YnK: Yay! Our second attempt at writing a fic together! (First attempt never having gone past the beginning and the ending^_^)

BR: Is it my fault that we can’t seem to start things? Probably =^-^= I hope the readers like this one.

Disclaimer 1: Harry Potter and all other characters except for Ms Holly the elf belong to JK Rowlings. She got to them first. She’s so much smarter than us *sobs*

Disclaimer 2: This story is based loosely on Silverfox’s "My name is Severus" We’ll actually be stealing several ideas from Silverfox, with permission!, and hope that Silverfox will not come out to kill us for it.

Disclaimer 3: we are swapping back and forth with the chapters and the author notes will let you know who wrote which chapter.

Disclaimer 4: Trelawney’s ‘visions’ are ours... no touching them without permission and please don’t laugh at them... well, you can laugh, but please do so only because they are ridiculous if you’re not the writer!

War of the Hexes
Chapter 1: A New Hex?
By: Black Rose and Yami no Kaiba

Staring through a curtain of limp, slightly oily black hair, Severus Snape, a la Potion Master of Hogwarts, watched from his seat at the head table as another batch of incompetent young witches and wizards were sorted. None of them seemed the least bit likely to be pranksters.

Bored out of his mind, he briefly wished that he had a firecracker to set off. This year was starting to turn out to be one of the most boring he had ever participated in, even though he should be happy about that. After all, with Lord Voldemort now being back anything considered ‘exciting’ had something of a ninety-nine percent chance of ending with someone either dead of seriously injured, be it mentally or physically.

Glancing with his usual scowl on his face, Professor Snape looked over at the Gryffindor table, to the Weasley twins. How he wished that he could join them for even a second and plot ways with those two on how to best upset one of the teachers, most preferably Minerva, seeing as how she was the most difficult of the staff to get a laugh out of.

But no, he had to act the way of an adult.

How boring.

The Sorting being finished, Snape listened with only half an ear as Dumbledore announced who was now the new DADA instructor.

For another year, Severus Snape couldn’t have the one job he thought of as the most fun of all the jobs at Hogwarts. Some forest elf instead was getting it. What had her name been again? Ah yes, Christina Holly. Although under the wizard law, house elves were not allowed to hold a wand unless they were not bound to a house, any other type of elf was.

Christina Holly was a small thing, only as tall as the average twelve-year-old with bright red hair to rival the Weasley’s. With her boyish hair cut, tomboy outlook, and small chest, one could easily mistake her as a boy. Add to that the fact that her nickname was Chris, one could easily forget that she was a girl. However, one could not overlook the fact that she was an elf with her humanely impossible skinny form and long pointed ears.

However, at the next announcement he looked up in shock.

"Also, the Governors have said that to encourage inter-house relationships, houses will be paired up in all main courses. This means that, for the three years as a trial, each year the houses will be paired differently in Charms, Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Transfigurations as Doubles. This year it will be Hufflepuffs with Ravenclaws and Gryffindors with Slytherins."

All chatter stopped.

Quickly getting over the shock, Snape stood up fast leaning into the table for support as he looked down the table towards Dumbledore. At exactly the same time, Minerva McGonagall did the same.

"A word, please, Albus?" Both teachers practically demanded.

And without pause for an affirmation of either kind, Snape swept out of the room to the teachers lounge.

Pacing in front of the fire, when the door opened Snape rounded on the two.

"Albus, are you INSANE?" he whispered in his most quiet voice. "By putting my kids with Minerva’s your guaranteeing the destruction of this school by the end of the week!"

"I agree with Severus on this one, Albus. What are those idiots thinking? It’s bad enough that our children have Double Potions together for seven years, but this is just too much! Especially since fifth years have those four classes twice a week. Potter and Malfoy will be at each other’s throats so much that no one from those classes will EVER learn anything!"

Dumbledore held up his hand as Snape opened his mouth to add something. "I have no control over the ruling of the board, Minerva, Severus. The reason I’m putting the Gryffindors and the Slytherins together at this time is to try and make the board change their ruling once they see the increase in students sent to the infirmary. If not at the very least to get the most volatile pairing done with as soon as possible."

Dumbledore looked both teachers in the eye. Both noticed there was no twinkle there. "There will be no more discussion on this situation since I cannot change it. Now, Professors, I believe you have classes to attend to in the morning. Good night."

*---*---*---*---*

Severus Snape swept through the door of his class Monday morning at the appointed time, gliding down the aisle to the desk in front of the chalk board and turning abruptly around and leaning slightly against it surveyed the class. Gryffindors and Slytherins, Fifth Year. All students sat in front of their cauldrons, Gryffindor in the last two rows and Slytherin in the front two.

"Today we will be doing one of the more complex sleep potions. Nicknamed ‘ever-after’ for it’s interesting effect on the REM level of sleep, it causes the drinker to create a dramatic dream where the intended recipient is the main character of a, due to a lack of term, play. In the play the main character always falls in love and after a challenge or quest of some kind always end up with the intended in one of those sick muggle ideas of happily ever-after."

"Due to the complexity of the potion, we will only be preparing the ingredients today and creating the actual potion on Wednesday. So put away your cauldrons and get started."

After referring to which page in the book that the potion recipe was on, Snape walked down the rows, praising his kids and putting down Minerva’s. At ten minutes to the end of class with no incidents having occurred, other than the expectant bickering between Draco and Harry, Snape was breathing a sigh of relief.

All to early.

Snape was helping Gregory with sorting out a pile of ingredients the boy had spilt on accident standing in front of Draco when it started.

"At least I’m not the one that bought his way onto his Quidditch team, Malfoy!"

"You’ll regret saying that, Potter! Colourex Lamdara!"

Snape whirled around and his eyes widened as he saw Harry. The boy’s black hair was now neon pink.

Seeing a lock of his pink hair, Harry raised his wand as well. "Petrificus Total-Ack!" He finished as Hermione shot up out of her chair and took a hold of the back of his robes and pulled, sending Harry off balance for a moment and mispronouncing the spell.

Draco, reacting to the threat, ducked.

Still in shock over the neon pink hair, Severus didn’t.

The spell hit with a physical force that caused Severus to bend in slightly as he felt pain akin to that felt when drinking PolyJuice Potion run through him and a sense of sudden vertigo. Just before he blacked out he could have sworn he heard a soft click somewhere inside of him.

*---*---*---*---*

YnK: Mwahahahaha! An evil cliffhanger! What has happened to our oily haired Potions Master? Will Harry’s hair ever be black again? Isn’t Severus just the best character out of all of them? Next Chapter to be written by my cohort in plagiarizing, Black Rose! See ya all in Chapter Three!

BR: Hmmm, given me not much to work with there, Yami. I really like your use of the neon hair. Hmm, what ever shall I do with poor Severus Snape? You’ll just have to wait and see!

--To be Continued.