Pranking a Professor

Chapter 3: Task Two--The Smiling Session

With the gloriously sunny Wednesday morning brought the first Potions lesson of the new and last school year of Hogwarts for Hermione Granger. She'd prepared herself for this for a full 24 hours...and she still wasn't ready.

"I'll be dead before he even tells us what we're making today," she squealed earnestly with the boys at breakfast. All that did was cause them to grin wider and laugh harder, making themselves look especially eerie in the glow of the rising sun peeking through the stained glass windows.

"Stop fretting Hermione, this'll be great!" Ron chuckled.

"For whom?" she muttered darkly, taking a sip of her orange juice, with which she wished she had some vodka.

Hermione, Ron, and Harry all trudged down the smooth stone stairs to widely despised dungeon after breakfast, Hermione walking as if she had an appointment with the gallows. Ron looked over at her, suppressing a grin of his own. "Cheer up! You've got to smile, remember?" She glared at him.

"Come on Hermione," Harry pressed, stopping at the bottom of the stairs. Hermione sighed and grinned broadly, exposing her no longer tiny--woodland--creature--looking teeth.

"Good. Keep that up the whole class."

"Go to hell Harry."

Harry and Ron chuckled at poor, grief stricken Hermione as they shoved open the dank, wood door to the Potions classroom. Many students were already there, keeping their conversations to a minimum seeing as Snape was sitting at his desk grading some assignments with a scowl firmly set in place. Hermione hissed through her teeth, noticing that Snape seemed to be in a particularly bad mood today. Not that he was Mr. Care Bear on a normal day mind you, but he seemed beyond his usual sadistic, sarcastic, house-point deducting self. All the same, she kept the hysterical grin on as she sat down. The bell rang and students piled in and took their seats immediately--you did NOT fool around in Snape's class.

"Settle down!" Snape spat and whatever little conversation there was left in the Potions room snapped shut quickly.

"Today, if you can manage it--." Snape stopped suddenly and looked queerly at Hermione Granger, whose asinine grin only broadened. "--You will be making Veritaserum," he continued slowly, still clearly shaken by Hermione's impulse to keep a consistent smile on that horrible little face of hers.

"Not that I'm expecting it," he snarled harshly, regaining his composure almost instantly, "but do any of you sickly little rodents know the most crucial ingredient in this powerful truth serum?"

Hermione's hand was in the air before he finished the question. Snape's obsidian eyes fell upon her, lids lowered. "Besides the arrogant know-it-all," he drawled.

Hermione's hand sagged down lamely and she angrily gnashed her teeth. She tried to appear as unabashed and cheerful as possible, but it looked rather foolish-- her exasperation mingled with that terrible grinning. Damn that bat of a man.

When no one else made even the slightest attempt to answer the question, let alone breathe loudly for fear of the Sinister One even glancing in his or her general direction, Snape rolled his eyes ever so slightly and in the same motion nodded reluctantly to Hermione.

"Essence of ballythorn," she answered, never ceasing to grin, though she had the urge to give him a very inappropriate finger gesture.

"Correct Miss Granger, and do wipe that silly smirk off of your face."

Hermione shrugged, chanced a small laugh, and began to take notes, keeping the smile on all the while. Snape opened his mouth as if to say something, but then he shut it again quickly. He proceeded to drone on about the ingredients and each of their parts in the Veritaserum, and the class began to fall into very deep boredom.

When they had begun the practical segment of the lesson, Hermione got up and gathered her supplies, smiling brightly at him. Her continuous facial expression had begun to bother him. She looked utterly mad.

"Miss Granger, if you do not desist that insane grinning immediately, I will take away so many points from Gryffindor that your house will be in the negatives by the time I'm done!" Snape yelled. The smallest hint of nervousness was audible in the rich baritone voice. It caused many students to stare at him with great surprise, for Snape wasn't one to falter because of a student. Hermione only broadened her grin, taking her revenge by upsetting him. Harry and Ron were also beginning to smile widely at the humorous scene.

As it turns out, Snape threatened Hermione five other times during the lesson. The threats included detention with him, house point subtraction, and death by poison. Hermione couldn't figure out which was worse. Still, all of his threats weren't very convincing at all; he kept stammering and stuttering. Some students even laughed openly about it, until Snape delivered them the trademark glare, which would kill a phoenix and paralyze a basilisk. Finally, the Fates shown the light of mercy down on Hermione and the bell rang. She gathered up her things and backed out of the classroom, still showing her teeth in a bright grin, enjoying the way she had Snape squirming under her uncanny expression. When out of the classroom, Ron and Harry burst into laughter while Hermione exercised her stiff jaw.

"Good job! That task is over!" Ron announced cheerfully, pulling out the list, which Hermione had come to despise more than anything else in her seventeen years of life.

"Ron, Harry?" she sweetly addressed the boys. They turned to her innocently.

"I hate you both very much."

"We know," they replied in unison.

Task #3: Whenever Snape picks up his spoon at mealtimes, stand up and scream as if terrified. Run out of the hall in fright.

Duration: Three meals--One full day.

"A spoon? Why would I be afraid of a spoon?" Hermione demanded furiously, rubbing her jaw as the trio sat in Gryffindor Tower after classes ended.

"I think you have the right to be afraid of any metal object he picks up after what you've done to him so far," Harry muttered truthfully to himself.

"You wouldn't, no one would. That's the beauty of it," Ron informed her happily, ignoring Harry and the swipe he just received from Hermione for his comment.

"And another thing. We sit so far away from the Staff Table. How am I supposed to see him pick up the spoon?" she questioned.

"Tell you what. Ron and I will keep watch on him," Harry said, adjusting his crooked glasses due to Hermione knocking them askew from the smack she'd delivered to him. "If we see him pick up his spoon, we'll start to cough."

"That'll be your signal to make like the madwoman you are," Ron snickered slyly.

"All the coughing you've done trying to cover your laughter as of late, the student body of Hogwarts is going to think you two have consumption," Hermione noted, feigning sadness. "And as for me, I'll end up being carted off to the loony bin due to the extreme mental strain of completing these tasks."

Ron gave a smirk worthy of Lucius Malfoy. "You haven't seen anything yet Hermione. These tasks are a piece of cake compared to what we're going to toss on you later."

She gave a humorless smile, despite the way her cheeks screamed in agony. It felt like they were being tossed around like rag dolls in Lord Voldemort's chamber.

"I can't wait."