My Name's Severus!

Chapter 7: A Busy Sunday

Sunday morning during breakfast Draco received his weekly care package with sweets from his mother. He smiled happily when his eagle owl swept in with the large parcel. His mother's gifts usually arrived on Saturday, but sometimes they were late. That was mostly because his father did not approve of his wife sending their son 'rewards he hasn't earned'. So they kept it a secret and Narcissa only sent the package off when Lucius wasn't home.

Draco quickly grabbed the parcel and ripped it open. He always feared that Gregory or Vincent might swallow the whole thing with one bite if he didn't give them their share quickly enough. They were already eying him hungrily.

He took out a chocolate frog for himself then offered the box first to Vincent, then Gregory and finally Blaise, who wasn't nearly as greedy as the other two.

"Ohh Draco, can I have a chocolate frog?" called Pansy Parkinson from where the fifth years girls were sitting in a tight cluster. They stayed away from the boys during mealtimes. Draco suspected that was so they could better gossip about them.

"Mhhm chocolate frogs!" sighed Millicent Bulstrode trying to make puppy dog eyes at Draco, but failing miserably.

Draco threw six chocolate frogs at the girls anyway.

"Here, one for each, cause you're my classmates." he explained.

"And what about me?" Severus' puppy dog look was way better than Millicent's. "I'm your classmate, too. Don't I get any?"

Draco hesitated. Should he? After what Severus had been through last night he could use a little cheer upper even though he seemed to have woken up as his usual sarcastic self in the morning and had already given Gregory a black eye for threatening his hedgehog.

"You? Classmate? You're nothing but a big error." announced Blaise and the other two nodded grinning nastily at Severus.

"I didn't ask you. I asked Draco." Severus said coldly staring at Blaise, who couldn't look him in the eyes and turned his attention back to his toast.

"Well, it doesn't make any difference." snapped Draco. "You're not getting anything!"

"Oh really?" asked Severus menacingly.

"Really!" confirmed Draco. It was too late to change his mind now. Even though one chocolate frog wouldn't have hurt anybody.

"We'll see." growled Severus, but then he turned back to his breakfast and trying to attract Greenie's interest to a bit of toast with marmalade as if nothing had happened.

Greenie did not seem to like either bread or marmalade. He sniffed angrily and turned his attention towards Draco's cornflakes. Not that he particularly cared for the cornflakes themselves, but the milk smelled delicious.

"Hey, stop that!" shouted Draco and pushed him away.

Greenie blinked up at him confusedly. He wanted some cornflakes.

Draco sighed and grabbed a small extra plate to serve the hedgehog breakfast. Greenie blinked up at him once more before he dug in. 'Thanks.'

Dumbledore watched Severus intently all through breakfast. The boy seemed to be just fine. He was quarrelling with his housemates same as he always did. Professor McGonagall was just in time to prevent him from throwing a bowl full of cornflakes at Vincent Crabbe. No food fight today.

Severus never once looked over at the teacher's table. The headmaster felt relief at that. He had been worried that he had gone to far that night, but obviously Severus had already forgotten all about the incident.

Dumbledore sighed. He had to remember always to lock the potions classroom, for Severus would be back. He couldn't allow him near those potion ingredients. It was dangerous enough when some of the other pupils experimented with those, but Severus knew to much about them. Who knew what he might come up with.

Severus once again went to the library straight from breakfast. It was nearly empty as always on Sunday mornings.

Hermione Granger was sitting in her usual chair. (Everybody in the school knew that that was where Hermione always sat and nobody else ever even considered taking her chair even when she wasn't around.)

A couple of Ravenclaws were sitting somewhere in the back of the room, working on some kind of group project. Severus took an unobtrusive little detour on his way to the potions section to listen in on their conversation.

"... due to the influence of Uranus." one girl was saying

"No, can't be." argued one of her partners. "Don't you see that Venus negates Uranus?"

"But the influence of Saturn is much stronger and will block Venus." the girl insisted.

The third member of the group, who had been leaning back in his chair doing nothing at all so far, finally spoke.

"Let's just write that due to the constellations of Uranus, Venus and Saturn there will be a flood on Monday and we will all drown. Therefore we don't need to predict the rest of the week, since we won't be alive to see it." he suggested.

"But that's not what the stars show!" shouted the first girl sounding shocked.

"So what?" grinned the boy. "It's very depressing. I predict that Trelawney will love it."

Severus rolled his eyes and quietly thanked the gods (if they really did exist) that Dumbledore had accepted his strict refusal to go anywhere near the divination classroom as he walked on to the potions section. If there ever was an entirely useless subject it was divination. Especially the way Sybill Trelawney taught it.

He just couldn't see why Dumbledore hadn't fired Sybill a long time ago. She only served to disturb pupils with her constant visions of death. But he never had been able to convince Albus of that.

For a moment he smiled thinking back to their long discussions about the divination teacher, but then he remembered last night and frowned. Those days were over. Now he was all alone and he had to prepare his revenge on the headmaster. He knew what he was going to do. All he needed was a net and some of Filch's tools. He'd steal those in the evening. If he did it now Filch might miss them during the day and report their disappearance to the headmaster, who would then be warned.

Severus quickly scanned the shelves for some books that might be useful to him. 'Yeah, sure. As if I'd find anything in any of those.' Then he took out his wand and levitated them over to his favourite table.

The Ravenclaws looked up startled as several books whizzed over their heads. The girl, who was so fond of Uranus lifted her head so suddenly that it collided with the corner of one of the books.

"Ahh!" she shrieked obviously more frightened then hurt.

The book started spinning out of control, did a few somersaults and finally hurtled off in the direction of the charms section where it crashed into an overloaded shelf knocking it over. Books went flying all over the charms section crashing into other shelves bringing even more books down with them.

Severus grinned at the chaos, summoned the lost book with a quick "Accio." and took of towards his table. He didn't get there however. Dobby suddenly materialised in front of him looking up at him with wide astonished eyes.

"Dobby can't allow Sir to float books through the library, Sir." the house elf said in what Severus supposed was intended to be a stern tone. "Dobby is responsible for order in the library."

Severus looked the elf up and down and decided to ignore him. He walked past Dobby and sat down in front of his books, but Dobby followed him and hopped onto the table.

Greenie who had been crawling around between the books sniffed the elf curiously. What was that? He'd never seen anything like it before. It looked and smelled a little like a human, but it was definitely too small to be one. Maybe it was edible? Too bad it didn't hold still long enough to try. Greenie gave one last disappointed sniff and turned away to gnaw at an old leather-bound tome titled 'Basic Potions'.

"Dobby is responsible." the house elf insisted.

Madam Pince, who had been watching the scene decided to get involved. She was trying to stay out of the library's affairs as much as possible today to give her new apprentice a chance to practice before she had to leave him alone when she would start teaching the very next day. But right now Dobby was heading for trouble. Who knew what Severus might do to him if the house elf started to annoy him.

She strode over to Severus' desk as quickly as she could without appearing to be hurrying.

"Severus, I have to ask you not to levitate my books around! Somebody might get hurt and the books might be damaged. If I catch you doing this again you will have to leave the library." she declared sternly.

Severus looked up at her making his best puppy dog face.

"I'm not levitating anything now. I'm just reading. Is that a problem?"

Madam Pince sighed and sent Dobby over to the charms section to pick up the scattered books and re-sort them into their proper shelves.

"What's the elf doing in here anyway?" Severus asked casually.

"I've been asked to stand in until we find a new ancient runes teacher. Dobby will stand in for me during lessons." Madame Pince explained curtly. "Now either study, or leave my library!"

Severus turned back to his book and pretended to read. So Dobby would be in charge of the library while Madam Pince would be teaching? Then all he needed to do was find out when she would be teaching. Madam Pince might not let him into the forbidden section without a proper pass from Dumbledore, but Dobby ought to be easy to get around.

Severus grinned and returned to his book. Not that he was paying much attention to it. He would soon have the books that could really help him, but he had to pretend to still be interested in what he was currently reading or else Madam Pince might get suspicious.

An hour or so later Draco trudged into the library looking around as if searching for something.

"Looking for Ginny?" Severus asked grinning as he walked past his desk.

Draco blushed, stopped and glared at him angrily.

"No! ... Is she here?"

Severus giggled hearing the hopeful tone in Draco's voice.

"No."

"Have ... um ... Have you seen her?" Draco tried to sound casual.

"No, but considering that today is Sunday and that it's a very beautiful day I'd look for her outside." Severus suggested treating Draco to one of his own trademark smirks.

"Outside?"

"Yes outside. You know, where there's the big blue sky overhead? That's outside. She's probably enjoying a snowball fight or building a snowman with her friends."

Draco scowled realising that he wouldn't get a chance to talk to her alone if she was out playing with the other Gryffindors.

"Well, I wasn't looking for her anyway." he claimed. "Maybe I'll just go fly around a bit."

He turned to leave, but then thought that that would be a little to obvious and scanned Severus' books instead.

"Potions?" he asked. "I thought you'd finally do your transfigurations homework."

That wiped the grin off Severus' face. He'd have to hand in his transfiguration homework tomorrow and he still hadn't found anybody willing to let him copy theirs. There was only one solution left and he had been planning to do some snooping anyway.

As soon as Draco had left Severus pulled out his wand and levitated his books back onto their shelves.

In an instant both Dobby and Madam Pince were by his side. The first staring at him wide eyed, the second glowering angrily.

"I'm leaving anyway." he explained smiling angelically at the librarian. "So I thought I might as well levitate them."

"Ten points off Slytherin!" Madame Pince hissed. "And get out of here now!"

Severus kept smiling and strolled out of the library.

Half an hour after their meeting in the library Draco came into the common room to find Severus sitting in his favourite chair drawing.

"Are you still not doing your transfigurations homework?"

"I'm working on it." answered Severus calmly.

"Really?" asked Draco peering over his shoulder. "Looks more like a unicorn to me. You'll lose us even more points if you don't have your homework tomorrow."

"Speaking of points. I just lost another ten for levitating books in the library." Severus said matter-of-factly.

"What!" shrieked Draco. "Another ten! Why?"

"I felt like it."

"Is loosing points some kind of hobby of yours?" sneered Draco. "You're real good at it."

"Well, I guess you could interpret it that way." grinned Severus.

"Oh you're hopeless!" sighed Draco and raced up the stairs towards their dorm.

A little while later he came back down followed by Vincent, Gregory and Blaise. All four were carrying their brooms and grinning happily.

"Where are you going?" Severus asked casually.

"To play Quiddich." said Draco. "Wanna come?"

"What?" hissed Vincent. "Why would we want him along?"

"Did you have to ask him that?" growled Blaise at the same time.

"We'll need some more players for a real game." Draco explained.

"No, thanks. I don't even have a broom." answered Severus ignoring the enraged boys.

"You could borrow one of the school brooms." suggested Draco who was secretly hoping that Severus and the others might make peace if he got them to play together.

"I already told you guys: I'm afraid of heights." said Severus calmly though he knew what was coming next.

"You're afraid of riding a broom?" asked Draco not believing his ears.

"Yes."

"How did you ever become a teacher if you can't even ride a broom?" laughed Blaise.

"I can ride a broom." Severus answered coldly staring at Blaise. "I just don't like it."

Blaise shut up pretty quickly. Severus had realised very early on that Blaise was easily intimidated and very susceptible to his cold stare. Gregory was afraid of him anyway due to the many injuries he had already suffered and would not challenge him unless Draco went for him first.

But Draco seemed unusually mellow. 'Maybe because his thoughts are on Ginny all the time.' thought Severus.

Vincent was therefore at the moment the most dangerous, but he wasn't the leading type either and Severus knew that he could handle him in a fight.

In fact as long as Draco didn't join in Severus knew that he could handle anything the others might come up with. As long as Draco didn't attack him the others would each fight alone. Only Draco could join them into that mob that had beaten him up last week.

Several other kids volunteered easily to join the game and soon the common room was nearly deserted. With a satisfied smile Severus packed away his parchment and pencils, picked up his hedgehog and climbed up the stairs into his dorm. Everything was going perfectly according to plan.

When Draco and the others returned from their game they found Severus sitting in the very same chair as when they had left several hours ago copying something from a parchment. He didn't seem to have left the common room all the time they had been gone.

"Are you finally doing your homework?" asked Draco expecting a clear 'no'.

"Yep, nearly done." grinned Severus.

"You are?" said Draco surprised as he sat down beside him.

"Yes, I'd be long finished if Greenie didn't keep getting in the way."

"Greenie?" asked Draco looking doubtfully at the hedgehog.

"Yes, he keeps walking over my parchments." complained Severus.

"Maybe he wants more attention?" suggested Draco.

Greenie looked up at him blinked happily and walked on sniffing the table curiously.

"Well, if you think so, go ahead and cuddle him a bit." responded Severus with a malicious grin.

Draco took a closer look at the spiky little fellow and decided better not to take Severus' advise.

Should he ask Severus about Ginny? This might be a good time. Severus seemed rather civil and he was preoccupied with homework. He might be nice and actually help. Everybody did know that he was in love with her anyway and he hadn't suffered as much teasing as he had expected.

But Severus couldn't be trusted. He'd probably give him the wrong instructions and make Ginny angry.

"There!" sighed Severus. "I'm done!"

He packed away his parchment, then took the one he had been copying and threw it into the fire.

Draco stared as the flames consumed the parchment.

"Was that yours?" he asked slowly after a moment.

"No." grinned Severus as he pulled out the parchment with the unicorn picture again and returned to drawing.

Draco sat there watching him draw. For a while he still considered to ask Severus for advice, but his thoughts were more and more drawn to imagined dragons accompanying certain drawn unicorns.

He considered just grabbing one of Severus' pencils and helping him with his picture, but several of their housemates were watching. They were probably already wondering what he was doing sitting there with Severus watching him draw.

So he just continued to sit there and imagine what could have been if it weren't for their housemates.

When Draco came up into the dorm that evening he found to his surprise that Gregory, Vincent and Blaise were waiting for him and they weren't looking very happy.

"What's wrong?" he asked alarmed. "Has something happened?"

"That's what we want to know." said Blaise.

"We want to know what you were doing down there." clarified Vincent.

"What do you mean? What I was doing?" asked Draco though he suspected that he knew what this was about.

"You were sitting with Severus!" Gregory accused him.

"And you asked him to play Quiddich with us!" added Blaise.

"We needed more players and he just happened to be around." Draco defended himself. He had chosen to answer Blaise first because he needed time to think up an explanation for his sitting with Severus.

'I really need to be more careful with that. They're suspicious. If I'm nice to Severus ever again they're gonna turn on me.' he thought.

"That still doesn't explain why you were sitting with him all evening." Vincent pointed out.

Well, at least that meant that the Quiddich incident had been sufficiently explained.

"I ... I wanted to ask him something." Draco said truthfully.

"So why didn't you come back to us after you did?" demanded Blaise.

"I was going to, but I didn't ... I didn't get around to asking him."

"You didn't get around to asking him? Don't you think you sat there long enough?" hissed Blaise.

"What were you going to ask him anyway?" shot Vincent.

"I ... I ... I'd rather not say." stuttered Draco.

Now even Gregory got angry.

"You've got secrets from us Draco?" he asked.

"Secrets you'd tell the little rat, but not us?" growled Vincent.

"I thought we are your friends." snarled Blaise.

Draco watched them close in. 'Oh no, it's already happening!'

"Look, I didn't want to tell him either!" he shouted retreating. "That's why it took so long. I didn't want to tell him, but I thought I should, but in the end I didn't because I don't want to tell anybody."

"But if you would have told somebody it would have been Severus and not us?" asked Vincent.

"No, no, I'd have told you, too!"

"Then why didn't you ask him in front of all of us?" Blaise again. He seemed the most aggressive.

"Because ... because ..." Whatever could he say?

At that moment Severus entered hedgehog in his arm grinning widely.

"Do any of you intend to sneak out tonight?" he inquired ignoring their angry looks.

"What do you care?" sneered Draco. "It's none of your business."

He could see by the way the others turned towards Severus that they approved of his actions. Saved just in time.

"I'm just saying that the first person through the common room door might be in for a big surprise." grinned Severus. "And you don't want to be the ones. It's not intended for you after all."

That night they were once again woken by a loud clattering sound. Draco immediately sat up straight in bed staring over towards Severus' bed.

"Ah, success!" announced Severus and jumped out of bed.

The sounds were coming from downstairs. Draco suddenly remembered Severus' warning about the common room entrance. That was definitely where the sounds were coming from.

Draco slipped out of bed and followed Severus the other three trailing behind him.

They stopped dead in their tracks halfway down the stairs. In front of the entrance was what looked like a huge moving pile of ropes with a bucket on top. Several chairs were lying half on the pile and it seemed to be tied to one of the tables.

A second look revealed that the pile was very wet and that there was somebody under it. That had to be why it was moving! Through all the ropes a bit of a blue robe was visible and some white hair blinked into view with every movement.

"Hi, Albus!" Severus greeted the pile with a triumphant smile on his face. "I thought you might need another cold shower, after what you did to my supplies."

The bucket emitted some horrible loud but not understandable sound.

Severus slowly walked over and pulled the bucket off of Dumbledore's head. The headmaster was once again thoroughly soaked.

Dumbledore blinked water dripping off of his lashes and tried to sit up, but he was too tangled in the ropes to accomplish that and he had no way of reaching his wand. He had to lie back against the wall. Slowly he let his eyes wander through the room.

The entire Slytherin house was by now assembled on the stairs laughing and pointing.

Dumbledore turned his attention back to Severus.

"Okay," he said smiling. "You guys got your laugh. Now let me out."

"No." said Severus. "Not until you beg me."

"Alright, please Severus, let me go."

"Not good enough." decided Severus.

The Slytherins on the stairs laughed louder and louder.

"Severus, let me out now or I will take another 100 points off Slytherin."

No reaction.

"I don't want to do that, Severus. You are my house. But I have to insist that you let me go."

Several Slytherins began to look worried, but the vast majority didn't care about points anymore anyway and continued cheering Severus on.

"No." repeated Severus. "Maybe I'll just leave you here until the other teachers come looking for you in the morning."

"Look, I know I overreacted a little yesterday night and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have shouted at you like that. I was going to tell you that. I'm still your friend, Severus."

"No you're not!" shouted Severus angrily. "Sweet dreams, Albus."

He turned away and walked back towards the stairs.

"Severus, you can't do that! I'm gonna catch another cold."

"See if I care!" shouted Severus as he walked up the stairs.

The audience had fallen silent. This was more than another one of Severus' pranks.

"If somebody doesn't let me out of here right now I'll deduct five hundred points from you and give the whole house detention!" threatened Dumbledore.

The pupils looked at each other uncertainly. Then hesitatingly slowly Susan came down the stairs and cast an untangling spell that freed Dumbledore. That accomplished she turned on her heel and fled back into her dorm.

Before Dumbledore had shaken off the net that was now lying loosely over him and brushed off the remaining ropes the whole common room was empty once again and all pupils were in bed pretending to sleep.

Still to come: Where did Severus get his homework from?, that last mousetrap, some more adventures at night, a problem with sweets and money, Severus promises to make a friend and will Dumbledore really catch another cold?