Please Pass the Story

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A/N- I should put a WARNING here. If you have a sensitive constitution this probably isn’t a good chapter to read. It’s terribly nauseating and not in a overly-fluffy way either.

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‘…thirty six, thirty seven, thirty eight, thirty nine, forty,’ Hermione counted to herself as she was in the habit of doing.





There were precisely forty steps separating the upper level from the dungeons and in her mind she likened it to the descent into hell. Well, perhaps nothing quite as dramatic as Hades, but still there was a world of difference between Hogwarts-proper and Snape’s domain, and at present Hermione felt a bit like Persephone herself.





She had no doubt he’d have something nefarious planned for her. Snape didn’t disappoint either. At 6:50, Hermione knocked on the scarred wooden door and was ushered in when it opened for her. Snape stood towering over his own desk, a disgusted frown quirked on his lips, and holding what looked like a stack of essays, but Hermione’s eyes were instantly drawn to what was laid out for her on the front-and-center worktable.





“Bugger,” she muttered softly.





“Language Miss Granger,” he admonished, his head not even lifting up from the parchments, “and five points from Gryffindor for swearing.”





Hermione’s eyes darted from the engrossed professor to her worktable and back again, surely he didn’t expect. Of course he did. There wasn’t anything scrawled in indecipherable handwriting on the chalkboard. Taking a deep breath she gingerly removed her outer school robe and rolled the cuffs of her shirt up. There was no point in getting any messier than she needed to.





After all, harvesting bezoars was a nasty affair.





She glanced into the buckets holding goat’s stomachs and noted with disgust that many of them had the esophagus still attached; others looked to contain the entire gastrointestinal tract. He had kindly provided a knife for her usage. How charitable.





Well, if he didn’t think she was up to the challenge than he was sorely mistaken. It would take a whole hell of a lot more than some nasty evil smelling potion’d water, outrageous boils, and putrid goat guts to scare her. Squick her out and make her dry heave; possibly, but scare? No. Of course not. She was made of stronger stuff.





Or at least she thoughts so until she made the first incision.





Sitting on their own in a bucket the goat’s guts gave off a foul and noxious odor. Opening up the stomach lining, Hermione found out first hand just where the smell originated. There was nothing that she could liken the experience to and quickly had to cover her mouth and nose with her sleeve to breathe. If only she had asked during forth year how to do the bubblehead charm.





Reaching into her first goat’s stomach, Hermione fished around for anything that felt remotely like a bezoar and then had to wonder what on earth the ill-fated goat had to eat before its demise. Her fingers touched something rough and she brought it to the surface only to discover a once yellow sock. Well, that might have explained how the poor goat died. She looked up plaintively at Professor Snape for some sort of, anything actually. Help? Sympathy?





She shook her head. She’d get none of these things from her taciturn professor. He had finally seated himself and appeared to have turned all his attention towards composing a letter. For a moment Hermione allowed herself to wonder just who he’d correspond to, or for that matter, who would want to correspond with him, but let those thoughts go. It was best if she didn’t think of him as a man with a life outside of teaching and handing out vile detentions. That sort of thinking could lead to actually considering the bat as human, and anyone who’d allow schoolchildren to harvest bezoars was certainly not human.





By the third stomach she had almost gotten accustomed to the stench. She had also resolved to get by hook or crook Harry’s cloak that evening and slip into the Prefect’s bathroom for a long, hot, and cleansing soak. She already knew she’s be out way past curfew to make it happen, but frankly couldn’t give two-shits about it. She had never in her life felt so dirty before. And her bucket of bezoars was woefully filled with only a paltry amount of hairy kidney shaped stones. Fortunately she had so much many more stomachs to process and had no doubt that by the time the evil loathsome foul wanker finally let her out of detention the bucket would be passably full. Maybe.





Her only hope was that maybe Ron would be able to join her in the suds. It depended entirely on his ability to hide under the cloak with her. Over the summer Ron had gotten his height, which is to say he shot up like a bean sprout and had to bend over to give her a proper smooch. She didn’t fancy getting caught in the halls because his body-less red trainers stuck out from under the cloak… again.





Hermione pulled another squish stomach from a bucket and dropped it down on her worktable. It landed with a disgusting ‘splortch’ and slid a bit on the soaked station. Hermione deftly touched the tip of her blade to the overfull stomach, knowing to proceed with caution because it had a balloon-like look to it which under these circumstances was probably not good at all.





Her blade had barely nicked the stomach when it shot out a stream of liquid straight into the air. Hermione did the only rational thing she could do. She screamed like a girl. A lot.





Oh God, it had gotten on her. All over her.





Ugh!





On her shirt, on her skirt, in her hair. She felt covered in goat gel. Without rational thought Hermione began to try and smooth the globs off her white shirt, but only ended up coating herself more in the watery stuff.





Well, that had gotten Professor Snape’s attention for now he was right behind her looming over her shoulder with a wrinkled nose that conveyed not only his disdain, but disgust.





Fantastic.





He rolled his eyes upwards to the heavens looking for some sort of deliverance from the witch who was making her situation worse for herself. Even the so-called intelligent ones were completely and utterly incompetent. He frowned again at her, with his height and vantage point he could tell her breasts were entirely covered by the goo and she had only managed in make them stick out and appear visible like some sort of revolting white tee shirt contest. Which really wouldn’t have been so bad, with magnificent tits like hers she could easily be a contender, but… Severus’ mind halted mid-thought.





He was openly ogling the chest of one of his students. Oh fucking hell, one of Minerva’s students, she’d castrate him and then hang his balls from the top of the Gryffindor section of the Quidditch pitch.





Why had he looked at her? And why was he still staring? An annoying tickle-brained Gryffindor witch who was covered in goat guts. Obviously something was very wrong with him. He had to be deeply disturbed. Perhaps a psychiatric exam was warranted. He did not just have a peek at Miss Granger’s cleavage. Still. Still peeking at Miss Granger’s cleavage.





Fortunately rational thought pervaded and he flicked a quick cleaning spell towards the hyperventilating witch. He had to think fast. There was no way she could get the impression his eyes had been drawn to those perfectly rounded globes. He’d never live down the humiliation. It would be worse than the time the house elves miss-sorted his laundry and the entire teaching staff learned that he preferred silk next to his bits.





“Miss Granger,” he hissed trying to reassert himself, “had you asked, your detention was to scrub out the cauldrons located at the back of the classroom, not process my gut pile. I don’t suppose you left a single duodenum unmolested. Let this be a lesson to you about making assumptions. And if you are assuming this costly mistake will earn you another detention, then you’re correct. I’ll see you tomorrow promptly at seven.”





She fled.





And good thing too. Severus needed a drink.





But why the fuck had he ordered her to come back the next evening? He hated giving out detentions on Friday nights. He was going to need several drinks.





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What a lovely challenge. This was fun. I can’t wait to see what others leave. - AV