"Seven o' clock tonight, Potter. If detentions were brains, you'd be smarter than the headmaster by now." Snape gave one last sneer at the foaming green mess in Harry's cauldron, then banished it with a flick of his wand.

"And if grease sold for a knut a drop, you could squeeze out your hair and retire," Harry retorted under his breath as the Potions master swept away, his dark robes billowing out like bats' wings behind him.

"Harry!" Hermione hissed, giving him a painful poke in the ribs.

Harry ignored her as he stuffed his belongings angrily into his bag. All around him, students were gathering their books and chattering amongst themselves as they left the dungeons. Harry could never understand what Snape thought he was going to accomplish by handing out detentions for getting a potion wrong.

"If I knew how to do the assignment correctly, I'd have done it in the first place," he muttered. "The threat of detention obviously doesn't change anything."

Hermione chuffed. "Well, maybe if you'd bother to prepare for class once in a while . . ." she rejoined haughtily.

Harry ignored her. She might be right, but he still felt that after so many years, it should be obvious that detentions weren't the answer. But they were certainly frequent enough, and Harry had been to plenty in his four and a half years at Hogwarts. In fact, between Umbridge and Snape, it was a wonder he had any time in which to finish homework at all.

One more wouldn't kill him.

Promptly at seven that night, Harry knocked on the heavy door to Snape's office. At the Potions master's irritable "Come in," Harry pushed open the door and entered the room, resigned to several hours of bored torture.

Snape was hard at work chopping a vile green plant on his worktable. "Over here, Potter. You are going to be doing some brewing for me tonight."

Wonderful, Harry thought, setting his wand on a chair and hesitantly stepping up to the table Snape had indicated.

"That," Snape said, indicating the yellowed parchment covered with angry black strokes, "is your assignment for detention. This is a vital potion that must be done correctly. The first time. I will explain the procedure to you carefully — even you should be able to understand such simple instructions." He wiped his hands on a towel and picked up a new sprig of . . . whatever that plant was.

"Look, why are you asking for my help?" Harry shot back irritably. "All you ever do in class is belittle me and tell me how hopelessly inept I am at Potions. So if this is so important, why me? Why not, say, Hermione?"

"Miss Granger does not, apparently, feel the need to earn herself detention six days out of seven," Snape replied. "Aside from which, she actually bothers to study with her spare time, something I am not about to discourage her from. Finally, she'd know right away — " Snape's caustic retort broke off abruptly.

"She'd know what?"

"Not to question my decisions!" the Potions master barked.

"Then why not bring her here, if she's so perfect?" Harry asked, exasperated.

Snape glowered at him angrily. "You are the one who earned yourself a detention, Potter, and as such, you will assist me in whatever it is I order you to. Without complaint. Is that quite clear?"

"Yes, sir," Harry muttered. Greasy old git.

Snape sighed. "I am about to tell you the reason why I need help today," he informed his student, who was still glaring at him hatefully. "However . . ." He leaned in close to Harry's face, just as Harry tried to lean back far enough to escape those dark eyes. "If I hear that you have repeated this to so much as one person, I assure you that the consequences will be dire, indeed."

"I'm not going to repeat it," Harry said, intrigued despite himself.

Snape, thankfully, did not linger in Harry's personal space for long; he slowly straightened and gave his student a long, appraising stare.

"I have what's known as arachibutyrophobia," he admitted reluctantly, "characterised by nausea, dizziness, sweating . . . . and the irrational fear of getting peanut butter stuck to the roof of one's mouth."

Harry nodded slowly, feeling it to be the appropriate gesture, but all the while he was trying to mentally gauge the distance to the door and decide whether it were safe to try and run. "Right, right," he murmured, glancing surreptitiously at Snape's wand, which was lying on the Potions master's desk. If it came right down to it, Harry would just have to grab the wand and hope Snape wasn't one of those rare creatures who could do wandless magic.

"I have never liked being labelled a phobic. Fear, after all, is a true prison of the heart, as it says on this list of ingredients," Snape continued, indicating the sheet of parchment. "The reason — the only reason — I am telling you this, Potter, is that you cannot prepare this potion without knowing the purpose."

"Which potion?" Harry asked warily.

"It is known as Healt Faer, used for banishing irrational fears and phobias."

"Why can't you do it yourself?" Harry protested. Not that he particularly cared, but he wasn't about to risk mucking up a potion that was important to Snape. "The whole reason I'm in detention is because I didn't get the assignment today."

"I have been working on this particular brew for months," Snape told him. "And imbibed every iteration without success. You will only have the opportunity to fail once, and even you can hardly do worse than nothing."

"Smashing," Harry muttered resentfully.

Snape crossed to his desk and began gathering up ingredients. "There is a basic formula, which must be adhered to. After that, it is up to the brewer to include elements that represent the particular fear. And I finally realised the problem. Potions are not only about ingredients; the brewer's focus is a quintessential element in the formation of the mixture. Therefore, a potion to cure a phobia cannot successfully be brewed by someone with that phobia."

Harry found that he was actually beginning to feel a spark of interest kindling. The idea that a potion could heal someone of a persistent fear that might have taken years of therapy on the outside was definitely intriguing. And Snape's explanation as to why his previous attempts hadn't worked made a certain kind of sense. There had been plenty of times when Harry had thought he followed a potion formula precisely, only to have it turn out terribly. If what Snape was saying were true . . . then maybe letting his mind wander, or even worrying about the assignment, hadn't been the best idea in class.

He wondered, also, how Snape's phobia had gotten such a ridiculous name. "Why is it called arachno — archai — "

"Arachis is the generic name for 'peanut,'" Snape interrupted testily, approaching Harry's table with his arms full. "Butyrum is the old Latin for 'butter.'"

"Oh."

Snape began setting down the objects he'd been carrying. These weren't ingredients that Harry had ever used before. There was a bottle labelled 'Rock Water,' a jar of 'Aspen' — how did you put an aspen tree in a jar? What part of the tree was it? — and an assortment of tools. Not the cheap kind the students used, but very posh-looking ones. A heavy, solid silver knife; a mortar and pestle, both of solid gold; two crystal bowls, thin and delicate as eggshells; a chopping block of smooth, polished cherry. And, atop the pile, an orange and brown package with yellow script that spelled 'Reese's.'

"What are those?" Harry asked.

Snape tapped the package with one long, bony finger. "These, Potter, are the reason I have found it necessary to banish this fear of mine. Salty, soft peanut butter in milk chocolate."

Harry's mouth started to water.

"I discovered these, quite by accident, in a Muggle shop called Woolworth's," he continued, fingering the wrapper reverently. "And even in the midst of a full-blown anxiety attack when the peanut butter adhered itself to the roof of my mouth, I knew that I had never, nor would I ever, taste anything quite so wonderful in all my life."

"Uh-huh," Harry said. "So . . . do they have to go in the potion?"

Snape nodded reluctantly. "One of them has to," he replied. "The other, as much as I loathe to think about it, you must eat."

Harry smiled. He'd never had this particular sweet before, but it must be good if Snape were willing to attempt a new potion just to cure his involuntary aversion to it. "So I can think about it while I'm stirring?"

Snape's eyebrows went up. "Yes, in fact," he said, sounding surprised. "I am amazed you caught on so quickly."

"Well, I'm no Hermione, but I'm not an amoeba, you know," Harry retorted. "Any idiot would know that you would never just offer me sweets for the fun of it."

"Any idiot did," the Potions master muttered under his breath. Harry didn't get a chance to reply, as just then Snape opened the package. Almost immediately, Harry could actually smell the sweets — smooth little brown chocolates with crinkled edges, sitting in squat paper wrappers. Once again, he felt his mouth filling up with saliva as he imagined how those would taste.

But first, the potion had to be concocted. The 'Aspen' turned out to be a tincture, which Snape explained tersely was well known for its ability to calm anxieties. A generous amount went into the cauldron, along with an entire litre of Rock Water — Snape didn't bother to explain that one — and an assortment of herbs and nameless odd substances. Finally, Harry was ordered to drop one sweet into the swirling mixture and eat the other, then stir for ten minutes while concentrating on his enjoyment of the flavour.

"Ten minutes off one sweet? You've got to be putting me on," Harry complained.

"Just do as you're told, Potter," Snape demanded. He looked a mess; his hair was even more disheveled than usual, and his eyes were snapping with a feverish light. Harry thought it best not to argue, so he undid the little brown wrapper with the crinkled sides and popped the cup in his mouth.

Harry actually felt bad for doubting Snape — the peanut butter and chocolate medley tasted better than any sweet he'd had before in his whole life. The salt and sugar blended together perfectly, and Harry found he wouldn't have minded if the butter did stick to the roof of his mouth — that would have meant he could enjoy it that much longer. Unfortunately, the sweet was gone all too quickly, and Harry was left to stir with only the memory . . . and the hope that if this worked, Snape might be grateful enough to get him a few packages of those Reese's.

All in all, it wasn't a terrible detention; Harry had certainly had worse, even excepting Umbridge's poison quill. The potion was done fairly quickly, and Snape immediately transferred a ladleful of the steaming substance to the empty goblet that had been sitting on his desk, most likely waiting for this very moment.

Snape didn't even make Harry stay to clean up. "You may go now, Potter," he said, opening the desk drawer again and pulling out a new package of Reese's. "And remember what I said about your silence."

Harry sighed, realising Snape wasn't about to share any more of his beloved sweets. He had seemed to grudge Harry even the one he'd needed to make the potion. Harry took hold of his satchel strap and dragged it behind him towards the door. But before he could leave, Harry thought of something. "Professor?" he inquired, turning back to the Potions master's desk. "What about someone who fears open spaces, or heights, or something like that? How do you . . . put that in a cauldron?"

"That is where I made my oversight," Snape replied, sounding frustrated with himself. "Had my phobia been something less tangible, like agoraphobia, I would have been at a loss to understand how the potion could be altered to include something representing that fear." He ran a hand distractedly through his limp hair. "That, in turn, would have led to the realisation that the ingredients are only part of the formula."

"So . . . all those times I've mucked up my potion in class . . ." Harry cocked his head curiously. "It was because I wasn't focusing on the end result?"

Snape gave a derisive snort. "I am fairly certain that even your few successes in my class have been sheer accident, Potter," he drawled. "Your failures were due to your lack of focus on anything."

Harry sighed again, but there really was no sense in arguing with Snape. He hardly ever bothered to think about what potion he was making while mixing the ingredients together. He had failed so many times that his interest had waned somewhat over the years.

Snape's dark eyes suddenly bored into Harry's emerald ones. "Naturally, if anything should go wrong after I drink this, you will find yourself in detention until the end of the school year."

"Naturally," Harry muttered under his breath. With one last glance at the potion simmering in Snape's cup, Harry turned and headed out the door.

Although Harry was somewhat curious as to whether Snape's potion would really work, the professor said nothing further to him on the subject, and he quickly forgot the whole incident in favour of more important things. Umbridge still wanted him expelled, and the Ministry continued to ignore the threat of Voldemort, so with all that was hanging over his head, Snape's peanut butter fetish soon receded to the further corners of Harry's mind.

One day, about two weeks after Harry’s detention — though he didn't mark the day in that manner, having all but forgotten by then — Harry was surprised to find Hedwig missing when he went to visit her at the Owlery. She never hunted in the daytime, and he hadn't sent her for anything. Where could she be?

That was Tuesday. By Saturday, there was still no sign of Hedwig. In fact, as it turned out, a number of owls had suddenly gone missing. Other students were complaining that their pets had never been away so long, and there were only two school owls left — old, decrepit things that were as horses put out to pasture for all the good they did anyone.

"I don't get it," Harry complained to Ron and Hermione over breakfast on Saturday morning. "What, did the owls organise a protest or something? They work for no pay just like house-elves; maybe they got tired of it."

Ron rolled his eyes. "I guess we're going to have to join S.P.O.W. now, is that it?" he said bitterly, stuffing more toast into his mouth.

Hermione opened her mouth to retort, and Harry cringed as he imagined the lecture they were about to get. Why he should be included was a mystery, but asking would only call unnecessary attention to himself.

Luckily, something caught Hermione's gaze before she could start hissing at them. "Oh, there's Hedwig, Harry!" she exclaimed, relief evident in her tone. Harry's head whipped around, his eyes searching for his missing friend. Hedwig, with her beautiful plumage, was easy to spot. Harry frowned, however, as she flew right over his head with what looked like a Daily Prophet clamped in her beak . . . and dropped it on Snape's plate at the staff table.

Hermione turned to look at him, puzzled. "What was that about?"

Harry shook his head distractedly, watching as Hedwig flew back out of the Hall without so much as a glance in his direction. "Dunno," he murmured, his eyes boring into Snape as he unfolded the paper.

Harry had no real reason to feel uneasy, and yet the way Snape's face suddenly darkened as his eyes scanned the newspaper made him very nervous. He laid down his spoon and waited to see what the Potions master would do.

Snape spent another moment reading; then, without so much as a glance at or a word to anyone, he stood up, folded the paper, and walked around the staff table. Though he wasn't even looking in Harry's direction, Harry had the sinking feeling the old bat was coming to get him.

Sure enough, as Snape billowed past the trio, he stopped just long enough to plop the paper down on Harry's bowl of cereal. His spoon flipped up and the bowl tipped over, scattering cereal everywhere. Snape strode out of the Great Hall, leaving a stunned silence in his wake.

"What does it say?" Hermione asked, leaning over and trying to read upside-down.

With trembling hands, Harry unfolded the newspaper, which he now saw was the New York Times. Immediately, he knew what had Snape so riled. His mouth went dry as chalk as he read:

Salmonella Outbreak in Peanut Products Prompts Massive Recall

The Hershey Corporation announced Wednesday that traces of salmonella had been detected in samples of their peanut products, taken after complaints of the illness were investigated by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. All products containing peanuts or that are manufactured in close proximity to the same are being considered part of the recall. Consumers are asked to return any Hershey brand candy listed here to the retailers where they were purchased.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention indicated that the Hershey Corporation has been fully cooperative in their investigation. The salmonella strain found in the Hershey facility has been positively linked to 88 confirmed illnesses and 4 deaths. Representatives from Hershey could not be reached for comment. Among the affected confections are Hershey bars, Hershey's with Almonds, Hershey's Kisses and Hugs, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. For a full list of recalled products and instructions for retailers, please turn to A7.

"Oh, hell," Harry whispered. "Oh, bloody buggering hell." The newspaper rustled as Harry laid it down, breaking the crease and smoothing the page compulsively as though the news would change once flat.

"What's wrong?" Ron mumbled through his eggs. He squinted. "Why are you reading the Muggle paper, anyway?"

Harry could feel Hermione's eyes boring into him as he slowly stood up and picked up his jumper. "I, erm . . . I reckon Snape wants to see me," he stammered awkwardly, carefully avoiding looking at either of his friends as he once again picked up that damnable Muggle paper. That damnable American Muggle paper. "I'll see you two later." If I'm allowed to live so long.

Harry felt an odd sense of déjà vu as he entered the Potions classroom to find Snape sitting at his desk, exactly the way he had been on the night of that detention. Though Harry hadn't thought of it in quite some time, that newspaper article had brought the memory back clear as a bell for him. Harry stood nervously in the doorway, twisting the end of one sleeve as he waited for Snape to begin his tirade.

Snape glared at him from behind the heavy desk, his obsidian eyes smouldering with fury. Harry could almost feel the anger between them like a heavy, invisible fog.

"What," Snape asked finally, his voice making Harry jump, "is this 'salmonella' that has caused so many deaths? And what, may I ask, is it doing in my Reese's Peanut Butter Cups?" He came around the desk until he stood within a foot of his student, and it took every ounce of self-restraint Harry had not to flee.

"It's a food-borne illness," Harry admitted, twisting his hands nervously. "Erm . . . I always thought it was something you get from underdone chicken or eggs, though." He frowned. "I never heard of it in peanut butter before."

"Perhaps a line worker at Hershey was artificially inseminating hens on his lunch break!" Snape thundered, his face inches from Harry's. "Does it matter? I'm not interested in how, Potter! The question is where I am to obtain peanut butter cups now that you have so generously left me with an insatiable craving for them!"

"Well, you don't have to bellow at me like I'm a dog," Harry shot back hatefully. "It isn't my fault. You told me to make the potion."

"I wanted you to remove the phobia, not insert a mania in its place!"

"Up until today, you didn't have any complaints!" Harry shouted back, no longer caring if he were being rude. Then, seeing the look on his teacher's face, Harry softened his tone. "Look, there has to be peanut butter that doesn't come from Hershey." He peered at the paper on Snape's desk. "I mean, there're plenty of other candy companies. Or you could just eat peanut butter from the jar — "

Snape slammed his fist on the table. "It has to be Reese's!" he shouted, causing Harry to flinch and retreat. The Potions master's teeth bared in a grimace. "Don't you understand, Potter? I think about them all day long! I dream about them all night long! That's why I've been sending all the owls out after those blasted sweets, and yours comes back with this . . . this thing!" He swept the newspaper off his desk. "I have to have more! If I don't have at least one package every hour, I start showing symptoms of withdrawal!"

"Oh, so that's why you've been so snarky lately," Harry snapped. "I wondered at the change."

"Fix this," Snape spat through clenched, yellow teeth.

Harry rolled his eyes. Obviously, it was on his shoulders to help the stupid bat. "All right, then," he said, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Just give me a minute."

I could think about this for a year and not come up with a solution, Harry thought to himself. Up until a few days ago, it never would have occurred to him that you could cure a phobia, much less give one to someone. All right, so . . . how did he become scared in the first place? He must have gotten some stuck in his mouth as a kid and couldn't swallow or whatever. There had to be a way, then, to recreate Snape's early experiences with the sticky substance. Wasn't there some story about a bloke who got his mouth stuck shut with peanut butter? And they had to burn it out, or something? If the same could be done to Snape, he'd never want to go near the damn stuff again. Ever.

"There's this old poem," Harry began, "about a king who loved peanut-butter sandwiches so much that he kept ordering them made stickier and stickier. One time, the chef made it so sticky that they couldn't get his mouth open again for years. Maybe if we give you enough sticky peanut butter and get your mouth stuck shut, your phobia will come back."

Snape looked murderous. "Is that the best you can come up with?" he ground out.

Harry gave the old bat a smouldering look. "Listen, contrary to what you may think, none of this is my fault. You told me 'Fear is a true prison of the heart,' but did you ever hear 'Be careful what you wish for'? Unless you have a better idea, there's no harm in trying, is there?"

Harry figured Snape would argue further, but the man was probably desperate enough to try anything at this point. "Very well, Potter," he said with a tight smile. "Let us try this . . . ingenious idea of yours." He wrenched open one of the desk drawers and swiftly pulled out a plastic jar of the peanut butter that had lately become his bane.

"He baked it, I know," Harry offered as he watched Snape's movements. "That's what made it so sticky."

Snape smiled a ghastly smile. "Oh, wonderful. Just how I like it."

"Well . . . I think the point is for you not to like it," Harry replied tactfully.

"Then what would you suggest? You seem to be the expert!"

Harry sighed. "Isn't there a charm to make something sticky?" he asked hopefully. "There has to be."

As he spoke, Snape was yanking out a spoon and using it to hoist a huge glop of the peanut butter from the jar. Once it was out, he picked up his wand and pointed it at the substance. "Glutea Maxima!" he snapped.

Harry waited, but nothing earth-shattering happened. But what was supposed to happen, anyway? The butter wasn't about to throw itself into Snape's mouth and glue it shut, after all.

"This had better work, Potter," was the last thing Harry heard Snape say. Then he was spooning the peanut butter into his mouth and chewing it . . . and then . . . the chewing slowed.

And slowed.

And stopped.

"Professor?" Harry asked warily.

Nothing. Snape's face turned an interesting shade of red as he struggled to open his mouth, but he may as well have been trying to move a mountain with a feather. Harry waited warily, expecting at any moment that Snape would break the sticky peanut butter's hold and begin shouting at him. But nothing happened.

"It worked," he said softly. Snape only glared at him menacingly. "Right, so . . . I'll just get some help, then," Harry added, backing up slowly in case his teacher decided to come up behind him if he turned his back. But when Harry reached the dungeon door, Snape still hadn't moved. He could have been a wax statue, still as he was. Only the eyes smouldered like live coals as Harry stepped out into the hallway.

And so it began. Harry summoned all the teachers: Dumbledore, McGonagall, Flitwick, Sinistra . . . even Hagrid, though he left Binns alone, figuring a ghost couldn't be much help, after all.

Hagrid tried to pry open Snape's mouth with his bare hands. He had no luck.

McGonagall transfigured a quill into a crowbar and tried. Nothing.

Flitwick attempted a Banishing Charm. The peanut butter stayed.

Dumbledore said nothing, but suddenly, out of the tip of his wand, came what appeared to be a rope of pure fire. It snapped across Snape's peanut-butter sealed lips, leaving a burning line across the substance. But when the flames died, the Potions master still couldn't open his mouth. In fact, the mixture seemed even more glutinous than ever.

As much as the staff wanted to help Snape, no one enjoys pounding their head against a brick wall indefinitely. Harry, seeing it was no use, slipped away to the Gryffindor common room before Snape could . . . well, what could Snape do? Give him detention? Take away House points? To do those things, he’d need to be able to speak, and he could hardly do that.

Hermione was horrified when he explained what had happened. "Harry, Glutea Maxima is a permanent charm!" she cried frantically. "There's no counterspell that can take it off! It has to wear off, and no one's ever been able to find out how long it takes!" She got up and began pacing the room. "They'll never get his mouth open now!"

"Well, how was I supposed to know? Snape didn't even know!" Harry retorted.

"Besides, what do we care?" Ron asked, his eyes gleaming. "You want him to open his mouth so he can take points off Gryffindor for you being a know-it-all? So he can tell you what a terrible potion you've made when you know it's almost as good as his own?"

Hermione stopped pacing and appeared to be pondering Ron's words. Ron himself settled back against the sofa, a foolish grin on his face. "Harry, mate, you're going to be a hero," he said happily. "Not for dodging Voldemort — not even for defeating Voldemort — but for stuffing a sock in that greasy bat once and for all." He gave a contented sigh. "They're going to write songs about you."

"Ronald," Hermione chided. But she wasn’t able to hide a smile.

Harry didn't say anything. He was wondering how long the recall would last.

He might just send Hedwig out in a few days. No harm in checking with Woolworth's.

And so the years passed. Unable to utter even the softest syllable, Snape was forced to resign — in writing — his position as Potions master at Hogwarts. Horace Slughorn, who had held the position previously, took over, although Snape continued to work closely with him and wrote angry notes on scraps of parchment when he and Slughorn disagreed.

A special charm was cast to feed Snape intravenously at mealtimes and imbibe him with a regulated supply of water and pumpkin juice. (At Christmastime, the charm was modified to include a draught or two of oak-matured mead). He took to carrying around parchment and quill wherever he went, and the sheets were quickly filled with such notes as 'Detention!' and 'Fifty points from Gryffindor!' However, the House point system only responded to verbal orders. As such, the House Cup was a fair competition for the first time since Snape began teaching at Hogwarts. Slytherin came in last.

Slughorn had his faults, yes, but he was very interested in remaining on friendly terms with Harry. As the Boy Who Lived, he was an invaluable addition to Sluggy's collection of upwardly mobile students. Having the Potions master as a chum worked out well for Harry; it turned out that Slughorn knew a fair bit about some very shady potions. Not Dark, exactly . . . but, well, one morning Umbridge took a sip of her pumpkin juice and turned into a house-elf. That couldn't be white magic.

Harry found, with what he had learned about focusing his attention on his magic — and having a master whose sole mission in life wasn't to torture him — he was able to surpass even his best prior efforts. He earned an O in Potions on his O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s and, upon finishing at Hogwarts, would at any other time have been welcomed heartily into the Auror training program.

Unfortunately, a few months into Snape's ordeal, Voldemort had become so frustrated with his spy's sudden mutism and, as a result, his own lack of insight into the workings of the Order, that he'd gathered all his Horcruxes — years later, Dumbledore explained to Harry about the diary and his other suspicions — called a meeting of his Death Eaters, and proceeded to destroy himself, Malfoy Manor, and everything in it with Fiendfyre.

As such, Harry found himself having to choose a new career, and finally settled on teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts back at Hogwarts, where Sirius was a frequent visitor and often helped Harry with demonstrations. Although the threat of Death Eater activity had mostly passed, teaching Defence was still incredibly important. One never knew which first year with worn secondhand robes and battered old textbooks might be plotting his or her eventual rise to power on the blood of their fellow witches and wizards. Soon after Ginny left Hogwarts and began playing professional Quidditch with the Harpies, they were married. Ron and Hermione both took jobs at the Ministry and married two years later. Harry had to name his second son 'Cedric' — neither boy had a middle name. His scar hadn't bothered him in years, not since the incident on the night of Voldemort's suicide. All was well.

One day, as Harry was enjoying steak and kidney pie at the staff table in the Great Hall, he heard an odd noise coming from his left. Snape often indicated problems with the feeding charms in this manner, and so Harry laid down his fork with a sigh and twisted in his chair, wondering how a charm could possibly have glitches. But when he caught sight of Snape's face, his jaw dropped. It was an ironic reflex, considering that Snape's own jaw was moving strangely. Often, when he felt he wasn't being watched, the former Potions master would fall back on his old pastime of attempting to remove the wad from his mouth, making him look much like a cow chewing cud. But this time was different. Harry could have sworn that Snape's teeth were further apart than they had ever been. Could it be possible . . . ?

It wasn't his imagination. As Harry watched, fascinated, the man's mouth began to slowly creak open. His face was turning red with what must have been a tremendous effort for his atrophied muscles. Snape's struggles had caught the attention of the entire staff by this time, and they all crowded around his chair, waiting with bated breath to see if after so many years, today would indeed be the day.

The jaws that had lain silent so long creaked with the effort, but finally, with an audible snap, Snape's mouth popped open. "Huuuuhhhh . . ." he breathed.

"What's he saying?" McGonagall demanded, leaning in closer.

Snape worked his jaw back and forth a few times while they all waited apprehensively to hear what he had to say.

"Severus?"

He gave her a ghastly grimace and finally spoke, his voice weak but determined.

"How about a peanut butter cup?"