A Roland For An Oliver

A/N: This is just a bit of silliness, really. I still hope someone gets a laugh out of it. ^^

Harry Potter was the only wizard known of that had ever survived a direct assault by Lord Voldemort himself, he desperately tried to reassure himself. So he would manage to get out of this one unscathed... would he?

The accidentally ripped off doorknob still in his hand, he turned around very slowly to face the man he was now unfortunately locked in a potions cabinet with. Monkeys, Harry had learned a long time ago from a science book that his charming cousin Dudley had once thrown at him in rage, bared their teeth in something closely resembling a human smile when they were admitting defeat. They were practically asking the other not to harm them. Unwittingly, Harry was doing the exact same. Naturally, his opponent was not a monkey and Harry was sure that he did not have an ounce of mercy in his body.

"Please tell me I am hallucinating," drawled his potions master, both hands clenched into fists at the sides of his trademark black robes that now hung limp in lieu of billowing menacingly behind their owner. Snape's black eyes were yet calm but Harry was sure that they would erupt into vicious glares in a minute or so.

"I... I am sorry, Professor," he croaked. "Sure... surely we can magically open that door?"

Snape gave a deep growl that seemed to erupt from the utmost depths of his body.

"No, we cannot, you foolish little twit!" he snarled disgustedly, the rage in his voice so evident that Harry felt his hair had to be blown back from his face by the onslaught of sheer contempt.

"But... we are wizards," he said, his voice almost down to a whisper. Even before Snape's features turned into a sneer of epic proportions, he knew that he had said something very very stupid.

"I can barely resist awarding points to Gryffindor for that uncanny observation, Potter!" Snape spat his last name out like a foul grape, as usual, but somehow he managed to sound even more profoundly nauseated than normally. "There is a charm on that door that will only allow to enter or leave by usage of that doorknob like muggles do. Consequently, if one preposterous dunderhead breaks said apparatus, anyone who is inside the cabinet will be unable to escape it."

It seemed that Snape was only realizing the implications of his words while he was speaking them and somehow he seemed to turn even paler than usual. His hand twitched as he raised it towards his forehead for a second as if he was going to smooth back the strand of black hair that clung to it but then he dropped it again.

"I cannot believe just how exceptionally daft you are," he stated and although Harry was trembling slightly, he managed to keep his calm.

"You know, Professor. I was not the one who put that spell on the door that manages to fend off any magic by which it could be opened. I suspect it was you."

"Preposterous...!" Snape growled but did not deny the accusation. However, a vein in his left temple began pulsing faintly. Harry found himself horribly fascinated by it.

Encouraged by the lack of violence on his teacher's part, he still felt brave enough to add: "Besides, why did you do that in the first place?"

Snape narrowed his eyes but obviously felt obliged to defend his choice of protection of his private stock. "I believe that sometimes, resorting to muggle tactics in order to protect things of value can prove very effective."

Harry managed a shaky grin. "Well, great. That is just what you have accomplished. Now, how do we get out?"

"We will have to wait," Snape said silkily and Harry could see that the professor felt slightly unsettled by the fact that he could not just turn around and sweep off with an air of dark foreboding. They were stuck here in a room that was barely big enough to accommodate two people who did not hate each other's guts. Let alone two that loathed each other more than anything else in the world. Well, maybe Harry loathed Voldemort even more than Snape. But he had never had the misfortune of being locked in a potions cabinet with him.

Why had he walked in after Snape in the first place? Oh well, the greasy git had accused him of stealing fluxweed and whatnot from his private stock to brew Polyjuice Potion. As if, Harry mused. He could not have cared less about Polyjuice Potion at the moment, as he was a little too caught up in not getting himself killed in the Triwizard Tournament, thank you very much.

Snape growled again. It was becoming a frequent occurrence and made Harry wonder whether he had ever spent that much time alone with Snape before. Probably not and he had never been keen on it. Also, he mused, he was currently living the nightmare of each and every student at Hogwarts. All except the moony and probably mildly insane seventh year who claimed Snape had a certain allure and sighed whenever he crossed her way. It was really quite painful to watch their interactions.

Snape walked over towards the other end of the room – which in truth meant taking half a step away from Harry until confronted with the ceiling-high array of shelves – and pretended to rearrange some bottles. Harry, however, could see from where he was standing that Snape was simply disrupting his own system as the bottles were obviously in alphabetical order.

A half hour later, Snape seemed to have exhausted every method of pretending to be busy and grudgingly leaned against the wall, glaring down at Harry who had made himself less than comfortable on the cold stone floor, his back against the wood of the door.

"You do not wish to sit down on the floor, I suppose," Harry said sarcastically since he was now sure Snape would not murder him. His glare was even more homicidal than usual but his unnerving silence had nothing on his usual stride.

"You are annoying me, Potter," he said darkly.

"And I am bored."

"Then why do you not do me a favor and drop dead with boredom?" Snape snarled, turning around to face the wall again.

"You can't pretend to be occupied forever, you know," Harry mentioned conversationally. "Why don't we just talk?"

He knew it was a far cry and in another time and place he would have been horrified by the mere thought of having to exchange more words than absolutely necessary with his greasy-haired, hooked-nosed, generally insufferable potions master. Today, however, he was bored and whenever his mind was unoccupied nowadays, it wandered towards the Triwizard Tournament that he was quite scared of. So in this time and minute, any distraction was welcome. Even Snape spewing venom, even Snape giving him the worst kind of verbal abuse he could get away with.

Snape lowered himself onto a lower rung of the ladder that he used to reach the higher shelves and his gaze settled on Harry who had to admit that he looked confused rather than hostile.

"Talk?" Snape finally asked, his characteristic manner of speaking seemingly turning the one-syllable word into a half a Shakespearean sonnet.

"Yeah," Harry said, unsure himself. "Didn't you, um... go to school with my parents?"

The vein above Snape's eye started twitching with flourish and Harry felt faintly scared.

"Okay, okay... not a good topic, um, how's it going, anyway?"

Snape now raised his eyebrow painfully high and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"I keep wondering how a twit like you could be the Boy Who Lived," he said and sounded actually pensive. Maybe his words had not been meant as an insult at all...? Yeah, like that was going to happen.

"Thanks, Professor Snape. Your insulting is actually beginning to get old..."

Harry did not know what gave him the boldness – or rather severe suicidal tendency – to talk to a teacher like that. Especially Snape.

"Thirty points from Gryffindor," Snape snapped.

If they were locked in here for any longer amount of time, Gryffindor would most certainly be sans any house points by the time they got out. Harry sighed and decided to sit in silence until they were found. If they would ever be found. He imagined someone forcefully opening the potions cabinet years from now, to find his and Snape's skeletons. Their bones probably intertwined in death. Harry shuddered. What was this? Stockholm's syndrome? Snape was practically his kidnapper as he had been the one who had installed this ridiculous booby trap.

"How can you be so sure we will be found?" he asked as politely as possible if you felt like strangling the person you were addressing.

"The headmaster knows I am here," Snape said with dignity.

Harry's shoulders dropped along with the proverbial penny.

"You have locked yourself in here before, haven't you?"

Snape gave an involuntary hiss that sounded like an extremely annoyed cat. That was all Harry needed to know for certain that he had been right.

"I don't believe it!" Harry shouted and raised his outstretched hands in mock defeat. "Really, I honestly can't believe how anyone can be so... What?"

Snape looked like a caricature of a dumbfounded person and Harry was not so sure why. Actually, he had to admit he was completely clueless.

"Hello?" Harry asked after a prolonged period of silence, one step short of waving his hand in front of Snape's eyes in order to check whether he was reacting to outward stimulation.

"Just like your mother..." Snape whispered, then looked as if he was going to place both his hands over his mouth to force the words back in. Too late.

Harry stared at Snape in open-mouthed shock. He was young and inexperienced with matters of the heart but he was far from clueless. He would have been able to describe any gesture Cho Chang made in detail, if anyone cared to listen – which no one did. There was only one explanation for Snape's behavior.

"YOU HAD THE HOTS FOR MY MOM! THAT IS DISGUSTING!"

Harry hadn't intended to scream the words at the top of his lungs but unfortunately he seemed unable to control his vocal chords.

"OH MY GOD HOW HORRIBLE!"

His command over his own voice was still absent. He had to stop, Harry told himself, they had a house cup to win and they would come last even behind Hufflepuff if Gryffindor had a score of below zero thanks to him.

"Silence!" Snape barked but his give-a-damn-attitude was severely damaged.

"You just admitted it!" Harry's voice now sounded hoarse and his throat felt like sandpaper. "Did you, no, I just don't want to know... ugh... ugh... Images in my head! Kill me. Please strike me down now! KILL ME."

Honestly, Harry hadn't known that he was capable of such incoherent ramblings. Also, asking an enraged Severus Snape to kill one was probably not a good idea if one was just using it as a figure of speech. Indeed, Snape had drawn his wand and was pointing it at Harry's forehead.

"Sorry, didn't mean that literally..." Harry chirped.

"Obli..." But before Snape could mercifully take the painful memory away, the door opened and Dumbledore walked in with a kind smile on his face.

"Ah, Severus! I see you have accidentally locked yourself in again," he said and only then became aware of the display of hostility he had just walked into. "May I ask what you are doing pointing your wand at a student in such an unfriendly way?"

For a second, Harry was relived to see Snape lower his wand then the potions master seemed to abruptly change his mind.

"OBLIVIATE!" Snape knew that he was an insanely powerful wizard but when he was enraged, he sometimes found himself unable to control the force with which he cast spells. Usually, that meant dented cauldrons because – truthfully- his life as an educator at Hogwarts was not so eventful currently. Today, however, his spell hit Potter hard and caused the the brat to stagger backwards into Dumbledore who was hit subsequently by the rest of the blast.

Snape felt uneasy as both The Chosen One's and the headmaster's faces turned into moony smiles.

"Butterflies..." Dumbledore whispered contently.

"Mommy," Potter said in a little voice and wrapped his arms around Snape who started shuddering almost uncontrollably. Finally, he managed to get the student off him and ushered both of them out and towards the hospital wing.

A half hour later a stern-looking Minerva McGonagall called Snape to the hospital wing. Worry lines were etched around her pale eyes when she addressed him.

"Severus, I am so glad you could come. Albus and young Mr Potter have been severely obliviated. They will be fine, Poppy has assured me, but I believe an attempt has been made to rob them permanently of their sanity."

Snape feigned surprise and watched in glee as Potter and hugged Poppy Pomfrey with huge starry eyes while Dumbledore was making strange smacking noises while holding on to his pillow.

A Roland for an Oliver, he thought.

"Do you think it was Voldemort?" McGonagall asked anxiously.

"Maybe," Snape said silkily. "But as you said, they will be fine. If you'll excuse me now, I have a door to fix."

- The End -