After meeting with Marlene and that exciting day he had, opening his heart to Pomona of all people, an event which in his previous life probably would have given him a heart attack, he felt like he had at least one adult in his life to whom he could trust. As Pomona was a protective mother hen and would viciously and gladly take down anyone who dared to harm one of her chicks.
He also saw the head of Hufflepuff was not so dall of a blade in battle, as she had dueled him quite skillfully.
So he tried avoiding troubles, holding his head down, and did not make himself a prodigy in every fucking subject. He continued chatting with Marlene about history, getting chummy with Frank over herbology, and tolerating Charity's hugs( morning hug, Hello hug, goodbye hug, surprise hug, you look sodding cute hug, I feel lonely hug...every stupid thing, really name it and the girl would name a hug after it, one time he had said in jest, he swore, that it is a day which Chinese folks go and hug a panda, she made a hug named panda hug day hug, and hugged him immediately because" he was pale like pandas had white fur and had jet black hair like pandas too". Frank had said that Persian people, he knew he was a prince and a bit of their history too, had a habit of hugging each other, if they are friends, in greetings. She named that a "Persian greeting hug for friends" In, in fact, the amount of insanity which happened in this school in a day was just enough that insured you get a bed in Janus thicky fucking ward for life in st Mungos)
It was his first Quidditch match tomorrow as a seeker, the first of many to come. It is not certain what lunacy came over him that accepted the offer, or over Pomona to sign him. He was no Potter, bloody boy who lived.
Maybe the Minerva incident?
He looked at the table, the dishes were full to brim with various food, kebabs, stew, soup, and whatever. He did not feel a tiny bit of hunger, was he nervous?
Minerva was going to be the referee, would she be fair? Or go for Snakes just to spite him? Can he get the sodding glowing ball of excitement called snitch? Merlin left foot! He really was being nervous!
He did not even notice the food had disappeared and desserts had arrived. He found out when Charity nudged him.
"Severus, can I have your cake? It looks delicious, and it is different from any other cake. Smells good and...
He motioned her to take the stupid cake before she made a hug named " Give me your desserts please" hug.
A second had passed when he heard Charity was coughing and clawing her throat.
She had difficulty breathing.
(Was she poisoned? Was she allergic? Was it something she took? What went wrong!)
The last thing she had...He got the cake and smelled it, walnut?
He panicked and started shouting:
HELP!HELP! PLEASE! ANYONE! SHE IS ALLERGIC AND SHE IS CHOKING, AND FUCK ALL THE STUPID WALNUT CAKES!
he shouted and cried and held her, and repeated those words like a mantra.
Minerva was on her last nerve. Tomorrow was the first game, with Hufflepuff and Slytherin, it was not important if not for the youngest seeker named one and only Severus Snape, the First Prodigy of Hufflepuff Since Helga herself and some poor healer sod she did not feel the need to remember.
And she took an oath so that child never comes to harm, not in her watch.
And she had to referee tomorrow. She hated that with a passion.
Albus, after recovering from his bout of stomach problems, which Minerva had no idea at all about, had changed his lemon drops to orange pastels, which were more tolerable, and sometimes she nicked one or two herself.
Pomona was telling them again about her favorite first year:
" Severus is excellent at charms and flying, also potions, and has a dab hand at creating spells, did I say he had created a silly spell, Facio Farina? It is a variation of the Facio spell created by the great Merlin himself, but it was something I am not sure about. Amazingly, he knows so much about artimancy, but he told me he used the expertise of his friend, Miss McKinnon. You believe she knows artimancy like some fourth years! Unbelievable what we got this year! Ohh and the spell is useful when you want to mark an invisible enemy, so a defective prodigy too...
Slughorn was the next one: boy is as good as my top third years, and I often do not teach him a thing, just make him petrol in class while I am correcting papers, when he sees a mistake, he calls me and I deal with it. He is quite a teacher, with a bit of a no-nonsense attitude, but with his brain...
She was thankful the boy went to sit at the back in her class and mostly got EE, she did not want to be one of his fan clubs at all.
( telling the truth would be that she was angry the boy did not do shit in her class, Horace and Filius got him(also somewhat miss Evans), Pomona got Longbottom for a favorite, and what she had? Potter and Black, who were in detention 8 days out of 7 days a week for pranks, or messing with Slytherins like Pettigrew and Mulcibor)
Filius sighed: it is not fair now that we can get rid of trouble twins (Prewatts) we get these three Marauders Griffs, the Slytherin group of troublemakers, and the quartet of catastrophe.
(The quartet of catastrophe was a name they had for Snape, Longbottom, Burbage, and Ravenclaw girl McKinnon, who pranked anyone who bullied another, if they were aware of the act and the perpetrators, their work was a work of art, as Marlene was artimancy genius, Frank a herbologist in the making and Charity too good at gathering info on anyone she wanted, add Snape and mix, the result was endless hours they had to work to undo their prank or just wait a day for it to go because it only lasted a day)
All of a sudden, there was a commotion at Hufflepuff.
" help, help, fucking walnut cake!
So no rest for the wicked, eh?
Severus ran after them, the teachers as they got Charity to the wing, when he was sure she was out of danger and just had to stay a day in the infirmary, the weight of guilt nearly crushed him.
He was not dimwitted, he knew what that meant for him, maybe because of tomorrow's match and that he stupidly passed that to Charity, how he was to know she had an allergy to walnuts?
Madam Pomfrey was still scolding both of them (mostly him, as Charity was half asleep):
"Why there is no mention of this kind of allergy in your form? You have been here for more occasions and spent more time than you were in history class, and don't you glare at me like that! I know you use that time to sneak in and go plan your pranks, but why did you see no fit to inform me? Your parents... or even your mother should have told...
When Pomona Whispered something in her ear (might be about the letter? If so, can he use it on other occasions to get out of trouble? Pitty was something he disliked, but when one gets stuck in a hard situation...) And she calmed then.
Okay, she added, is it walnut for you too?
"No, mine's peanut"
After other questions about how severe his reactions were and what medications usually worked for him, he went out of the wing, right into the minefield.
It was a quarrel between Minerva and Albus, over marauders and the Snake duo.
"It is those snakes I am telling you, Albus. Mr Mulcibor was humiliated by Snape, also Pettigrew. And tomorrow is the match in which they would have no chance with puff seeker. Put two and two together for Morgana's tits! They must somehow know he was allergic.
"Alas, Minerva, the boy is allergic to peanuts, and the attempt was on miss Burbage as she lies in the bed, so maybe was a payback for the prank she made last week, daring Black to hug Rosier and while before that she secretly soaked his robes in an invisible sticky potion in an attempt to, I quote" alleviate the problem between the two opposing houses and encourage unity" as mister Snape put it...
By the way, Mr. Snape, which argument do you agree upon?
(Fuck Dumbles, did he have eyes in his arse too? Because Sev was so tiny he was just about his waist, not eye level with any firsty even, let alone the tall eccentric lunatic of headmaster)
He cleared his voice
(Should he tell the truth? Or protect Peter? Because he was certain he saw him with Mulcibor, and he knew about peanuts, but also he had attempted to save him, by giving him walnuts and not peanuts, so he lied for him and risked his neck, because of him, even if a bit, but in not telling the truth to Albus, Mulcibor would run free)
" what I believe, sir, is that what was in that cake was walnut. And I and Peter are study partners, he is more...good at the transfiguration, and I tell him about potions, he also told me his granny is muggle-born, so he thinks of me as somewhat of a friend, so no, I don't think it was him. And Gryffs mostly put coloring charms on my head, making me blond. Or give me rabbit ears and call me smart pants, not them too, maybe a bad accident? Because no one knew I have a such thing...
Minerva narrowed her eyes, she did not believe him at all.
Albus cleared his glasses and said" well in that case, I suppose we can make a list of student's allergies and give them to the kitchen, and Madam Pomfrey, is it not better dear Minerva?
Minerva sighed and caught her face in one of the mirrors around, she had now another Grey hair, a new one, just because of Mr. Snape.
She hoped he was satisfied with this and did not plan to make her bald until graduation.
She decided Albus's robes tomorrow can get a change of color, what about a whole black outfit?
Chapter End Notes
Pomona: why is Albus's robe Black today?
Filius: Maybe he had no clean ones, I heard there was a case of exploding pumps of sewage last night in his room, an elf swore he had said himself to another elf and shoved a giant lemon cake down his toilet which made everything go wrong.
Minerva while drinking coffee to wash the aftertaste of sodding polyjuice she used to look like Albus: oh, I am sure that it is the month anniversary of him quitting lemon drops.