Chapter Text
Severus sat behind his desk as his three apprentices chopped and stirred the remaining ingredients for their potions. He was known for his incredibly high standards when accepting advanced students. Unlike other professors, he rarely took on more than two or three students and many of them dropped out along the way. But for once he was pleased that he hadn't caved in to the nagging from Minerva and Albus. On days like this, he could allow his apprentices to work without much supervision.
Which was good, as he really wasn't up to supervising anything at that moment.
He lay a hand over his swollen belly and rubbed it once more, trying to calm the painful bloating. He needed to fart again. He could feel it building up, the unmistakable pressure in his backside that he knew was far too hot to just let out quietly. The sort of pressure that he knew would utterly destroy his reputation if witnessed by another human being! He'd made the mistake of letting one go in the staff meeting that morning. Ten minutes of mental anguish had followed, as the room filled with the putrid stench of his bowels and everyone began coughing, complaining and accusing one another of being the culprit.
Bloody sodding Christmas and that bastard Albus for insisting on all of the meals for the week be 'festive'!
There was usually something he could eat in the great hall without causing his guts to throw a tantrum. But for the last few days there had been nothing but meats covered in thick sauces, dense sugary desserts full of dried fruits, potatoes covered in goose fat and various cheeses, pastries, sweets and a few muggle items he'd never heard of that the old git had practically forced everyone to try while beaming so hard that Snape thought his jaw might crack! Even most of the vegetables were covered in butter or cream. The only relatively 'light' dishes were the cabbage and brussel sprouts, which had given Snape the worst case of flatulence he'd ever experienced!
Of course, the students loved it! Most of the staff enjoyed the excuse to indulge too. But they hadn't been subjected to the Dark Lord's bad tempers over the last decade and the side effects of one too many curses. Snape enjoyed a good meal as much as the next person, but at home... with at least a three days to recover in privacy. His body just couldn't handle rich foods any more.
"I think I've finished." Draco announced, grinning smugly at Hermione Granger, who was still chopping up some of her ingredients on the next desk. She just rolled her eyes and ignored him. Sensible.
Snape peered over at the young blonde man with a frown, loudly shifting some parchment on his desk to cover the rumbling noise his middle decided to emit. Draco wasn't stupid, despite how he could act at times. But he had a tendency to show off and rush his work. He normally got away with it, handing in a consistently good standard on practical tasks and scoring high on all of his essays and research. But if he wasn't so arrogant about trying to 'beat' his classmates, then he might have taken more time to experiment. His attitude held him back from being truly exceptional.
"Really?" Snape drawled, unimpressed by his speed. The Slytherin had chosen to modify a standard Pepper-Up potion as his task. It wasn't especially complex, but would get him a good pass if he brewed it well. Which he would. "Fine, bottle it up and bring it to my desk and you may leave."
Draco grinned at Hermione again, then looked a bit irritated when he didn't get a reaction from her.
Snape was pointedly ignoring the exchange, more focused on trying not to look as if something had died and rotted in his guts. He shifted his weight on his chair, keeping his expression entirely neutral and trying to use Occlumency to block out some of the pain. Merlin, he needed to fart. He'd been forced to leave the room or go into the storage cupboard to let out gas several times already, under the guise of retrieving a forgotten textbook or running low on ink. But it was starting to look odd. He wasn't known for leaving students unoccupied in his classroom for any reason.
Draco was making a racket clearing away his cauldron and equipment and bottling up his potion. Which for once Snape was glad of. His stomach was making some very unhealthy noises.
He tried to distract himself from the increasing pressure in his backside, looking over to check on his other two students. Annabel Wicks, a transfer from Beauxbaton, was methodically piping mixture into her cauldron and carefully stirring it in a clockwise motion. Her approach was very precise and elegant to watch. Very different to Draco, who was accurate but heavy-handed, borderline aggressive, whenever he was brewing; he chopped Mandrake roots as if he had a personal vendetta against them!
A small but quiet hiss slipped out from underneath him and Snape froze. Bloody fucking damn it!
It was only a tiny amount of gas. It would be fine, he told himself. He'd clenched harder in time to stop more escaping. But it was enough that he felt a warm rush travel up his groin and he knew the next moment wasn't going to be pretty.
Draco sidled up to Snape's desk and dropped the bottle of potion in front of him, looking very pleased with himself.
Snape kept his face carefully schooled as he picked up the bottle and uncorked it, just as his fumes began to waft up into the air. There was a split second pause before Draco frowned, then grimaced, then began to turn a bit pink as he tried not to cough.
"Was it supposed to smell like this?" Snape asked, accusingly. "The objective was to make improvements on the original product, not induce vomiting!"
Draco stuttered something unintelligible, both from confusion and an attempt to not gag.
Snape pretended to examine the potion for a minute, then recorked the bottle as the smell started to clear.
"We'll forget about this. You'll have one more chance to redeem yourself next week." He added, charitably. "Perhaps in future you should focus on your own work rather than that of your classmates."
Draco looked surprised. It was extremely rare for Snape to give any second chances at advanced level. He quickly nodded in agreement, before the potions master changed his mind.
"Yes, sir."
Snape gestured for him to leave and Draco quickly fled the room.
He looked at the clock and then at the remaining two students, willing them to hurry up so he could release what felt like a hurricane from his arse. He let out a very long, slow breath, giving his stomach yet another rub in the hopes of settling it. Or at least convincing it to wait a bit longer for relief.
Another ten minutes went by and Snape was getting frantic. He couldn't sit still any more, tapping his fingers restlessly on the desk and bouncing his leg up and down, rocking a little against the hard seat of his chair whenever it was safe to do so. He'd let a few more puffs of gas escape, despite struggling not to. But there was fortunately enough distance for the stink to dissipate before it spread too far across the room.
Come on, come on! Why did the class seem to be running in slow motion? Why didn't he think to invest in a time-turner? It was an expensive item that would blow through most of his savings to purchase, but it would have saved him this misery if he'd had one to hand!
He quickly wiped the sweat from his forehead, wanting to hide any evidence of his condition.
"I think mine is complete, Professeur." Annabel was examining her cauldron very carefully and nodding to herself.
"Very well. Clear away your equipment and bring your potion to my desk." He managed to reply, in a voice that wasn't quite as steady as it usually was.
The young woman tidied her work area with just as much precision as she had devoted to her potion, then brought the finished product over to him.
Snape's stomach took that moment to let out something akin to the sound of an old creaking door. Fortunately Annabel was either too surprised or too polite to say anything and Snape tried to act as if nothing had happened at all.
"It is acceptable, yes?"
Snape uncorked her potion and examined it. A modified Sleeping Draught. He'd brewed enough of it over the years that he could tell by the colour and smell that it was good work. He nodded approvingly... well, as approvingly as his repertoire of facial expressions could stretch.
"Yes, very acceptable."
His stomach did another excellent rusty door impression as the trapped wind tried to escape. Annabel blushed on his behalf.
"You may go." Snape managed to croak out, and the young woman left the room.
Bloody Hermione Granger.
Of course she was taking her time. She always took her time. Which was both impressive and infuriating at that moment. Why couldn't she have chosen another day to experiment with something more complex.
What was she brewing over there? It looked like Felix Felicis. Or some variant of it. He could do with a gallon of the stuff right about now.
"Any time this week would suffice, Miss Granger." He not-quite-growled.
To be fair to her, there was still another ten minutes left of the allocated lesson time. So she was well within her rights to continue. Any other day he would have caught up on some extra marking at his desk. But there was no chance of getting any work done while his entire focus was employed to keep the contents of his intestines from exploding.
Hermione looked up in confusion, then checked the time, then frowned, then returned to her work. She wasn't stupid enough to argue with him, but she also wasn't stupid enough to risk affecting her overall grade by rushing.
Snape sighed, audibly sighed. He considered his limited options. He could get up and disappear into the storage cupboard yet again. Hermione wasn't a safety hazard the way most of his students were, and the chance of her burning down his classroom or herself if left unattended was relatively low. But when he moved to stand up... he realised he couldn't.
Shit.
He ran a shaky hand across his lower face. Getting up wasn't an option. The chair was now the main thing holding back an eruption of epic proportions.
A few more minutes went by and his belly gave another warning growl, followed by a louder gassy rumble that seemed to echoed through the now mostly empty room. He felt Hermione's eyes briefly flicker over to him in response. She had definitely heard that.
He felt the heat rising to his face and stared down at the stack of parchment on his desk, pretending to be engrossed in whatever they were. He couldn't even remember what he'd begun marking at the start of the class.
Then the inevitable happened.
Snape felt another strong cramp roll through his abdomen. It wasn't much stronger than the fifty or so others that he'd been battling against for the last hour, and he shifted position a bit to alleviate the pain as he had done the last few times. He was careful to keep his cheeks planted on the chair seat, pressed down so hard that his entire behind had gone numb. But apparently that wasn't enough this time. As he moved a fraction to the left, the pressure forced out a quiet but distinct fart.
It wasn't that loud at all. If he'd been in the middle of a normal class full of students, then it would have easily gone unnoticed. He'd let out enough wind during lessons over the years to know what he could get away with. Even the particularly smelly ones were just dismissed as being the work of one of the students.
But there were no other students to blame.
Hermione Granger knew that he'd farted in front of her. Definitely, unmistakably farted.
"Excuse me..." He eventually muttered, hoping she would just ignore it.
Perhaps she wouldn't tell her friends. Or at least save it for Potter and Weasley, who were apparently off training with the aurors and at least wouldn't be able to spread the gossip around school. He could avoid them for the rest of his life. Once Hermione finished her apprenticeship and got a job at the Ministry or wherever she was headed, he could avoid her forever too. Or leave the country.
"Are you alright, sir?"
Bloody goddamn interfering...
"Fine." He growled, hoping his tone would make it clear that he wouldn't welcome any other interrogation about his state of health.
It seemed to work. Hermione gave him another look, then went back to her potion.
Which was just perfect. Until a minute later his tortured bowels decided they'd really had enough of waiting and another fart creaked out.
"Focus on your work, Miss Granger!" He snapped, before she could even open her mouth.
He couldn't hold back any more. Not entirely. His resolve was starting to slip.
In the last few minutes of the class, as the young woman tidied her desk and bottled her potion, he let out several more blasts of gas, each one louder and longer in length.
He tried to shift the papers on his desk around each time to make enough noise to cover them, tried to wave away the smell before it had time to spread any further, tried to will the ground to open up and swallow him to end his agony...
Snape knew she would be venturing over to his part of the room at any moment and would likely suffocate if he didn't put a metaphorical cork in his rear. He was fairly sure the noxious fumes he was producing were bad enough to be considered student abuse and earn him at least a formal warning from the school governors. So he focused all of his efforts on holding back anything more, gripping one of the chair arms so hard that his knuckles turned white, and willed his body to behave for just a few moments longer.
Hermione picked up her bag and potion, and began to walk over to his desk at the front. Snape felt a drop of sweat slide down the back of his neck.
She reached his desk, with a concerned look on her face. Not unusual... she always looked concerned when handing in work. As if it wouldn't be perfect!
"Felix Felicis, sir." She explained, in a slightly stuffy sounding voice. He'd waved off his stench as much as he could, but there was a feint residual odour left in the air.
"Yes, I'm aware of that." Snape ground out, shaking with the effort of keeping his backside completely shut.
He took the potion from her to check.
He was managing to hold back the wind, but he couldn't stop the unholy noises coming from his belly. Hermione opened her mouth to say something, but quickly shut it again after a second thought.
Another bead of sweat rolled down Snape's back as he uncorked the bottle. The pressure was excruciating now. It felt like an angry basilisk was trying to crawl out of his rectum.
The potion looked the right colour, the right consistency, the right... it didn't smell of anything. Which wasn't necessarily a bad sign.
He prayed to every deity that was listening that Hermione Granger's work was up to its usual standards... and knocked back half the contents.
Nothing happened.
He waited a moment longer in case it was slow acting.
Still nothing.
His guts were still on the verge of exploding. The tiny puffs of gas were starting to creep out. The muscles in his arse were too exhausted from being violently clenched shut.
Snape couldn't hide the disappointment in his face.
"Did you test this?" He snapped, his voice shaking as he mentally prepared for his entire career to go down the drain.
She didn't get a chance to respond.
His body finally reached its limit and couldn't hold on any longer. It gave up the fight, and a second later a horrific sounding chain of farts thudded loudly out of his backside, as if Hagrid was hiding under his desk, revving up his bike engine. In total it was probably only eight seconds long, but it felt as if time itself had stopped. And there was nothing he could do. And once it ended, he realised his trousers felt far too warm. And far too wet.
Snape continued to stare at the bottle in his hand, as if a genie might pop out and magically end his nightmare. Or murder him... which was an equally acceptable option.
Then the smell hit him. It was indescribable. The back of his nose began to burn and his eyes watered. If it hadn't felt so repulsive, then it might have impressed him that his mere mortal body could produce such a demonic odour without the involvement of dark magic. Voldemort had used less punishing methods to torture his victims into spilling their secrets.
It was the most vile stench he had ever had the misfortune of breathing in. Which said a lot, considering the sort of toxic ingredients he was sometimes forced to work with.
He started coughing. He expected Hermione to start coughing. Well, he expected her to start choking, wailing or simply collapse in a faint. Or smack him hard in the face, which would have been entirely fair.
But she didn't.
'You really don't sound well, sir. Perhaps you should go to the hospital wing."
He heard her voice. It sounded a bit odd, but there was no screaming or convulsing or... much of anything. He didn't reply and she continued...
"I did test it, but it just gave me a bit of a cold. Could I try again next week?" She asked, hopefully. He'd given Draco a second chance.
Snape just nodded slowly.
"I hope you feel better soon." She smiled, before turning and walking out.