“How could our own brother be so thick?”
“How could anyone who’s known us five minutes be so thick?”
“You don’t think he realizes “ ”
“No, he said quite clearly it would be a big help.”
“Mind you, I gave him the hard sell on it.”
“You’d hardly be Fred Weasley if you didn’t.”
“And you’d hardly be George Weasley if you didn’t look the other way and run the till.”
George shook his head. “I don’t usually borrow words from our favourite professor, but what dunderhead buys his stationery supplies from a joke shop?”
“Funny you should mention him. He stalked in just yesterday.”
“Snape? Here?”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“And what did you sell him?”
“Nothing, as it happens. He claims his spelling abilities are quite adequate.”
“You didn’t.”
“I tried.”
“And I shake your hand for it. There.”
“Thank you.”
New customers interrupted the chat at this convenient point, and departed with a nice array of Skiving Snackboxes, Canary Cremes, and assorted trick decks of cards.
“You know, Fred, every now and then I feel a bit bad.”
“Merlin’s sakes, why? Look at all the happiness we’re spreading.”
“Five more sales from the Prince line just this afternoon. I feel as though we owe him royalties.”
“If he turns up demanding royalties, I for one am prepared to pay them. With a bonus. But he won’t.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Voldemort must have done something dreadful to him, or we’d be doing the sweeping up in the Prince’s Palace of Practical Pranks, instead of running Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.”
“True enough. Well. Here’s to the Prince, wherever he may be.” The two young men hoisted half-empty cups of stone-cold tea, clinked them, and drank. The bell at the door tinkled merrily to announce more would-be pranksters.
“Mr. Weasley.”
As the rest of the Transfiguration class filed out, Ron went nervously to the professor’s desk. McGonagall eyed him sternly.
“Mr. Weasley, I’m sure you are aware that spell-checking quills are strictly forbidden at Hogwarts. We expect our students to develop adequate writing skills on their own.”
If she’d noticed the difference this easily, he must have been really bad on his own, Ron thought, and reddened.
“However, in this one instance, I am prepared to make an exception. The change over the summer was “ marked. Try not to let word of this get around, Mr. Weasley.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.” He’d better not use it again, then, for McGonagall’s class. Maybe he could talk Harry or Hermione into reading over his Transfiguration essays to make sure they were good enough. Clearly, perfectly-well-spelled papers were too far beyond his usual quality to be convincing, but he could improve with some scratchouts to make it look right.
For Snape’s Defence class, though, he would need all the help he could get, school rules or no.
“The Correct Use of Nonverbal Spells, by Parvati Patil. Since the dawn of time, Wizarding kind has wondered…”
Alone in the staff room, Severus Snape closed his eyes wearily. He deeply hoped the DADA curse applied to him too. Dumbledore had asked him to take the job for only one year, then move back to Potions, but there were only so many dawns of time a reasonable man could take.
Miss Patil had done an adequate job. A.
“The Use of Nonverbal Spells, by Draco Malfoy. The Standard Dictionary of Magic defines a nonverbal spell as…”
And another classic paper opening began a barely-adequate paper. Minus five for being boring, plus ten for being a Slytherin, minus three for being a brat and two more for not actually putting a lick of thought into the paper, plus fifteen for being a Malfoy “ E. Which might be enough lower than usual to startle the boy into pretending to do his schoolwork.
“Harry Potter. The Correct…”
Drat the boy. Sixteen years old and still addicted to Colour-Change Ink. And still utterly hopelessly gormless. Sooner or later Hermione Granger at least should have figured out the problem. The paper itself was probably fine. Severus did not plan to further ruin his eyesight finding out. He went on. Time began twice more. The Standard Dictionary seeped a little further into his soul. “It is interesting to note that…” No, it was not.
“The Etiquette of Unspeakable Magics, by Roonil Wazlib.”
What?
“Before the beginning of herstory, witching types have explored the potentiality of Unmentionable Acts…”
Professor Snape stared fixedly at the mantle for a long minute, clenching his teeth. It would not do, it simply would not, to be caught laughing wildly in the staff room if someone should walk in. He knew this spell.
He’d bloody well invented this spell. He’d enjoyed casting it on irksome people’s quills right before quizzes, back in his student days. Trust the Weasley twins to see marketing potential where he had seen only revenge. Trust the youngest of the Weasley boys to fall for the sales pitch.
If Molly knew where her boys had found several of their ideas, she certainly would have skinned Professor Snape long since, and never mind her usual respectful attitude toward Hogwarts professors. She would not care in the slightest why he had slipped them one of his old textbooks in the first place, either.
Mischief managed!”
“With a little help from Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs.”
There were times to be seen and times to be unseen. Hearing those four names “ especially when one was out to kill the Professor’s chief responsibility “ made this a time to be unseen. The Weasley twins passed with a sack of butterbeers, proud of themselves, clearly fresh from an unauthorized trip to Hogsmeade. It was only a matter of time before they decided that freeing Potter from the castle was good, right, noble, and funny, just as the Marauders would have.
Come to think of it, the Half-Blood Prince would probably have enjoyed the lark himself. Well, the Prince could make himself useful for a change and distract the twins. If sufficiently amused by something sparkly, they would probably forget all about Potter.
Potions was their first class of the term, Charms the second. If they had opened Hopkirk Grade Five yet, he would be profoundly surprised. Making a little switch, one used book for another, would be easy enough.
And it had been “ not that it had worked for long. It seemed they had made good use of the thing, at least. If the Prince had noted the entrepreneurial possibilities of his little tricks, his life might have been quite different.
Quite possibly, Professor Snape would not exist “ and wouldn’t that be a great loss to the world?
He slipped the last essay in with his other belongings and returned with quiet sobriety to his office, where he expected no interfering witnesses. A paper as good as Roonil Wazlib’s deserved a little extra time and attention. The boy would surely have solved the problem by the next week of classes, and that would be the end of the amusement.