Soup

01

Severus Snape sneered at the rows and rows of brats sitting in their little House groups, chattering away like monkeys about some mundane thing or other.

Ignoring the blue-twinkly-eyed twit – otherwise known as Dumbledore – smiling merrily from his side, Snape viciously attacked his meal with his cutlery. It was probably not a good idea, seeing as the meal in question was soup, and he only succeeded in splattering the edge of the table (the remaining drops had ended up decorating Dumbledore's already epileptic-fit-inducing robes).

Ignoring the mildly disapproving tutting – Snape was vaguely reminded of an upset chicken – emanating from the Headmaster's direction, Snape dropped the spoon next to the plate of soup with a dull thunk.

And then he took to glaring down the table of Griffyndorks.

Or more specifically, at a certain living mop of black hair and glasses. Snape was pretty certain that the Brat-Who-Lived was just hair and glasses attached to an idiotic little...

Oh.

Oh, Merlin. Not again.

...

Harry was blissfully unaware of the furious glaring from the teacher's table. Ron was blissfully unaware of anything other than the bread rolls he was digging into with extreme gusto.

Hermione... well, Hermione was off somewhere with her family, probably off skiing and enjoying herself over the winter break, enjoying the Voldemort-free-world.

Harry wasn't quite sure exactly what Hermione was doing, and neither was Ron, but since Voldemort was out of the way, thanks to fast Transfiguration and pigeons, the boys weren't too particularly worried about their friend. The worst that could happen to Hermione was if she encountered an accident while skiing.

Being the paranoid Boy-Who-Lived Harry was, he immediately assumed the worst, and thought of an avalanche.

It made Harry ill just to think about it.

In fact, come to think of it, the soup in his bowl was quite greasy, and it was upsetting his stomach. Maybe it wasn't just because he was thinking too hard. Harry scrutinized the soup, and wondered if there was something wrong with it.

He glanced at Ron, and was treated to a remarkable impression of a hog downing a trough full of slop.

Well, there was obviously nothing wrong with the soup – Ron was still alive, wasn't he?

Harry looked back at his own bowl, suddenly feeling very, very lightheaded. Like there wasn't enough air going to his head.

And then he started to cough.

...

The Boy Who Lived.

To choke on soup.

Soup.

SOUP.

Who, in Merlin's beard, Snape stormed down to the Infirmary, chokes on soup?

Madame Pomfrey, the long suffering Medi-Witch of Hogwarts, had long since given up spending one day – was one day too much to ask for? – without anyone visiting the Infirmary.

Today had started out promisingly enough. No accidents in Potions. No accidents in flying. (It also happened to be a Saturday, but Pomfrey did not care about that.)

And then Potter happened.

The poor boy had been dragged in by a frantic Professor McGonagall, who, in her panic, forgot that she was a witch and instead of levitating the teen in, dragged him in, reminding Madame Pomfrey of a proud cat dragging in a dead mouse to show its owners.

Except there wasn't a cat. And she wasn't proud. And the 'mouse' wasn't dead.

Quite far from it, actually.

Potter was doing an impressive job of trying to hack up his lungs, to no avail, and Pomfrey only just managed to not roll her eyes, and instead, levitated the boy out of McGonagall's grip and onto a bed. The Medi-Witch flicked her wand, conjuring up a chair, and pushed the other woman towards it with a sharp command of, "Sit."

Then, the Medi-Witch turned back to her patient, drew the curtains and got to work.

Or at least, tried to, since the Infirmary was now filled with the low silky tones of the Potions Master – except instead of being the usual cool voice, it was now quite agitated.

"What's the idiot boy done now?"

Pomfrey concentrated on casting her spells.

"Harry's not an idiot!"

Focus. Pomfrey dutifully ignored the argument between Snape and a certain red-headed boy. She could go back and throw them out later, when Mr Potter was breathing again.

...

"He has allergies." Snape repeated slowly, as if he couldn't believe his ears (to be fair, he didn't.)

"Well," Pomfrey admitted, "just the one, actually."

"Potter has an allergy." Snape repeated again, as if he could somehow nullify the truth by saying it slowly and purposefully. "He has an allergy."

"Yes."

"To mushrooms."

"Yes."

"Which just happened to be in the soup." Snape, instead of rolling his eyes, closed them. Oh, of course. Of course the Bloody-Boy-Who-Wouldn't-Die had to have an allergy to mushrooms.

"Mr Potter will be fine," Pomfrey turned to Ron, giving him a kindly smile, "but he will have to stay overnight until I am certain he will not react any further to the mushrooms."

Ron could only nod, and smile back weakly at Pomfrey. "Er... right."

With that, the red-headed boy left the Infirmary without a second look.

Snape stared at the retreating boy's back, stunned. What ever had happened to the so-called Golden Trio? Wasn't the youngest Weasley boy supposed to at least act a little concerned about his best friend?

And where in Merlin's beard was Granger?

Now that Snape had the time to consider it, he hadn't seen much of the bushy-haired and buck-toothed member of the Golden Trio recently. In fact, there hadn't been much of a 'Trio' at all. Recently, it'd been the Golden Duo and One Mangy Thing That Granger Called A Cat.

And now, it was the Living Mop With Glasses and The Mangy Thing, if the animal in question sitting on Potter's bed was anything to go by.

Before the man could indulge in a happy little jig at the apparent fact that the Potter Brat's friends had abandoned him (Hah! Take that, Potter! See what I had to go through?), he and a still slightly shell-shocked McGonagall were promptly propelled out of the Infirmary and into the hallway, accompanied with the excuse that the Potter boy "needs his rest, and without the two of you staring at him!"

The Infirmary door closed with a click behind the two, and Snape straightened his robes before regarding McGonagall with a small sneer, as if to pretend that the two of them had not just been thrown out by a witch who was a good thirty centimetres shorter than him.

To her credit, McGonagall did little more than cackle in his face, completely unintimidated, before turning around in a dramatic whirl of robes and heading for the Great Hall.

Snape blinked. Then,

"Hey! I trademarked that move!"

TO BE CONTINUED...