jellybean_slash: "A Very Different Point of View" (HP/SS, PG-13)

Author: jellybean_slash
Title: A Very Different Point of View
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: #3, "Explosion"
Date: 07/15/06
Summary: Harry and Severus' relationship from the point of view of a rather unexpected witness.
Pairing(s): Severus Snape/Harry Potter
Warnings: It's slightly cracktastic.
Word Count: 1,344
Notes: rei_c wanted feathers, so I wrote feathers. Also written for the 100quills prompt "Colorful".

The explosion that rocked the dungeons that cold, January afternoon left quite a mess. There was multi-coloured goop on the ceiling, dripping down onto the floor, and an entire row of potions tables were demolished when the cauldron, and the young man standing behind it, cowering in fear as he realised his mistake too late, went flying across the room. If it had been a potions class, there would undoubtedly have been casualties. Why, the explosion created such a boom that I was nearly knocked from my place on the shelves at the front of the class, a sudden gust of air threatening to blow me right over.

I suppose I should introduce myself, but that would be rather difficult considering I haven't got a name. The greasy-haired, hook-nosed man often refers to me as 'this infernal quill', but something about the way he says it makes me believe that it is an insult rather than a name. If he would simply straighten his grip on me, I would flow much more smoothly, I think. But I digress. While I have no name to speak of, I do remember once being called 'feather'. I believe I would now be better described as 'quill', but I was first a feather, and believe strongly that one should stick to his roots. Besides which, feather is a much cheerier name, don't you think?

Now, while I just barely managed to escape falling from my perilous perch, the messy-looking boy tossing things into his cauldron willy-nilly did not fare nearly as well. He was still lying on the floor, blinking in shock up at the goo-covered ceiling when the door to the classroom was flung open and the hook-nosed man stormed in, looking quite murderous indeed.

"Are you alive, Potter?" he snapped, folding his arms across his chest and pursing his lips until they went white, the way he did every time he was truly furious. I feared things were about to get much messier for the poor, messy-looking boy.

"Yeah," the boy mumbled from his place in a puddle of goo. It was a rather appalling shade of puce, and clashed horribly with everything he wore, but I do doubt that he intended to cover himself with it. "Yeah, I think so."

"Wonderful," the hook-nosed man drawled, his foot tapping on what must have been the only patch of dungeon floor that wasn't covered in some sort of sticky mess. "Then I would suggest you stand so that I may kill you properly."

Much to my surprise, and the hook-nosed man's as well, the boy actually laughed at the man's threat. It seemed to me that would likely be a very bad move in the situation that he found himself in, but I was in no place to comment on his judgement. The hook-nosed man's lips pursed a little further, and I wondered to myself if there was a paler shade than white.

"You have just destroyed my entire classroom, and your only response is to laugh? If I did not already know that you are a complete and utter buffoon, prone to bouts of unrestrained idiocy, I might think that you had finally lost what little sanity you do possess."

"Oh, come off it, Severus," the boy muttered, slowly pushing himself up off the floor, slipping and sliding a little, but managing to right himself with little fuss. "It isn't like I intended to blow anything up. I just wanted to brew this stupid potion, but something went wrong and--"

"And you should not have bothered attempting to brew any potions whatsoever. There is, in fact, a reason that you failed your Potions NEWT, Potter. You can not brew a proper potion to save your skin. I have told you numerous times that should you require a potion, you need only ask me to brew it for you. Instead, you bring about the destruction of the entire Potions lab. Bravo, Potter."

The messy-haired boy--I wonder if he realises that the bright, green slime in his hair accents his eyes so magnificently?--glared across the classroom, attempting to fold his arms over his chest, but failing miserably when they simply slid slickly over one another and back to his sides. His glare intensified.

"I can brew a bloody potion if I want to, Severus. It isn't like I'm some kind of idiot. In case you'd forgotten, I was rather busy in seventh year. What with offing Voldemort and sucking your cock every chance I got, I'm afraid I didn't have much time to browse through my Potions text."

When I expected him to start in on a tirade about foul language--though, quite honestly, he does too much cursing himself for any sort of lecture to be justified--the hook-nosed man just rolled his eyes, not seeming the least bit perturbed by his young companion's choice of words. If it weren't for the fact that I had seen him reduce a mousy-looking Hufflepuff girl to tears over a spilled phial of something or another that very morning, I might say that he had mellowed with age.

"You were given an additional six months to prepare yourself for those examinations, Potter. If you chose to piss that time away attending parties and playing with your broomstick, that is hardly any concern of mine," the man snarked, sneering at the boy as he did so. I couldn't quite tell if he was sneering at the boy himself, or the way his trainers seemed to be melting in the goop around them.

"Oh, right," the boy said, sarcasm dripping from his voice as clearly as a magenta-coloured mess was dribbling from the ceiling onto the back row of tables. "If I recall correctly, you were the one playing with my broomstick, Professor. I learned a lot more about how to balance myself while you fuck me mid-air than I did about chopping daisy roots."

Poor boy. He had spent seven years studying the subject, and he still didn't know that--

"You do not chop daisy roots, Potter. You carefully slice them into equally-sized pieces."

A roll of the eyes from the messy-haired boy, and the greasy-haired man brought a hand up to massage the bridge of his large nose.

"Not that it matters at all by this point, but what was it that you were attempting to brew?"

The boy blushed a delicate pink colour, one I didn't see amongst the mess on the floor, and muttered his response quietly, so quietly that his voice didn't quite carry across the room to where I lay on the shelf. I did catch the words 'flavoured' and 'lube', but anything else that might have been said was lost on me. Flavoured lube seemed to be enough to make the hook-nosed man smirk, however.

"Really now?" he murmured, making his way slowly to where the boy stood, careful not to stumble and fall into the slick mess. The boy blushed further as the man reached a hand out to run down his cheek. "And why, pray tell, would Harry Potter have need for flavoured lubricant?"

"It was for your birthday, you stupid git," the boy muttered, no real venom behind the insult. Could insults truly be used as terms of endearment?

"I can think of many things I would much rather have for my birthday, Potter," the man replied softly, leaning down to pull the boy into a kiss.

As I floated gently down from the shelves to the floor, thankfully noting that the goo seemed to have been contained to the tables and hadn't reached behind the large desk, I caught one more remark from the hook-nosed man, and saw a glimpse of the boy's devious smirk and nod.

If feathers could blush, I surely would have done so.