Severus Snape
Monday, 13th March 1972.
Hogwarts
Severus woke up at six in the morning sharp. Like usually, he was the first one out of bed, so he was able to get ready in peace. A major con in being a Hogwarts student was the lack of privacy. It could only be acquired from waking up as early as possible, and Severus valued his privacy very much.
Just as he was tying his shoes, Danon started to stir in bed. Severus huffed at a pure sight of laziness from his friends and went down to the common room to finish his Potions essay.
There was just something so powerful when it came to their common room. It was dark with only candles as its light source. The Slytherin's headquarters were positioned underneath the Black Lake which gave it such a stunning view from the windows and threw a greenish gleam to the room.
It was Monday which meant that after classes he and Lily will go on a walk on the grounds. Usually, Severus loved school and learning, but on Mondays he wanted nothing more than for that last bell to ring.
He still didn't know what was it about Lily that struck him so hard, all he knew was that he couldn't stop looking at her. Anywhere he went, Severus was searching for a pair of green eyes and red hair. He would dream of her, think of her, imagine her... All he wanted to do all day and every day was just talk to her and be in her presence.
As the last word was written completing his essay, there were Danon, Edmond and Finnian, walking towards him. Severus closed his Potions book dramatically and lifted his gaze to look at the trio, "Finally, I'm starving."
The Slytherins made it to the Great Hall and sat down to have breakfast. Like every morning, Severus grabbed a cup and filled it with hot water. He then placed a tea bag in it and scooted it further to the right.
It was such a beautiful morning without an obnoxious birthday song and more importantly, without those four idiotic Gryffindors in sight. Just that fact made Severus sigh in contentment.
He turned to the toast plate and took two pieces along with the glass dish that held the butter. Like always, there was a butterknife next to his plate which he grabbed as well. Severus proceeded with the action of buttering his toast while his attention was on the three boys around him, but as soon as he reached into the butter, he frowned. The pressure was different than usual, like he took something similar to a fork and not the knife.
Sure enough, when Severus looked down at the cutlery in his hand, it was indeed a fork. Searching around the table, he saw the butterknife at the other side of his plate. Maybe it was still the morning sleepiness.
He got rid of the fork and grabbed the knife returning his attention to Finnian who was describing a dream he had. But as he tried to scoop the butter again, it now felt like he used something similar to a spoon. Confused, Severus glanced at the butter and, sure enough, there was a spoon in his hand staring back at him.
Now, with little more irritation, he scanned the table. The knife stood on top of his plate. He squinted his eyes and glanced towards the Gryffindor table, specifically looking for the group of brainless boys, but the seats that they usually occupied were still empty.
His frown deepened as he carefully took the knife, again, making sure that it indeed was the knife. Once he was convinced enough, his gaze returned to Finnian, but when Severus tried to scoop the butter, something didn't feel right, again.
He snapped his head with more force than it was needed, making his hair whip him on the face, but the moment that Severus' eyes locked with the glass dish, the knife was dropped from his hand.
Instead of yellowish butter, in the glass dish stood blueberry jam. Now he was sure that someone was messing with him. Anger slowly started to boil in his chest, making them rise and fall a bit quicker than normally.
Some other person just wouldn't care, they would spread the jam on the toast and continue on with their day, but the problem was that Severus hated eating anything sweet first thing in the morning. Maybe all he needed was to relax and take a sip of tea.
He reached for the cup, which thankfully was right where he left it, and placed his lips on the brim. Severus tilted the cup waiting for that refreshing taste that came with tea, but the refreshness never came. Instead, Severus was met with something so sweet that he wanted to throw up.
There was no stopping him as he spitted the awful liquid out, directly onto poor Finnian. The boy just stood there shocked and drenched in something sticky, eyes wide looking directly into Severus. Danon and Edmond had their mouths open at the sight while Severus hurried to get a glass of water to try and wash off whatever it was that he just consumed.
As the water slid down his throat, he felt like he could think again. Ignoring the confused looks from his peers, he took the mug to inspect it. It was freaking syrup. Overly sweet and sticky syrup.
Needless to say, Severus was furious. He stood up abruptly, probably red in the face and exclaimed to his friends, "It must have been them! Those brainless thugs!", but as Severus turned to look at the Gryffindor table, there was no sign of the mentioned thugs.
Edmond stood up and placed a hand on his shoulder, "Severus, they haven't come to breakfast yet. Are you sure that it wasn't a mistake?"
His fury just boiled to the max with that statement, "Do you think I am some idiot to confuse tea with a freaking syrup! It must have been them! They are somewhere around here, hiding!"
He started frantically turning around, looking everywhere for the four faces he despised, but there was nothing. Severus then dunked under the table to continue his search earning him many odd looks from other Slytherins.
As he emerged, Severus' face was looking like a tomato from anger. Edmond tried one more time to calm him down, but just as it was finally starting to work, Danon had to be observant probably for the first time in his life, "There they are."
The boy whipped his head so fast that he was sure it will hurt later, but in that moment, there was only rage. Sure enough, the four Gryffindors appeared at the entrance to the Great Hall, normal as ever not even glancing at Severus.
Impossible, he thought to himself. How did they do it? Was it even them? Who else could it be?
"See, they just got here. It couldn't have been them, but maybe someone else is messing with us.", Edmond stated.
Even full of fury, Severus was still able to use his brain. Edmond was right, they would have seen them somewhere in the hall. He tried to calm down, hell he wasn't even hungry anymore.
Taking a big breath, he decided to stay quiet and not confront his possible pranksters. If it really wasn't them, Severus would just give them the reason to laugh at the Slytherins. No, he was smarter than that.
The group of boys quickly gathered their stuff and made a return for the common room so that Finnian could change. While waiting for his friend, Severus thought about breakfast.
If it really was the Gryffindors, there was no way that they could prank him and not brag about it to his face. Like mentioned, they entered the Great Hall not even giving one glace at the Slytherin table which was usually the case if there wasn't any prank in place.
But then who was it? Maybe some older Slytherins? But why? It just didn't make any sense. Nonetheless, once Finnian was ready, they went to their first class. Potions.
Professor Slughorn gathered the essays and then introduced them to the ingredients they will be needing for today's potion, Strengthening potion. Severus sent Edmond to gather the ingredients while he prepared their station.
He checked if the cauldron was clean, after what he heard happened to the Gryffindor class on November 3rd he wanted to be sure, and arranged the knives, cutting board, ladle, gloves... Once Edmond was back, the preparation could begin.
Everything was going great. Severus was cutting, measuring and adding the ingredients while Edmond stirred the potion clockwise. He had already added a snake fang and all that was left was to add a head of Fanged Geranium.
Severus had already sliced it, so he reached for the cutting board while still looking at Edmond because nobody was to be trusted around his potions. He tilted the board and the slices of Fanged Geranium plopped into the liquid.
Everything looked great, the potion started getting that bright orangey color just like their textbook described. Severus couldn't wait for professor Slughorn to come and check on them, hell the man would probably even give them some points given that they finished first.
But suddenly, little bubbles started forming in the cauldron making Severus' breath hitch. With every passing second, they became bigger and bigger while the potion started to turn purple color. And just like that, Severus' potion exploded coating him and Edmond in purple head to toe.
"Oh, dear", professor Slughorn said as the chaos caught his attention.
Severus wasn't even mad, he was just shocked. His potions never exploded, he was always so careful with everything.
Professor came closer to see what had actually happened. He looked at the cauldron and then at the cutting board, "Oh Severus, you can't add octopus tentacles to Strengthening potion.", he gestured to the cutting board while giving Severus a sympathetic look, "The ink would mess with the snake fang and turn the potion purple and explosive.", he then flicked his wand and cleaned up the remains of the potion from the two Slytherin boys and from the cauldron.
But I didn't add octopus tentacles, Severus thought to himself. Then he remembered breakfast. His head snapped towards the cutting board and, sure enough, there were little purple stains that the Fanged Geranium couldn't have left. What the hell is going on?
Panicking a little, Severus started turning around, searching everywhere for the Gryffindors. He knew that they would try and get them back for the teeth prank, hell he was even confused why it took them this long. But after his eyes scanned every corner of the Potions classroom and found nothing, Severus was left angry and confused.
Throughout the whole day, weird inconveniences continued happening to the Slytherins. After Potions, they had History of Magic and when Severus wanted to read some passage for professor Binns out loud, his History of Magic textbook suddenly became a Charms textbook resulting in him having to apologize while frantically searching his bag for the right textbook.
Then at lunch, when Danon filled his plate with potatoes and went to take a bite with a fork, all of the potatoes became olives without anyone noticing. Even the one on the boy's fork which Danon ended up spitting out.
In Transfiguration, Finnian went to McGonagall to hand in his homework, but on the way back he didn't even reach his seat before the professor called him to return. She then explained to him that he needs to hand in a Transfiguration homework, not Herbology homework or she will subtract house points from Slytherin. Sure enough, the homework that the boy handed in was titled Useful and Usless sides of Asphodel.
Then in DADA, professor asked Edmond to go and grab a wooden stake from his storage room to show the class, they were doing a lesson on vampires. But when Edmond returned, in his hand was a bouquet of flowers resulting in a fit of laughter from the students.
It was safe to say that Severus was now one hundred present sure that the idiotic Gryffindors were behind this Merlin awful day. Why else would the targets be only him and his friends. All he wanted to do was just go on a walk with Lily and relax his mind.
* * *
"I'm telling you, Lily, it must have been them."
Severus just knew. Something in his gut was telling him that all today's inconveniences were the sick joke of the idiotic Gryffindors. But there was one thing that wasn't adding up. How did they do it?
Whenever something happened, there was no sign of four boys anywhere, but Severus just knew. It was like he could feel their thug aura in the air. Like they were just so close, but somehow, he couldn't see them—
"Can you stop digging your nails into your palms? It is not a good stress relief.", Lily stated and just then Severus realized that his hands were curled up in fists.
He sighed and tried to relax by taking deep breaths with his eyes closed, but Lily interrupted him, "Don't you think that you are overreacting a bit?", she raised an eyebrow at the boy.
Severus turned towards her and opened his eyes, "No, Lily. I am not. There is no other person in the castle that would want to prank me in this way besides them."
Lily took a deep breath similar to the ones parents took while talking to children, "I know, Severus. I don't like them either, but you said that they were nowhere near you for any of those pranks."
That was just the thing that irritated him the most out of all of this. How the hell did they managed to prank him and stay hidden from him? It was the questioned that roamed his mind all day, it was just impossible.
"I am telling you. It's them for sure. Who else could come up with something this dumb.", he tried to convince her of his theory, but Lily didn't seem to believe it which was even more infuriating.
The two sat down on the bench next to the Black Lake, "But Severus, the only way they could do something like that and not be seen was if they somehow mastered the Disillusionment charm which is impossible since we are all first years."
He knew that she was right, but there must have been some other way for the Gryffindors to manage and do all of this. The two continued the talk and after couple of minutes, Lily offered him an apple which Severus took with great pleasure. He just craved something refreshing, it was like the freaking syrup was stuck on his tongue all day.
His eyes were locked on Lily, on her beautiful green eyes and red hair. The apple came closer and closer to his mouth, but when he took a big bite, Severus almost threw up for the second time that day.
He stood up abruptly, scaring Lily in return, and spitted out whatever it was that he took a bite of. It was like his tongue experienced another shock and craved some water. Thankfully, Lily immediately understood what he needed, she took out her water bottle and offered it to him which Severus gladly accepted, chugging all of it in one go.
When the immediate shock wore off a bit, both of them turned to the object that he dropped in all that chaos. It was a freaking onion.
Severus could just feel himself getting red in the face from anger. All of his fury from the whole day came at once, making him shake with rage.
Like on cue, there was a group of boys walking in their direction, a group of very specific boys. As soon as he saw them, Severus stomped over directly in front of them, blocking their path. He could hear Lily calling after him to come back, but the fury was so big that not even her could do anything to stop him.
"I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!", he screamed at the four Gryffindors. Even though they tried, Severus saw a small smirk forming on Potter's face and a little twitch of Black's mouth which made his blood boil. He quite literally wanted to strangle them.
Potter just shrugged, "I don't know what you are talking about. Do you guys?", he turned to the rest of his little entourage with such clueless look that Severus immediately knew was fake.
Lupin and Pettigrew just shrugged nonchalantly, like they were bored while Severus was on the verge of mental breakdown. Black patted Potter on the back, "No idea, mate.", he then turned to Severus, "Maybe you're just imagining things."
With that the four Gryffindors continued their walk towards some stupid tree, leaving Severus furious and full of revengeful thoughts, "You lot are done! You'll see! You are done!", but the Gryffindors didn't even spare him a look.
"Come on, Severus. Leave them, they are just obnoxious, let's go inside. The Library is still open, we can finish our Charms homework.", Lily placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.
Yes. Maybe that was what he needed to forget about this Merlin awful day. Just some library time with books and Lily.