Fic Bit: Harry Potter
Fandom: Harry Potter
Genre: Light-hearted humour.
Pairing: None. It never got beyond the set-up.
Rating: PG.
Summary: HP fandom cliché #12: Harry Returns to Hogwarts as a Teacher + General Fanfic Cliché #28: The Age Reversal (target: Ye Olde Greasy Potions Master).
Warnings: Unbeta'ed and awkward.
When Harry first heard about the accident, his first reaction was to assume that it was his fault. His second reaction was to cringe inwardly at his first reaction, because all roads did not lead to Harry Potter, though he couldn’t be blamed for such thoughts when his informant was a very worried Gryffindor Head Prefect.
“Headmaster Dumbledore’s called you and Professor Sinistra to the infirmary to have a look-over Professor Snape’s condition, sir,” Head Prefect Frampton told him.
“I thought you said no one got hurt,” Harry said.
“That’s what I was told,” Frampton replied with a shrug.
To be honest, from Harry’s new vantage point on the other side of the staff’s table, accidents didn’t happen nearly as often in Hogwarts as you’d expect from a lethal combination of hormones and magic. Still, most of the time it was the students that bore the brunt of the mishaps; they knew better than to involve the teachers. Whoever dared involve Snape was downright suicidal.
“It happened during third-year Gryffindor-Ravenclaw Potions,” Frampton told him. “Whitaker is in the Headmaster’s office right now and Professor McGonagall 'sarguing his case, but don’t mind me saying sir, it’s not even his fault. Belper and Cardullo were having a disagreement that got out of hand and… Whitaker just happened to be there.”
The eye of Harry’s mind jumped back a few hours to breakfast, recalling in vivid detail the sight of young Whitaker - a skinny boy with perpetually-wide blue eyes - choking with terror as his grandmother’s Howler greeted him over his spilled sausages.
“Ah,” Harry said, nodding. “Short on his nerves, overreacted, instant potions accident?”
“I believe so, sir,” Frampton said. “And Professor Snape’s beyond livid. Erm, as I’ve been told. Sir.”
Harry didn’t doubt that for one minute, so when actually arrived at the infirmary he was taken aback by Pomfrey’s whisper of, “He hasn’t said a word since he got here. If it weren’t Snape, I’d say he’s in shock.”
Harry didn’t have enough time to digest that piece of information as he was quickly ushered to the slightly more private corner of the infirmary reserved for staff and VIP visitors. Behind the curtain, sitting on the edge of the pristinely starched bed, was Snape.
Or someone who looked like Snape.
The head shifted slightly and the eyelids opened to stab him with the ever-familiar glare. Definitely Snape, then.
“Not a word, Potter,” was Snape’s greeting.
As magical accidents went it was pretty harmless. Snape was still the right shape and had all the right limbs. It was certainly not bad enough to merit the way that Snape’s upper lip curled as he no doubt contemplated the deaths of two Ravenclaws and one Gryffindor. Harry decided to tell him so.
“Shut up, Potter,” Snape said.
Sinistra took that moment to make her entrance, yanking the curtain aside to let herself in. Harry politely pulled the curtain back (though there really wasn’t anything to hide, honestly) and watched as Sinistra’s expression of concern turn into one of surprised relief.
“Oh, is that all,” Sinistra said. “Were you working on glamour potions during this class?”
“No, I was not,” Snape snarled. “That’s the problem.”
Harry still did not see the problem, if it could be considered a problem at all, even during the later emergency staff meeting that Dumbledore called to order in his office. Harry and Sinistra had obliged in helping Snape reach the office while avoiding all students from seeing him in his ‘condition’ (as he’d called it). You’d think the man had grown a second head or something, from the way he’d tugged around himself a makeshift hood he’d constructed from Pomfrey’s sheets.
But once he was within the confines of Dumbledore’s office with none but staff members present he was back to being Snape again, handling it with his own Snapeish way by debating the merit of eternal detention for the three boys responsible for his condition. But Dumbledore was not Headmaster without good reason, and he easily detoured the topic to another point of consideration.
“Don’t be daft,” Snape said. “Headmaster.”
“Barring the circumstances that lead to this, surely even you must see the magical advancements to be made,” Dumbledore said. “The magical community has been searching for millennia the means for age-reversal, and though glamour magic does have its advantages, you said yourself that what your class was handling today had nothing to do with glamour.”
“Certainly not, we were making hide dissolving potions for the treatment of dragon scales,” Snape said. “Nothing whatsoever to do with glamour.”
“Indeed,” Dumbledore said, “Yet somewhere along the way you discovered this. About twenty years off the clock, perhaprs? What do you think, Minerva?”
“Definitely,” McGonagall agreed. “Post-graduation, pre-apprenticeship I’d wager.”
Something went ping in the senior staff's heads.
“Oh my,” Flitwick murmured. “Twenty years, y’say?”
Harry, being the only one present barely past the twenty-year mark, could not appreciate the sentiment. What did the loss of twenty years really mean, anyway? The only thing that was really different about Snape was the way his collar hung looser around his neck, leaving more smooth pale skin free to the eye. Maybe if you looked a little more, you’d see that the cut of the robes were also wrong, causing the sleeves to fall further from his wrists like a banshee’s cloak. The pinched lines of the face were gone too, but it was hard to make out all the exact details for Snape’s unchanged glare stopped anyone who tried.
“Do you have any idea what might’ve happened to cause this?” Dumbledore asked.
Snape chose not to acknowledge the headmaster’s question, and in the back of the room there were whispers.
“It is our responsibility,” Dumbledore was talking to everyone now, “To document and attempt to duplicate such a unique discovery.” The argument was barely past Snape’s lips when Dumbledore continued with, “The best moments of pure genius usually happen by accident, and we cannot let such a venture be forgotten as just another daily mishap.”
“Not when I’m the guinea pig, no!” Snape snarled. “Don’t tell me we’re going to promote such juvenile idiocy now?”
Somewhere behind him, Flitwick was still murmuring, “Twenty years,” and stroking his beard thoughtfully.
Dumbledore sighed. “I’m surprised at you, Severus. I’d though you jump at the chance of developing a new discovery.”
“I suppose I wasn’t planning on doing anything between or after classes anyway,” Snape muttered dryly. “And what about my classes?”
“What about them?” Dumbledore asked, peering over the rim of his glasses. “According to Pomfrey you are in perfect health and you clearly function normally, so I think that unless something else pops up classes should go on as usual... Unless you believe there’s a reason they should not.”
Snape’s expression was like steel. “No, there’s no reason I can think of.”
“That’s settled then. Oh, and you should form a research team to help with this,” Dumbledore suggested.
“Out of the question,” Snape said. “I don’t need more fools puttering around my dungeons and causing another accident, thank you very much.”
“You’re talking about your own colleagues, Snape,” McGonagall said sharply.
“Your point being?” Snape made an irritated but resigned noise. “It will be faster if I can work on my own.”
“Oh, and do try to find out whether it’s permanent,” Flitwick suggested.
Snape’s shudder was barely visible, but Harry saw it anyway. Maybe Snape was concerned about other long-term messing about with the body’s natural clock. Or maybe he just didn’t like that he’d lost quite a bit of that angular-shoulder effect that came in handy while looming. Harry was still trying to figure out how to wrap his mind around this when he was suddenly aware than Dumbledore’s blue eyes were looking straight at him. “Sorry, what was that?”
“I asked whether you’d like to supervise the boys’ detention sessions,” Dumbledore asked. “High time you had a go at it.”
“Potter, supervising detentions, hah,” Snape muttered, just loud enough for Harry to hear. “Probably give them all a pat on the head.”
“I think that would be just fine,” Harry said, not looking at Snape. “My classroom does need a little cleaning up. How long will they be in for?”
“Three weeks should suffice.”
“Hah,” said Snape, though he didn’t argue the statement. Harry made a mental note to talk to Whitaker about the affair; the boy could probably use some advice from someone else who’d wandered on to Snape’s bad side due to sheer bad luck.
Harry got his chance the next morning during breakfast, when he briefed the three boys on their brand new detention schedule.
#### At this point I stopped, read HBP, and then lost all desire for light-hearted Teacher!Harry fics. ####
Notes: There are lot of cliché-fics in the HP fandom, but strangely enough I haven't been able to find the one cliché I wanted so badly, which was Age-Reversal!Snape. There was one fic I did find that used age-reversal as a plot device but didn't address the issues or maximise the potential of the plot contrivance. I knew that HBP was coming out and would shift canon in unexpected ways, but at the time I started this fic, I didn't care. After reading HBP, I found that I cared more about finding out what happens in canon, and fanon no longer interested me. Go, canon!
+++
Totally OT: I made a list of the DVDs in my collection. This includes originals and the, uh, not-so-originals, but doesn't include VCDs, videos and DVDs that aren't in the database. I'm a freak*.
*In my defense, some of the DVDs in that list stumbled into my possession against my will.
Genre: Light-hearted humour.
Pairing: None. It never got beyond the set-up.
Rating: PG.
Summary: HP fandom cliché #12: Harry Returns to Hogwarts as a Teacher + General Fanfic Cliché #28: The Age Reversal (target: Ye Olde Greasy Potions Master).
Warnings: Unbeta'ed and awkward.
When Harry first heard about the accident, his first reaction was to assume that it was his fault. His second reaction was to cringe inwardly at his first reaction, because all roads did not lead to Harry Potter, though he couldn’t be blamed for such thoughts when his informant was a very worried Gryffindor Head Prefect.
“Headmaster Dumbledore’s called you and Professor Sinistra to the infirmary to have a look-over Professor Snape’s condition, sir,” Head Prefect Frampton told him.
“I thought you said no one got hurt,” Harry said.
“That’s what I was told,” Frampton replied with a shrug.
To be honest, from Harry’s new vantage point on the other side of the staff’s table, accidents didn’t happen nearly as often in Hogwarts as you’d expect from a lethal combination of hormones and magic. Still, most of the time it was the students that bore the brunt of the mishaps; they knew better than to involve the teachers. Whoever dared involve Snape was downright suicidal.
“It happened during third-year Gryffindor-Ravenclaw Potions,” Frampton told him. “Whitaker is in the Headmaster’s office right now and Professor McGonagall 'sarguing his case, but don’t mind me saying sir, it’s not even his fault. Belper and Cardullo were having a disagreement that got out of hand and… Whitaker just happened to be there.”
The eye of Harry’s mind jumped back a few hours to breakfast, recalling in vivid detail the sight of young Whitaker - a skinny boy with perpetually-wide blue eyes - choking with terror as his grandmother’s Howler greeted him over his spilled sausages.
“Ah,” Harry said, nodding. “Short on his nerves, overreacted, instant potions accident?”
“I believe so, sir,” Frampton said. “And Professor Snape’s beyond livid. Erm, as I’ve been told. Sir.”
Harry didn’t doubt that for one minute, so when actually arrived at the infirmary he was taken aback by Pomfrey’s whisper of, “He hasn’t said a word since he got here. If it weren’t Snape, I’d say he’s in shock.”
Harry didn’t have enough time to digest that piece of information as he was quickly ushered to the slightly more private corner of the infirmary reserved for staff and VIP visitors. Behind the curtain, sitting on the edge of the pristinely starched bed, was Snape.
Or someone who looked like Snape.
The head shifted slightly and the eyelids opened to stab him with the ever-familiar glare. Definitely Snape, then.
“Not a word, Potter,” was Snape’s greeting.
As magical accidents went it was pretty harmless. Snape was still the right shape and had all the right limbs. It was certainly not bad enough to merit the way that Snape’s upper lip curled as he no doubt contemplated the deaths of two Ravenclaws and one Gryffindor. Harry decided to tell him so.
“Shut up, Potter,” Snape said.
Sinistra took that moment to make her entrance, yanking the curtain aside to let herself in. Harry politely pulled the curtain back (though there really wasn’t anything to hide, honestly) and watched as Sinistra’s expression of concern turn into one of surprised relief.
“Oh, is that all,” Sinistra said. “Were you working on glamour potions during this class?”
“No, I was not,” Snape snarled. “That’s the problem.”
Harry still did not see the problem, if it could be considered a problem at all, even during the later emergency staff meeting that Dumbledore called to order in his office. Harry and Sinistra had obliged in helping Snape reach the office while avoiding all students from seeing him in his ‘condition’ (as he’d called it). You’d think the man had grown a second head or something, from the way he’d tugged around himself a makeshift hood he’d constructed from Pomfrey’s sheets.
But once he was within the confines of Dumbledore’s office with none but staff members present he was back to being Snape again, handling it with his own Snapeish way by debating the merit of eternal detention for the three boys responsible for his condition. But Dumbledore was not Headmaster without good reason, and he easily detoured the topic to another point of consideration.
“Don’t be daft,” Snape said. “Headmaster.”
“Barring the circumstances that lead to this, surely even you must see the magical advancements to be made,” Dumbledore said. “The magical community has been searching for millennia the means for age-reversal, and though glamour magic does have its advantages, you said yourself that what your class was handling today had nothing to do with glamour.”
“Certainly not, we were making hide dissolving potions for the treatment of dragon scales,” Snape said. “Nothing whatsoever to do with glamour.”
“Indeed,” Dumbledore said, “Yet somewhere along the way you discovered this. About twenty years off the clock, perhaprs? What do you think, Minerva?”
“Definitely,” McGonagall agreed. “Post-graduation, pre-apprenticeship I’d wager.”
Something went ping in the senior staff's heads.
“Oh my,” Flitwick murmured. “Twenty years, y’say?”
Harry, being the only one present barely past the twenty-year mark, could not appreciate the sentiment. What did the loss of twenty years really mean, anyway? The only thing that was really different about Snape was the way his collar hung looser around his neck, leaving more smooth pale skin free to the eye. Maybe if you looked a little more, you’d see that the cut of the robes were also wrong, causing the sleeves to fall further from his wrists like a banshee’s cloak. The pinched lines of the face were gone too, but it was hard to make out all the exact details for Snape’s unchanged glare stopped anyone who tried.
“Do you have any idea what might’ve happened to cause this?” Dumbledore asked.
Snape chose not to acknowledge the headmaster’s question, and in the back of the room there were whispers.
“It is our responsibility,” Dumbledore was talking to everyone now, “To document and attempt to duplicate such a unique discovery.” The argument was barely past Snape’s lips when Dumbledore continued with, “The best moments of pure genius usually happen by accident, and we cannot let such a venture be forgotten as just another daily mishap.”
“Not when I’m the guinea pig, no!” Snape snarled. “Don’t tell me we’re going to promote such juvenile idiocy now?”
Somewhere behind him, Flitwick was still murmuring, “Twenty years,” and stroking his beard thoughtfully.
Dumbledore sighed. “I’m surprised at you, Severus. I’d though you jump at the chance of developing a new discovery.”
“I suppose I wasn’t planning on doing anything between or after classes anyway,” Snape muttered dryly. “And what about my classes?”
“What about them?” Dumbledore asked, peering over the rim of his glasses. “According to Pomfrey you are in perfect health and you clearly function normally, so I think that unless something else pops up classes should go on as usual... Unless you believe there’s a reason they should not.”
Snape’s expression was like steel. “No, there’s no reason I can think of.”
“That’s settled then. Oh, and you should form a research team to help with this,” Dumbledore suggested.
“Out of the question,” Snape said. “I don’t need more fools puttering around my dungeons and causing another accident, thank you very much.”
“You’re talking about your own colleagues, Snape,” McGonagall said sharply.
“Your point being?” Snape made an irritated but resigned noise. “It will be faster if I can work on my own.”
“Oh, and do try to find out whether it’s permanent,” Flitwick suggested.
Snape’s shudder was barely visible, but Harry saw it anyway. Maybe Snape was concerned about other long-term messing about with the body’s natural clock. Or maybe he just didn’t like that he’d lost quite a bit of that angular-shoulder effect that came in handy while looming. Harry was still trying to figure out how to wrap his mind around this when he was suddenly aware than Dumbledore’s blue eyes were looking straight at him. “Sorry, what was that?”
“I asked whether you’d like to supervise the boys’ detention sessions,” Dumbledore asked. “High time you had a go at it.”
“Potter, supervising detentions, hah,” Snape muttered, just loud enough for Harry to hear. “Probably give them all a pat on the head.”
“I think that would be just fine,” Harry said, not looking at Snape. “My classroom does need a little cleaning up. How long will they be in for?”
“Three weeks should suffice.”
“Hah,” said Snape, though he didn’t argue the statement. Harry made a mental note to talk to Whitaker about the affair; the boy could probably use some advice from someone else who’d wandered on to Snape’s bad side due to sheer bad luck.
Harry got his chance the next morning during breakfast, when he briefed the three boys on their brand new detention schedule.
#### At this point I stopped, read HBP, and then lost all desire for light-hearted Teacher!Harry fics. ####
Notes: There are lot of cliché-fics in the HP fandom, but strangely enough I haven't been able to find the one cliché I wanted so badly, which was Age-Reversal!Snape. There was one fic I did find that used age-reversal as a plot device but didn't address the issues or maximise the potential of the plot contrivance. I knew that HBP was coming out and would shift canon in unexpected ways, but at the time I started this fic, I didn't care. After reading HBP, I found that I cared more about finding out what happens in canon, and fanon no longer interested me. Go, canon!
+++
Totally OT: I made a list of the DVDs in my collection. This includes originals and the, uh, not-so-originals, but doesn't include VCDs, videos and DVDs that aren't in the database. I'm a freak*.
*In my defense, some of the DVDs in that list stumbled into my possession against my will.