thanks with the briefest of nods. "Might I suggest making the Alecto Carrow infatuated with Rodolphus Lestrange? Her husband hates him, and since it was an arranged marriage, he is quite insecure, so if it could be construed to be an affair, it could be...interesting."

All three boys grinned at each other. Then they, as one, turned to Lee. "Can you forge his handwriting, and hers?"

"Yup," the African boy replied with a smile. "Just as long as I can get a sample. I'll write something suitably mushy..."

"I'll have Dobby leave it under the table after a meeting." George said.

"And- oh Merlin; best idea ever!"

The other three wizards looked around at Fred. "What?"

"You know that hex that we made by reversing that spell for vanishing hickies?"

George nodded. "Yeah...oh! So you mean hit Bella with it?"

"Yeah. It would be really hard to get close to her, but it would be so worth it, and since you can't feel it, she shouldn't notice. And so then...!"

"Totally! So we can fake them having an affair, and then-"

"First you would have to get near enough to her," Severus said, breaking into their chat. "And I will not allow that. So what is the spell?"

There was a pause. "Marcas de oscula," Fred and George replied in unison.

Severus Snape smiled grimly. "I will plant the evidence, and hopefully get a few strands of Pettigrew's mangy hair. Do you have any more ideas for now?"

"No; we'll tell you when we think of some," the twins replied. "We're trying to figure out who to match Voldie to. Now, if you could get Lee something with Alecto and Rodolphus's handwriting..."

"I will certainly do so. For now, detention is over. Try to do something heinous enough to garner another detention next week, and I can give you the latest progress. Now out- it's past curfew."

"Aren't you going to write us a note?"

Severus Snape, for possibly the first time in recorded human history, laughed out loud. "After all the times I've caught you out after hours, one more time won't hurt you. Not unless you run across Filch."

All three boys looked positively betrayed, but they were still smiling as they sneaked back into the Gryffindor common room. After all, who else in the Wizarding World could make the claim the Severus Snape was actually going to help with their pranks...