Even Old Morose Bats Can Get Soft

The vaulted, dank storeroom stood mute like an ancient sepulcher. Nymphadora leaned back against the peeling, fusty wallpaper, shuddering from crown to toes. Slowly, timidly, she raised a finger to skim over her lower lip. It and its upper neighbor were still tingling after the Potions Master’s burning kiss. Equally lingered his fervently gleaming gaze in her vision, and the feeling of his strong sinewy arms around her.

She gulped. It was as though a rhino in caffeine high had been jumping up and down inside her thorax. So hard pounded her heart against her ribs.

What had just happened? What in the great wide galaxy HAD HAPPENED?

The confusion was complicated to measure. One quarter of her could not believe a single second of the near history, one eighth was as mad as an insulted Hippogriff, one third trembled in slight fear, one sixteenth was manically searching for answers, and the rest bits were rolling in plain chaos.

Was she seeing a weird dream of some sort, or had Severus Snape just kissed her? Tonks trailed the finger along her lip. Yes, that was what the professor indeed had done. And that fishy kiss had definitely not been any slack, clammy fish kiss, but far, far something else...

But WHY? That vampire-looking uncanny man had dragged her here in order to explain something. Was it this he had wanted to tell? Or moreover about the sentiment behind it?

The questions, which had fleeted across her cranial cavities briefly after the first cheek conflict, returned. She could neither comprehend where and how such a passion had been woven, nor how long Snape had let it mature behind that eerie, impenetrable appearance. And if there was an affection... What the gamboling galoshes did he supposedly see in her? She was only this hazard-hurricane, a klutzy half-dotty goof-off with no overflowing attractor factors. Of course Tonks was able to switch her looks in a blink. But the form she usually chose was no dazzling Barbie girl with silicones and an overly perfect snow-white smile straight from a toothpaste ad.

So, why, why, why? A small brook of anger trickled down the hills of her bewilderment. After his bizarre behavior, the man had just rocketed away like that! How unmannered and weird. No explanation at all why he had let this choking downpour of kisses rain upon her. That wizard had of course stuttered some kind of croaky apologies, but they did not much enlighten her. The girl could not quite grasp Snape’s gargantuan shyness, since this feature fit that sly ol’ sneerer just as well as chili ketchup matched strawberry jam.

Nymphadora slowly emerged from the grimy closet. Slightly dizzy, her brain cells needed fresh air after all these dank occurrences. She hardly recalled the Order meeting continuing downstairs, but absent-mindedly minced out of the front door. Outside, the fresh pong of putrid garbage did not really bring any difference to the odorously moldy air of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. But perhaps the breezy wind would sweep the puzzlement away a bit... Or would it, after all?

No. The answerless alphabets w, h, and y, together forming the cryptic word ‘why’, were buzzing and zooming around her head. Was this real, or merely some dotty dream, like the one where she had been a purple bonnet and married the Hogwarts Sorting Hat? What if the girl would in a moment wake up in her warm bed, and consequently give a hearty snort to the sheer ridiculous concept of Mr. Snape acting that way?

Nonetheless, it seemed that she was neither hallucinating lethally, nor experiencing any nocturnal ludicrousness. What was this blasted mumbo-jumbo that was going on? The creek of growing annoyance surged more and more vehemently. This was no way to treat her! His serpentine stealthiness was plain unjustifiable. She wanted a straight, frank answer to this, not any nebulous meandering mumbles. Nevertheless... was she going to let the male wriggle back to her, or would she drop him a snappy letter demanding the truth?

The Auror sighed, standing in the middle of a narrow sand path, a broken lamppost dully creating inexistent glow above her. The branches of the nearby spindly trees creaked lightly. She actually had no clue how to take this, how to go on. Or... would it be perhaps healthy for her sanity to let a few days wander past, and in the meantime recompose the emotional operetta? Somehow she felt awkward to grab a quill and start scribbling him a letter. What was she going to say? A Howler was out of question. After all, she was supposed to be addressing an elder, rather powerful and influential wizard. Somehow her vocabulary was abruptly suffering from bad malnutrition. Her lips could form no coherent sentences, and her hand was not prepared to bring those down onto parchment either.

And what about the warnings both Sirius and Lupin had given her? Although the werewolf’s hints about Snape’s shadiness had not been as blunt as his friend’s, they still added more pepper into the soup. “Don’t get overly friendly with that slimy git; he’s not to be trusted...” Sirius’s murmur promenaded across her mind. Apparently the Animagus had his reasons to hate the Hogwarts teacher. Was Snape somehow dangerous, a sly boghole of death that should be avoided by any means? Would she need to kick the mystery man totally out of her awareness? Should she, from now on, consider him as insignificant as a putrid prune every time she tippytoed past? But that would be just foolish. Ignorance was not a solution. Besides, why would Dumbledore trust this enigmatic individual, if he were not to be trusted? He just plain could not be an insidious wraith if he risked his last squeak to be a fake Death Eater.

Everything seemed to clash with itself, and conflict with another conflict. Thus... perhaps she would wait. Sort out her thoughts and ponder. In addition, she positively wanted no external ‘problem-solvers’ to interfere with this. One hint to Sirius, and Snape would possibly possess much less teeth after Black’s knuckle sandwiches. No, her lips would remain zipped.

Among all oddness, there existed one illogical issue more. Who the heck was dumping butterflies in her stomach when she recalled his feverish kissing? Why did her cheeks start shimmering, why did this slightly giddy coyness flare up in her every time Tonks replayed the mental videotape of today’s Reality TV episode, starring an Auror and a Potions Master? And although the bloke was almost twice as ugly as the gargoyle guarding Dumbledore’s temporarily-ex-office, this fact oddly did not reduce the swirling sensation. Whatever fears or phantoms dwelled in the obscure alcoves of her heart, Snape’s burning emotion behind that kiss could neither be forgotten nor neglected.

---

Severus stared at the vault of curtains that arched grimly above him. Although only the first beams of the morning sun had brushed over the dawning summer landscapes, the man was wide-awake, sprawling in a weirdly shaped parcel under his bedsheets. The world churned and gurgled in a black whirlpool of shame around him. The ebony night of sorrow had eclipsed the little joy and hope there had been in his illusions. Everything was gone. There was no return, was there? Oh if someone only had clipped off the whole previous day from the continuation of history, and burned that infernal pest into ashes... His own stupidity had forced him to drink this barrel of Stinksap. Just because he had so desperately wanted to feel Nymphadora’s lips on his, hold her, sense her softness...

The dark cupola of the four-poster hangings stood silent, emotionless. The room was chilly. The blanket over his shivering limbs seemed to be made of wire netting: so much callous frostiness it radiated. Snape’s eyes were prickling. A burning, putrid taste - as though he had enjoyed a bowl of hot guano for breakfast - remained on his palate. Gulping and spluttering did not make this delicate flavor of dung vanish.

It was all over. She had to be loathing him. Him, the ugly old fool, who had lost his senses...

How could he ever pop in the Order meetings again, with this blaring neon sign of embarrassment stamped on his forehead? Unless Tonks had sealed her lips, by now everyone would know about his unsuccessful kissy-kissy coo-coo. Today his detestable name was probably the hugest joke in the phoenix circles. A gargoyle-like grimace warping his visage, Snape could picture Sirius roaring with laughter in the middle of a jeering crowd, salting the month’s top lampoon with a bit of behind-the-scenes tidbits about old Snivelly’s teen habits to use extremely rarely washed underwear.

All over...

Perhaps dreams truly were meant to be mere phantasms, not anything that would actually become true. The clouds drifting in their high empyreans maybe looked like fluffy, intact pillows for a pathetic ant that ogled at them from the moulds of the earth. But the one that had actually touched the clouds and glided through the misty vapor, knew the cruel secret they carried. It was all cold floating haze, nothing solid, nothing within reach. Perhaps just alike were Snape’s reveries...

What an idiotic cliché. His own days had become like one of those exaggeratedly sappy romance novels Professor Sprout half-sniveling frequently read in the staffroom. Those pink stupidities that were so much plashing in the oozing honeyed goo of desperate liaisons, that they made the reader’s fingers tacky...

On the other hand, he had choked down zillions of pungent issues during his life, and still managed to roll on. A broken heart was not amended with a single Reparo. But somehow he would need to dig it up from the emotional cemetery, sew its shreds together, and place it back in his chest. It might take a quarter of eternity before it would be strong enough to pump wholly the vital elixir of life into the numb coldness of his body. Nonetheless, maybe one day his pitiful foolishness would fall into utter oblivion, and he would care no more... It would be all forgotten, the last drop of this vinegar would be swallowed.

He rubbed his eyes with gnarled knuckles. Why did they constantly feel as though a miniature sand storm had been swirling inches before them, incessantly blowing needle-sharp grains towards his sore pupils? Unfeasible. Stretching finally like a sloughing serpent, he sat up.

Through the small gap in the four-poster hangings, he saw how the hourglass slowly let the sand fall through its slim waist. Pouting, Severus grated his teeth. No, even that cursed, insufferable substitute of a cuckoo clock with its curvy, slender form was reminding him of her. He frowned grimly at the teasing object from under his sharp-edged bushy brows. Stupid Tonks-impersonator. If the sand inside had been bubblegum pink, Snape probably in his anger would have whacked the insufferable mocker broken.

So... it was returning to the everyday of Hogwarts. It was an early Monday morning. The Potions Master would not however need to master much potions in front of the shuddering students before the next term. While the other students were panting with their end-of-term exam marathon, the rest were chasing either OWLs or NEWTs. The latter examinations had begun already the previous week. Today the Toad Restaurant had the Potions OWL test on its menu, together with some NEWT dessert Severus could not initially remember.

Since the common professors did not necessarily need to be present at the super-mega-grade examinations, Snape was free to sulk in his chambers the whole day if he wanted. And that truly was on top of his to-do list. Briefly he planned the schedule of the day. 8:00-10:00 Moping. 10:00-12:00 Sulking. 12:00-13:00 Petulant lunch. 13:00-14:00 More sullen sulking. 14:00-15:00 Morose scowling. 15:00-16:00 A bit more moody muttering...

However, abruptly a weird noise coming from the chamber’s rear corner cut short his brooding.

“Hoot!”

“Hoot hoot?”

“Hoot hoot toot!”

“Hoohoo hohohoo hoot?”

“Ho ho ho!”

“Blurrrp!”

“Merlin’s beard! What is this...?” Snape tore the hangings aside. He had still been coiling resentfully in their shelter with no view of the entire chamber. And indeed, a rather bizarre panorama spread in front of his hooknose.

The hindmost nook of his bedroom had transformed into a bird bedlam. A weird collection of feathery creatures perched on a single chair, around his doomed wizard hat. Half a dozen mini-owls, similar to the hat’s lodger, were chippering cheerfully with the proud mommy. A solemn-looking eagle owl squatted on top of the seat’s backrest, letting occasionally out a few deep baritone hoots. Adjacent to it huddled a fat, ruffled barn owl. It looked slightly lack-witted with its round bulging eyes, which were concurrently looking towards east and west. Beside this latter birdie pal roosted an oddly familiar-looking pigeon, equally joining in to the ornithological conversation with burbling coos.

The explanation to this close encounter of the third kind was that the happy owl mother had simply invited some friends to meet her yet unborn family. Haughtily she patted the egg pile with a wing, and went on with her gibbering.

Snape’s eyes flashed menacingly. What was this diabolical interruption that had crushed his brooding? How had these unbearable vermins gotten into his magic-protected premises?

“SILENCE!” he bellowed, shaking his both fists in the air. “Get out of here, NOW!”

But the owls did not seem to care much about the tantrum of the greasylocks. They merely glared at the killjoy, some of them shrugging and rolling their eyes. Apparently the nesting female had tattled them what a grouchy old scarecrow her roomer was. Yet, the pigeon’s reaction was considerably different. Feathers whirling, it spurted up into the air like a cannonball. It let out a very un-pigeonlike squeal that sounded amazingly like the dying gurgle of a wounded boar. It had recognized the professor’s grimacing sallow face. It was that dreadful fraud statue from the dingy London backstreet! In blind horror, it started zooming around the bedroom, colliding with walls, searching for an exit. Even if the panicky animal had been dumped full of tranquillizers, the tailspins would not have stopped. Lastly the birdie crashed through the chamber’s rather thick oak door, leaving a reedy pigeon-shaped hole in the middle of the gracefully carved, polished wood.

A cloud of dirty-gray feathers was elegantly hovering down towards the flagstones, like a gentle snowfall that was slightly sooty because of all the Muggle polluting. The owls around the chair hooted as excitedly as before. Severus felt as though hot lava had been flowing out of his ears and nostrils. Would he need to flit all the way to Pluto with his broomstick, so that he could retain his surly stillness?

Thus the emotionally beaten man decided to dress up and slither upstairs to have some breakfast. Nonetheless, the gastronomical finesses could not satisfy the lovelorn heart. On the very contrary. Sorrow had its own dreadful ways to drive a depressed person to hate the pap that went down one’s gullet. Although the freshly baked soft baguette was deliciously covered with marmalade, although the mildly stewed coffee wafted with deep oriental aromas, it was as though trying to chew old carpet and take gulps of lukewarm rotgut. The staff table was timid. Every so often Severus secretly scowled at McGonagall who was slurping at bergamot tea a few stools apart. How much did the cat know about the bat’s blunders? Was she also a part of the sneering gang his pessimistic imagination had whipped up? On the other hand, such bratty behavior would have been extremely out-of-character for Minerva. Despite the certain intermittent grudge between Slytherin and Gryffindor House, the Animagus was a great and loyal friend to him, alike Dumbledore.

How foolish he was... in the whole essence of foolishness.

Snape stared at the bacon on his plate. Was he just ludicrously paranoid, or had his gustatory nerves made a conspiracy against him? Professor Flitwick in the farthest end of the table was eagerly chomping bits of the same nosh. So the food was not devious, but his own nerves had stealthily turned to the Dark Side. His sallow fingers jostled the unsavory delicacies aside. Soon, a familiar set of black robes billowed out of the Great Hall.

How long would the bitter memories need to travel before they would arrive in the forecourt of Oblivion? How tardy was the voyage going to be? When would the shame be washed off?

Snape’s steps were aimless. After the sparse breakfast crumbs, he had not wormed down into the dank dungeons, but roamed around the corridors, occasionally peeking in to the examination spaces. In his absent-minded crankiness, he kept docking house points from nearly everyone who - for his or her misfortune - tiptoed past. Like an army of scornful poltergeists, the memory of his own stupidity pursued him, not letting his heart rest even a nanosecond. His exasperation was so blind and deaf, that he twice inadvertently robbed points from his own house, and even attempted to give detention to the Hufflepuff ghost, the Fat Friar. Luckily he halfway during this gaga gaffe startled awake from his heedless resentment. Apologizing to the ghost, he glided away like a vanquished Dementor.

The self-accusations were crawling side by side with the hours, multiplying at hideous speed like a nasty bacteria growth. The other half of him wanted to remain invisible for Tonks for the rest of his life, and sink deeper inside the pit of solitude. The second half on the other hand demanded him to strip the blinding bandages from before his eyes, straighten up, and go to explain the damsel directly how sorry he was. But here the neurotic man’s spunk tripped over, did a somersault, and rolled to wallow in the gutter of shyness and discomfiture. He cursed his own weakness into the hottest infernos, but that fierce damning did not aid the situation. If Snape only had comprehended how he was murdering slowly his own self-confidence with all this swearing, rather than building it stronger so that he could better have faced the challenges.

Severus and his bat-cape fluttered past the domed doorway of the examination hall. The sight was not prone to lift up his spirits. Oh, all the precious time he had sacrificed for those incompetent sparrow-brains... The whole subtle art of Potions was marred and dishonored, oh the deca-shame of this day! Beneath the noses of the examiners, Goyle was chasing his cauldron that had turned oddly rubbery. Hectically it bounced crisscross the vaulted room, around the pillars, its nervous owner flinging his arms in the air and demanding it to come back. Some meters farther, Blaise Zabini’s cauldron was wobbling, hiccupping, and burping out weird, rainbow-colored smoke ringlets, as though it had been enjoying certain kinds of not-recommended-to-eat mushrooms.

Sharply the Potions Master turned about on his heels, and massaged his throbbing oily temples. Why, why did everything have to be such a giant circus? His bedroom under an owl invasion, an insufferable ministry-bootlicker swelling toadishly in the place of the proper Headmaster, and then these curses of his imagination...

Namely... despite the humiliation, Nymphadora’s sweet face had never left his vision. Her scent lingered in his nostrils, his lips still fondled her, his fingertips furthermore felt the delicate softness of her cheek... Even though the child was beyond unbreakable barriers, eternities away, there still was the embrace, the haunting of the last caress...

*******

Haphazardly, time began fleeting onwards in oddly large nuggets. Soon Tuesday and Wednesday were history, and along them, a few OWL exams were brushed in the dustpan and thrown away with the other historical soot. Thursday leapfrogged forwards, and Snape increasingly spent his moments of seclusion by gliding along the cold dark castle corridors. This straying had its advantages. He was better suited to spy the Toad Baroness’s schemes by soaring around the archways than by dosing toxins in his office. The main reason for him staying out of the sunlight was, of course, that the overly blossoming summer was only another link to her. The stroke of the warm sunlight was just like the hold of her soft hands, the glitter of the sunbathing lake just like the twinkle or her bright, honest eyes... However, the chaffing solar rays never penetrated the thick castle walls. Hence he made also the actual mures a part of his mental masonry, again mutilating his ill self-assurance, and adding more weight to his grief.

Yet, there furthermore was the positive aspect of the prowling of toads. Snape’s overlarge nostrils indeed had the whiff that the frog was plotting something new. Perhaps the trombone-rumble of his conscience would cease if he laid his thoughts onto something else besides the incredibly wonderful world of potions. This school needed definitely some more constant vigilance.

Unfortunately his vigilance was not quite constant. Just a tad after the practical part of the Astronomy OWL had begun, the bat had cruised down into the dungeons. The major reason for this was that the allegory of the Official Voldemort Fan Club had been burning black, several times in row. The Potions Master had Dumbledore’s orders on what to do if the sweetie emblem kept scorching him too often. The Order needed to be alerted in cases like this. So that at least a miniature army would be at hand, if the Dark Lord suddenly popped up in the Buckingham Palace, a serious coup d’état in mind.

The phoenix buddies had more efficient ways to inform each other than the Floo Network, owl post, newt news, or snail mail. The thought of facing any of those Order members after Sunday’s farce was stomach-churning for Severus, but the options were rather sparse. Since he had not caught Professor McGonagall anywhere in the near corridors, it was perhaps the best to have a quick blabber with someone in the Headquarters itself. The channel he was going to use, allowed discussion with only a single individual at a time, not with the whole flock.

The Dark-Marked male was fishily interrupted just before he was about to start his conclave. He was crouching over a wee rickety table, an engraved silver platter under his hooked beak, a fizzling green vial in his fingers. Just then, a fierce booming fired up behind his office door. In a breeze, Severus made the thingamabobs vanish, and whirled semi-nervously about to open up. Why was someone being violent to his office door just now? Had someone found out about his schemes behind the scenes?

Luckily this was not the case. Professor Sinistra had a very defensible conniption beyond the exit. She was puffing as though she had just run three times around Wales. Her black hair was falling off from her bun, her round glasses were askew, and she was clutching at a stitch in her chest.

“Phhh - Wfii...” she wheezed between the gasps. “H - Hagrid has bh-been sacked... Pffff - buh-bh-but Bhfroff - Professor McGhh-onag-hhhall! Wfiuu... Th-they sffh-stunned her, I saw it! Quick! It’s that Umbridge!” She pointed a trembling finger up in the direction where she believed the courtyard to begin.

“Whaaat?” Snape’s long thin face fell, making him look vaguely like an albino Thestral. When someone mentioned Professor McGonagall, stunning, and bulging toads in the same sentence, most probably nothing very jolly was chiming in the air.

When the bat and his companion finally reached the proximity of Hagrid’s cabin, a little herd of other teachers had already gathered around the night’s victim. The staff members were grumbling irritably, a few of them openly shaking fists towards the pile of stunned stunners further near the Forbidden Forest. Snape hurdled towards the unconscious old woman, at the same time listening to professor Sprout’s teary lamentation about the Toad’s inhumanity. The tiny Professor Flitwick was squeaking incantations, and conjuring stretchers for Minerva. The flickering wandlight, together with the starry lanterns arching above the morbid scene, were clearly showing how hard the spell torpedoes had smashed against her. The old Animagus was barely breathing, and her heart pumped in an inauspiciously lazy way. Clearly she was teetering on the edge of life and ghostdom. And if the worst case occurred...

Severus did not want his awareness even to skim that sinister possibility. Although he had painted his outer appearance with the camouflage of cynicism, his inner cobra was hissing and baring its venomous fangs at Umbridge. How dared that accursed mutant frog and her pathetic grub lackeys attack Minerva this way? He would avenge, certainly. In some indistinct furtive means, when an appropriate occasion for pay-pack time would arise... And even if Madam Pomfrey saw no light in the end of the tunnel, he would be ready to mix squelching oozes in his secret lab without a fortnight’s slumber in order to save the poor McGonagall.

And when Snape later on, during the dark and shadowy hours of the ominous night, heard that Minerva had been transferred to St. Mungo’s, it opened to him that he was the single Order member left at Hogwarts. The responsibility of guarding a certain scar-head was lying solely in his palms, whether he wanted it or not.

As novel duties were this way shoveled on top of the mile-high heap of existing ones, his brains double-locked, and pushed the hallucinations of Tonks out of his scull for a while. But when the upcoming Saturday morning would dawn with a blood-red aurora - the winds wailing the jeremiad of the lost and hurt - the emotional seals would crack broken on their own.

---

Snape dozed off at the staff table, head drooping lopsidedly over his barely gnawed breakfast. The following morning after the half-giant tournament had dawned. It had painted a five-o'clock shadow on his jaws, and some more shading under his eyes. This shadow-painter had brought along no glittering hope whatsoever, when it had crawled forth from beyond the horizon. Hogwarts was the same stampeding pack of warthogs as it had been since Dumbledore's flight. And the chaos only seemed to increase.

Snape's temple veins were throbbing. Massaging them did not aid. Only a good deep sleep would have given relief in the middle of this stress test. The man had not closed even half an eyelid the previous night, but had tenaciously toiled with toxins in his office. Dormancy would have been in any case rather difficult. His poor bedroom, which seemed to have become an alternative Owlery, was suffering from ruthless lack of peace. Not only the nesting bird's visitors had stayed for the night, but had also romped in such a way that even fossils would have woken up from their eternal siesta.

Twice during the night, Severus had popped in this palace of pandemonium. For the first time he had peeked in, the half a dozen mini-owls had thoroughly invaded his four-poster. Apparently they regarded it as a giant funfair complete with the world's coolest slide and trampoline. While the other half had been jumping up and down on the springy mattress, the second half had been sliding down the heavy curtains, where they formed a dome of certain kind with sloping canvas walls. When the frustrated Potions Master for the second time had stepped in, towards the morning, the gamboling had ended. The nano-owls had finally huddled together to snooze. The other winged fauna had been equally asleep. But the winsomely placid-looking panorama had been furthermore full of rumble. The fat barn owl had snored so loudly that small crumbs of mortar had been falling down from the ceiling. With each inhale, the ruffled bird had swollen like a feathery balloon, becoming almost entirely round, and produced a booming, bubbling snore. Then it had begun deflating rapidly, emitting a high-pitched whistling sound on the way. There the animal had inflated and shrunk again endlessly, squatting inside one of those large goblets set on his nightstand. Oddly enough, its stertor had not disturbed the other owls at all, but they had been able to retain their blissful nocturnal calmness.

Thence, the professor had never been blessed with sleep. At sunrise, McGonagall's mega-magic medicine had been ready to be sent to St. Mungo's. Nobody was to snort or cackle at this remedy, or consider it something as worthy as basilisk droppings. The old bat belonged to the elite league of the very few wizards in the whole wide world, who were talented enough to brew Veritaserum. Thus, if someone doubted his ability to mix efficient medicaments, this individual could be with good conscience called an ignorant mallard-brain. And how the drug had been smuggled to Minerva... It had been sly, stealthy underground work. The Order had so far spread its tentacles even over this very hospital, and had its teensy weensy establishment there among the Healers.

Therefore, the potion had been tossed towards London, and the semi-sleepwalking, mega-tired Severus had dragged himself up to peck some breakfast. Now the weight of his responsibilities truly began pushing his shoulders down. Sleeping had become a prohibited pleasure. He had to be alert, and keep a Legilimency-equipped eye on that overswelling toad. This spider-in-a-frog's-disguise was bound to weave more sticky webs and enlarge the existing limbo.

His upper body drooping over the table, the tip of his nose barely inches from the wooden surface, Severus tried sipping at some black coffee. In his fatigue, he paid no attention to how half of his greasy locks were bathing in the porridge bowl. The food tasted just as much like soggy cardboard as the previous day, and hence he had once more jostled it aside. If only the coffee had activated his scheming sensors, and made him feel less like a Blibbering Humdinger... If only his eyelids had not resembled malfunctioning blinds that kept flopping down on their own...

However, it was not the caffeine that made him flinch awake from the stupor. It was a mind-rending, overhoneyed teeheehee coming from the left end of the staff table. Infuriated by the sheer effect of this irksome tiny laugh, Severus flung his head leftwards. He spotted Umbridge gibbering with professor Vector, who looked as though she had swallowed a whole basket of rotten eggs. As he unnoticed whisked his cranial cube so violently, his hair swiftly emerged from the porridge dish and sent lobs of the sticky mush flying in a graceful arch towards Madam Hooch’s face.

Snape grated his unbrushed teeth. No, he was not supposed to show his temper openly. That cursed amphibian alien deserved to be enclosed into a den full of ravenous Blast-Ended Skrewts right now and here. But still, still he would need to maintain the coolness of the North Pole. Thus, while his other brain lobe processed insidious spying plots - reluctantly admitting that he would also need to log Potter’s every gait from now on - the other lobe knitted some saucy retaliations to bash the foul Headmistress. Oh how all these torture visions tickled his hemi-evil mind, putting his thin lip curl every time he shot a side glance at the victim-to-be. In the left end of the table, Dolores appeared almost too cheerful, trilling like a toadlike sparrow. Obviously she was so exhilarated about Minerva's fate, that she could not suppress the gloating. Around her, the mind-crumpling silvery laughter made everyone cringe in turn.

Snape traced his lower lip with one long finger. How to commence? Something light and plain it ought to be for starters. Like a prelude... Public humiliation, perhaps... That was always the most gratifying way to avenge. Then, perhaps something subtler afterwards. A bit of delicious undercover hexing... And, he was not going to be caught, ever. Severus always had a nice assortment of dark jinxes lurking in his pocket. And the vile ol' sneerer would not be too shy to use them, if it meant plashing in wicked glee subsequently.

Quite soon the breakfasting students had to be expelled from the Great Hall, because the History of Magic OWL would briefly start. Along with this large-scale expulsion, also the teachers took a hike. Severus, who in his endocranial scheming factory had canned all kinds of hexing scenarios, stealthily swept after Dolores, his black cloak swinging dramatically behind him. So... where to start? Should he resurrect the evil rubber duckies? Or turn the dried flowers in her lace-inferno office into a jungle of carnivorous plants? Or perhaps imitate the charming Potter patron and flip the frog upside down?

While his sneaky self was gloating with a sinister muwahahaha, a wee voice somewhere in his subconscious whined that he should not waste the whole day on playing a Mini-Voldie. There were far more crucial issues to pay attention to. Besides being Potter's watchdog - or moreover a watchbat - he would need to converse more frequently with the Order. Unfortunately the bogus baddie had missed several of the newest Death Eater sessions. He was not fully aware of what He-Is-Going-To-Strike-Tonight-But-Snape-Does-Not-Know-That was conspiring. Even during the previous night, his icky tattoo had been burning like salt being poured into open wounds. Old Tommy was indeed not snoozing, but probably thrusting his lackey army into a mission of some sort.

After all, the Dark Lord wanted the Prophecy. It had been his major obsession since his reincarnation...Why would he be summoning his servants unless he was about to commit something crucial concerning the Department of Mysteries? Severus was no tomnoddy turnip. He often guessed Voldemort's tactics rather accurately.

Hence, Snape's Dark Curse exhibitions were left somewhat sparse. As he saw Dolores beginning to waddle up the marble staircase, the lurcher retreated into the murky dimness of the Slytherin escalators. The visual range was sufficient... His narrowed black eyes glittered malignantly.

"Tölpel, Affe und Klebstoff, sie ist ein riesenhafter Holzkopf!" he whispered.

A tiny flick of wand, and a teensy puff of gray, almost transparent mist appeared to hover in the air. It looked so innocent that almost one could spot an aureola glimmering just above it. As the Potions Master brushed down the slippery, time-beaten stone stairs, this cloud of vapor began soaring towards the Frogmistress.

“And it shall be trivial to follow your pathetic games while you remain nice and silent for a while...”

*******

“Hymm hymm hemhehemm hemmity hemm teeheehee hiihihii...”

Dolores coggled up the escalator, humming some fresh, tuneless toad-song she had apparently composed herself. Her eyes bulged with heinous happiness, and even the ugly pink bow roosting on top of her mousy, curly coiffure seemed sugarily giggling with spiteful pleasure. It was her jubilee day. Both the ‘dangerous half-breed’ and the Gryffindor boss were gone with the wind. She was now the One and Only, the Alpha and the Omega, the Super-Supreme High Commander of this school. Nobody was left to resist her! The Headmistress was literally wobbling with excitement, thus making herself increasingly look like a squat bullfrog that had just gulped down a whole tussock full of juicy flies.

Crooning and hemhemming there, she suddenly felt an odd itching sensation in her side. In a few seconds, the feeling grew so unbearable, that she had to stop in the middle of the staircase to scratch herself. Soon the mange was attacking her from every side like a fleet of starving mosquitoes. Shortly, the toad was scraping herself as though she had been a pediculous ape. Squirming and puling, she attempted to reach her back in vain with those stubby short arms. A few students who lumbered past, stole curious glances from one another. They had to bar the chambers of laughter with latched doors, so that the torrents of titter would not splash out. Nobody quite understood what Umbridge was larking about in the middle of the Entrance Hall. Perhaps she was presenting some sort of new ministry guideline concerning ‘What to do if you are infested with Nargles’.

However, the awful blitz of the ominously ancient German hex did not cease just there. When Umbridge tried to start stomping up the escalator again, she found out that her pink pumps were glued onto the marble step. She could not move an inch northward or southward.

“Yf! Ik! Eep! Ni! What in the name of Merlin...?” A black wave of horror flowed over her. Abruptly she was thoroughly stuck in her twisted scratching pose: one cheek glued onto shoulder, legs in a knot, other arm adhered onto the upper back. Invisible superglue seemed to be holding that toadish mass together. She had only one free arm left, and she erred to use it poorly. Thinking that she could rip her feet off from the step with the aid of some thrust, she set her palm onto the marble surface. Hence, together with the ugly dozenware rings, it also became perfectly jammed.

Terror-struck and horrorstruck, she began whining for help. But behold, the dark charm was devouring her whimpers and transfiguring them into something appalling. Every time Umbridge opened her slack wide mouth, out fluttered no sound, but a differently colored pigeon. One after another, they landed to perch on her crown, naturally remaining glued there because of the jinx's sizing effect.

There the witch withered and wormed in her warped pose. The unbearable itching endured, and the pile of dolefully cooing pigeons started to gather considerable weight. The bypassing kids could no longer hold their horselaughs. The Entrance Hall thundered with guffaws and snorts. The stranded Umbridge boiled with shame. The worst was that she could not give detention to any of these mockers. The cackle-crowd was probably hundred-headed. It was impossible to spot who was who.

The whole History of Magic OWL was near to become a giant turkey because of this perturbation. The area where Umbridge was stuck, had to be fenced in, so that the staff could anti-jinx her in peace. It oddly took hours to de-mystify the staircase and remove the fowls and toads. Madam Pomfrey together with a few professors kept shrugging long behind the enclosure, not truly knowing if they were authorized to chop the charm in pieces. Special uncertainty caused the fact that Dolores quite did not ask for help, but merely spat out those pigeons. Nonetheless, finally the anxious Filch persuaded the teachers to try at least something. Thus, since that something did not quite mean directly conjuring the anti-spell, the professors carried out all kinds of utterly futile tricks, complaining that this ghastly curse was far too advanced Dark Magic for such ordinary jacks and jills. The culprit himself swept past a few times, creeping in the shadows, a mischievous smirk disfiguring his ashen visage. The longer that overbloated tadpole dwelled in that staircase nest, the longer everything would be sweet and harmonious.

By the time the examination ended, Umbridge had unfortunately left the sticky burrow. The afternoon's ambiance seemed to be stuffed with obscure anticipation about something unknown. This uncanny electricity crackled and sizzled in the air, diluting Snape's concentration. He had a megazillion tasks to handle. But he would have needed a whole box of Alastor's magical eyes, so that he could have been able to peer and observe every cardinal point at the same time. The wannabe-super-scary mark in his left forearm scorched and seared. Fortunate was, that this prolonged rush hour of duties and new responsibilities allowed his mind not to linger in his major grief. Yet, it was all such temporal relief. The bittersweet angst was bound to reborn from the ashes, when the twister of fates would storm over the deceitfully calm landscapes.