The Fest Endeth
by Beth H
(c) August 2003

"We know you're in there!"

"You can't hide in your rooms forever."

"It's almost the tenth, you know."

The voices outside the the front door of Severus Snape's chamber had been getting shriller and more insistent by the day. At first, he had been able to ignore the occasional exhortation to "remove the wards and see what you've been missing," but now, on the fifty-eighth day of the Fest, barely a moment passed in which one female or another wasn't adding her voice to the chorus, often accompanied by the sound of fists banging loudly against the door.

Snape sat on the cold stone floor of his sitting room and buried his head in his hands.

"You all right, Severus? You're looking a little done in."

Snape looked up and glared at Remus. "I see your ability to state the obvious hasn't forsaken you."

Remus sat beside Snape and put an arm around his tense shoulders. "They're really starting to bother you, aren't they?"

"I simply don't understand it, Lupin. For most of my adult life, I have had little trouble with attentions from women, yet within the past seventeen months, I've been forced to suffer three separate onslaughts."

"Perhaps they've just discovered how overwhelmingly sexy you can be," Remus said, letting his hand slide down between Snape's legs.

"Oi! Could the two of you give it a rest for one minute! Some of us are trying to sleep"

"Jealous, Potter?" Snape asked with a sneer.

"Well, it's not fair, is it? We used to be good together, Sev. At least, I thought we were. And now it's all Snape/Lupin, Snape/Lupin, Snape/Lupin. Bloody annoying, is what it is."

Remus took his hand away from Snape's leg. "I apologize, Harry. I know this must be difficult for you. I think they're just feeling a little sorry for me at the moment."

The bedroom door flew open, and Sirius Black stormed into the sitting room. "Feeling sorry for you, are they? I'm the one they should be feeling sorry for. I've seen so little action this time around you'd think I was . . . ."

"Shhhh! We're supposed to give spoiler warnings, Paddy."

Sirius looked at his old friend with a look of exasperation. "Oh right, Moony. Spoiler warnings. Like there's anybody left in the free world who doesn't know I'm dead."

"Come on out, Severus!"

"We want our turn!"

Snape banged his head against the door.

"Go away, you insufferable harpies before I hex the lot of you!"

Remus shook his head. "You know, Severus, you really ought to consider adopting a less . . . antagonistic stance."

"He's right there, Professor," said Hagrid . "You know the old saying that you can catch more blast-ended skrewts with honey than with rotting chicken parts."

Sirius laughed. "Rotting chicken parts, eh? I see you've had a look beneath Snape's robes as well, have you, Hagrid?"

Snape glowered at Sirius. "And you wonder why you haven't been getting much this time around, do you?"

He pulled out his wand, but Harry stepped in between them.

"Stop it, the both of you! Stop all this fighting!"

Snape frowned. "I didn't . . . I didn't know it bothered you so much, Harry."

"Of course it bothers me, you prat!" Harry said indignantly. "Every time the two of you have a go at each other, you end up shagging! Bad enough I've been pushed down the pairing ranks, but I'm not going to stand by and watch while my own godfather jumps the queue!"

"Open the door! Open the door! Open the door!"

"Persistent, aren't they?" Albus Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eye.

"Um . . . how about just sending Draco out, instead?"

"Ginny Weasley! Get back to your dormitory immediately!"

"Sorry, Professor McGonagall."

The bedroom door opened again.

"Did I hear someone call my name?" Draco sat down on the couch. "Only, it's been getting rather dull in there, all by myself."

"I should have thought even you, you pathetically disloyal son, would have noticed that you weren't alone in there."

"Sorry, Father," Draco said. "It's still a little difficult to think of you being in the bedroom with me and not . . . um . . . ."

"Still up to your old tricks, Lucius?" Snape hissed.

Lucius Malfoy arched a single eyebrow. "Surely you must know that it would never have crossed my mind to touch my own son in an inappropriate manner if I hadn't been written that way. In any case, you have to be a participant in all sexual encounters these days, and you haven't glanced my way in ages, so it's rather a moot point, isn't it?"

Once more, the bedroom door flew open, and out walked a barely-human creature. He approached Snape, his red eyes aflame.

"Ah, Severus. I see you're surrounded by all your . . . playmates. Perhaps you've forgotten the vow you took when you became a Death Eater?"

Severus groaned. "I thought that only applied to our initiation, Vol . . . um . . . my Lord."

"It applies whenever I say it applies. And it's been . . . far too long, Severus. Unless . . . " He started to turn around slowly. " . . . young Mr Potter here would like to . . . ."

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

And with a flash of green, Voldemort ceased to be.

Harry looked in shock at the wand in his hand. "Wow! I must really not have wanted to do that."

And then no one in the room spoke a word as the clock on Snape's mantle chimed twelve times.

Draco grinned. "Looks like it's midnight on the tenth. So, Potter? Fancy a shag?"

Harry shrugged. "Why not? Um, Malfoy? You weren't ever really a Death Eater, were you?"

Draco tugged at the sleeve of his robe. "Of course not. Well . . . not as such."

"All right, then. Professor Snape? Can we use your room?"

Snape sighed. "I can't see why not. It's the . . . least I can do for the . . . savior of the wizarding world."

Remus grinned. "Watch out, Severus. I wouldn't want you to choke on your words."

"Lupin?"

"Yes?"

"Shut up."

"Yes, dear." He laughed, then got up from the floor and tugged Snape up with him. "How about we leave the boys here and go back to my room?"

Snape smiled. "Sounds like a perfectly . . . ."

"Hey!" Sirius yelled. "What about me?"

Snape and Remus said in unison, "You're dead!"

"Oh. Right." Sirius eyed the door. Not a sound could be heard. "I wonder if they're all gone. Maybe I could still catch up with . . . um . . . ."

He opened the door and rushed out into the hallway.

"Minerva!"

********

Chit chat, Critiques, Gratuitous Praise: beth-h@mrks.org

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