The Potion Problem

Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter and its characters all belong to J.K. Rowling. I only own the idea of this story and of course, I am making no money out of any of my fan fiction stories.

Notes: Hi everyone, I'm starting to think that my best story ideas come to me 5 min before I fall asleep, which makes it hard to get out of bed and take notes. This is just a tiny one-shot that I thought of last night, I AM busy with an update for The Odd Combination of Fate and Humor and I am also busy with a few other longer one-shots as well.

Warnings: Very minor swear words and kisses. This is a slash pairing even if it contains nothing more than a kiss.

Please choose one of the following pairings so that I may know which one-shot you want me to finish first:

Harry x Severus and Lucius

Harry x Tom Riddle Jr.

Harry x Draco

And now without further ado…

The Potion Problem

Severus Snape stormed towards his classroom as he mentally cursed up a storm. How Dumbledore was able to keep such a cool head with the imbeciles they called students before he died, Severus didn't know.

Then again, when Dumbledore was headmaster, the man didn't have to deal with teaching classes and making potions on top of having to perform all the duties of being headmaster. Minerva was trying her best to help, but there was only so much that the woman could do before the paperwork required his attention and signature as headmaster.

Severus winced as he neared the classroom. He had been busy with a potion that could not be placed under a stasis when Minerva had urgently called him to deal with a student that had used a spell without knowing what it did. The idiot's friend, who also happened to be the victim of the spell, could be glad that he had not lost any limbs.

One didn't even have to guess to know what house the two were in and Severus shook his head in disgust. Bloody Gryffindors! Unfortunately for the potions master, he just had to have Potter for detention in his class while he had been brewing the potion and the boy could not be trusted near any ingredients never mind a brewing potion and Severus had thought that he would be able to immediately return to his class. This meant that the potion and all of its expensive ingredients were ruined.

The boy was quieter since the defeat of Voldemort, but that didn't mean that he had suddenly gained an insight into potions now that the students who had been in the war were finishing the years they had missed.

Severus stopped at the door and took a deep breath as he entered the class to assess the damage, but to his surprise there were none. He walked to the cauldron where his potion had been brewing, but it had already been scrubbed clean and the extra ingredients had been put away.

He glanced at his wall to see that they were all in their correct places and then he moved to his desk where several vials glittered in the light that the candles cast in the room. He moved over and picked one up in order to hold it in the light of the candles and he was surprised to see that there was not a speck of impurity inside of it.

The color was exactly right, the thickness was exactly right and judging from the smell that still lingered in his classroom, the scent was also exactly as it should be. Severus put the vial down and a piece of parchment caught his eye.

The untidy scrawl immediately told him that it was from Potter.

Headmaster

I cleaned all of the cauldrons and I only left 5 minutes before curfew. I don't know if I should have left that time or not, but I did not want to lose any more points.

H. Potter

Severus knew with the last part that the brat was worried that he had lost those points anyway because he left before Severus dismissed him. A quick tempus told Severus that it was already two hours after curfew so it was a good thing that the boy had gone.

Severus looked back down at the note. Not boy, man. No one that went through the life Potter had could be called a boy. He threw the paper in a bin and gathered up the vials to put them away after spelling them to be non-breakable.

He didn't know what to think at that moment. Potter was dismal at potions and yet Severus had not been alerted to anyone entering his classroom so only Potter could have finished the potion.

He decided to keep an eye on the other man as a plan began to form in his mind along with a whole lot of questions. If Potter knew how to brew potions, then why would he act like he didn't and why would he then purposefully mess up potions?

This brought another unanswered question to mind and Severus linked to two as he walked to his rooms. Every time he counted his ingredients after he had Harry sort ingredients for detention when he botched a potion, Severus would find that there were more of certain ingredients than there were when he checked after class.

At first, he thought that it was Draco, but with his godson now apprenticing abroad, he was certain it wasn't, which only left Potter if the potion tonight had not been a fluke. If the man knew how to brew potions then he also knew how expensive the ingredients were and why Severus descended down on them like a bat from hell when the ingredients were wasted.

Severus entered his rooms and closed the door before sinking down onto one of his couches. He might have first hated, then tolerated and then protected the man, but Potter had not known this until he had been on his way to the final battle.

Severus quickly sat up straight. Potter was the one who had handed him the potion that had saved him from the snake bite. He'd thought that Granger had given it to the boy when he hadn't been looking and it had been clear that it had not come from his personal stocks.

He sat back and closed his eyes before groaning. This meant that Potter was the one who had saved his life and this made him even more determined to find out why the other man had hidden his knowledge on potions.

This caused a problem since Potter would surely botch up the potions on purpose if Severus asked him to brew something, but Severus would not believe or reject the thought until he saw whether it was true or not.

He wouldn't be much of a potion master if he suddenly left his potions unattended for two days in a row so he would have to wait and come up with a plan to trick the man into seriously brewing a potion.

…two months later…

It was now January and Severus had finally finalized his plans over the holidays. He even had a date set for Potter's detention, but he would make sure that another student had already scrubbed all of the cauldrons on that day.

When the day finally arrived he gave Potter detention, but since there were no cauldrons to scrub, he told the man to work on his homework in utter silence. He then started another potion that could not be placed under a stasis spell and worked until Minerva stumbled into his class and told him that some students had entered the forbidden forest.

He quickly placed everything down and rushed out of the room with Minerva before both teachers closed the door and opened a hidden panel for a room that they had created in order to find out if Harry Potter really did know how to brew a potion properly.

Severus smirked as he saw his old teacher's excitement, the plan wouldn't have worked so smoothly if he didn't have her on his side and he glanced through the spelled wall to see if Potter would take the bait.

Sure enough, Harry kept casting a tempus as the time grew near to put the next ingredient in and both teachers smiled triumphantly as the dark-haired young rushed to the front of the class when it was apparent that the potion would spoil if he didn't do anything.

Severus raised a brow in surprise when Potter started working without even opening the book while also adding a few extra turns just as the potions master himself did.

Those instructions were taught by masters to their apprentices and it would not be found in any book. Harry Potter had apparently been taught potions somewhere. But how could he go anywhere when he never left the school.

Minerva gave Severus a smile and walked off to her class as Harry bottled up the last of the potion when it was done. Severus watched a while longer before he decided to confront him. He silently returned while the younger man scrubbed the cauldron.

An idea came to mind and he decided to see whether the younger man would come clean. "Mr. Potter! What have you done with my potion!" The raven-haired boy jumped around with his wand drawn, but he lowered it when he saw who it was.

"I uhm sorry Professor, you weren't here and the potion became unstable so I uhm took my book and followed the rest of the instructions. I know you don't like wasting ingredients."

Severus inwardly smirked as he walked over to the vials. The potion was perfect as he had expected. He then looked back at the other man. "Minerva and I saw everything, Potter. It was a test that I set up because I wanted to know why you could brew perfect potions and yet you act like you can't. Who taught you all the extra turns and ingredients?"

Harry hung his head. "You did sir." Severus frowned. He had not taught the man anything about knowledge that only apprentices and masters should have. Potter must have seen his confusion because he added. "I watched how you brew your potions and I started to learn why. I also kept notes of how you fixed mistakes."

Severus nodded. It made sense even though it mostly sounded unbelievable. "Why do you not show this in class?" Harry looked at him. "I learned all about potions before Voldemort's defeat when I had to hide away at the Grimmauld Place. The library is quite extensive and there is a potions lab. Hermione also helped me. I just didn't want to show it here since no one would believe that I'm suddenly good with potions. They would all think that I am cheating sir."

The unspoken words of 'including you' resonated in the room and Severus sighed before he beckoned for Potter to follow him. They entered his office and he called an elf for refreshments before they sat down. "I thought you wanted to be an Auror. You need good marks in potions for that."

Potter shook his head. "That's what everyone expected me to be. Hermione already wrote her exams and Ron got an offer to be an Auror so without them around me I had time to get my head straight. Now that I have had time to think about it, I would have liked to become the DADA professor here at Hogwarts next year, but I know you probably already have someone in line just in case Voldemort's curse on the position is still active."

Severus was surprised, but he shook his head. "The curse has been broken, but the position will be open next year." Harry tried to keep the hope out of his face and Severus nodded. "If you can complete the rest of the year without holding back then I will seriously consider you for the position next year and that means that you have to stop holding back in all of your classes."

Potter nodded vigorously before Severus started asking about what potions he had already completed and whether there were some that he struggled with. They spoke long into the night and Severus was surprised to have found someone who shared a passion of his.

…a few months later…

It had been months since Severus and Harry spoke and the two became good friends. Harry helped Severus with his brewing in order to lessen his workload and Severus even allowed Harry to take on a few of the lower years' potions classes while he attended to his other duties.

Both the staff and the students were happy to see that Severus was much more relaxed, but even a fool could see that the two men had fallen for one another. This caused the entire school to start up a betting pool as to when they would confess and it had gotten so big that even the teachers were in or it

Minerva smiled slyly as she walked into the potions classroom and spotted her chance. Both Severus and Harry were in the ingredient cupboard doing stock-taking before the graduation ceremony and she quickly cast a spell to lock the door as well as a charmed transfiguration spell of her own design that she created for detentions.

The spell would refuse to let them out until they confessed their true feelings. She heard the two men shout and she laughed. "The two of you have been dancing around each other for too long and you are both too stubborn to admit it, so I decided to give both of you a helping hand."

A shocked silence echoed through the room and Minerva's smile grew even larger when she realized that she just locked the headmaster of the school in a room with her favorite student. She didn't expect them to get out for another 3 hours and she strode confidently to her room.

Needless to say, the graduation ceremony had to proceed without the headmaster and Harry Potter and the students groaned when they saw the sly smile on Minerva's face.

Most of them were sure that the Deputy Headmistress was just as sly as a snake even if she wore her lion fur proudly and both the students and the rest of the teachers made peace with the fact that they had probably just lost the bet since Minerva had stated in her own bet that the two would confess on graduation day.

…meanwhile…

Harry groaned as he heard Minerva's words and he couldn't bring himself to look at Severus until he realized that she had stated that both of them were dancing around each other. He looked up with shocked eyes. Did that mean Severus felt the same?

It was too dark in the room to see clearly and neither of them wanted to move too far and accidentally knock something off the shelves. Silence echoed throughout the room until Harry cast a silent tempus. He could see Severus frown as they both noticed that they had been inside the cupboard for an hour and a half already and that the graduation ceremony was probably already finished.

That meant that most of the school were busy leaving and the teachers were the only ones at the school who still had to do some last minute packing. He finally got up his courage and turned to Severus.

"Look Sev, I'm sorry. Professor McGonagall is right. Over the last few months of spending time with you and working with you, I have developed feelings for you, but I didn't want to tell you and cause you to become disgusted with me because I valued our friendship as well and if that was all I could have then I wanted to hold on to it. The fact of the matter is that I love you and that I can't seem to get you out of my head."

Silence reigned in the room and Harry found himself speaking further in order to try and ignore the stabbing pain in his heart. "I'm sorry okay? Those are my true feelings, but I promise that I will never speak of them again if you could only find it in yourself to forget what I just said so that we can go on like we were."

The shadows threatened to close in on him as he heard a sigh from the potions master. "No. I'm sorry Harry, but I can't do that. I can't go back to the way things were before." Harry closed his eyes against the tears. He couldn't show weakness in front of this man.

But suddenly a pair of arms reached out of the darkness and pulled him into a warm and solid chest. Harry gasped as he felt Severus hug him tightly. "I can't go back to the way things were before, because I don't want that. I have also fallen in love with you somewhere within the last couple of months and I don't want to let you go."

Harry threw his arms around the other man's waist and hugged him tightly. The scent of musk and potion ingredients calmed him down as he realized that he wasn't going to lose the man he had come to love.

Severus chuckled softly. "I was going to wait till next year when you take up the DADA post here to do this and to see if you felt the same, but since you just graduated…" Harry was about to ask what the man wanted to do, but Severus lifted his chin and the older man's lips descended upon his. Severus licked Harry's lips and Harry opened his mouth instinctively to taste him. Both groaned happily.

Neither of the two noticed that the door had swung open and that a certain woman smiled happily before walking back towards her office to collect her winnings. The smile grew even wider when she heard Severus mutter… "Remind me to give that conniving old witch a raise" before she locked the classroom door to give them some privacy.

The End

Please remember to let me know about your choice for the pairings listed under the title at the top of the story

I hope you enjoyed reading this fic as much as I enjoyed writing it.