Harry Potter and the Polka Dot Plague

Chapter 7 - Slytherins Bearing Gifts

Potter's gift basket proved to contain another stack of Quidditch magazines, a get-well card that spouted indecent limericks in Lee Jordan's voice when opened, and enough sweets to rot the teeth of a small country. Potter made appreciative noises over the magazines, blushed furiously over the card and stuck it under the pillow, dug a bag of Every Flavor Beans from the pile of sweets, and began to sort through them looking for the edible ones. Snape observed all this activity absent-mindedly from the corner of his eye as he unwrapped his own box and lifted the lid. Inside were three smaller packages, all wrapped in silver tissue paper, and a card in a green envelope, addressed "To Professor Snape from his Slytherins."

The card was plain cream-colored parchment, blessedly free of sound effects. When Snape opened it, it wished him a speedy recovery in glowing green calligraphy, followed by a list of signatures scrolling gracefully from left to right. As an experiment, Snape closed the card, waited a few seconds, and opened it again. The scrolling picked up exactly where it had left off when he closed it. Snape nodded, feeling pleased. Someone had done a fine job. Draco Malfoy, probably - he'd had plenty of practice with enchanted text the year before, making all those "Potter Stinks" badges. Knowing Draco, he'd probably worked out a way to get it counted as homework. Snape put the card on the bedside table and peeled the tissue paper from the largest of the gift packages.

It proved to contain a black cashmere dressing gown, embroidered with Snape's initials over the Slytherin crest on the breast pocket. An obscenely expensive gift, even if every student in the House had chipped in. Snape suspected the Malfoy touch again - it would've taken Lucius' level of influence to get that kind of work done in less than twenty-four hours. A very Slytherin gift, chosen as much to showcase the giver's generosity (and wealth, and status) as to benefit the receiver. Snape smiled appreciatively as he put it on. The wool was so soft that even the drape of the collar over his Skittle-marked neck felt good; the itch seemed to retreat in embarrassment before the presence of such luxury. The sleeves were a bit long, though. Snape folded back the cuffs and unwrapped the two smaller packages: a lidded ceramic mug enchanted against spills and breakage, and a truly hideous pair of hand-knitted green-and-silver striped socks.

Well, that answered the question of what Millicent Bulstrode did on her summer holiday. Snape held up the socks and scowled. The previous three years, Millicent had supplied him with a scarf, a hat and a vest. Snape had expended a great deal of time and energy developing a charm to make the damn things invisible to everyone but their maker, so that he could wear them in Millicent's presence without making a public spectacle of himself. Charms were not his speciality, and the whole process had been remarkably annoying. At least socks could be concealed under boots, though the misshapen toes and lumpy heels did not promise great comfort.

A soft sputtering noise attracted Snape's attention, and he looked up to see Potter staring at him, eyes wide and incredulous behind his glasses. A copy of Ball and Broom lay forgotten in his lap.

"What?" Snape demanded. Potter just sat and blinked at him. His lips were pressed tightly together, as if he was trying hard not to laugh.

"Who made you those?" he choked out after a while.

"Millicent Bulstrode. Not that it's any of your business."

If Potter's eyes bulged any further, they'd pop out of his head. "Millicent Bulstrode can knit.?!"

The honest answer to that question was "No," but Potter's smirk was really offensive, and Snape found himself feeling suddenly, unaccountably defensive on Millicent's behalf.

"I congratulate you on your grasp of the obvious," he sneered, and put the socks on. They were just as uncomfortable as he'd expected. Scratchy, too. And his feet now looked like two giant fuzzy caterpillars. Snape pulled the covers over them, snatched up his copy of AAQ, and forced himself to focus on an article about the effects of the lunar cycle on the alchemical properties of ginseng root.

Potter returned to his own reading, and for a few minutes, the only sound in the room was the occasional rustle of a page being turned. Then, inexplicably, Potter decided to speak.

"My friend Dobby - he's a house elf - gave me a pair of socks last Christmas. One is red with Snitches on it, and one is green with broomsticks. I wear them sometimes."

Skittles must cause insanity in the later stages, Snape realized. That was the only possible explanation for Potter's sudden desire to converse with him. Since it seemed to be a harmless, non-violent sort of lunacy, he resolved to ignore it.

He got through two more pages before Potter tried again.

"Professor? Would you like a Chocolate Frog?"

That clinched it. The boy was unquestionably insane.

"Is there something you want from me, Mister Potter?"

"No!" Potter looked deeply offended, as if wanting anything from another person was a great crime. "I just thought… since we're stuck here together, maybe we should try being a bit nicer to each other."

"Whatever happened to wishing I'd shut up and leave you alone?"

"Nothing." Potter's cheeks went a faint shade of pink. "I just thought it was pretty decent of you to wear Millicent's socks, that's all."

I guard the boy's life, and he looks at me as if I'm something he scraped from the bottom of a cauldron. I wear a pair of socks, and he decides I'm "decent." Gryffindors.

"I'm overwhelmed by your approval, Mr. Potter. I'll treasure this moment forever."

"Fine. Be that way."

* * * * * * * *

The worst thing about being ill, Snape decided, was the enforced idleness. He could cope with his feverish, aching body and eternally itching skin; but the knowledge that someone else was teaching his classes and someone else was running his house while he was stuck in bed counting clouds on the ceiling made him want to cast an Unforgivable on somebody.

Potter made no further attempts at conversation, but he managed to make a nuisance of himself nevertheless. Snape kept a mental tally of points to be deducted from Gryffindor at the earliest opportunity. He even worked out a system: five points for every loudly rustling sweet wrapper, five for every popped chewing gum bubble, ten for that slurping sound the brat made when he drank pumpkin juice through a straw - it had to be on purpose; no one could come up with something that annoying by accident - and two points apiece for random noises.

It was a blessed relief to see Dumbledore sweep into the room again an hour after dinner, an even greater relief to see that he was smiling broadly.

"Good news! I have received an owl from St. Mungo's. Dr. Cogsworth has succeeded in brewing the cure for you."

Potter whooped and applauded. Snape mentally ticked off another two points.

"Given the delicate nature of the potion," Dumbledore continued, "we've decided it would be best for you to go to St. Mungo's to take it. I have prepared a Portkey to take you there and back." He held up a large silver soup ladle. "The staff at St. Mungo's have been warned to expect you, so you may go whenever you're ready."

"Now." Potter climbed out of bed and shoved his feet into slippers. "I want to go now." For once, Snape could only agree.

Dumbledore put the Portkey on the table and stepped back with a little bow. Harry held his hand out toward it.

"Ready, Professor?"

Snape put on his own slippers and stood. "Ready." They took hold of the ladle.

The world dissolved into a dizzying swirl of colors. Snape closed his eyes and waited for the sharp jerk of spatial displacement, but seconds ticked by and it didn't come. Something's wrong. The Portkey vibrated wildly in Snape's hand. He felt his body being tugged in one direction, and then in another, as if invisible giants were using him for a game of tug-of-war. It hurt, and he cried out into the swirling emptiness, but couldn't hear his own voice.

And then, finally, it ended. For a moment, Snape felt himself floating weightlessly in mid-air, then his feet hit the ground hard, jarring his whole body. Something crunched dryly beneath the soles of his slippers, as if he'd landed on a pile of crumpled old parchment. Snape caught his balance and stood blinking until his vision cleared.

Trees. Black, towering trees silhouetted against the night sky. The crunching sound under Snape's feet had come from leaves, not parchment. They were standing at the edge of a small circular clearing in a dark forest. The air was cold and still, not a breath of wind to disturb the branches overhead. The silence made the skin on the back of Snape's neck crawl.

"Uhm…Professor?" Potter's voice was a few notes higher than usual. In the light of the half-moon, his face was a pale, indistinct oval with a pair of reflected gleams marking his glasses. Snape couldn't make out his expression, but he could tell that the boy was still holding on to the ladle and that his hand was shaking badly. "I don't think this is where we're supposed to be."

TBC