Wimmin!

A/N: Not much plot here, just what I imagine the conversation Snape had with Filch after Harry accidentally disturbed him in Sorcerer’s Stone, must have been. Another little dimension of their personalities. Rated for some implied bawdiness. Any characters whose names you recognize are property of JKR.

“Filch, where are the bandages?”

“Huh?”

“You heard me, halfwit… hurry up with the bloody bandages already!”

“Oh. BLOODY bandages? Bloody bandages you’ve already got, Severus,” Filch smirked.

“Very funny. Now bring them to me!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming, keep your robe on!” said Filch, rummaging through a drawer.

Snape pointed his wand at the soiled dressings on his leg, and they promptly snapped open. He winced, both at the pain and the sight of mangled tissue, and pushed them aside.

“About time,” he said as Filch finally returned with the bandages. Slower than the second coming of Merlin, he thought as he grasped his leg. “Blasted thing, how are you supposed to keep your eyes on all three heads at once?”

At that moment, something creaked off to his left. He glanced over at the door, which was open a few inches, and… No. Not him.

“POTTER!” Snape dropped his robe, hopefully before the meddling brat saw anything.

“Professor? I just wondered if I could have my book back…”

“GET OUT! OUT!” That did it. He was gone, and not a moment too soon. Snape buried his face in his hands. “Of all the people to be snooping…”

“Why are you here anyway, praytell? Why didn’t you just go to Madam Pomfrey?” said Filch.

“Are you kidding? That insufferable Poppy Pomfrey… if I wanted to be coddled and treated like an infant I would’ve gotten back in the womb.”

“I heard she’s like that cos she’s got no kids,” said Filch. “So, she treats everybody like they’re her baby. No matter how big or old you are. Got to get her jealousies out.”

“Jealous women with no children are the worst, Filch. Too bad we have here, one of the highest populations of childless females past the menopause in all of Britain.” Snape stuck one of the ends of the bandage onto his leg just below the kneecap, tapped his wand, and watched the wrappings spin down to his ankle.

“No, don’t give me that look,” he said, looking at Filch who was indeed giving him that look. “I’m a wizard, and I will not stop using magic around you just because you’re a squib. Deal with it.” He paused and looked away before turning to Filch again with a raised eyebrow. “No offense, of course.”

“None taken,” said Filch under his breath. “Now, where were we—ah, yes, the women of Hogwarts. Are they not the finest examples of witchliness?”

“Undoubtedly,” said Snape, smiling bitterly and holding his hand at arm’s length from his face. “Let’s see,” he said, counting on his fingers, “there’s Dorinda Sprout, Hufflepuff par excellence, who could give you diabetes. There’s Zenobia Vector, who has as much common sense as you can get from an Arithmancy textbook. Sibyll Trelawney, who makes Vector look downright sensible. Livia Sinistra, who has shown it’s entirely possible to be a brilliant scientist, and a vain, self-obsessed, mirror-gazing princess at the same time. Tula Forde, who thinks being able to memorize the Lloyds Of London volumes in one glance makes her an expert on Muggle Studies. The Grey Lady, who is not too dead to be a true Ravenclaw, riding her high mind on her high horse. Amaranta Hooch…”

“Ah, now she’s not so bad!” piped up Filch. “Quite an animal in bed, that one.”

Snape’s eyes widened. “What? You had Hooch?” His lips took on a sneer. “You’re a liar.”

“I’m as honest as the day is long, Severus.”

“A dead-of-winter’s day, possibly. Why would Hooch even look at you? Besides your… um, magically deficient nature, you’re not exactly Wizard Quarterly cover material.”

“Who are you to talk? You’re not much of a catch yourself, Severus. And while we’re talking about kids, there’s no better form of birth control than your personality.”

Snape’s eyes flashed. “Watch it, Filch. You’re starting to get personal.”

“Oh, you don’t like that, eh?”

“You don’t want me to get personal on you, Filch. You’d find it quite… unhealthy. End of story.” His eyes bored dangerously into Filch’s, and the caretaker’s eyes flickered for a moment.

“Um…

“That’s better.” Snape paused and then said, “I don’t want kids anyway, even if I didn’t have such an ‘effective method of birth control’, as you say.”

“What I’m saying is, I may not be good-looking, and I may be a squib… but I had Hooch. I had her.” 

Snape did not lose his sneer. “I still say you’re a liar.” He changed the subject with, “I found out what Hooch’s middle name is. It’s Cynthiana. Just be glad it’s not her first name. ‘Cynthiana Hooch.’ Does she know that Cynthiana is a wine, and hooch is cheap Muggle liquor?” He chuckled. “The wizarding equivalent of Bambi Woods. If there’s indeed truth in your pitiful attempt at raising your self-esteem, Filch, her name’s appropriate. Now, where was I?”

“You forgot the head of Gryffindor,” said Filch.

“Ah, Minerva McGonagall,” said Snape, “probably reads William F. Buckley when she’s in the mood for something light and fluffy.”

“She’s a classic jilted lover, that one,” said Filch.

“How do you know? You’re proven you’re no expert on romantic relationships. Though you may be right; I’m not even sure she’s ever had a lover to jilt her, myself.”

“I say, you can always tell those types, Severus. Nine times out of ten when a woman is bitter, it’s because no man wanted her.”

“What is it with women and love anyway?” said Snape. “They don’t get it, and their life is over, the way they act. We men can move on. We don’t spend our lives waiting for some prince to rescue us. How stupid is that?”

“Must be pretty stupid if you can say that when you know you’re not getting any yourself,” said Filch.

“You joke about it one more time, and I’ll tear out your esophagus,” said Snape, his eyes boring into Filch’s again. “I mean, really, you of all people.” He turned down to his leg. “It still hurts… none of this would have happened if it weren’t for that wretched first-year Gryffindor girl… I’ll assume you know whom I’m talking about.”

“No.”

“Hermione Granger, who else? She has a compulsion to make an embarrassment of herself in class already, and now she almost gets herself and her two drooling friends killed, all because she had to meddle in what she shouldn’t…Who told her to go into the girls’ bathroom anyway, knowing there was a troll about?” He slowly bent and straightened his knee several times. “She spends all her time with her nose in a book, but you can’t get common sense from reading. She’s as bad as Vector.”

“Sounds like another McGonagall in the making, Severus,” said Filch. “She’s definitely turning out the type.”

Snape shrugged. “Women. Leave it to them to ruin everything they might get out of life. Who needs to be party to that?”

“Yeah, who needs ‘em! We can live without them.”

“Completely independent unto ourselves.”

“No need to deal with all that worry and fuss.”

“Happiness and peace of mind.”

“It’s the right thing to do,” said Filch, turning away from Snape and opening the broom closet. Snape stood up and let his robes fall, covering his leg. He took a step forward, carefully. “At least I can put weight on it. Thank you, Filch, but no thanks for your attempts at wit, or the story of your little… escapade.” He started to walk away.

“Answer me one question though.”

“What?”

“What were you doing with that three-headed dog that you can’t go to Madam Pomfrey about?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“No, it most certainly is my business, I’m the caretaker here.”

 Snape’s eyes glinted dangerously. “You ask again, and you will be a eunuch as well as a squib.”

“A what?”

“Look it up in the dictionary. Just forget about asking me again.” He walked away.

~*~*~

Fancy that old fool bragging to me about his conquests. I may be the most hated professor at Hogwarts, but compared to him, I’m Cary Grant…

He downed his painkilling draught and gave a single, ironic laugh. Never have I felt the need to brag about things I didn’t do to feel better about myself. Filch can live in a fairyland all he wants, but I deal with truth.

He touched his leg. The draught was working, though he would definitely have to take more later, and there was so much inconvenience in it all. That three-headed dog was another one of Hagrid’s precious pets; why should he be surprised? Still… it was doing its job, guarding what was underneath, and he couldn’t complain about Hagrid in general without alienating Dumbledore as well.

Which I must never do.

The bell rang and the first of the sixth-year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws started to file in. For a moment he watched the girl who sat in the second row right next to the sink. Miss Kinsley from Ravenclaw was terribly stiff for a sixteen-year old. Perfect hair, makeup and clothes, yes, but… as warm as a snow pea. She reminded him of her…

And which is why I cannot even think about pursuing Minerva again. Her heart belongs to Dumbledore, she made that perfectly clear a while ago. I cannot interfere. But she doesn’t look very happy. Maybe he doesn’t please her… Dumbledore, a cad? That makes about as much sense as taking lessons in forbearance from a Gryffindor. But who said life made sense? Certainly no Slytherin did.

Miss Kinsley later made the best potion in the class, and accepted her ten points unsmilingly. Snape, meanwhile, was feeling a small smile start to pull up the corners of his lips.

That old liar doesn’t even know what a eunuch is…

FINIS