Strange Brew

Disclaimer: JKR’s not mine *sniff*
Feedback: Yes please - with a lubed up Harry on the top - tastier than a cherry don\'t ya think?
Beta: Thanks to the intrepid Noesnifunifa for braving the harsh terrain of my grammar and taming it;-)

Chapter 4

Deep in the dungeons, Severus Snape was enjoying himself immensely.

Life was good… better than good. Life was…great!

Okay, so he needed to work on his positive vocabulary. He’d had little use for optimistic words in the past twenty-odd lonely, isolated, bleak, desolate years. So, for now, great was sufficient…more than sufficient. Great was great!

Severus loomed over the pale, supine body of his lover and smirked, flexing his whip. Who’d have thought the man at his feet could play such a willing submissive?

He was just about to make his pet squeal with a strategically aimed lash when there was a knock at his chamber door.

His pet groaned in frustration and a pair of impassioned eyes pleaded with him to ignore the interruption.

“Don’t move,” Severus warned, dropping the whip and pulling on his outer robes.

His pet lowered his head and snarled, and Severus sighed. His lover’s wilful nature meant that he was not always capable of keeping up the passive role when they played their little games. Yet without disobedience, there would be no need for discipline, and where would be the fun in that?

Severus yanked open the door and glared.

“What?”

The school caretaker Argus Filch stood before him in all his moth-eaten finery. Mrs. Norris meowed a ‘hello’ from her perch on his shoulder.

“We have a situation, professor,” Argus wheezed.

“Can it not wait?”

“No sir,” he insisted, chest puffed out self-importantly. “Two students have locked themselves in one of my storerooms.”

“Well, get one of the students to spell it open,” Severus ordered, waving a dismissive hand.

“Ah, well that’s the thing. The door’s disappeared,” the caretaker croaked darkly. It was clear from the intonation in his words that Filch expected a fierce reaction from the Potions Master.

It was true that in recent years such an asinine quandary would have sent him stalking the corridors and spitting like a pregnant Kneazle until the offending students were nothing more than quivering puddles of armadillo bile, but right now all he wanted to do was go back into his chambers and commit various indecent and possibly illegal acts with his lover.

Severus sighed and felt his cock wilt, “I have more pressing matters to deal with at present, Filch. Find professors McGonagall - let her deal with it.”

“I can’t find McGonagall, or any of the other professors, and besides, I thought you’d like to deal with this personally,” Argus said, giving Severus a crafty wink.

Severus raised a dark eyebrow. “Who are the students?”

“Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter.”

A howl of rage resounded within Severus’ inner bedchamber, and Filch tried to peer around his tall frame, practically twitching with curiosity.

“I see. Lead the way then, Argus.” Severus said, blocking the caretaker’s view with a warning glare.

As he locked and warded the door, he heard an interesting string of dark curses echo throughout his quarters.

~

When they reached the site of the mayhem, Filch pointed out the place where the door should have been and trotted away, obviously eager to get back to polishing his manacles.

A considerable crowd of students - engaged in a myriad of activities - had gathered in the corridor. Affable chatter and excited giggles filled the air.

The old Severus would have banished the little fiends to their respective common rooms with maximum point loss and a rather nasty ‘biting flea’ hex in their ears. The new Severus, quite frankly, couldn’t give a flying fuck.

He cast his eyes over the crowd, searching for possible clues as to what was taking place in the storeroom.

Madam Pomfrey was wandering in and out of the crowd offering medical assistance, although Severus could see no reason for this. Everyone was brimming with sickeningly good health; cheeks positively glowed. Quite a few of the students were edging away from Poppy nervously, but a small number of the seventh year boys blushed and followed the mediwitch eagerly.

Dean Thomas was shouting robustly from behind a self-made stall. “Get your t-shirts! All good quality merchandise! Money-back guarantee!”

Severus strolled over just as Thomas was exchanging a t-shirt for a pile of gold coins with an excited-looking Hufflepuff.

“I believe I’ll be taking that, Mr. Macmillan, Mr. Thomas.” Snape sneered at the two reprobates and pocketed the gold. ‘Just enough for the whip I’ve been eyeing in Flagellators R Us,’ he thought gleefully.

As he swept on through the crowd, he spotted Blaise Zabini looking conspicuously unobtrusive.

“Hello, professor,” he said, his face a nauseating parody of innocence.

“Wipe that grin of your face, and pass me whatever it is you’re hiding behind your back, you evil little whelp.”

Zabini shrugged and held out a chalkboard.

The heading at the top of the board read:

Guess what Harry and Draco are doing in the storeroom!

Underneath that rather provocative title was an entertaining list of activities set out in sloppy handwriting. Besides each activity was a list of odds.

“You’ve spelt fellatio wrong, Mr. Zabini,” he said dryly and passed the board back to the unrepentant boy.

“Care to place a bet, professor?”

“Don’t push your luck, you illiterate little beast.”

Zabini bowed respectfully and slinked away to the back of the crowd.

When he finally made it to the wall, he glared at Finnigan and Creevey until they backed away nervously. He was fully aware of the implications of their presence and wanted them as far away from Malfoy and Potter as possible.

He cast Finite Incantatem on the wall but nothing happened, and one of the students giggled. Hermione Granger, if he wasn’t mistaken. Severus ignored her, and this time preformed an advanced counteractive spell on the charmed wall. Then he whispered a hex under his breath.

‘That’ll teach her,’ he thought as the door popped back into existence under his palm.

Finally, he cast an unlocking charm, and the door swung open with an ominous creek. The crowd gathered close and sucked in a collective breath.

~

The boys hadn’t noticed that the door had reappeared or that half of the student body was staring at them keenly. Potter was busy trying to wrestle a copy of the Quibbler from Malfoy. Malfoy jerked around the room with Potter’s violent tugs but hung on, baring his teeth and yapping like a deranged Yorkshire terrier.

Both seemed physically unarmed but flustered, robes dishevelled. There was shattered glass on the floor and a broken table lying on its side.

“I told you they’d be fighting not shagging,” a disappointed voice piped up from amongst the crowd.

“Hey! I had fighting. Pay up, Zabini!” shouted another.

Potter jumped back from Malfoy at the sound of the voices. Malfoy, still managing to keep hold of the Quibbler, held it behind his back and gazed at the crowd curiously.

“Sir, why is Granger’s hair standing on end?” he asked.

Severus grinned at Granger’s indignant squeal but didn’t bother to turn and look. The sight in his mind’s eye was far more amusing than any reality could ever be. Perpendicular hair wasn’t nearly enough comeuppance for the mocking little goody-two-shoes, but it was as far as he dared go. The school had a strict policy regarding the hexing of students, and no doubt Miss Brain could recite it backwards whilst juggling monkeys and dancing the bleeding can-can.

‘Small victories, Severus, small victories,’ he told himself soothingly.

“I don’t know, Mr. Malfoy. Why are you hiding a copy of the Quibbler behind your back?”

He smirked at the boy’s blush and then moved his eyes to his next target.

Potter was shifting awkwardly on restless feet, his eyes flitting from Malfoy to the crowd before finally looking Severus in the eyes. Without hesitation, Severus pushed his way into Potter’s mind, but the boy stiffened and thrust him out immediately. Damn, he’d taught him too well. It was inconsequential; Severus’ well-trained nose - used to detecting the subtle nuance of various odours - told him everything he needed to know. Severus mentally rubbed his hands together. This was certainly more than he could have hoped for in such a short space of time.

He stared at Potter knowingly. Potter stared back and flushed an interesting shade of pink. Malfoy transferred his gaze between the two, disturbed by the piercing look they were giving each other.

“Did I miss something?” Malfoy snapped and glared suspiciously at the Potions Master.

Potter, seeming to snap out of a trance, used Malfoy’s distraction to his advantage and lunged at the preoccupied blond. Malfoy leapt back nimbly, brandishing his wand in his left hand and the Quibbler in his right.

“Back off scar head!” Malfoy yelled. “One step closer and the magazine gets it.”

“Don’t you dare,” Harry whispered menacingly, uncomfortably aware that all eyes were watching them.

Malfoy shot Potter a spiteful look and shouted, “Incendio!” A flame spat out of Malfoy’s wand and swallowed up the magazine, leaving nothing but a wisp of smoke and a few floating ashes.

“You little prick,” Potter growled, advancing on the blond.

“It’s all right Harry; he has another one hidden under his mattress,” said a voice from behind Severus’ shoulder.

Malfoy’s head spun around and caught a glimpse of a dark head dipping back behind the Potions Master.

“Blaise, you fucker! How would you like to be flayed and castrated?”

The sound of pounding feet beating a rapid exit was Zabini’s only reply.

Malfoy glared at Potter before suddenly racing off through the crowd after his traitorous best friend.

Potter yelled and took off after him.

Granger and Weasley looked at each other and shared a conspirator’s glance with Crabbe and Goyle before they chased after the three boys, Granger’s frizzy, vertical hair bobbing off into the distance.

Crabbe and Goyle shrugged and followed them all at a snail’s pace.

Finnigan and Creevey were about to take up the trail when Severus grabbed both boys by their ears. “A word please, gentlemen,” he said with a very unpleasant smile.

Five minutes later, Severus stalked through the dungeons grinning manically; everything was working out just the way he’d planned. Indeed, it seemed that there were even a few unforeseen outside influences working in his favour. Ah, it was great to be alive and in possession of a decent whip.

Tbc

notes

* I won\'t insult your intelligence by telling you what a Kneazle is.