Sore Throats and Seething Thoughts: A Harry Potter Fic

The Potions master gets a taste of his own medicine.

“Bloody little… snot-nosed, slimy, knot-brained little worm…”

Snape picked his way through the unspeakable muck of Hagrid’s back yard, the hem of his black robe held high above the evidence of the hippogriffs. Normally he would be in bed by now, or at least brooding darkly over ancient tomes in his potion room, but thanks to that little twit Potter he had spent the better part of the evening in the forest, avoiding wild cars and angry centaurs in an attempt to find some fairy wings (he would be all out, of course). He’d found them, thank goodness, and they’d had the desired effect — the spell had abated, and he was his normal self again. Normal plus a little swearing and a large desire to smite Harry Potter.

It had all started with the damn sore throat — that, at least, was not Potter’s fault (although he would find a way to connect it to the little bastard if he could). A fast-moving head cold combined with five lectures in a row had given him the mother of all sore throats and put him in an even nastier mood than usual. He’d whipped up a soothing potion in between classes, but hadn’t had time to finish it all before the class was ready. So he’d taken it with him to his desk and sipped it while snarling (somewhat hoarsely) at the Gryffindor fourth-years in general and Lightning-Face in particular.

As a much-disliked teacher, he should have known to double-check any liquid that had been left uncovered in a room full of vengeful adolescents for more than a few seconds. As a naturally paranoid man, he should have known better than to carry the damn drink with him while prowling about the classroom terrorizing the students. His bad mood and sore throat, however, had lowered his defenses. He wasn’t sure if Potter and his friends had spiked the drink while he was looming over Longbottom or when he was mocking that girl in the corner who kept hiccupping; either way, they had put something in it, and he would have tasted the change immediately if he hadn’t taken that one enormous gulp.

It was a slow-acting potion, so he had no idea what had happened until after class, when hidden parts of his body began to tingle in a way uniquely associated with love potions, particularly those fast-acting ones which focused mainly on love at first sight. Once that started, he knew what was happening, and thought he could make it from the classroom to his chambers without running into anything alive — he could only pray that Dumbledore would not be wandering the halls in one of his exploratory moods, or that any of the first-years had been inadvertantly left behind by their classes. He was halfway there when his luck ran out, and Mrs. Norris crossed his path.

The spell was chugging along full-speed at that point, and the fact that the first being he saw was a cat didn’t affect it in the least. Everything went all to pieces then, and before he could stop himself he had flung himself on the bewildered animal, crushing her to his chest and kissing her beautiful fur (no, not beautiful — he shook the last traces of spell from his head as he went over the scene in his mind) and calling her the kinds of names one only finds in the cheapest romance novels. It was a blessing for Mrs. Norris that Filch had appeared when he did, asking (over piercing feline shrieks) what was he doing, and was he quite well, and was he —? Filch didn’t get any farther, finding his mouth suddenly filled with fur as Snape threw Mrs. Norris at his head and rushed off down the hall towards his chambers, having remembered through the haze of the spell that fairy wings were a certain cure for almost any aphrodisiac. Of course he’d used his supply up a few nights before on an unfortunate fifth-year, so he had to go find some of the little buggers in the woods and rip their wings off, getting his fingers badly bitten in the process. Oh, the joy of gathering ingredients from the wild…

Snape reached Hagrid’s fence and stopped to lean against it, drained of energy and profanities. For the seventy-fifth time he cursed himself for keeping Potter’s broom aloft when Quirrell was trying to crash it. The image of Harry’s small remains spattered all over the green Quidditch field brought a grim ghost of a smile to his lips. But no, that kind of death was far too quick and painless, even if it was immediately preceded by a long and terrifying fall. No, Potter’s demise would have to be far more subtle and time-consuming. In the nearby shed, a hippogriff grunted in its sleep, and Snape considered the possibilities of Hagrid’s pets. All one would have to do was lock the little brat in with the beasts, and… no, that was too slow; hippogriffs take their time over their meals, and Harry’s screams might bring someone to rescue him. If only Snape could figure out a way to have Harry fall from his broom at the next Quidditch match and into the open mouth of a hippogriff…

Plotting the boy’s demise was rapidly improving Snape’s mood. He stood up from the fence, rubbing absently at the haphazard grid of slowly-scabbing scratches covering his face. The one thing he liked about Potter was the boy’s uncanny ability to get into serious scrapes; it meant that Snape might be saved the trouble of offing the lad himself. Perhaps he might just settle for permanently scarring the boy’s psyche while he waited for his inevitable grisly demise by Slytherins, Death Eaters, or speeding Beaters. Slipping Potter a love spell to give him a similar torment was, though tempting, rather unneccessary; the boy had been openly eyeing that black-haired Ravenclaw Seeker for weeks now, and the girl was so obviously not interested that shattered dreams and pubescent humiliation would not be long in coming. Perhaps a physical deformation potion would inflict the required mortification. He knew of a lovely draught which would cause long-lasting acne… yes, that would be ideal. And he knew for a fact that he had all the necessary ingredients in his office. It was with a light heart and a spring in his step that Snape set off once more for the school building…though his step was, unfortunately, not springy enough to avoid the large pile of hipppogriff poo at the edge of Hagrid’s yard.

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