Hogwarts Ghosts

Hogwarts Ghosts
Part II

Severus Snape is having a terrible day. No, on second thought, it's dreadful. Appalling. A disgrace the likes of which mankind has not yet seen.

Never let it be said, of course, that Snape has a tendency to over-exaggerate the world's grievances against him to fit his own whims. He'll have you know he exaggerates them exactly the right amount. No, he knows this by now, that the world is a hideous, vindictive shrew, and she has it in for a certain poor, innocent former Death Eater.

His night was spent tossing in bed, reliving that frog-faced Umbridge's mortifying proposition out behind the Quidditch stands last year. He can still see her bright pink hair bow, angle skewed and its colour turning her complexion to a bilious green.

Needless to say, it was all he could do to put his trousers on one leg at a time, and he didn't even make it to the Great Hall before his stomach called a vomit detour. Of course, having ducked into the nearest lavatory in the heat of the moment, it was inevitably the girls' bathroom inhabited by Moaning Myrtle, who was bewailing something or the other. Exiting from the stall and washing out his mouth, he heard her low blubbering about--Sirius Black, of all people. He cringed, trying not to remember her lovesick haunting of the Gryffindor playboy in Snape's school days. It had been quite painful for all who witnessed it.

And now he sits scribbling at his desk, waiting for the torture to commence.

Neville Longbottom is mercifully absent from Slytherin-Gryffindor double potions this morning, but no sooner does Snape breathe a tiny sigh of relief at the sick note (the sigh is imperceptible of course; he mustn't appear human to the students, after all) than in walk the Three Stooges, and don't ask him how he knows about an American Muggle television series from the 1930s. Snape knows things.

They swagger in, Weasley with his long arm thrown around the know-it-all, who seems to be smothering under his sleeve somewhere, Potter leading them as if they are charging nobly into battle, looking utterly ridiculous. Snape sneers at the picture--Harry, Curly and (Mo)Ron, he thinks derisively, suppressing a twitchy grin from spreading over his face. He carefully restrains himself from showing amusement. He wants to scare the brainless buffoons, but he also doesn't want a medical emergency on his hands, thank you very much.

They are particularly gruesome today, snickering and winking to each other with what must seem like brilliant subtlety to them. Gryffindoric nincompoops. It is obvious to Snape--would be obvious to a snivelling first-year Slytherin--that the three are planning something. Snape is very perturbed by the wide grin on Potter's face. He thought the little pansy was still going about po-faced with self-pity. But no such luck; for some reason, the Boy Who Got His Godfather Killed is as happy as a bloody lamb, and Snape just knows it's going to bother him all day.

Not that he isn't grateful to Potter for that spectacular blunder. At least Snape has the consolation of the fact that Black did finally get what he deserved for trying to murder him all those years ago. Ah yes, he may be a pathetic shell of a former Death Eater with no friends and not had a decent shag in twenty years, but at least he is alive. Take that Black, you rotting bastard.

And it does make up in some small part for that humiliating glimpse the little rat got into his penseive.

On second thought, he isn't at all grateful to Potter.

Snape slams the door to his dungeon with his wand. Any student unlucky enough to be late will deal with his wrath at the end of the period, magically bound to the doorway until Snape chooses to release him. He stands from his desk and pushes a lock of stringy hair back from his face, revealing his flashing eyes and Alan-Rickman-like lips. Yes, he knows about Alan Rickman as well, and has always in his secret heart thought that they bear a striking resemblance. In fact, to his everlasting shame, his favourite Rickman film is Sense and Sensibility (he rather fancies himself as the elegant Colonel Brandon with his tragic past). His nostrils flare and his gaze sharpens as he begins the day's lesson in an even worse mood than usual, casting a venomous glance at the Gryffindors.

Lavender Brown melts into a gooey puddle on her desk, and he pretends not to notice. He has become better at this since his one-night-stand with Minerva--now, the barest thought of anything remotely sex-related is enough to put him off his feed for a week.

Unfortunately rumours of his torrid affairs with various students (male and female) sweep the castle every three weeks, so he only ever eats two thirds of his meals these days. Combined with his imperviousness to Dreamless Sleep Potion, it's no wonder he resembles the walking dead. (You don't think he looks that emaciated and sallow just on the whim of J.K. Rowling, do you?) A man needs his beauty sleep, after all.

Still, despite, or perhaps because of, his dramatically flawed appearance, the ridiculous scandals continue to circle Hogwarts with astounding regularity.

The latest one is about Hermione Granger's having mad sex with Snape behind Weasley's back. Perish the thought.

Given his penchant for analyzing things to bits, he has come to the conclusion that due his unpleasant classroom manner, unsavoury appearance, and Rickmanesque profile, the thought of him engaging in a sexual liaison is so disturbing that it must of course also be depraved and immoral. Thus the alleged prolific sex with students. And of course, my friends, it makes a delicious salacious rumour, one that is repeated with relish. After all, who could be titillated by accounts of Professor Flitwick's pathetic shenanigans? The poor man is so small in stature that Snape shudders to think of his sexual misadventures.

There is also the fact that, as Minerva so kindly enlightened him during their one nightmarish encounter, his enormous nose inspires the female imagination with visions of equally proportioned...other body parts. And she, for one, was not disappointed, she added.

Snape groans and redoubles his glaring at Millicent Bulstrode, who stands stirring her cauldron and staring stupidly at its sickly magenta contents.

"Miss Bulstrode," he bites out viciously, "I don't believe the potion was supposed to match that hideous rucksack of yours, although I must commend you for recreating the colour disgustingly well."

The girl flinches at his tone and mumbles something incoherent, and Snape waves her off to dispose of the abomination. He doesn't have the fortitude for this today.

As he walks back to his desk to continue his tedious marking of first-year scratches, he hears a muffled thump behind him, followed by a yelp and a snicker. He mentally rolls his eyes. Since both Potter and Malfoy lost their respective father figures last year, and as each irrationally blames the other, their usual ribbing and jeering has become much more aggressive, their fights more frequent and vicious. It is apparent to Snape that they relish their recently discovered testosterone, and are dragging that oafish Weasley along for the ride. He often sees the know-it-all standing helplessly by watching them go at it in puzzled anger, running her fingers anxiously through her hair until it stands up in a horrendously large mass.

Now, he knows that when he turns around he will once again have to deal with the results of their malicious mischief, and he reflects that he is getting rather tired of it. Not that it wasn't amusing at first, but two weeks of non-stop cat fights has started to wear on all the faculty. He sighs and turns toward the disturbance.

Weasley's cauldron has tipped over onto his front, spilling the turquoise Engorging Draught, for once the right colour, all over his shabby robes. Arms flailing, the red-haired lout tips backwards, his chair hitting the stone floor with a loud bang, his head with a quieter thump. Potter and Granger are immediately hovering over him--that is, Potter hovers; Granger has thrown herself across Weasley's pale face like a bushy-haired robe-wearing Juliet. Unfortunately for Snape, both students are very much alive.

Snape darts a glance at the resident juvenile delinquent, and he finds what he's looking for in the boy's triumphant smirk. A muffled sound catches his attention and he returns his gaze to the mini-soap-opera being played out in his dungeon, a gaggle of gaping pupils gathered around gawking at the grim tableau (Snape sometimes makes up inane alliterative phrases when he needs to control his anger, and this one works particularly well, he thinks). He stalks over to the group and with a growl disperses them.

Weasley is making muffled sounds under his girlfriend's stomach, tugging at her. Snape reaches down, grabs the back of her robes and hauls her up unceremoniously. She screeches, and then emits a strangled choking noise as her eyes fall on Weasley's gloopy robes.

Ah, yes. The Engorging Draught. Snape grins evilly, not bothering to disguise his amusement this time. He follows Granger's horrified gaze to the mass of goo-covered material, much more cloth than there should have been. And much more... Weasley... underneath it all.

Malfoy guffaws in glee. "You must be happy Granger, your bloke's the best hung in the entire school. Heck, even England, I'd wa--"

"That will be enough Mr. Malfoy," says Snape mildly, almost reluctantly. "Well, Mr. Weasley, it seems you've gotten yourself into quite a... generously proportioned pickle." Snickers burst into the shocked silence, and not just from the Slytherins.

He quickly dispatches the blazing-faced, front-heavy Weasley to the hospital wing, relishing the thought of Pomfrey's reaction--she really is quite a prude, for a mediwitch. He enlists Dean Thomas to escort him, as Granger is hysterical and Potter stunned silent.

The lesson goes mercifully well after that, as Potter and Granger have lost their glowing air of conspiracy and are dully finishing their individual potions. Malfoy, too, satisfied by his minor triumph, is sated for the moment, and quietly bottling his completed Engorging Draught. Before long the time has run down, fourteen shiny flasks sitting on his desk, thick turquoise potion swirling of its own accord. Snape's quill flicks a red slash over the last first year's paper, flourishing large numbers on the corner of the parchment, and looks up to see his classroom empty of children. Finally.

He irritably pushes the papers into a pile and rises to enter his private chambers, smiling a little despite himself as he recalls Weasley's expression when he realized his predicament. He concedes, Maybe this day is looking up just a bit.

He swings his door open and drops his bundle of parchments onto his desk, walking to his armchair and rubbing the back of his neck, dropping into the wingback chair in exhaustion. He closed his eyes for a moment, relaxing for the first time since... well, before he woke up. He supposes that Umbridge will haunt him forever. She's just that frightening. Lovely thought. He has a theory that she believes herself some sort of frog princess, one kiss from her beloved--or anyone, really--being all it will take for her to transform into her natural, resplendent form... if only, for our sakes, thinks Snape with a cringe--

What was that?

He jerks his eyes open, darting them back and forth over his chamber as he jumps up, instincts instantly primed. He looks from the doorway to his wardrobe, the empty expanse of stone between them. Nothing.

His gaze alights on the drawn curtains of his four-poster, and a glint appears in his eye. He stalks towards the green curtains with long, silent steps. Nearing the bed, he reaches out one bony hand and grasps the piped black edge of the curtain...

And whips it aside with one quick, sweeping motion.

He stares into the dim interior of the canopy, breathing heavily from adrenaline. It is empty.

Growling in frustration, he turns away savagely, certain someone shares his dungeon with him; he has an instinct for detecting those who would rather go unnoticed. He shakes his head after several moments, realizing that he probably will not discover the intruder's identity. The bastard is annoyingly stealthy, he thinks with some reluctant admiration. As he turns back to his work, leaning on his desk to get immediately engrossed in Moste Potente Potions, an ear-splitting bang explodes behind him, causing him to jump about three feet into the air. He pivots, eyes wild in his white face.

On the floor at his feet lies the Encyclopaedia of Major and Minor Potion Brewing Guidelines, one thousand dusty pages the approximate size of a small table. Dust rises in little swirls from the ancient, cracked cover. And there is no clue as to who it was that apparently retrieved the tome from his bookshelf and dropped it from a great height directly behind his head. He blows out a breath. The perpetrator obviously did not have time to conceal himself, and thus... invisibility cloak... he reaches out and grasps at the air before him with both hands, moving around the room quickly. He impatiently shakes his lank hair out of his face, knowing this is an ineffective solution--ah.

He slides his wand from his sleeve and into his fingers, murmuring an incantation in a feral voice, watching raptly as the grey smoke pours from his wand tip. With a flourish of his wrist, he sends it up to the ceiling, where it spreads into a thin sheet, the edges of which brush all four walls. He brings his wand down, and the smoke passes though the air from ceiling to floor, even through the solid objects like the armoire, the bed and dresser. The smoke drops to the floor and dissipates.

Snape looks on in outraged disbelief.

Nothing.

No human being resides within the four stone walls; the spelled smoke would have turned a sickly orange, shrieking and clinging to the person's shape, revealing the arsehole to Snape's considerable wrath. He glowered for a minute or two in utter rage, then gave up and returned to his book, this time unable to concentrate, but doggedly keeping at it nonetheless in an attempt to salvage his sanity.

Something tugs at his hair.

He spins around to emptiness.

A moment of peace, then tiny, stinging slaps checkering his cheeks. He sees from the corner of his eye the whitish glow of the hands assaulting him.

Ghostly hands.

"Peeves!" bellows Snape in a seething rage. Nobody touches Severus Snape.

This time when he whirls to face his attacker, he raises his arms and thrusts them out savagely in bloodless claws, nostrils flaring and eyes black holes in his white face. His mouth is wide open in a soundless roar. He looks rather like a vampire preparing to devour its victim. The ghost flies in gleeful circles around Snape's head, moving so fast its details blur, a white streak of maniacal laughter. Something about that laugh...

And then the ghost slows, and the lines of its translucent body coalesce into something approaching a human form... and with a gasp he realizes that this is most definitely not Peeves, is in fact none other than--

"Black!" he chokes out in apoplectic disbelief. His pale face turns a peculiar shade of grayish-green as his mouth opens and closes in stunned horror. The ghost smiles devilishly and lightly floats to the ground, settling his "shoes" on the stone floor.

"Top of the morning to you, Snivellus," remarks the ghost of Sirius Black pleasantly. "What's the matter, old chap? You look more undead each time I see you."

"Urmgh..." Severus grunts incoherently, his ability to form recognizable words obviously spent in his original burst of invective.

Sirius clucks in mock sympathy. "My good man, you really must see someone about that nasty cold you're getting. Honestly, however would the children cope if you were indisposed for a few days? They might very possibly swoon from the... horror of it." He draws out this last bit sardonically, watching in glee as Snape's face changes colours, from its current sickly shade to red to blue to purple and back to green, its owner looking very close to vomiting in disgust.

Sirius grins wolfishly. "Whatsamatter? Cat got your tongue? Or should I say, dog."

That's it. The last straw.

Snape shakes convulsively where he stands, radiating murderous intent, eyes boring into the specter floating before him, wanting impossibly to kill Black with his bare hands. A tittering laugh erupts from the mouth of his childhood enemy, the boy who once tried to kill him, the man who later unforgivably redeemed himself through his suffering, and it is just--too much.

Snape gives a violent shudder and falls to the ground in a dead faint.

In the dark hallways of the dungeons, a grinning white ghost cartwheels through the air, projecting such aggressive good cheer that several Slytherins are sent scurrying away in terror at his manic smile.

Sirius Black concedes that at moments like this, being dead has definite compensations. It almost makes up for the loss of all those willing women.

Almost.