Fire Burn And Cauldron Bubble

By Sushi

       

"... Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for meeeeeeeee!" Severus brought two stirring down rods on the cauldron's lip. He drummed away, humming, "DAH dum dum dum dum dum! DAH dum dum dum dum dum! So you think you can stop me and spit in my ey-yee-eye...!" He pushed his chair across the stone floor. It skidded to a halt in front of his copy of Moste Potente Potions: The Sequele But Notte The Equale. "... So you think you can love me and leave me to di-ee-yi-eye! Oh, baby... can't do this to me baby-"

"Turn that racket down!" a voice called from up the stairs. Severus sighed. Heavy footsteps plodded on the granite steps. "Lord Voldemort is trying to get his beauty sleep!"

"Turn it down yourself, Gus."

"My name," Rookwood folded his arms and raised an annoyed salt-and-pepper eyebrow, "is Augustus. Honestly, sometimes I wonder why Our Lord even bothers keeping you around, you insolent whelp. If you couldn't mix those potions-"

"But I can." Severus flashed him an impudent smirk before leaning on his elbows over the book. Freddie Mercury sang himself out on the enchanted turntable; a moment later, Ozzy Osbourne picked up where he left off. "What is this that stands before me? Figure in black which points at me..." Severus sang with the album.

"Listen, you greasy little sod, either turn that thing down right now or I'll let Voldemort know who switched the sugar cubes with crystallised alum cubes at breakfast. Understand?"

Severus sighed melodramatically and pointed his wand at the stereo. Ozzy's glorious wail faded to a shadow of itself. "Happy?"

"I suppose. Really, how you get away with bringing that Muggle music in here is beyond me."

"What can I say? I'm charming."

"Alarming, you mean, don't you?"

Severus batted his eyes and flashed his widest smile.

Augustus rolled his eyes. "You do what you want. Keep in mind that it's your head if the Dark Lord is grumpy in the morning. I'm going to bed."

"Have fun."

Rookwood snorted. "Impudent whelp, I'll bloody well show you fun, no surprise they keep you in the dungeon, you little..." he grumbled and slammed the door behind him.

Severus chuckled in a self-satisfied way. He pulled out the leather thong holding his hair in a ponytail and stretched before leaning back to run his hands through the thick, black mess. It was a bit greasy. He'd have to wash it again before bed. Damn his eighteen-year-old hormones! He scratched his chin and winced as a spot burst on his fingernail. "Yech!" Absently, he flicked his hand.

Now, had Severus been paying attention, he might have seen where the small blob of spot goo landed. As it was, he was busy flipping through the section on aphrodisiacs and ogling the woodblock prints. One in particular drew a wavy smirk and a pleasantly heavy-lidded stare; a couple of Medieval-looking wizards squirmed in a rather, erm, mutually compensatory position above the caption, "Ye Olde LXIX".

Severus sighed. He hadn't gotten any for... oh, going on four months. Not since he left school, anyway. It was a bit disappointing. Death Eaters were supposed to be a raunchy, rakish lot. The reality was a few arrogant purebloods that nobody liked, a bunch of grouchy old farts who spent all their time plotting ways to infiltrate The Ministry, and a handful of absolute losers. Really, they ought to have called themselves Social Outcasts 'R' Us. Sure, a few friends from school came with him, but they were too busy ogling Jezebel LeStrange's perpetually-bared cleavage to be any fun. Voldemort was okay, he supposed, not a bad bloke to share a few pints with, but he couldn't take a joke. Sometimes Severus wondered how drunk he'd been to think this was a good idea in the first place.

On the other hand, he had his own lab now, and after the first week he'd been happily banished to the dungeons of their Secret Castle Lair Far From Prying Eyes. The stipulation, of course, was that he "keep that goddamned racket DOWN, some of us are trying to sleep, you know". Dark Lords got cranky when people tried to play a bit of music before dawn. At least, since he wasn't getting any, he had a place to wank in private.

Off to his left, the cauldron's contents burped. He glanced up. Eh, it was fine. The dang cauldron was large enough to hold two of him. Big ones burped sometimes. He quickly shook off the thought of a cauldron holding two of anybody. There was a certain strange appeal to sitting in a cauldron with someone on his lap. Or on someone's lap. Or standing. Or any bloody position that wouldn't require a cutting torch and outside assistance to get out of. Hell, after four months even that didn't sound so bad.

Severus sighed wistfully at the picture one last time with his fists buried in his cheeks. He shoved the chair back, made a quick rush past the cauldron (which burped, again - it seemed to have a bit of a poorly tummy), and rolled out of the lab. Bumping the walls repeatedly and singing, "... He's a pinball wizard, there has to be a twist, a pinball wizard's got such a supple wri-i-ist..." he made his giddily bruised way to his room at the other end of the corridor. As he bumped into one of the doors a low wail floated through the heavily spelled wood. "Oh, lay off. You're not supposed to be interrogated until tomorrow."

The wail turned into a scream. "There's something in here!"

"Yeah, it's only the anaconda. If he gets testy give him a bat on the nose. He'll back off."

"He's... he's eating my leg!"

"Then bat him on the nose! Didn't you hear me the first time?" Severus sighed and pushed a bit of hair behind his ear. Bloody prisoners, not a one seemed to have paid attention in Care of Magical Creatures. Just Severus' luck that he had to give up his guest room for them. Not that he ever had guests, but it was annoying all the same.

"I tried that! He's got my arm now, and I don't think he wants to let go. Oh, dear. Nice snakey. Good snakey. Pretty snakey. He's looking at my head and I don't think-mmph!"

"Clarence! Spit him out!" Severus pounded on the door. Heavily muffled shrieks emanated from the room for a few more seconds before there was a splat, a whimper, and an almost immediate crunch. Severus sighed. Oh, well. At least he'd have his guest room back. Humming nasally, he ricocheted down the rest of the hall.

       

Meanwhile, back in the lab, the cauldron gave a singularly eruptive burp. A stray drop of potion - an experiment devised of ingredient dregs and several pints of scrumpy - dislodged a tiny, quivering white blob from the inner rim. It hung for a moment, trying to decide if it was ready for a swim.

Apparently, it was.

There was a small explosion, a brilliant burst of white light, and suddenly the potion started to coalesce...

       

Severus, who hadn't heard the explosion thanks to a particular prisoner's generous offer to feed the anaconda, stood under the shower. "... I am Iron Man, duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh nuh nuh nuh... !" He scrubbed glacial foam into his scalp to the rhythm. He grinned. From the enchanted Fogless Mirror a devilishly handsome fellow grinned back. Well, it would help if those spots would clear up, but they weren't as bad as they'd been at school. And his nose was a bit prominent, but it only made him look more like Alice Cooper. Chicks dug Alice. Fortunately for Severus, so did blokes.

He stuck his face under the steady stream and gargled against it. Spitting, he proceeded to rinse the suds from his hair. His gaze dropped. "Well, hello, there. Fancy seeing you up."

A polite nod.

"Looking for a bit of a handshake?"

Shake, shake, shake. A bit sullen, if Severus wasn't mistaken.

"I know. I'm sorry, there's nobody around here unless you want to give Lucius another try."

Slight shrinkage. It remembered Lucius' inability to control his teeth.

Severus winced sympathetically. "Not that brave, then? Don't worry, I wasn't keen either. There's such thing as being too much of a tightarse."

He could have sworn he heard a soft, resigned sigh beneath his own. Or maybe he'd gone without so long he'd started having conversations with his penis. There was no way to really be sure. Severus chewed his lip pensively. He could either get it over with here in the shower, or he could go check the lab, stretch out in bed, and pretend that he was back at school with Luscious Lips Lupin doing what gave him that oh-so-apt nickname. Thankfully, some people (unlike Malfoy) knew how to keep their jaws open. Otherwise, half of Hogwarts would spend time each month howling at the moon.

So. Lupin it was. Rinsing off the last of the soap, Severus groped for a towel. Like all the other towels in the castle, it was large enough to drape a small elephant, fluffier than a basket of kittens, black, and embroidered with a scratchy silver "LV" in flowing Edwardian script. Everyone but Voldemort complained about the embroidery. It had the nasty tendency to snag foreskins. Voldemort, being the snake he was, claimed once (with a smirk) to have shed that part long ago. For weeks after, no man in the castle could look at him without crossing his legs.

Wet hair plastered to his shoulders and dripping down his back, Severus wrapped the towel around his waist. He was quite pleased with the impressive tent in the fabric; carefully, he adjusted it to make sure the embroidery would stay as far from his nether regions as possible. Sopping wet and mostly naked, he rolled his chair back down to the lab.

       

Elsewhere in the dungeons...

It writhed, discerning itself in form and function. A consciousness had arisen. It felt... impudent. Sarcastic. Like the stereo should be much louder than it actually was. Slowly, flesh began to sharpen around the consciousness. It ran upwards over the long inner form, settling itself in slender, cat-like muscles and pallid skin. Tufts of black sprouted here and there. The form lifted a hand and studied it with transparent jelly eyes. Tissues still knit beneath the surface of solidifying skin that gave the impression of slowly cooling wax.

It lifted the hand to its face. Hmm. Long hair, slightly greasy. Narrow lips, sharp cheekbones, thin brows, a dignified and haughty (okay, big) nose. It felt familiar, and, yet, like nothing it had ever seen. The last traces of potion ran up the form's legs. The liquid settled as an epidermis. It was complete.

The form looked down.

Sorry, he was complete.

Arching an eyebrow, the figure set its sights on the stereo. It required... adjustment. He set one foot on the cauldron rim...

       

Severus rolled backwards into the lab. "... Think I'll lose my mind if I don't find something to pacify! Can you help me? Dum dum dum my bra-ain..." he drummed the beat on his thighs. Hmm, he must have left the stereo playing - that wasn't "Paranoid" he heard. Whatever. He kept rolling backwards. The stereo was across the room and there really wasn't much point in turning if he'd only have to do it again after he killed the power.

       

Two things happened at once. His full consciousness struck and he remembered everything: he was Severus Snape, potions expert and resident migraine for the great and terrible Lord Voldemort; the song was "War Pigs"; and he must have gotten more pissed than usual if he was waking up in his cauldron.

The second thing was that he hit the wall.

Severus leaned forward to hoist himself out of the cauldron and collided with some sort of magic field that squashed his nose and sent him sprawling backwards. Grunting, he slapped a hand on the rim of the thing. He pulled himself to his (rather warm) feet, rubbing his nose with his other hand.

That was... different.

Vaguely, he heard the door squeak. It was probably one of the Death Eaters coming down to get a hangover cure. Severus remembered he was naked as a shaved cat. He ducked. The lot of them had come down often enough they knew where the potions were kept. He really needed to get around to putting a decent lock on that door...

       

Severus rolled through the door. He nearly collided with the steps leading up to the rest of the castle. He really needed to get around to putting a decent lock on that door. Who knew when the lads were going to start letting themselves in for things like hangover cures? It surprised him a bit that they'd not started doing it already - they knew where the bloody things were kept. Still, nothing he could do about it now. He rolled past the cauldron. The burner had gone out, but no matter. It probably needed to be replaced. It took a lot of energy to keep a cauldron that size bubbling...

       

Severus gritted his teeth. His buns were getting awfully warm on the bottom of the cauldron. He put his palm against the metal and muttered a quick spell. It started cooling immediately as the burner went out.

Suddenly, "War Pigs" vanished. It was replaced with a different sound, this one punctuated with low creaks and squeaks. Somebody was in his chair! Gritting his teeth with a low snarl, he ignored the fact that his tackle was dangling and rose to his feet to smite the infidel...

       

Severus turned slightly to hit the power button on the stereo. He did and gave a silent sigh. Another brilliant musician cut down in his prime. Well, sort of. Not at all, really, if he thought about it, but it was a shame to turn off such a classic right in the middle of the song.

He turned back to check the cauldron and leave. A bit of movement caught his eye. The potion was gone, but that was minor. Somebody was in his cauldron! Gritting his teeth with a low snarl, he ignored the fact that his tent's resident was trying to peek out and rolled across the floor to smite the infidel...

       

Voldemort staggered across the room, scratching himself and tripping over patterns in the rug. He blinked blearily in the darkness; in a moment he gave up and just kept his eyes shut. With a flump he landed across the bed. A pillow squished the side of his face. The rest of him went thoroughly limp. Damned biological necessities. Someday he was going to perfect that spell. What was the point of living forever if you had to spend half of it in the loo?

Distantly, he heard some sort of noise from the dungeon directly below his room. That was another thing he needed to do. There were plenty of rooms in the fucking castle, why in Hell did he have to keep the one over the lab? Oh, yes, so he could keep an eye on his potions freak. Sometimes it felt like less trouble to let him blow the lot of them into the next world.

Another noise came from below. More than half asleep, Voldemort waved a hand vaguely at the broom leaning against the closet door. It jumped up and immediately started thumping the floor. He lost consciousness before it could decently finish the job.

       

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"

Severus stared up at himself.

Severus stared back.

Tentatively, Severus reached up to poke what must be a boggart. (Why he'd be most frightened of a naked version of himself was quite beyond his understanding, but some boggarts really needed to go back to Boggart School.) He grabbed his wand from the waist of his towel where he'd stuffed it. "Riddikulus!"

Nothing happened.

Scowling, he reached out. He snatched the intruder's nose and squeezed.

The yowl of pain was enough to send his jangled nerves careening towards the Cliffs of Confusion and he screamed even louder than last time. A terse, sharp thump came from the ceiling. They'd awakened the Dark Lord. That short, snappish thumping meant Big Trouble for whomever had violated his precious beauty sleep.

Severus shut his mouth. So did Severus (whose nose was still being crushed). Severus blinked. A moment later, so did Severus. They stared at each other silently. Severus tried to say something, but all that came of it was a dropped jaw.

Severus finally sighed. "Let go of my nose," he said in a vaguely robotic, slightly high-pitched drawl vibrating from his sinuses.

Severus did. "What the bloody Hell is going on here?" he managed.

"That's what I'd like to know. Who are you, what do you want, and what gives you the right to turn off my stereo in the middle of 'War Pigs'?"

"Your stereo? This is my lab, mate, and my stereo, and I suggest you get the bloody fuck out of here before I set the Dark Lord on you!"

"Pah! Not with the spell you've set up. And why am I naked? What have you done with my robe?"

Severus' lip curled in disbelief. "I've got no fucking idea what you're talking about."

"Well, you've obviously Polyjuiced yourself to look like me, trapped me in my cauldron, and stolen my clothes." He looked down. "Not that you seem to have put them to any good use. I dread to think what you were planning to do with that thing."

Severus flushed and covered his lap with his hands. Damn his eighteen-year-old hormones! "I still haven't got any idea what you're talking about. Why am I talking to you? You're a boggart. A disgraceful one, I might add. You couldn't scare the knickers off a five Sickle whore."

Severus arched an eyebrow. His shoulders slumped in perturbed weariness. "If I were a boggart, why in seven Hells would I turn into a spotty git like you? I'm not that spotty. You really ought to work on your Polyjuice Potions."

"Me? Spotty? You're the spotty one, mate. And you've got my nose too big."

"From this angle, a mountain range wouldn't be big enough."

"Oh, that's it. You've fucked with the wrong Death Eater, yobbo." Severus clambered out of his chair and into the cauldron. He wrapped his fingers around his doppelganger's throat and squeezed.

Severus made a rather impressive series of gagging sounds. "Get your hands off me, you prat!" he gurgled. He returned the favour. "I'm not a bloody boggart, and you are in violation of private lab space!"

"Like Hell! This is my lab, and I could mix up a more effective Polyjuice Potion in my sleep!"

"Pah! Prove it!"

"You prove it!"

"You first. And get that thing out of my crotch before I break it off!"

Severus immediately let go and stepped back, hiding his bits with his hands. His penis didn't look too happy about the concept of being removed; that would simply make it even harder get any action. The poor thing looked like it wanted to talk about it, but this was no time for conversation. He raised his wand again, and locked onto the image of this... travesty falling over on its overlarge nose. "Riddikulus!"

Severus yawned. "Didn't work last time, mate, I don't see why you'd think it would this time."

Severus rolled his eyes. "For fuck's sake." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Who are you?"

"Severus Snape. Who are you?"

"The real Severus Snape."

Severus scoffed. "I hardly think so."

"Oh, so what am I supposed to think? You're the result of a potion going horribly wrong and becoming some sort of sick science fiction nightmare run amok?"

Severus blinked. "You've been watching Star Trek reruns, haven't you?"

"Star Trek is a brilliant piece of work, thank you very much! Leonard McCoy is my personal hero." Severus folded his arms and raised his eyebrows coolly.

"At least you've got some sort of brains." Severus cast his eyes to the ceiling. It was a little-known fact that Voldemort wore a Captain Kirk costume underneath his robes far more often than was good for anyone. Severus often pondered the wisdom of formulating a Gorn and setting it loose when the Dark Lord got on one of his whinier tirades.

"Tell me about it. What I wouldn't do sometimes to set a Gorn loose..."

Severus stared. "You have no right to read my mind like that."

"Excuse me?"

"Setting a Gorn loose in here was my idea. Not that anyone's supposed to know about it!"

"Setting a Gorn loose in here was my idea! How the fuck did you know about that?" Suddenly, his hand flew to his chin. His double did the same. "Er..."

"Erm..."

They blinked.

"You're my clone!" they shouted in unison.

"Am not! You are!" they shouted in response.

"Then you tell me who's who." Severus folded his arms. "What were you doing right before we saw each other?"

"Taking a shower." Severus ran a hand through his knotted, sopping hair to demonstrate. "What about you?"

"I was... uh..." he cupped his chin thinking. "I seem to recall something about scrumpy, and I could have sworn I was in bits, so I reckon I got pissed and fell asleep in the cauldron..."

Severus smirked smugly. "I rest my case. I am the real Severus Snape, and you. Are. My clone." He lifted his eyebrows in a cool, self-satisfied, "argue-with-me-go-on-I-dare-you" sort of way.

Severus snorted. "Least they got it right second time 'round."

Severus cleared his throat. He hefted his wand. "Care to say that again?"

"Wanker." The Severus clone looked around. "So. How do I get out of here?"

Severus shrugged. "Why should I let you out? You're obviously an ugly, spotty, disagreeable, imperfect copy. I don't want to ruin my reputation."

"You don't have a reputation, mate. Except maybe drinking five hundred feet of lager in less than twenty minutes."

"Oh, ha, ha. It was less than an hour, thank you very much! Bloody Hell, clones aren't up to much these days, are they?"

"Least I might have a chance to get laid."

Severus seriously considered smiting his clone then and there. That would be too easy, though. Instead, he sniffed haughtily. "You have approximately as much chance of getting laid before I do as a snowball does of surviving the British Dragon-Lovers' Society's Annual Cookout." Most members of the British Dragon-Lovers' Society had a hard time surviving their annual cookout.

"Want to bet?"

"You're a clone. You don't have anything to bet." Severus turned and put one foot on top of the cauldron. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some serious wanking to take care of BLOODY HELL, WHAT THE FUCK JUST HIT ME?"

He landed heavily on his clone. The clone's legs buckled and he made a series of "oof" sounds as he clanged down the cauldron to a pained sitting position. Severus braced himself on the rim of the cauldron. He rubbed his nose. Whatever it was, it smarted. Gingerly, he reached out. A solid, invisible cylinder encased the cauldron from its swollen belly up. He groped frantically; there were no holes. Panic set in. He banged on the side. "SOMEONE GET DOWN HERE! I'M STUCK IN A CAULDRON WITH A BAD STAR TREK EPISODE! HEEEEEEEELP!"

A few moments later, more muffled thumps came from the ceiling, along with the drowsy words, "We're sleeping up here!"

Severus sighed. He rubbed the bridge of his nose again. Below him, his clone leaned against the side of the thick iron cauldron. His feet were perched against the opposite side. "You'd better not be looking at my arse, mate."

"Why not? At least someone would be."

"You're my clone. That's... incestuous."

"Please, it is not. Narcissistic, maybe."

"Are you going to keep staring at me, or do I need to kick you?"

"I'm not staring at you. I think I've got better things to do that look at your hairy arse."

"My arse is not hairy!"

"Then what's this?" A pinprick tug from the middle of Severus' left cheek made him yelp.

"One hair, you twit!"

"Oh, really?" Several more sharp pains made Severus growl.

"Stop it, will you? S'not as if you're not in the same shape, Mister Not-My-Own-Chromosomes." He kicked his clone in the knee.

"Ow! That hurt, you wanker!" The clone grabbed one of Severus' legs and yanked.

Severus came crashing down. "Ow!" He realised suddenly that he was in his own clone's lap. He shuddered.

Behind him, he heard a grunt on impact, a disgusted noise, and a sudden low chuckle that sent the ciliate hairs along his spine into frenzy. The clone sang softly, "Oh, give me a clone, is my sorrowful moan, a clone that is wholly my own. And if he's Y-X, of the masculine sex, oh, what fun we will have when we're prone."

"Ugh! How dare you defile the works of the master?"

"Voldemort didn't write that."

"I was talking about Asimov, you prat! Merlin's nob, you say you're supposed to be me? Voldemort, my arse." Severus wrapped both hands around the lip of the cauldron and dragged himself to his feet again. He shot his clone a nasty little glare and tried to ignore the sudden realisation that he'd just been hit on by himself. Much to his distress, some part of him didn't seem to mind.

Suddenly, he noticed a small black iron plaque between his hands. It blended perfectly with the cauldron. He squinted. It read:

CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR PURCHASE OF A GENUINE POTCALLER BLACK BEAUTY SAFETY CAULDRON DELUXE. IN THE EVENT OF AN INTERNALISED EXPLOSION, OUR SPECIAL SAFETY FEATURES WILL ENGAGE, THUS PREVENTING ANY HARMFUL SPLATTER. THIS FORCE FIELD IS ONE-WAY PERMEABLE TO ALLOW FOR EASE OF POTION-MAKING. TO DISENGAGE THE SAFETY MECHANISM, SIMPLY TAP YOUR WAND ON THE BUTTON LOCATED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE CAULDRON.

Severus' eyes snapped to the bottom.

Nothing. He looked at the plaque again.

PLEASE NOTE THAT, IN ORDER TO PREVENT ACCIDENTAL RELEASE OF SAFETY FEATURES, THE BUTTON IS ACCESSIBLE ONLY FROM THE OUTSIDE. IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, SCREAM FOR HELP. SOMEONE WILL HEAR YOU EVENTUALLY.

Severus groaned.

"What?" his clone asked.

"Nothing, nothing at all. Only I'm trapped in here, wearing nothing but a towel, with only myself for company! Might not be so bad if it were only myself myself." He folded his arms and sat down with a huff. Alice Cooper's "Welcome To My Nightmare" started on repeat loop in his brain. He stared icily at his clone. His clone, in turn, arched an eyebrow.

"Least you've got the towel."

"You don't seem to mind too much being naked."

"Only because I reckon I don't have much chance of getting the towel away from you, Mister Meet-Mister-Happy." The clone's black eyes skidded down Severus' torso where he still hadn't entirely lost his tent.

Damn, damn, damn his eighteen-year-old hormones!

"Would you please fuck off?" he muttered at his crotch.

An irreverent twitch. The damned thing actually did the opposite.

Severus growled at it.

It didn't help.

He tried thinking about Lucius again.

For the first time ever, it didn't bleeding help.

"I wouldn't be so eager to get rid of that. I mean, how long's it been since you were this close to another naked body?"

"You're not a body, you prat! You're a clone!"

The Severus clone sighed. He stretched languidly and put his hands behind his head. Much to Severus' annoyance, he splayed out as much as he could, ending up with one foot on each side of his original. "Wonder what's wrong with us," he said philosophically.

"What are you going on about now?"

The clone shrugged. "You haven't seen any action lately. I haven't seen any action lately, either, come to think, and I'm fucking gorgeous, I am. It can't be a personality issue, so there must be some problem with your technique."

"When we get out of this, I'm going to personally shove you down the anaconda's throat."

The Severus clone gave Severus an "oh-please-as-if-you've-got-the-tackle" look. "I'd call this a perfect opportunity."

Severus blinked. "Excuse me?" He was met with a truly wicked smirk that made him glance around, hoping to see some sort of escape panel, or possibly a convenient cutting torch.

"Come on. Don't tell me you're not curious." Severus recognized that little smile. It was the one he'd worn last time he was at the Hog's Head and ended up with Frank Longbottom's drink running down his face.

"I don't fucking believe this. I'm trapped in a cauldron, and I'm getting hit on by myself! I'm not going to shag... me!"

"Don't think of it as shagging. Think of it as masturbation with benefits."

Severus blinked. "You've got to be the sickest fuck I've ever met."

The Severus clone grinned. "So?"

Severus stared. Much to his chagrin, he was thinking about it. Yes, it was disgusting, disturbing, demeaning, and degrading, but he'd never had a problem with any of that before. And... well, he could see a bit of a resemblance. The clone was obviously a flawed copy, but some of the handsome devil had made his way across. And how long was it going to be until someone else offered? "Eh. S'not like I've got anything else to do."

His clone grinned more. Severus shuddered.

"This is purely scientific, you understand. I only want to know why I'm not getting any."

"Of course! So," the clone sat up and rubbed his hands gleefully, "where shall we start? The usual opener, or should we just get to the shagging?"

"You're not half annoying, are you?"

"No more than you."

Severus held up two fingers in a very rude gesture. His clone, to his great lack of amusement, returned it. He had a hard time believing that he could ever be this much of a prat.

"Give us a kiss," the Severus clone cooed.

Severus made a retching sound. "You keep your lips off me, mate! I know where they've been!"

"So what's the problem?"

"I'm... Merlin's prick, I'm not going to kiss myself!"

"Never bothered you when you were thirteen and practising on the mirror."

Severus shuddered. "Don't ever mention that again."

"As I recall, you got one Hell of a stiffie first few times you tried it."

Severus narrowed his eyes. Nobody was ever supposed to know about that. He folded him arms. "Get it over with," he grumbled.

His clone chuckled ominously and leaned forward. "Pucker up, big boy!" He smooched himself before Severus could do more than grimace.

Severus remained frozen for a few moments, his lips puckered like he'd just eaten one of his alum cubes. Eyes still squeezed shut, he let them relax tentatively. His clone seemed to take that as an invitation because the next thing Severus knew he had a mouthful of tongue. He'd never felt anything more disgusting in his life. Unfortunately, part of him wriggled his hips and mentally exclaimed, "Dyn-o-mite!" The rest of him regretted more than ever Voldemort's little television habit.

Unfortunately, the wriggling of hips did, in fact, take place. The clone growled appreciatively and wrapped his hands around Severus' waist. Severus did the same, intent on holding himself back.

Suddenly, he realised he was a damned good kisser.

Hmm.

He flicked his tongue. His clone growled again. Perhaps this "masturbation with benefits" thing had some merit after all. Telling himself that it was still purely scientific, he sucked on his clone's tongue. The hands on his waist slid beneath his arse and squeezed in exactly the way he liked. Severus purred. Well, of course it was in exactly the way he liked. He was, effectively, doing it to himself.

Severus reached up and tickled that little spot behind his clone's ear that everybody missed. The clone went limp. Well, most of him went limp. He moaned. Severus tickled it again, and his clone whimpered, "Merlin's bits, I'm good."

"You're good? I'm the original. You're only a second-rate cop-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee?" Severus' eyes crossed. He tipped forward drunkenly as a wet tongue threatened to lap his brains out through his ear. He didn't stop falling until his face squished against the side of the cauldron and he slid to a stop. "That was the most disgusting thing that's ever happened to me," he muttered around his distorted mouth. "Do it again?"

The Severus clone beamed. "What did I tell you? Merlin's bits, I'm good."

"Come off it," Severus mumbled through a haze of eighteen-year-old hormones throwing one Hell of a party.

"I'd rather come on you," his clone purred.

"Okay." Severus blinked, unconcerned. The contents of his cranium had, at some point, turned to liquid and run down his spine to pool in his crotch. He turned his empty head enough to see his double sitting cross-legged against the wall of the cauldron and grinning like a moron. Severus reached over to wipe the stupid grin off his face; he missed the grin by a good two feet or more and grabbed his clone's tackle instead. Out of sheer instinct, he squeezed in that certain way that pulled his foreskin up into a tight little bundle and occasionally made him wonder why he wanted a partner in the first place.

The moment of absolute stunned silence was shattered by a low, breathy, decency-obliterating, "Ungh... there's something they don't teach you at Hogwarts."

Severus had the presence of mind to chuckle and scoot closer. His clone's eyes grew gradually wider and wider, his jaw slacker and slacker. He looked the way Severus felt after that Black Sabbath concert the end of sixth year. He still hadn't a clue how one box of sugar cubes could do that. Or why all those Muggles kept staring at him like he'd grown an extra head. Or how they had grown extra heads a few minutes later.

Severus and Severus were nearly crotch-to-crotch and nose-to-nose. Severus turned his head enough to cancel out the nose-to-nose part and bit his clone's loose lower lip. His clone moaned. "This is better than sex," he mumbled against his original's mouth.

"This is sex, you dolt."

"No, no, this is a handjob. There's a handjob, there's a blowjob, and there's sex."

Severus raised an eyebrow. "I think you'll find," he said between nips and sucks, "that there's manual sex, there's oral sex, and there's sex sex."

"What about a titty fuck?"

Severus pulled back and peered at him. "Which one of us has enough titty to fuck? When have you ever known a man with enough titty to fuck?"

The clone blinked. "Pettigrew."

Severus shuddered. "Merlin's willie, what did I drink that night?"

"I don't know, but there was a lot of it." Needless to say, waking up the next morning with a slobbering hangover, tangled up naked with Peter Pettigrew, James Potter, Sirius "Doggy Style" Black, and Luscious Lips Lupin had caused Severus quite the bout of consternation. The next Hogsmeade weekend he'd kept stricter tabs on his drinking, and imposed a "two Gryffindors or less" rule.

His clone was staring at his chest. "You know, I reckon that if you did a little transfiguration you might have enough for a good titty fuck."

"Er, no." Severus covered his happily flat chest with his arm. "You remember what happened to that Narcissa chick when she tried to make her tits bigger."

A light went on behind the clone's eyes. "Oh, yeah. Maybe that's why Lucius started going out with her. Good thing they were all four small to start with or she'd look like a hunchback."

"Hmm. Wonder if she ever got rid of them."

"How would we tell?"

"Yeah, I suppose." Severus pinched his clone's nipple impishly; his clone hissed. "What did I tell you? I'm the good one. You can never beat the original."

"Bite me."

"If you insist." He sank his teeth into his clone's neck, right at the base where nobody ever bit him.

His clone moaned. Severus sucked the spot hard enough to taste a faint, metallic hint of blood. There was an agreeable yelp and, suddenly, a fist wrapped around his cock. Between the stars going off behind his eyes and what he rather imagined was his penis dancing about and singing "The Hallelujah Chorus", it took a moment to realise he'd stopped biting and started tipping sideways. His head hit the cauldron with a dull thud. "Eep?"

"Eep," his clone replied. Severus continued to slide down until he found himself spooned against the side of the cauldron, one hand still making some effort to reciprocate. "You know, this would probably be easier if we both lay down."

"Uh-huh."

The clone waved a hand in front of his face. It looked awfully familiar. Oh, that's right. He's me. Groovy. "Are you coherent?"

"Uh-huh."

"What's six times seven?"

"Uh-huh."

The clone shrugged. "Close enough."

He stretched out next to Severus. This resulted in Severus' wrist getting caught between his clone's knees, the clone's hand twisting at some funny angle that made Severus' eyes roll back in his head, but also made the clone yelp and stop doing whatever that was, and tangled their long, black hair hopelessly with Severus' wand. The towel somehow got wrapped over Severus' face, too. "Bollocks," he heard his clone mutter. Merlin's tackle, why hadn't he noticed before how sexy his voice was? It was like... like ninety-proof treacle. That was one more reason for forcible celibacy off the list.

Suddenly, he could see again, and the clone was still swearing. "Fucking Hell, Voldemort would buy the smaller cauldron, wouldn't he? How's he expect anyone to get a decent shag in one of these things? Not that anyone's going to get a decent shag around here, what with the herd of losers he's got put together. I mean, how drunk were you? Or we. Whatever. You know, maybe we ought to blow this pop stand and head back to Hogwarts. There were some sweet times to be had out there. And cauldrons bigger than this one. Without a fucking force field, either."

The words droned in the background of Severus' brain. He didn't notice them until they stopped. He still didn't much notice them after they'd stopped, either, because they stopped when the clone untangled himself, turned a hundred and eighty degrees, and put his mouth to better use.

This, naturally, caused the last of Severus' brain to melt.

He moaned loudly. It echoed in the cauldron, as did the slurping sounds coming from his crotch. Which happened to be in front of his face. That's a bit odd, he thought vaguely at the sight. Never could get this close without wrapping my legs over my head. Oh, my legs are over my head. Never mind. Deciding that, perhaps, he ought to do something to actually cause all those lovely knotty sensations building in his groin, he opened his mouth and, once again, thanked his genetic makeup that he was slender and flexible enough to perform auto-fellatio.

There was an odd groan from the region of his crotch, which sounded an awfully long way away. Strange. His back wasn't killing him either. Severus summoned his willpower and, without removing his mouth, looked down.

Oh.

He blinked.

Oh.

One more time.

Yup, he'd definitely cloned himself somehow, and now he and his clone were reenacting that lovely woodblock print. Or he was hallucinating. In either case, he definitely seemed to be getting some and he was in no, erm, position to complain. Diligently and resignedly, he sucked his clone's cock into his throat. It was longer than it had felt in his hand, and a bit thicker as well. This didn't take him any closer to figuring out why he'd hit such a dry spell. In fact, it only made things more confusing. The rewarding moan vibrated through his tackle and took up residence in his pelvis.

Greedily, Severus bobbed his head, sucking and slurping and generally trying to keep his teeth out of the way. One of his hands slipped around the hip in front of his face and eventually settled in to massage one testicle at a time. Much to his sweaty, moaning pleasure, his clone did much the same, although he set to doing the other thing they enjoyed so much. This involved two fingers, a perineum, some pressure, and very, very short fingernails. The first spark of pleasure to shoot up Severus' spine was quickly followed by another, and another, and another, until he would have sworn there was a full-blown Tesla coil discharging in his nether regions.

Now, being a good little Death Eater, Severus had allowed himself to be subjected to the Dark Lord's addiction to late-night horror movie marathons, in which Tesla coils featured heavily and signified Places Where Wise Men Fear To Tread. Severus had to grudgingly admit a fondness for a certain character type known as a "mad scientist". They were usually tall, and slender, and pale, and had loads of black hair and piercing black eyes, and they always seemed to live in dungeons. They also had sex appeal. Loads and loads of sex appeal. Maybe, he thought before the last vestiges of rationale turned to muck, all I needed was to - oh, Merlin's bollocks, do that again - create an abomination to destroy the earth for the blokes to flock my way. It made as much sense as anything else. Before he could figure out where to get a Muggle lab coat, though, his clone slid one of those slender, gorgeous, mad scientist-like fingers away from his prostate and let the barest tip slide into his arse.

A few moments later when Severus regained some awareness of his surroundings, he found his clone's cock so far down his throat he thought he might digest it. One hand was smacking his other self's arse repeatedly with his wand (much to his other self's approval if the groans and thrusting meant anything). The other was kneading testicles in a way testicles were never meant to be kneaded. He'd never gone in for the rough stuff before, but, well, if one is going to experiment, it's best to do it with one's self.

Suddenly, a bolt of something shot from the end of the wand. Severus screamed; his clone did the same, but for very different reasons, his glans still being firmly ensconced in supple muscle and vibratory vocal cords. He barely noticed the knocking coming from above, or the "Shut up or you're sleeping with Clarence!" that came through the ceiling. He stared, panting around his mouthful, as thick, white goo slithered and dripped down the cauldron wall. Hesitantly, he reached out to touch it.

Ech.

Apparently, his wand was enjoying itself.

"Hmm?" The humming query buzzed through his bits. Severus realised he'd stopped sucking, poking, beating, and prodding. His clone looked up as best he could. He snickered. "Ook s'ike ah agh ahhgg ah ahink un."

"What?"

His clone slurped the saliva from his cock and grinned. "Looks like one of us is having fun."

Severus growled at his wand. "You and I are going to have a talk."

The wand didn't respond. (Of course not. It's a wand.)

The clone chuckled. Severus responded by raising his eyebrows in a highly incredulous manner, scooping up three fingers' worth of wand spunk, and flinging it at his double.

It landed with a splat. "You ignorant English wanker!" The Severus clone sat bolt upright and tried to wipe sludge out of his eyes. It ended up smeared in his hair, all over his face, and equally all over his hands. He snarled and scooped up his own dose to lob.

At least, that's what Severus thought he was going to do.

"Merlin's pubes, what else are we going to use for lube? Don't waste it!"

Severus' jaw dropped. "You don't honestly expect us to ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhkay, whatever you say." His eyes rolled back as one greased finger slid into his arse. The last thing to be in there, aside from his own fingers, was that fucking wand. (He'd wondered why it always seemed eager to help.) Now, he had his own fingers again, but they were positioned to actually reach all the tiny little places that hovered perpetually out of the way. A loud, long, low, quite involuntary moan escaped from between his lips. Severus managed to focus his eyes and was pleasantly pleased at the utter god hovering over him. He had a sudden image of the mirror in that special room at the Three Broomsticks. It would have been an awfully nice sight had he not spent most of the night staring up at the image of half of Gryffindor crawling over him like cluster of cats in heat.

(Not that he was complaining, mind. When you got past the fact that he was an utter wanker who probably couldn't give a decent blowjob to save his life, Black had an awfully nice arse. Knew what to do with it, too. And Potter... Merlin's testes, a stomach you could bounce rocks off of. And he proved it, even if they weren't, in the strictest sense, rocks. And that "titty fuck" business - Severus would bet his last Galleon Pettigrew dropped the oil on purpose. Went all over Severus, too, although it was apparently strawberry-flavoured and Luscious Lips didn't mind terribly. Merlin's pint, what did Severus have to drink that night?)

All this time that flexible finger played away at him. Wand spunk was, erm, unusually slippery. For a vague moment it dawned on Severus that he'd probably gotten a slippery elm wand for a reason. A second finger decimated that train of thought. He barely had time to get used to the tickling stretch before a third joined it, wriggling against the eye-crossing spot Potter had found and nobody seemed to have gotten right since. He wiggled his hips happily. His ecstatic penis danced over his pelvis like a sixth year who'd just discovered the secret tunnel into the stockroom at the Hog's Head.

"Me, too, mate," he said as his spine turned to jelly.

The clone arched an eyebrow. He nearly pulled his fingers out, then proceeded to pound so hard and fast Severus' skull smacked the cauldron. Severus yowled. He found himself vaguely on his stomach, knees halfway bent underneath him, head lolling at an unlikely angle against the cauldron wall and feet braced against it simply by default. His arms were too boneless to give any sort of support, and every pound and pull made what bone was left take on the consistency of custard.

"Severus Snape, you sexy bitch," the second Severus said rakishly. With a flourish, he swiped his other hand through the goo pudding near the first's limp hand. Making sure his original's droopy eyes were more or less focused, he grabbed his tackle and, erm, performed the necessary maintenance. Slowly. Thoroughly. With an abundance of moans and garbled words. He freed both hands (much to Severus' annoyance) and shoved two pliable and compliant knees as wide as they would go.

Severus lay in a convoluted lump. His cheek was squashed against the hard iron, and was slowly growing more and more damp from the puddle of drool under it. When his clone proved that, indeed, a bold entrance is best, some of the drool turned to froth in the long, muddled, mindless moan. He couldn't quite see, and all he was sure of was that he was very likely actually getting some.

"Merlin's libido, I'm brilliant," his clone groaned. "You are too, mind," he added, wiggling his hips and making them both break down in guttural noises for a moment. "'Course, it's twelve of one and a dozen of the other. Or a score. Or a gross. Probably. How old were we again?"

"Guh."

"Eh. Probably."

The puddle of drool grew larger and larger as the gap between Severus' groin and the rest of his nerve endings grew smaller and smaller. Most of the world seemed to be shaking. In fact, it sort of felt like the world was rocking forwards and backwards. An odd, metallic grinding noise echoed through the floor. And the wall, for that matter. He groaned and gibbered erratically as he reamed himself, ever harder, ever faster, and exactly the way he'd always wanted someone to - and exactly the way he'd always wanted to do to someone else, for that matter. Bit of irony, that. Or not. He was in no state to ponder much of anything beyond, Oh, bugger, harder, faster, oh, yes, Merlin's plonker, twist your hips like that ag-ohhhh, yes...

He and his clone were both panting violently by this point. From deep in his throat, Severus felt a scream begin to build as his testicles tightened and his hips humped hedonistically. Fingernails started to dig into his back. An odd, familiar, tickling sensation ran along his jellylike spine. It took its sweet time. A high keen started from behind him just as he felt the first ineffable wash of liquid start its way up his cock.

He drove himself back one last time and howled. It only took a moment for his jerking, writhing innards to be doused with hot bursts and his howl to be joined by an almost identical one. The sounds echoed violently as burning-hot liquid went all over both him and the cauldron. From the ceiling came a mad series of thumps. "THAT'S IT, I'M CUTTING OFF YOUR LAGER ALLOWANCE, YOU CAN HAVE PALE LIKE THE REST OF US UNTIL YOU LEARN THAT SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO BLOODY WELL SLEEP!"

Severus had the vague impression of more thumps coming from distant parts of the dungeon, not to mention the outer door and someone who sounded an awful lot like a drowsy Lucius shouting, "Fuckin' Hell, Severus! If you're going to get a hooker at least put up a soundproofing spell or two! Merlin's balls, I'm going to have nightmares for a month..." the voice trailed off much as Severus' consciousness did. He had one last, hazy impression of dead weight falling over and knocking him flat. That's it, he thought as it all went black. Clones all the way for me.

       

Severus groaned. His head felt like it had been smacked with most of Hogwarts. Including both Bludgers and most of the students. The fermented apple smell of scrumpy permeated the air. He wrinkled his nose and groped for the sheets.

There weren't any.

Frowning, he groped again. He found no sheets, but did discover quickly enough that he seemed to be in a cauldron, neck deep in some sort of alcoholic liquid. Either he was dreaming, in which case it was a very pleasant dream about loads and loads of drink all for him, or...

"Eeyeugh!"

Severus' eyes flew open. He was in the middle of some sort of noxious green goo. His wand floated in the center. Something sodden and heavy - probably the towel, Voldemort wouldn't be happy about that - was tangled around his feet at the bottom. Mouth twisted in revulsion, he silently begged Merlin's anatomy that he'd only had a sick and drunken nightmare. About a clone. His clone. Having sex with his clone. Having fucking amazing sex with his clone.

Oh, crap. It wasn't a dream.

Apparently, however, it had been a one-night stand.

Gingerly, he grabbed his wand and stood up, trying not to lose any substances he may or may not have ingested the previous evening. He hoisted himself on the edge of the cauldron, careful not to slip on his clone's remains (not to mention trying desperately not to think about what he'd slept with - damned unstable magical bonds), and promptly slammed face first into an invisible wall.

Severus fell back with a splash, very nearly catching his skull on the edge of the cauldron. Green liquid went over his head. He fought to the top, came up sputtering, wiped the crud out of his face. Just as he started to open his mouth to bellow for help, the door opened.

"The Dark Lord's not very happy, Severus-Merlin's hangover, what on Earth are you doing?"

Severus, desperately trying to wrap the sodden and stained towel around his waist, said, "Gus! Augustus! You've got to get me out. There's a safety button on the bottom of the cauldron. Tap it with your wand or something. Please!"

Rookwood stood there a moment. His annoyed expression turned to disgust, then suddenly to the most terrifying of smirks. "So what you're saying is that you're stuck in there until someone lets you out?"

Severus nodded. He did his best attempt at sad puppy eyes. His lower lip stuck out, and green goo dripped onto it from his nose.

"Have you been in there all night?"

Another nod, this one more frantic.

"My, my, my. And we all thought you were enjoying yourself. Well. I suppose it would only be the decent thing to let you out."

Severus breathed a sigh of relief. "You're a star, Gus. You really are-wait, Gus, where are you going? Gus! Augustus! No, don't close the door! Gus! GUS! GUS...!"

A loud thump echoed from the room above. "We're napping up here!"

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