Shampoo

Chapter Two - Girl Trouble

The bizarre behavior of the women continued throughout the next week and Snape finally avoided them by locking himself in his Potions classroom with a note on the door that mentioned he was working on his upcoming syllabus. He did, however, continue to use his new shampoo. He was growing rather fond of the scent.

The return of students was actually a relief. He strode into his first Potions class and glared about to catch as many unwary Gryffindors as possible for point deduction. To his disgust, all of the little brats were seated and quiet. Even Potter and his two shadows.

"Today you will be concocting a variety of sleeping potions. Depending upon the ingredients, these potions can put the subject to sleep for a few moments, or lock them into a deathlike sleep that can last millennia," he hissed. Every eye was upon him. To his annoyance, Granger's hand was already in the air. He hadn't even asked a question and the insufferable know-it-all was already clamoring to answer. He ignored her.

"You will be drawing lots to see which potion you will be--what Miss Granger?" The sight of her hand waving crazily was just too much to take. He glared at her.

"Professor Snape... erm..." Granger actually blushed and trailed off. Snape was surprised. He couldn't recall ever seeing the walking encyclopedia at a loss for words.

"Spit it out, Miss Granger," he said in as threatening a voice as he could manage. Hermione swallowed but continued gamely, "May I speak with you after class, Professor? It's... er... personal."

Before Snape could reply, five other hands shot up. Lavender Brown, Parvati Patil, Pansy Parkinson, Millicent Bulstrode, and Daphne Greengrass all had hands in the air waving like flags.

Snape sighed. "Ms. Brown?"

"May I speak with you after class, too, Professor?" Lavender gushed and batted her eyes at him in a strange fashion.

"Me first, Professor!" Pansy whined.

"It's very important that I speak with you, Professor!" yelled Millicent.

"I have the first appointment!" Hermione huffed.

"You're not even in Slytherin," Pansy cried and got to her feet. "He's my Professor, not yours!"

Granger rose and fingered her wand.

"We'll see about that, Parkinson," Hermione gritted. Pansy raised her own wand. Snape could not fathom how he had lost control of his classroom, but he wasn't about to let it continue. Six green jets shot from his wand and hit the girls. They collapsed in their seats, immobilized.

"You may all speak with me after class. Alphabetically by first name," Snape said in a deadly voice. "But it had better be very important. Now. If we may continue with the lesson?"

He recited the list of ingredients and put lots in his cauldron so the students would know which potion to create. He released the girls so they could draw their lots as he walked before each desk. The students were behaving quite oddly today. The boys glared at him as he set the cauldron before each of them--at least that was normal, thank God. But the girls were acting most strangely.

"Thank you, Professor," Daphne said with a giggle as she reached in and drew her lot. "I'm first you know. After class. D for Daphne." She giggled again and Snape clenched his fist on his wand to keep from hexing her with it.

Granger actually touched his hand when she drew her lot. In fact, how she managed to caress the length of his fingers was beyond him when his hand was at the far side of the cauldron. He glared at her suspiciously but she gave him a winsome smile. For the briefest moment, he noticed her teeth were not horse-like any longer. He wondered when that had been corrected.

Pansy actually pursed her lips at him and winked when she drew her lot.

"Do you need to go to the hospital wing, Ms. Parkinson?" he asked dryly. The other girls laughed until Snape silenced them with a look.

Thankfully, they got to making potions after that and Snape eagerly stalked about the class and pointed out their mistakes until Longbottom sobbed abjectly and Potter stared at him with immeasurable hatred. Malfoy grinned and Hermione shook her head and gazed at Snape with disappointment. Potions class was back to normal.

After class Snape went to his office and met with Daphne Greengrass, who was already there waiting for him. After five minutes of trying to get a word out of her when it seemed all she could do was stare at him and giggle, Snape gave her a Pepperup Potion and told her to get the hell out of his office. He had barely begun to rub his temples when Hermione Granger stepped in. For some reason, she had taken off her Gryffindor tie and unbuttoned several buttons too many on her white blouse. And wasn't her skirt far shorter than regulation? Granger slammed the door to shut out the voices of the other girls, which had started to become loud.

Granger sat on the edge of his desk, shoving aside several--thankfully stoppered--potions with her hip before leaning down toward him. Her blouse gaped open in a fashion most shocking... What the hell were Potter and Weasley thinking? It was well rumored that the two little idiots hadn't even snogged Ms. Granger, much less dared to lay a finger on the two melons staring Severus in the face at the moment. Youth really was wasted on the young.

"Yes, Ms. Granger?" Snape asked hoarsely and snapped his eyes back to her face in what he hoped was a most stern manner.

"Professor," she said breathily. "May I call you Severus?" She leaned forward even farther until Snape feared she would topple straight off the desk onto him.

"No, you may not," he said while carrying on a short debate with himself. He should lean backward to avoid her potential toppling, but such an act would be tantamount to cowardice. Snape would give ground to no one. So deciding, he thrust himself forward a bit and his forehead smacked into Hermione's as she (as foreseen!) toppled.

Snape slammed backward into his chair, followed by Hermione's full weight as she fell over the desk and onto him. She clutched his robes to steady herself as Snape's chair began to go over sideways. The room lurched and Snape found himself on the floor atop the curvaceously soft Ms. Granger. Their faces were inches apart and her fists were still clamped onto his robe. Her firm breasts were pressed enticingly against his chest and her legs were drawn up on either side of his waist.

"Professor, I was just wondering if you could tell me what ingredients are in this new lip gloss I bought," Hermione breathed. "I want to make certain it's not poisonous." With that, she pressed her lips firmly against his. After a shocked moment he realized he should extract himself, but her legs had wrapped themselves firmly around his buttocks and when he reached to dislodge them--where the hell had her stockings gone?--he found only a handful of bare thigh. Her hands had just gone from his robes to tangle in his voluminous and radiant hair and Snape had decided to taste her lip gloss after all (clinical curiosity only; she had asked) when someone set up a dreadful pounding on his office door.

"Granger!" Pansy Parkinson screamed. "You've been in there long enough! It's my turn!"

Snape tore his lips away from Hermione's.

"What happened to Lavender and Millicent?" he asked bemusedly.

"Who cares?" Hermione groaned and yanked his mouth back down to hers.

The door suddenly blasted off the hinges, showering Severus and Hermione in wood shavings and bits of metal. Pansy stalked around the desk.

"You Gryffindor slut!" she howled. "Get off of him."

Hermione released Snape's lips and glared at Parkinson over his shoulder.

"Actually, he's on me."

Snape coughed in embarrassment and tried to rise without touching Hermione, who was not making it easy by clinging to him as he got to his hands and knees. It was becoming apparent that Ms. Granger was starved for attention--perhaps he should slip a note to that idiot Potter...

He finally extracted himself and got to his feet and cleared his throat.

"Ms. Granger, I'll have that analysis for you tomorrow," he said in a nearly normal tone as he straightened his robes. "Thank you for breaking my fall. Most clumsy of me."

Hermione smiled and paused by the missing door. "No problem, Professor. By the way... I love your hair." She winked at him and sauntered out. Snape caught a glimpse of Lavender Brown, Millicent Bulstrode, and Parvati Patil sprawled on the dungeon floor, looking lifeless. Hermione stepped on Millicent's body on her way out.

"What happened to them?" Snape asked suspiciously. He wisely kept the desk between himself and Pansy as he re-entered the classroom. She leaped over the desk and caught the end of his robe. Snape struggled as she tried to reel him in like a hooked trout.

"Enough about them," Pansy crooned. "Come here, you big sexy Professor, you."

Before Pansy could pounce on him, Snape cursed her with another Immobulus spell. He looked at the fallen girls in disgust. What the hell had gotten into these females?

He shook his head and went back to his room to draft a stern note to Harry Potter.

Snape sat at his desk and shoved aside the dozens of love letters and notes that had steadily overtaken his work space in the week since school had resumed. Most were anonymous, some not. McGonagall's note was in a pink envelope embellished with a kitty face drawn in red ink and little hearts surrounding it. Snape shuddered and shifted the lot of them into a box for later reading if he got bored. A heavy parchment envelope caught his eye because of the lip-print smeared next to the scrawled Severus. He sniffed it curiously. Raspberry. He set it resolutely in the box with the others. This had to stop. He located a piece of blank parchment and readied his quill.

"Dear Mr. Potter," Snape's letter began. He scowled and crossed out Mr. Potter. No student would ever address a letter that way. Snape started again.

"Dear Harry." He sneered at the very idea of calling the Potter brat by his first name. "You might want to keep a closer eye on your friend Ms. Granger Hermione. In case you have not noticed, she has grown into quite the delectable wanton little fleshpot over the past--" Snape crossed out the entirety of the letter except for the salutation and sighed. This was turning out to be more difficult than anticipated.

"Dear Harry. It has come to our attention--" Snape patted himself on the back for that one; now it sounded like he was writing as a group, "--that your friend Hermione has been consorting in a most inappropriate manner with a member of Slytherin House. You would do well to curb her lustful tendencies appetites and direct them to someone in your own House before she shames herself more than she already has."

Snape sat back with satisfaction. He didn't bother to sign the letter. He licked his lips for a moment at the memory of Ms. Granger's raspberry flavored lip balm and her firm young body pressed beneath his... He stood up in a cold sweat. Bloody hell, he was old enough to be her... uncle. He went to the mirror and combed his voluminous locks for the sixth time that day.

Curse the uncontrollable magic of shampoo that had brought out his latent dead-sexiness. If only there were decent women of an appropriate age at this school. The hag-esque professors and nubile young students clamoring for his attention were starting to wear on his patience. In the past week, he had been forced to institute strict measures of control. Rules had been posted in his classroom that included:

*Students caught pinching the derriere of Professor Snape in or out of class will lose twenty house points

*Students caught groping Professor Snape's crotch or any other part of his person will lose fifty house points

*Students caught slipping a love potion (or anything else!) into Professor Snape's beverages will lose seventy-five house points

As an afterthought, he had been forced to add:

*Above rules apply to Hogwarts staff, as well. That includes you, Filch.

Unfortunately he had been forced to apply these rules quite strictly to the members of his own house (damn that persistent Pansy Parkinson!) to the tune of costing Slytherin House hundreds of points. Ravenclaw was currently in the lead on house points mainly because those crafty girls had learned how to torment Snape without being caught. He had found himself obsessing over Mandy Brocklehurst one morning and nearly sought her out to pledge his undying love before chugging a love potion antidote that he had--thankfully!--made part of his morning regimen. He still didn't know how the little minx had managed to slip it into his tea.

He picked up the hand mirror from his desk and peered at his reflection. He shook his beautiful mane of raven hair and sighed. He supposed he could stop using the shampoo and go back to being called a "greasy haired git" but he had become accustomed to having a grime-free scalp and was loathe to return to his former state. He set the mirror down with a sigh. They would all just have to get used to it.