Two Hours After Contact

Harry had faced many challenges in his unfortunate life. He had killed a basilisk with the sword of Godric Gryffindor, fallen fifty feet from a broomstick, battled a hundred dementors, defeated a dragon, rescued Ron from mermaids, and dueled Lord Voldemort in a graveyard.

But nothing, nothing could have prepared him for this. Honestly, it was as though he had strolled into a nightmare, one that no matter how hard you wolfing pinched yourself, you couldn’t wake up from. He felt queasy, his knees felt weak. His heart beat too fast, and his face too burned hot. From beside him, Ron gave a long low whistle.

“Dunno how you managed this, mate.”

Before them, the Great Hall loomed, tall and cheery. Five enormous firs were stationed around the room; each dyed a startling pink color. Ornaments larger than a grown man’s head dangled from glitter sprayed branches; hearts and diamonds twinkled merrily at him. But it wasn’t the festive decorations that caught his eye today as he stood, frozen, in the doorway.

The eyes of every female in the room were upon him, glazed over and dreamy. Actually, now that he was looking, he could see a few male ones too. He shuddered at the horrible implications of that. From the High Table Dumbledore appeared unperturbed, but the twinkling in his eye spoke of amusement.

But worst of all, the very worst, was Severus Snape, the potions master. The man shook with silent laughter, and that had to mean something very, very bad.

“Oh bugger.”

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Two Hours Ago

“Harry, your potion is boiling. It should be simmering.”

“What? Oh!”

Hastily, Harry took his cauldron off of the flames, an effort to try and preserve some of the love potion that Snape ordered them to concoct. It looked alright to him; the instructions said that the potion should be a nice magenta color. Way better than Ron’s of course, his had turned a deep blood-red.

“Add another tablespoon of unicorn horn,” Hermione continued, her own potion a pleasant pink. “That should help bring the color up.”

Harry glanced at her confused. Wasn’t her potion too light? All the same, he would never question her.

“Right, say, have you seen the house elves?” Harry asked, tipping the white powder into his cauldron. It hissed, but didn’t change color.

“No…”

“Fred said they are wearing wreathes of roses around their heads.” He hastily stifled a snigger.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “I have far more important things to do than amuse myself with the way that house-elves dress. D.A. meetings to plan, homework to do.”

“Ron?”

“Oh yeah,” he grinned. “Absolutely hilarious.”

“I might say the same thing about you potion, Mr. Weasley. It would completely repel the person, rather than draw them in.”

Harry whirled around; any and all traces of a smile wiped clean from his face. He usually liked to keep Snape within eyesight during class, as it was no secret that the professor detested him. He had probably snuck up behind them while they were talking.

Ron’s ears turned nearly as red as his potion. He muttered something about being rubbish at potions and looked down. Harry knew that Ron was trying to keep his temper under control. Snape’s lip curled into a malicious sneer before turning to inspect Harry’s potion. There was a moment’s silence, and Harry swore he saw something like surprise cross his features, but it disappeared in a flash.

“Tell me, Potter,” he said softy, “What love potion recipe are you following?”

Harry stared at him. Wasn’t there only one recipe in the book?

“Ah… this one, Sir,” and he held up his book to show him.

Snape looked down at the page, his lip curling. “I suggest you learn to follow the directions more closely. I said page 96 not 196. Do not,” he said very seriously, “get that on you in any way.”

Harry swallowed, noting the way he emphasized ‘not’ in that sentence. It usually foreboded something incredibly bad – especially coming from Snape. It would probably burn through his flesh or make him turn into a one legged elf. Snape left without even commenting on Hermione’s potion – which they knew meant she had it perfect – and returned to the front of the class.

“You should be done adding the ingredients,” Snape called out over them. “Let the potion simmer for the next ten minutes while you put away your materials.”

Harry glanced down at his own potions recipe. His potion didn’t need to simmer, it was already completed – at least according to the instructions – and so he turned off his flame earning odd looks from the students around him.

“Potter, are you deaf? He said the need to simmer.”

Harry turned half-heartedly, already striving to keep his temper in control. Draco Malfoy, thin, blonde, and pale-eyed, he stood sneering behind him. On either side of him were two hulking Slytherin boys, Crabbe and Goyle. Harry opened his mouth to retaliate but Ron beat him to the punch.

“He made a different potion,” he said.

If anything, Malfoy thought this was even funnier. “You made the wrong potion, Potter? What? Did you read 96 as 69?” Next to him Crabbe and Goyle guffawed stupidly.

“Shove off, Malfoy,” Harry snapped, and he started stuffing the rest of his materials into his arms to take with him to the cupboard.

Malfoy sneered, as though his deflection was a confirmation to his conjecture. “You know Potter, usually, we assume that everyone can read when they come here. Perhaps they made an exception in your case.”

“I said shove off, Malfoy!” Harry said rounding on him. But before he’d even managed to take a step toward him, Goyle, ever the bodyguard, stepped in front of Malfoy and shoved Harry back. Harry tripped, sending him straight into his cauldron which spilled, drenching him in the solution. The strong scent of roses filled his nostrils, suffocating him for a moment, the potion feeling like flower petals against his skin. Hermione shrieked shrilly, and wondered what horrible transformation was happening to his body. He closed his eyes, waiting… nothing. Nothing seemed to be happening. He opened his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. Ron extended a hand to help Harry up—

“Don’t touch him.”

Ron drew his hand back as though he’d been burned. From behind him, Snape swooped in on the mess, clearing it away with a causal flick of his wand.

“Potter,” he began evenly, and Harry was horrified to see that he seemed to be holding back laughter. “I told you not to get that potion on you.”

“Is he going to be alright?” Ron asked, chalk pale by now.

“Oh, he’s going to be fine…” Snape said. “Just very busy for the next few days until I can produce a cure.”

“Busy?” Harry asked perplexed. “Doing what?”

But at that moment, Harry noticed something very odd. The way that Hermione was looking at him… she’d never looked at him like that. Her very face seemed to be glowing, her brown eyes bright and dreamy. Then, the next second, she was right next to him, far too close for comfort.

“Are you alright? Did you bruise your arm? Do you need me to kiss it better?” She crooned, now tousling his black hair.

“Hermione what are you doing?!”

But this wasn’t all; Harry was becoming distinctly aware that every female in the room had turned toward him, all their eyes glowing, a rose tinted blush accenting their features.

“I never realized how adorable he is…”

“Those glasses make him look all sexy and intelligent.”

“I want to tousle his hair too!”

“Me too!”

“His eyes are so dreamy…”

Even Pansy Parkinson seemed afflicted. She glided over to him, grinning broadly. “Everyone loves a forbidden romance. A Slytherin is as forbidden as it gets.”

Malfoy made a small squeak, seeming to choke on his words. He was staring at Pansy with a mixture of horror and alarm. Ron keeled over laughing. And Snape had a horrible glint in his eyes that suggested that the worse was yet to come.

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And here we are, right where we started. Dinner after the potions fiasco had never been so strange, so odd, so horrifying. Harry had wondered, briefly, why Snape appeared so happy. After all, surely the added show of attention to him would only annoy him, considering that he already thought Harry was too famous for his own good. That was, until he realized something very, very important.

The female teachers were also staring at him. The Fat Friar – somehow Harry wasn’t surprised – and the Grey lady. Even the house elves with their little rose wreaths – who were supposed to work unseen – were crowding around the corners, trying to get a look at him. And…

Umbridge.

That woman in her pink fluffy cardigan had her own category. She wasn’t a student, wasn’t a teacher, wasn’t a ghost, wasn’t an elf. She was Umbridge, and she was staring at Harry, drawing her tongue slowly over her lips.

“Blimey, Harry!” Ron said, staring around at the reactions. “This is nutters, this is.”

Harry pointed at Umbridge, too horrified to say anything. She was now licking her finger suggestively.

“You’re buggered.”

Harry nodded numbly, his face now an ashen color. The student body that was one thing. Professor – if she could even be called that – Umbridge was something else entirely. Muttering something to the effects of, “I’ve lost my appetite,” he turned around and began walking back out of the Great Hall. He had hardly taken a few steps when he was seized by the arms by a group of girls, all begging him to sit with them, all asking some of the most personal, most embarrassing questions he had ever heard in his life. He tried to break free of their grasp, but they only held onto him tighter. He looked, panicked, over to Ron – who was shaking with laughter now – as the girls dragged him toward the tables.

“No really, I’m not hungry. No, don’t feed me, I can do it myself. What are you doing!? Stop touching me! No, I don’t like it!”

And so continued evening.

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Harry had been followed before, he’d experienced all the strange adoration that came with being a celebrity. The first few weeks following his sorting into Gryffindor had been followed with whispers, stares, giggles, and the stray Hufflepuff asking for an autograph. And then, just last year after he’d reached novelty status again beating the dragon during the first task. But both had faded away, and the fans never went to this extent.

From the moment Harry woke up, to the moment he went to bed, he was flaunted with woman after woman, all of them throwing themselves at him with a desperation and passion he had never seen or ever expected to see. They demanded to carry his books for him, gave him massages, tousled his hair, did his homework for him, and – the house elves – brought him breakfast in bed. When he woke up in the morning, the Grey Lady and the Fat Friar both were hovering over his bed, singing one song or another about how handsome he was, how brave, how perfect.  He was constantly being pampered, hugged, kissed, and just bloody smothered by every girl within eye-sight. Even the portraits had taken to swooning as he hurried past, whistling and professing their love. And what little refuge he thought he might get in class, only extended to the male teachers. They would snap and force the girls back to their seats, but the female ones? They joined the girls.

It was an enormous shock to have Professor McGonagall sit on his desk, flutter her eyelashes, and ask sweetly if he’d like to be excused from all homework in her class ever and receive an immediate Outstanding on his final exam. Professor Trelawney, no longer predicting his death, now predicted their marriage and how it was unavoidable because of the way Venus and Mercury were in their orbit. Professor Sprout did… absolutely nothing, which struck Harry with the realization that she didn’t swing that way.

And then Umbridge.

Harry had vehemently refused to go to the class, and would have managed to avoid it if were not for the swarm of girls that – quite literally – pulled him into the room. Umbridge acted the exact same as that first day in the Great Hall, horribly suggestive and just downright disturbing. She did however order all the girls to their own seats – wanting him for herself, he reckoned – and then began the lesson. Five minutes in however, she stopped and turned to him, smiling ever wider.

“Detention Potter!”

“What?!” Harry shouted. “I didn’t say anything!”

“Oh, who wouldn’t want detention with Mamma Umbridge?”

Harry stared at her, horrorstruck.

“Nine-O’clock. My place.”

Before she could utter another word, before anyone could stop him, Harry bolted from the classroom and ran full pelt down the hall, taking every staircase down that came across his path, putting as much distance as he could between that, that, thing and him.

When he finally stopped to catch his breath, he realized that he had come to the place that had started it all. The Potions room. On autopilot it seemed, he had come to the one place that he thought no girl would follow him. That suited him just fine, and if Snape had a problem with it, he could turn him into a bat. Then at least he’d be able to fly away.

Oh. Right, Snape.

At the moment he didn’t seem to be there, though. Probably in his office, Harry reckoned. It was almost sheer luck that he didn’t have a class right now, but he would soon, and the thought of girls fawning over him in front of the potions master was less than ideal. Snape would probably sick them on him like group of blood hounds. Hesitation in his every step, he turned to go. He did not want to go back to Umbridge, period. He didn’t want to walk out into the hallways were every female thing – and even a few male ones – would fawn over him. Sure, every guy wanted a little action, but not like this. Not from everything that moved.

Harry had been just about to walk out the door when the sound of approaching feet stopped him in his tracks, panic flitting through him. He could hear the giggles, could hear the admiration from the pack of girls. But there was no class down here! Harry, whirled around, pale faced, looking for somewhere to hide. He saw Snape’s personal storage closet of ingredients and without giving it a second thought, pelted for it. The door had just clipped shut when he heard them enter the room.

“Weird. I swear he was here.”

“I know, usually we’re pulled to him, huh?”

What? Harry paled further if that was possible. Apparently the potion not only made them fawn over him, but also attracted them to him like moths to a light. Just blood perfect…

“Maybe he’s hiding…”

“Ooh! I love a good game of Hide-and-Seek!”

“What are you doing here?”

Harry blinked. Snape? It seemed that the giggling girls had alerted the professor. He wasn’t sure whether he was relieved or horrified by this.

“Oh, sorry sir! We’re just looking for Harry Potter.”

“Potter?” Not surprised, but confused. “Down here?”

“Yes. Our love for him pulled us here!”

Harry would have rolled his eyes if he wasn’t so worried by Snape’s answer. Would he help them find him, throw him to the wolves – in a manner of speaking – or send them away? He held his breath, waiting…

“I seriously doubt that Miss Parkinson. Potter hates the Dungeons. That’s your Slytherin sense at work. Return to your classes. Now.”

There was a quick scuffling of steps and the slam of a door. Harry breathed a sigh of relief. They were gone. He was safe. For the moment, anyway. He was so relieved that he almost forgot who was still in the room – almost. He prayed silently that Snape would glance once around the room and then return to his office. However, that wasn’t to be the case. The sound of quickly approaching footsteps told him that Snape knew instantly where he’d hid and next second, the door had been thrown open, the Professor looking down at him with what looked like cruel amusement.

“My, my, the famous Harry Potter must be at the end of his rope if he’s hiding in my potions pantry.”

Harry quickly jumped to his feet, his face burning. “It was the last place they’d look!”

“Apparently not.” Snape smirked and motioned for him to get out. Harry, still very red, quickly moved out of the way. “What class are you skipping?” he asked closing the pantry door and crossing to his desk.

“Defense Against the Dark Arts…” Harry mumbled.

“Ah.” Pause. Harry wondered what sort of punishment he was going to give him for skipping class, but nothing, nothing, was worse than having detention with Umbridge. Harry wrung his hands nervously, waiting for the professor to break the settling silence, but Snape didn’t say anything. He had begun busying himself with a drawer of his desk. After a moment, he straightened up and turned back to Harry, holding a small vial out to him.

“Drink this.”

Harry stared at him. “What is it?” he asked, regarding it cautiously.

Snape rolled his eyes and said impatiently, “Yes, Potter, I am trying to poison you by just handing it to you. No, this is the anti-serum to the Cupid Draft that you unwittingly spilled over your person.”

Harry hesitated not a second longer, he quickly took the vial from Snape and downed it. It tasted like sunshine turned to ice, tinged with pine needles. He handed the now empty vial back to the professor, who pocketed it.

“It will take an hour for the effects to work completely, until then, you may study here. I do not have a class until right before dinner.”

Harry stared at him, taken aback, before sitting down in one of the desks in front of his desk. As he was pulling out his books he remarked, with a hint of relief in his voice, “I thought you would drag this out.”

Snape turned to him and then smiled. “Oh. I did Potter. I hade that antidote from the beginning.”