Professor Snap: Part II: The Enemy Within
"Hmmmhmmhmhmhmhmhmhmhmhmhmhm!" Professor McGonagall hummed cheerfully as she poured herself a cup of tea and stirred in the sugar.
"Would you cease your infernal humming? I'm trying to listening for more attempts on my life." Professor Snape, also in the staff room, was sitting with his back in a corner. Set before him was an assortment of knives and he held his wand at the ready.
"Well, I can't help it if I'm not always looking for death and destruction. Something nice happened to me today and you're not going to ruin my mood." She continued stirring and humming.
"I don't look for it. It finds me!" Professor Snape, vibrating on the spot from nerves, chewed his fingernails down to nubbins.
"Whatever."
"Is that…perfume that I am smelling?" Professor Snape, fully distracted, looked at her incredulously. "What possible reason could crusty old bat stench no longer be good enough for you unless…you have a date." He hissed, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.
"My previous perfume," She looked down her nose at him, silently furious, "was called Eau de Pomme. The French means it's sophisticated."
"And foreign." Snape hissed again.
"And not that it's any of your business, but yes. I have a date." She gave him a haughty glare.
"It's nice to see that you have finally come off your high horse, recognized yourself for the old bag that you are, and settled for Professor Flitwick." His eyes whipped to another corner of the room as he heard a soft scuffling.
"Not that I care, but when is the last time you had any sleep?"
Her question was answered when he continued to look desperately about and took a sip of homemade espresso from a hip flask. She was annoyed with his lack of attention, and decided to be on her way.
"Well, I'd best not keep Stanwick waiting." She breezed as she brushed past him.
"R-WHAT?" Snape turned all of his attention on her, causing McGonagall to smile coldly in triumph.
"You heard me."
"You can't! He's evil!" Snape leapt to his feet, which threatened to snap. "Have you listened to nothing I've said, you stupid wench?"
"I couldn't stop you from telling me." She rolled her eyes. "What's the matter, Severus? Jealous?" She gave a smug smile.
"Please! That crappy dialogue and minimal amount of character psychology could have been pulled from a B grade muggle film." Professor Snape snarled. "Have fun on your date with that psychopath! Hope you like being dismembered, chopped up into 3 cm cubes and stuffed into an attic!"
"As I said before, Severus, I'll leave you to your paranoid delusions as I totally get some. Good day." She left before he could say anything more.
Professors Snap and McGonagall were walking arm in arm through a local carnival that had set up in Hogsmeade. Professor Snap pointed at a colorful clown and Professor McGonagall laughed at his crappy minimum wage job. Clowns could still bring laughter, even to adults.
"Look, if you're not going to buy any deep fried, butter toffee-covered squid tentacles then you can't hide behind my stall anymore. Seriously, you're scaring away my business." The one-eyed smelly hobo-looking man drooled as he bared his single, plaque-encrusted tooth in disapproval.
"Shh! They'll hear you." Snape narrowed his eyes.
"Get out." The man shoved him from his hiding place.
Snape managed to stumble across the path and into an open garbage receptacle without being seen. Peeking through a small hole, he continued to watch in seething rage as the happy-seeming couple boarded a Ferris wheel.
"Not that I care about that frosty old bitch's well-being. But Snap is clearly up to something." He growled.
Watching the two smiling on the Ferris wheel totally pissed him off. A happy happy Professor Snap pointed out the window and a happy happy Professor McGonagall leaned out to get a better look.
"Cripes, I hate them so much. Do they really have to smile so goddamn much?"
"Waah!" Cried a child, who had been trying to throw out his lollipop when the waste receptacle emitted a string of curses.
"Beat it, you brat!" Snape yelled.
"Daddyyyyy! The garbage said a bad word!" the boy ran away.
Looking back, he saw to his alarm that Professor Snap had stood up as Professor McGonagall continued to squint at the ground below while hanging out the window. Snap held up both of his arms and suddenly lunged forward!
"NO!" Snape tried to leap heroically from the garbage can, but tripped on his way out. The spell he cast missed the Ferris wheel and lit the merry-go-round on fire. Several magical wooden horses died and the rest stampeded throughout the carnival, spreading their fire and panic to all.
Snape ignored all of this and looked up in time to see Professor Snap pulling a bat out of McGonagal's hair. Apparently the little beastie had gotten caught. As if sensing someone's watching eyes, Professor Snap suddenly looked below him. Snape barely dove into a cotton candy machine before being spotted.
"This is no good." Snape ignored the angry cries of the vendors. "I need more mobility."
A passing lion mascot answered his call and after some persuasive pummeling, Snape was now cleverly disguised. Attempting a happy dance that looked like a death shuffle, he managed to somehow maintain his plausibility.
After following the two as they rode the tea cup ride and the tunnel of love, Snape saw them end their magical date in Hogsmeade Pub.
Professor Snap, clearly a gentleman, didn't even cast a wandering eye at the shapely mugs of Madame Rosemerta. He pulled out Professor McGonagall's chair at an intimate table and the two seated themselves. Snape, knowing his mascot costume wouldn't fly, discarded it in the Shrieking Shack and donned a patchy overcoat he found on this guy who clearly didn't need it as much as he did. After also liberating the man's hat, Snape entered the pub and sat on the far side of the bar.
"Care for a pint?" Madame Rosemerta leaned low over the bar, showing off her huge tracts of land.
"Yeah, whatever." He waved dismissively.
Put out, she flounced off under the pretense of getting his drink. It never came. He prepared to carefully glare at and internalize Professor Snap's every move in order to ascertain the fiend's newest plot.
Professor Snap gestured wildly as he told some kind of stupid story – no doubt about ducks and helping children. God, he was so pretentious. Professor McGonagall gwaffawed at his tale.
"How could you be taken in so easily? I always thought you were the one closest to my I.Q." Snape shook his head sadly.
McGonagal stopped laughing abruptly and suddenly turned to look right at Snape. In a panic, he whirled to face the man sitting next to him. He noticed that she seemed placated and returned to her conversation.
"So…how about those…sports?" Professor Snape tried to make small talk.
"Oh, hey there. M'name's Bill Buttercakes." The man smiled warmly.
His name suited him. He seemed to be a friendly, roly-poly guy with naturally rosy cheeks and smiling eyes.
"My condolences."
"What?"
"So what brings you here?" Snape tried to distract the man from his rudeness.
"Me? Oh, I'm just waiting until I have my job interview! I'm pretty excited for it. I've never worked at such a prestigious place as-" Snape noticed Professor Snap rising from his seat as McGonagall headed to the lou. It was obvious that he intended to confront Snape!
"I have to go. Good luck overcoming the handicap of that name of yours." He made a mad dash for the door.
"Severus!" Professor Snap yelled, but Snape was already out the door.
Outside in the light of day once more, Snape crunched through the snow as he sprinted back in the direction of Hogwart's castle. He tried to weave through the stupid fools who were enjoying the carnival in order to escape.
"Stupid merriment!" He howled.
A flash of green light whizzed past his ear and smashed into the hideous squid vendor.
"Holy hell!" His eyes widened as the vendor fell down dead.
Everyone screamed and erupted into mass panic, which worked in Snape's favor. Running under the cover of innocent lives, he heard Professor Snap call out from behind him,
"Severus! Wait!"
"Like that's going to happen!" Snape sprinted like he had never sprinted before (and he hadn't because they didn't enforce gym class back when he was a kid) and dove into the house of mirrors. Because that's what people in danger at carnivals do.
"Good God, he's crazy." Snape felt his heart battering itself against his ribcage as he walked by twisted reflections of himself that were, admittedly, an improvement.
"Well, at least with a dead body I have proof that someone is trying to kill me." Snape felt bitter that his proof had not come any earlier…and in the form of Harry Potter's corpse.
"Severus!" Professor Snap's voice boomed throughout the hall.
"Gandalf's nutsack!" Snape jumped and then ran further into the house of mirrors.
There was a streak of black that hit the mirror next to him and it exploded into shards of glass that pierced his patchy coat and flowing, black robes. He tried to cover his head as the slivers rained down on him.
"What the hell is your problem?" Snape yelled. "What did I ever do to you? I don't think bitterness warrants homicide."
Another mirror exploded.
"I'm not trying to kill you! Where are you?" Professor Snap yelled above the tinkling of glass.
"Oh my God! You want to catch me, tie me up in the Shrieking Shack, take my job, dress me up as the Pink Power Ranger and torture me endlessly!" He was horrified at the disgusting depths of Professor Snap's mind.
"What?" Professor Snap seemed distracted, no doubt by Snape's keen insight, and as the charlatan froze Snape covered his eyes and shouted,
"LUMOS!"
The mirrors intensified the light and Professor Snap screamed an eerie-sounded scream. Snape bolted for the door and ran as fast as his scrawny legs could carry him to the castle.
Dumbledore leaned back in his old man throne, enjoying the peaceful quacking of the duck pictures lining his office. He sipped a cup of roibleberry tea and listened to the unpleasant shrieking of the former headmaster's portraits as they re-enacted Titus Andronicus for his amusement.
"Ho ho ho! You won't be needing that arm anymore." He slapped his knee in mirth.
Suddenly, the door to his hallowed chamber smashed open.
"HEADMASTER!" Snape bellowed.
"Severus!" Dumbledore jumped, spilling roibleberry tea all over his crotch. "By the wings of a fairy godmother, that burns!" Tears spilled from his eyes. "Couldn't you just knock?" He conjured up some ice for his wound.
"There was no time for niceties!" Snape insisted.
"It's not a matter of niceness." Dumbledore moaned.
"That imposter Stanwick Snap tried to kill me! There's a corpse to prove it!"
"What?" Dumbledore was no longer in a particularly open mindset.
"I was at the carnival! And so were they!"
"Who's 'they'."
"Snap and Minnverva!"
"Ah, I wondered why she had switched over from crusty old bat stench to her new perfume. Shopping for younger men, is she? Well, good for her. You know what they say: 'Shoot for the moon. When you miss, you'll land amongst the stars.'" Dumbledore mused.
"That's not important! He's homicidal. He's tried to kill me twice before and no one believed me! He used a fountain and a dragon and then I stole clothes and followed him on his so-called date that was really an attempt to draw me out so he could kill me and he did and I did and then he did! Now the squid vendor is dead!"
"Pity. I liked his tentacles."
"Please sir! I barely escaped with my life! Look! I'm bleeding! BLOOD!"
"I see that and assume that it is your own." Dumbledore nodded in acknowledgment.
Snape was wearing some rather unsightly hobo clothes. There were pieces of cotton candy and garbage stuck in his hair, he was covered in powdered glass, and he was bleeding all over from shrapnel wounds.
This was one of those days that caused him to consider early retirement.
"Why don't you sit down, Severus?" Dumbledore gestured to a seat.
"But-"
"Sit."
Snape sat in the chair, shaking with a tension so strong that even the quacking of fifteen duck paintings could not dissipate it.
"Severus, Minnerva has mentioned to me that you seem to be very on-edge lately." He steepled his fingers.
"That would be a result of the attempts on my life, sir." Snape looked intently at the headmaster.
"She's also mentioned that you haven't been sleeping."
"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" Snape roared.
"And while it's clear that something has happened today, I would think it best that I investigate the matter personally so that I can resolve it in a manner that is appropriate." Dumbledore gave Snape a firm look.
"What am I supposed to do while you do that? I can't just stay here-"
"In your current condition, I agree. You are of no use to yourself or others when you are so agitated. I don't doubt what you are telling me, so I suggest that you take a brief leave of absence."
"What are you saying? I can't leave the school while there's a mad murderer lurking about!"
"I give you my every assurance that I will increase safety measures in the school while I am investigating."
"Don't feed me that line of bullshit you give the parents every year that someone tries to murder Harry Potter!" Snape exploded.
"Severus, trust me. Take a leave of absence. I promise that things will improve when you return." Dumbledore just seemed to radiate trustworthiness.
Professor Snape took a moment to compose himself. Taking in his surroundings, he again noticed the copious amount of duck paintings. Snap had mentioned them earlier, but had they really been there before?
"Okay." He said slowly. "I'll take a leave of absence. I hate children anyway…"
"That's the spirit! Pack your bags and leave the school before tomorrow morning and I promise that in two weeks I'll have the whole thing sorted out." Dumbledore put a friendly hand on Snape's shoulder.
Snape smiled back, feeling a buzzing inside. Clearly Professor Snap had gotten to the headmaster.
"I'll see you in two weeks, sir."
Snape had received many gifts as soon as the students had heard he was taking a leave of absence. Many of these gifts involved free spa and hotel stays, not to mention the cards begging him to take as much time as he needed. Or to even not come back at all in exchange for buried treasure.
Knowing that children were stupid, he forgave their insolence. Before the sun had set, Severus Snape had crawled into Hogwart's ventilation ducts with his luggage. It was going to be a long two weeks, but he was sure as hell going to protect the school and the children. Stanwick Snap would not prevail!