Late Arrivals and Lifetime Rivals: Snape's Worst Halloween

Disclaimer: I do not own, nor did I create, nor do I seek to profit from the characters or the Harry Potter books. This is just for fun. Severus Snape claims that the author will pay for this second round of humiliation. Dearly.

I have told the Gringotts auditors repeatedly that I have no galleons.

PART 2

Chapter 15: Dodging Dodgy Owls

ONE YEAR LATER…

Halloween was in a week and parties were being planned all over the British Isles. It is a time when pumpkins lit with candles floated over the banquet tables at Hogwarts, and young children crowded the streets of Diagon Alley hoping for sweets. Even ghosts and other assorted magical beings held their own celebrations and festivities.

This was also the time of year Professor Severus Snape dreaded almost as much as Valentine's Day and Christmas. There was not a memory charm in existence or a branch of the Dark Arts that could rid him of the horrors he had experienced last year at the Order of the Phoenix Halloween party.

He had already looked into it.

He would, nonetheless, be invited again. He was quite sure it was inevitable.

However, he would be taking several precautions to have himself "uninvited" this year.

Charon, Snape's owl, entered the dungeons after being summoned from the owlery to Professor Snape's office.

Snape was at his desk marking Potions exams. He despised giving Granger bonus points. However, the insufferable know-it-all always managed to answer the questions correctly. Dumbledore felt that students should be offered incentives to research their class independently and more in depth.

Not all of the students attained extra credit. Professor Snape made the questions exceedingly difficult---on purpose, of course.

He slowly raised his head when he heard his owl swoop in.

"Charon, you will not accept any parchment from anyone that looks like an invitation. Be very aware of what you are handed this week when you collect my mail. If a particular piece of mail looks like an invitation, you have my permission to "misplace" it at your own discretion."

Charon nodded and tried to block out all thoughts of Professor Snape's costume from last year unsuccessfully.

Charon could not believe that he belonged to one of the most accomplished occlumens in modern wizarding times. He let out a breath of frustration and hoped Snape did not notice. You would think he would bloody pick up a thing or two on how to do it properly after being in Snape's possession for so long, he thought to himself. It would have come in handy as he strove to block the memory of his master's Halloween costume.

Snape dismissed Charon and the owl headed back to the owlery.

However, Charon did not like this request. He had a reputation as a first rate, dependable owl. He had won the "Eeylops' Top 10 Owls in the Wizarding World Award" three years in a row. He had been sired by Hades Malfoy, a famous owl, and his mother had been a Black. Snape seemed to enjoy this award as much as possessing the House Cup, because he rubbed it into the rest of the staff's faces that even his owl was superior to theirs.

Not that Snape enjoyed that his owl was technically related to Sirius's family owls.

Didn't Snape realize that no one would believe this rubbish? That he had "accidentally lost" an invitation. However, Snape had raised him since he was a baby owl and Charon, er, cared about him in his own way.

Charon thought that there was no way in hell he was going to be in the same league as Errol Weasley. Then again, the bloke was on his last wing. He pitied him. He could barely fly let alone in a straight line!

He would be the laughingstock of the owlery, and Charon had noticed how nice Grace, the tawny owl's feathers were just the other day…

But he knew better than to cross his master, and really, it wasn't like he didn't want to help him.

He would think of something. Charon was a Slytherin, after all…