Severus was rudely awakened the very next morning by some incredibly loud snorts. As his eyes got everything into focus, he realized that something was seriously wrong. Not only was he in the staff room, lying on the floor, but Hagrid was passing by in the hallway with something loud and snortish in his pocket.

Severus attempted to get up, but he had been hit with a jelly legs jinx, and flopped ridiculously back to the floor. Flitwick was standing in front of him, looking embarrassed and a bit hung over.

"Do explain this," Severus said irritably, kicking his jelly legs around. They got further entangled in his robes. Woe.

"I thought you were an intruder," Flitwick said in one loud squeak. "The staff room door was locked."

Severus winced, put his fingers in his ears, and asked Flitwick irrelevant questions while he waited for the effects to wear off.

Severus ended up waiting longer than he expected. McGonagall came in for a coffee break, and he pulled himself under the table real quick. There was a creak as she sat down in a chair and took off her shoes. Severus was pretty sure that that particular action was unnecessary. He was also pretty sure that he had missed his first class.

Severus ended up waiting for another hour in the staff room, because McGonagall took too-long coffee breaks. Every ten minutes she would chuckle deeply about nothing in particular, and stretch her legs, so that Severus had to scrunch up real far to the other side of the table. He wished he had an invisibility cloak like Potter-who-thinks-nobody-knows-he-has-one.

As soon as McGonagall left the staff room (she did a groan that made Severus jump when she stood up), Severus scooted out from under the table and beamed it out of there just in time—Professor Flitwick was coming in to see if there was any left over firewhiskey from the night before.

Severus stood panting in the hall, trying to stiffen his upper lip or whatever. Hagrid passed again with the gruntish thing in his pocket, and Severus had the keen suspicion that the man was pacing for reasons unknown to him. He did not have time to tell Hagrid to Cut That Out, however, because he was late to his second class of the day.

Severus ran down to the dungeons, expecting supreme vandalism, and was surprised to find that his first class was still packing up to go. Severus swept into the room and sat down at his desk. Everyone stared at him. Severus pretended to be correcting papers.

"Um…Professor Snape?" said a tentative voice.

"Do questions 1 through 12, page 352," Severus snapped at the voice. He realized that that homework very probably didn't exist, but they were Ravenclaws and could use some extra research. Slowly, everyone started to leave.

When the claustrophobic nightmare had left the dungeon, Severus took some instant oatmeal out of a drawer and was in the process of transferring that stuff to a bowl when he heard a bunch of insistent hooting at his door.

"What the—?" Severus muttered, doing a pained face. Some uncooperative oats scattered across his desk. He went over to the door to admit a frazzled looking owl into the room. The owl hooted weakly and coughed up a huge ass note.

Ignoring the owl's strangled hooting, Severus sat down in a chair with the note and unfolded it. It was on a large piece of construction paper, and simply said, in large letters:

"SEVERUS,

PLEASE COME TO MY OFFICE IMMEDIATELY

ALBUS DUMBLEDORE"

Severus stared at that note for a good two minutes. It was only when he realized that

his teeth were grinding together rather unpleasantly AND

the deranged school owl was choking on his oatmeal

that he snapped out of it.

Feeling more than slightly annoyed, Severus went down the hallways to Dumbledore's office, going as slow as was humanly possible. At one point, a large crowd of first years who were obviously still fixated on raw spaghetti lines from primary school got stuck behind him, and he had to be all snarly at them twice to get them to go around him.

An hour later, Severus came to the gargoyle guarding Dumbledore's office, and mumbled various stupid food items at it. Thinking that something fishy was going on around here, Severus climbed the stairs to Dumbledore's office. Halfway up, he ran into Quirrell the Obviously Evil.

"Oh, h-hello S-Severus," Quirrell blabbered at him. "I j-just had a m-m-meeting with P-Professor Dumbled-d-dore. He g-gave me a p-p-packet of info on h-how to g-get past the obstacles in front of th-the st-stone."

Severus stared.

"Give me that," he snapped, reaching for the packet.

Quirrell ran.

A minute later, Severus fell through Dumbledore's office door and stormed over to his desk.

"You…just…gave…Quirrell the way to the stone!"

Dumbledore just gave him a twinkly-eye look.

"No I did not, Severus. That packet is missing the last page. It is somewhat of a brain teaser, I figure. Plus, there is an excellent crossword on page four. Quirrell only felt left out because he didn't get to do his part in guarding it. I figure all the teachers should know something. Lemon drop?"

Severus stared.

"Headmaster," he ground out, "it is clear that Quirrell is trying to steal the stone."

"Now, Severus, I think it is time that you and Professor Quirrell laid your old differences aside."

"We met this year."

"Back to the business at hand. You must revise your part in guarding the stone. I believe that no one will be able to guess which potion does which if you do not supply them with some hints."

Severus gave Dumbledore a what-the-hell look.

"Do you WANT someone to get the stone?" he asked.

"Everyone enjoys poetry," Dumbledore said, quite off the subject.

"So…you wish me to write a poem?"

"If that's what you see fit. You wrote quite excellent emo poetry in third year, if I remember correctly."

Severus entertained a brief fantasy in which Dumbledore choked on his lemon drop.

"Fine," he snapped. Fawkes made a warbling sound from nearby. Severus felt like he was slowly dying from the inside. Then again, Dumbledore's office usually had that effect on him.

Dumbledore began to knit some wool socks, and no amount of huffy breaths from Severus could make him desist.

When Severus stepped out of Dumbledore's office, he ran into Hagrid, who was making his billionth round of the castle. The gruntish thing was still in his pocket.

"Praytell what is that thing?" Severus said, clutching his head like he had a headache. Hagrid looked furtive.

"It's…erm…nothin'," Hagrid rumbled, in a way that told Severus it totally was something. Severus started to say something more, but Hagrid sped away down the hall, rather faster than Severus had known he could move.

When Severus got back to the dungeons, his classroom was a royal mess. The school owl had died from the oatmeal in its throat, and was lying near the bowl, which had evidently been upturned in its death struggle. Severus put the thing in a drawer, and sat at his desk with his head in his hands. A loud murmur outside his door informed Severus that his next class was here, waiting in a cooked spaghetti line outside his door. Severus got up, walked over to the door, locked it, and went into his office where he wrote a poem about potions guarding the stone. He made sure to put lots of words in it that Quirrell wouldn't know, unless he had a Thesaurus, and Severus was pretty darn sure they didn't sell those at the Hogwarts gift shop.