Harry Potter was in a mood, having sent off his three owls. The mood was presently "stir-crazy." And so this was how he found himself hanging, by his ankles, between the two Weasley twins, in an abandoned hallway somewhere north of the eighth floor (he had rather lost track).
"So." Harry said, hoping that his anti-gravity spell would continue to hold - or at least the magnetic one that held him fast to the metal-embossed ceiling above.
"Why hello!" one twin said.
"Fancy meeting you here..." the other said, consideringly.
"What's the quickest way to a detention?" Harry prompted.
"Depends." one twin hemmed.
"Whose detention do you want? Sprout's difficult, you'll need to apply some fire to her greenhouses."
"How about Snape?" Potter asked.
"Oi, he's easy." one twin smiled.
"Yeah, we'll tell you how to get one on him, for free." the other said
"Are you sure, he's not known for going light on us Gryffs, and I don't think he cares for you one whit."
"Rather the point, yes."
"He's scheming something."
"Something good, no doubt."
"Well, Mister Mischevious, the easiest way to get Snape to give you a detention is to 'forget' to address him as professor."
"Or sir, he likes that too."
"Thanks" said Harry, content with the conversation, and walking off still attached to the ceiling. As he turned a corner, and found himself now above a girl and a boy kissing, he took a moment to balance a pail of water on the door they were using to hide from the hallway. Nothing like two well-kissed damp rats. Or was that cats?
Harry had taken out a book from the library. It was his first, on Quiddich of all things, as apparently that was the only sort of study that Ron considered acceptable for his friends. Harry'd taken the book and gone outside, to sit on the long lawn above the Black Lake.
Naturally, this was when Snape happened on by. "Potter, what are you doing with that library book?" Snape said coldly.
"Reading," Harry Potter said, turning a page - his attention fully on Snape, but doing a job of masking that with sphinxlike attentiveness on the book itself
Which, naturally, led to Snape snatching the book out of his hands, "Detention, Potter, for mistreatment of a book."
Potter looked up at Snape's longnosed face, blinking, "What did I do?" for once, an honest question. An honest response. Harry cursed to himself, and thought he needed to work on that. Should have anticipated - how could he have anticipated - this?!
"I can think of a thousand calamities that could strike that book, by virtue of its untimely departure from the halls of Hogwarts Castle. Carelessness is never a virtue." Snape said, "And take another detention for your cheek."
Harry could have almost squirmed in delight, though he held himself close. Finally, today, it was his lucky day! Not that anyone in their right mind wanted a detention - but this? This would play into his plans.
Which left him with only one question, as Snape strode off, robes billowing in the autumn gusts of wind, "Why was Snape so bloody unfair to him?"
[a/n: Yes, Harry's more slytherin. Doesn't mean he really knows how to be a Gryffindor, and so he automatically mistrusts his own responses, and wants to mask them - even when it's exactly what a Gryff would have done.
Snape's still a bastard and a bit of a jerk.
Reviews welcome!
Up next - the not so duel.]