Sometimes Snape felt certain that the only reason Lucius Malfoy had procreated at all was to ensure Snape was driven to the pit of despair by his mini-spawn. Malfoys throughout history boasted of their ability to instil in normally perfectly sensible people homicidal urges that would land them in Azkaban for life, and Draco Malfoy had evidently taken his lessons to heart and started a few years earlier than most.
How fortunate that the current trend among purebloods was to have only one child.
"A dragon," Snape said. He'd heard a great many absurd tales in his time as teacher – what teacher hadn't? – but someone smuggling a highly illegal dragon into a school? No, this story just edged out over the one he heard from a Gryffindor about being allergic to homework.
And paled in entertainment value against the time a sixth year of his house had decided to teach the Giant Squid to play fetch with muggleborn first years. An entirely unnecessary and cruel trick that had earned him two months in detention – it now spent every Sorting waiting patiently for first years to fall into the Lake, and was always disappointed.
Draco looked unrepentantly certain.
"A dragon," Snape repeated, just to be sure.
He nodded.
"…leave Draco."
"But what about--"
"Leave, Draco."
The boy stormed off in a huff obviously imitated from his father – no wait, Malfoys did not huff, Snape recalled, they stalked off in aristocratic fury. Either way, it looked childish on both the eleven-year-old boy and his father.
A dragon. This needed further investigation. Surely Hagrid couldn't be stupid enou-
Never mind. But it still needed further investigation.
Snape entered the classroom with the edges of his robes still smoking faintly.
"I expected times like this," he said wearily to Potter as he watched him hunch over his cauldron, frowning in concentration as he attempted to brew a potion from a curriculum two years above him. "I just didn't think they'd be so bad, so long or so frequent."
"Am I supposed to comfort you?" the boy asked from somewhere behind the copious clouds of steam, sounding vaguely curious as to his answer.
"Slytherins do not comfort." Snape said dispassionately, "The saying sink or swim really does apply. Except that in Slytherin, your fellow students will take bites out of you as you go down. Backstabbery is a fun pastime for us."
Harry blew his over-long black hair out of his eyes. "…remind me why anyone wants to be in Slytherin again?"
"Because we are, quite simply, superior in every way, and the inferior must be weeded out."
"Okay," Harry said at last, after the potion he'd been attempting congealed into a thick sludge that Snape suspected he could sell for good money to Jigger's as an anti-wrinkle cream, "I'll bite. What has happened that's so bad?"
"Hagrid-" Snape said the name as if it were synonymous with absolute, complete, wheel turning but the hamster's dead, stupidity, "--has an illegally hatched, fire-breathing baby dragon in his hut. His wooden hut."
"Hm," Harry said. Snape was pleased he had enough sense not to say 'Is that all', although he looked as if he wanted to.
"Draco," he continued, "Will be trying to get your brother and his sidekicks in trouble, and probably screw it up."
Harry raised an eyebrow eloquently.
"It's in his blood," Snape explained irritably. "I can do nothing about genetics, whatever else I may be capable of helping him with."
Harry contemplated this thought for a moment before nodding encouragingly at him to continue.
"And I have the terrible feeling that I am watching a chess game play out and the pawns are falling right into a trap."
Harry thought about this. "At least it's not Voldemort," he said at last.
Snape stared at him. "Actually," he said, "I'm quite worried it is."
"Ah," said Harry.
There was really nothing that could be said in response to that.
Snape suspected that Dumbledore had been snorting pixie dust. That was the only possible explanation he could think of for this latest turn of events.
"What is he thinking?!" McGonagall snarled from her seat by the fire, her hands stretching and flexing into claws.
Snape nodded understandingly, and offered a drink.
"Fifty points each?! We'll never recover enough points to get the Cup!"
Snape tried his hardest to appear sympathetic to her plight. Really he did. "You know of course, that it was all Hagrid's fault in the first place."
"Exactly!" She declared, irritated. "Wait. Are you telling me there really was a dragon?"
"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies," Snape said diffidently.
McGonagall took the sensible, sanity-preserving route, and declined to follow up on her query, returning to her original train of thought. "And the detention!"
"Over a month late and in the Forbidden Forest," Snape said, "Yes, I know. Suspicious, hm?"
"Suspicious?!" she growled. "Suspicious?! I've seen Death Eaters less suspicious!"
Snape winced minutely. McGonagall was almost Slytherin in her ability to push his buttons.
"Don't you have anything stronger, Severus?" she said curiously after a moment, swigging the Firewhiskey as if it were water.
Snape paused. He liked Minerva. Sometimes. She was fun to needle, had the stubbornness of a Gryffindor allied with the acid tongue of a Slytherin, and the way she managed to (repeatedly) keep him from simply offing Dumbledore in a fit of rage was nothing less than a work of art.
That didn't mean he was willing to part with his alcohol for her.
"Are we allowed to send first years into the Forbidden Forest?" he mused aloud, neatly sidestepping the question. "In fact, have we ever sent seventh years into the Forest for detention?"
"…not that I can recall off the top of my head," she said, calling a House Elf to provide more bottles of Rosmerta's finest mead. "Although I am sure that one day the Weasley twins will push me too far. But with something hunting unicorns in there?" She looked up and fixed him with a significant look. "Does this seem a mite too convenient to you?"
"Welcome, Minerva, to the service of the Greater Good," Snape said dryly. "Capitals optional."
"…Dumbledore." She said.
"Yes."
"Dumbledore," she said. Snape actually managed to feel a smidge of pity for the twinkle-eyed bastard. "You mean to tell me he will put my students in danger for – for--"
"A test," Snape said. "Absolutely. How better to determine that Dunce is worthy to face the Dark Lord at the end of the year?"
"…What do you mean?" she said after a long moment, deadly quiet. Snape felt the danger in her voice, never mind heard it.
"Come, Minerva. Why else send in students unable to do much magic at all, after something evil enough to kill a unicorn? And the Stone! The protection on it is ludicrous faced with the Dark Lord. Dumbledore is planning something."
Snape was impressed, not only by the volume, but by the scope, ingenuity and sheer vulgarity of her curses for Dumbledore. "It is a tempting idea, Minerva, I know," he soothed, "But you cannot simply storm into the Headmaster's office and threaten – or even attempt – to castrate him with rusty dagger."
The alternative she offered was even more painful, if possible. Snape was more than just impressed. He was quite willing to discard his innate hatred of Gryffindors and worship at her tartan-slippered feet.
"That too, would likely earn you a lifetime's pass to Azkaban," he said, a clear note of admiration in his voice.
"Thank you," she said after a moment's contemplation. "What, exactly, do you suggest we do, Severus?"
Snape thought about it for a long moment. As beneficial as Minerva's help would be to his campaign, only a Slytherin could understand the joy of destroying the well-laid plans of others. Only a Slytherin could truly appreciate the complexities of being part of the plan while at the same time looking at it from the outside and moving pieces while the master's back was turned.
"I'm sorry, Minerva," he said at last, with genuine disappointment. "But you have unfortunately been branded from Sorting with the red and gold of Gryffindor."
"I suppose saying 'go to hell' would be unprofessional."
Snape shrugged. "When has a Hogwarts teacher ever been professional?"
"Too true," she said shortly. "But seriously, Severus, you can't possibly expect me to—"
"Minerva, it takes a Gryffindor a year to solve a puzzle. Your graduating class has a tradition of wearing robes declaring 'Dare me. I am Gryffindor' on the back. This is a job for a Slytherin."
"…Severus, last year's graduating class of Slytherins wore badges saying, if I recall correctly, 'All your dark corners are belong to us.'"
"…'Gryffindor. Because thinking beforehand is overrated.'"
She glared. It was not on par with previous glares against (on various occasions) Filch, Quirrel, Dumbledore or the Weasley twins, but it was a terrifying thing nonetheless. "And your own graduating class," she continued loudly, pretending he hadn't spoken, "wore hats with silver sequin covered velvet snakes wrapped around them that hissed 'kill him, he's not one of ours' whenever faced with a student wearing the colours of another House."
"Well, with the Marauders graduating at the same time, we had to have something out of the ordinary that year."
"Still."
They argued long into the night, and the only discernable result at the end was that she agreed to alert him to anything truly out of the ordinary. He swore in return that he would do his best to ensure Dunce Who Lived got through whatever encounter Dumbledore had planned. He artfully avoided promising to make sure Dunce Who Lived was never forced into whatever encounter Dumbledore had planned in the first place.
He waited patiently for his godson to return – preferably in one piece – along with Longbotton, Weasley and the Dunce Who Lived, preferably in multiple pieces. He had a terrible feeling about this detention. Especially with Hagrid as the supervising authority. That was just asking for trouble.
It was early morning by the time Draco stumbled into his quarters, wide-eyed and shuddering. Snape couldn't quite recall, but he was fairly certain detentions weren't supposed to run after midnight, even inside the Castle. At least, Dumbledore had never let him torture students for longer than five hours at a stretch.
"Well?" he demanded curiously, looming over his shaken godson.
"…I saw a hooded figure drinking unicorn blood and you want me to give you exact rundown on everything that happened?"
"Yes, Draco, I do expect that of you. A Slytherin does not stop thinking when he is a dangerous position. If anything, you should be noticing everything and thinking faster than at your normal rate."
Which is only a little faster than a crippled flobberworm, he thought, but out of misplaced loyalty tactfully didn't say.
"But Sev-"
"Everything, Draco. The ability to think in a stressful situation will be useful for you one day, as will the ability to recall the minutiae of such situations after the event."
"What, for my nightmares?" he snorted.
Snape's flat gaze was even more terrifying than his habitual scowl. "If you regard that as nightmare, Draco, I weep for your future. Now. Start at the beginning."
"Okay, okay! The oaf split us into two groups-"
"On second thought, please tell me you're lying."
"Wasn't he supposed to do that?"
"…don't be a total idiot. Children, especially first years, unarmed and unable to do much magic at all – don't argue with me, Draco! – are not meant to go alone anywhere in the Forbidden Forest."
"…we had the dog."
"The dog. Well, that changes everything. Of course you were safe with that cowardly monstrosity around. Go ahead, Draco."
"So we were split into two groups…"
"I suspect a plot." Snape declared.
"In Slytherin?" Potter said dryly, looking up from his book, A Dark Lord's Guide to World Domination. "Who would have thought?"
"No, I mean an outside plot, involving one Dark Lord, one Philosopher's Stone and several traps that I suspect may have already been subverted."
"Ah." He paused. "Any chance my brother could be gravely injured?" he inquired hopefully.
Snape considered the potential situation for a moment, paying particular attention to Dunce's magical skills, impetuosity and the likelihood of the Dark Lord's personal involvement. "Quite a high probability."
"Do we actually have a problem, then?"
"Not unless you do something foolish," Snape said grimly.
The grin Potter gave him in response was so breathtakingly Lily Snape knew something was up. "I?" he said easily, the picture of innocence.
"You." Snape said flatly. "I will Petrify you and stick you to the Common Room ceiling if I feel I have to, Potter."
He laughed. Laughed. At Snape. "Are you worried about me, sir?"
"No." He took a very sharp silver knife from his workstation and tested the edge quite conspicuously. "Let me be very clear on this matter. You are going to disassociate yourself completely from such acts of stupidity as your brother perpetuates. You are going to train like you have no other thought in your head, and eventually you are going to defeat the Dark Lord, thus ensuring my continued survival. After that, I couldn't care less."
Harry raised an eyebrow speculatively. "If I were an evil overlord," he said, "You'd be much higher up the chain of command. I can't imagine Malfoy or his cronies being so practical. Or useful."
"Fortunately," Snape said, "You are not a Dark Lord in control of the magical community. And if you intend to be, I ask that you take good note of the fact that my actions towards you now are for your future benefit."
"Duly noted," Potter said pleasantly. "What are my brother's chances of mutilation?"
"I'd say about seven percent."
"Death?"
"Eighty-five, at least. Dumbledore is quite lax about his fail-safes."
"Insanity?"
"Impossible to quantify; that requires having sanity in the first place."
"Hmmm. Five galleons Volde—"
"Don't say it."
"-mort is thwarted in the matter of the Stone, but does some damage to him at least."
"How much damage?"
"Three days in the hospital wing, at least."
"Bet taken."