InsaneJournal

The girl was small. Mousy even. And even while not being overly short for a girl, and perhaps even on the (slightly) tall side, with scraggly, unwashed white-blond hair poking in all directions about her face like some sort of dirty-angel halo, with fingernails bitten down to the very stubs yet still gnawing away, and wearing perpetually wrinkled Slytherin robes along with an underslept yawn on her face, Harry just knew that Stella Thornton Crabbe would not amount to anything above a D in DADA. As dusty and inexperienced as her eyes --- big and pale-green, they were eyes that always stared, out-of-focus, during every lesson she attended. Her grades were surprising only in one respect – she had yet to flunk out of Hogwarts.

For all Harry could see, the girl was no more diligent than her father before her.
But sharing this opinion with Severus, his spouse merely brushed off the girl’s incompetence with an ambiguous “You will see.”

He really should have noticed that Severus did not flunk her out of Potions and what that entailed. But back then Harry thought it was the fact that the girl was in Severus’s House.

Today, Harry realized, he would have to admit that Severus was right.

And even though Harry doubted he could salvage any sort of dignity out of the situation, his lionesque pride refused to lie down and play dead. Even when choked by a serpent.

This serpent was more of a basilisk, but that was beside the point.

Everything started out relatively well.

It was Boggart Day in Defense class, and Harry lined his students in the same way that Remus J. Lupin had once done in Harry’s own third year. In front of the same commode, in fact.

Now Stella came forward. Harry stifled a groan – the girl had yet to produce a Lumos that didn’t self-extinguish. Harry feared yet another visit to the school mediwitch.

Wand in hand, the tiny Slytherin came to stand before the cabinet in question, the same undisturbed, slightly alienated look about her as the boggart emerged and started to bear down on her. It was a Dementor.

Harry only noticed her slightly widened eyes.

The wand clattered to the floor. Foolish girl, Harry thought.

But the dementor stopped.

And turned into a dragon. And FLEW at the frightened third year!

The hands came over the eyes. Sure. THAT would stop a dragon!

It was almost upon her.

Then the girl began shaking.

This has gone on long enough. Harry aimed his wand at the boggart, Riddikkulus on his tongue, when the dragon blinked. And disappeared much quicker than it appeared.

Replaced by a king cobra.

Flash!

The cobra disappeared twice as fast.

Replaced by a hanging noose.

Flash! Three times as fast.

The noose turned into a clown with blood dripping out of its mouth.

Then a snake.

Now an Inferius. It went on and on.

After a particularly bright flash, Harry saw stars.

Harry never realized that a boggart could assume so many shapes. And so quickly.

And neither did the boggart, apparently.

When the proverbial smoke cleared, Stella, completely ashen and with an uncomprehending look on her face stood at the front of the classroom, her wand still lying on the floor.

She no longer looked underslept.

Harry had no idea how to handle a situation like this. No Defense texts had ever discussed the possibility of anything like this. Hell! Professor Lupin had never described a situation like this, and he was smarter than twenty Defense tomes put together!

Stella Thornton Crabbe had just made a boggart explode.

It was unheard of. It was undocumented. It wasn’t even theorized about!

And here she stood, in front of him, complete, documented proof that it was possible.

Harry had to admit defeat. He hastily tried to recall the protocol for giving points for yet unheard-of spell mastery. This was not a spell mastery, per se, but Harry did not know many girls with this many fears who were capable of making boggarts explode. The only one he knew who came close was Molly Weasley, who wasn't exactly categorized as 'girl,' nor did she actually cause a boggart to explode, as far as Harry knew.

“One hundred points to Slytherin,” Harry told the wide-eyed girl standing at the front of the room. The words had an awful taste. “In all my years of teaching, I have never known a boggart was capable of doing that, Ms. Crabbe. Full points today for class participation.”

At the end of class, someone retrieved Stella’s wand, and a couple of Slytherin girls flanked her out of the classroom when the lesson ended. As the rest of the class filed out, Harry could hear them whispering excitedly about what had transpired. Hell. Severus would know. Granted, not like it was possible to hide one hundred points floating by, but Harry had some hope it would at least be tomorrow.

A knock sounded on his door. Harry waved the door to open.

Severus came inside, allegedly to see how his day was, but was smiling a smile more awful than all those points Harry had to give earlier. He knows, Harry pronounced the mental verdict for himself.

And even though the arms that wrapped around him were poor consolation, Severus still had the gall to growl seductively in his ear: “It looks like Gryffindor will lose the House Cup this year, Harry.”

Harry groaned. "Because of stupid Slytherin gits."

Severus bit Harry's neck.

Harry shuddered.

"I beg your pardon?" Severus's voice was nearly a whisper near Harry's ear.

"Bite me," Harry whispered back, and returned the favor.





Prompt Explained: Based on the premise, "A boggart would look at me and explode," in answer to the discussion, "What would your boggart turn into?" A renewed look at the Molly-Weasley-Boggart-Syndrome.