Harry Potter - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Forty Days of Snape ❯ Aggravation ( Chapter 1 )

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Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Done for the HPFC forum's 178 Moods Challenge (made by sick-atxxheart). Decided to write about Snape and forty interesting moods.

Enjoy, and please be kind and review.

Forty Days of Snape

Chapter 1: Aggravation

Sitting alone in the corner of his dreary office, head bowed beneath a fading green lamp, Severus Snape stabbed the final length of Neville Longbottom's verbose (and hardly comprehensible) essay Fungal Plants and their TenMostly UsefulUses in Potion Brewing with an angry quill. If at all possible the boy had gotten worse at writing since his First Year. Three years ago.

Tonight Snape's ink of choice was red, an oddly appropriate color for the current atmosphere in which Dumbledore himself, in all his grandfatherly bemused glory, would likely feel `rather put out' and look for an excuse to leave. Perhaps the Potions Professor had stomached the majority of slop fairly well, waiting anxiously to condemn a classroom full of untalented dunderheads, but this essay had taken a toll on Snape. The last three-quarters of Longbottom's scroll were practically saturated in red. The parchment might well have doubled as a liner for slaughtering pigs.

It was a wonder words survived at all. Their faint memory still poked through here and there - if he tipped the paper and squinted a bit, at least.

He gave a long sigh.

What was the use of even correcting this bovine-brained tripe? Merlin knew Longbottom would just skip past it all, dive to the end, see his giant brooding red `T', and cry into a bowl of oatmeal during tomorrow's breakfast anyway.

Depositing his inky weapon with a disgusted growl, the man leaned further into the thinning leather of his seat and rubbed a throbbing lump on his forehead. Stuck in a job he hated, stuck teaching children he'd sooner drown, stuck spending hours reading essays that just barely passed for mundane.

To say Snape was aggravated would have been a gross understatement, as for several heady moments he stared at his quill thinking of ways to end his suffering. An eye would be best, he idly mused, quirking the side of his lip with involuntary delight. Having no eyes meant never having to read another essay by Longbottom...

The mangled clock above him managed an odd assortment of noise that Snape took to mean midnight, and stuttered to silence soon afterward, smoking a bit here and there as parts took leave of their duty. If the man had any decency he would've put the thing out of misery ages ago. As it was, however, he couldn't care less.

At least things couldn't get much worse than this; a small bit of comfort in such desolate times.

Standing up with an air of troubled resignation, Snape finally took pity on his sad lamp and surrendered his office to total darkness. Sleep beckoned after all, he was somewhat on a schedule. Aggravation would have to hold for tomorrow.