A/N: This is short, but a lot of fun. Enjoy!

Assigned prompt: Furby

Optional prompts:

3. (colour) mauve

5. (word) cryptic

8. (word) grave

Word count (without A/N etc.): 1077

Title: This is an Insult!

November 1998

"This is an insult!"

Severus Snape was pacing up and down the length of his Potions classroom. "Preposterous!" Indignation and fury dripped from his every pore, his black robes billowing out behind him.

Hermione Granger stood in front of his desk, silent, not daring to breathe in his direction. It was even worse than Harry had described. Something must have gone horribly wrong.

After weeks of trying to convince Snape to attend the ceremony and accept his Order of Merlin, First Class, it seemed they were back at the beginning. Something had deeply upset him.

She gathered all of her courage and in a steady voice asked: "What's wrong?"

He paced towards his desk, placing his hands on top of it and towering over her, his angry black eyes boring into hers.

"What's wrong? What's wrong?!" He drew himself up to his full height, his nostrils flaring as he angrily sucked in air, before opening one of his drawers with a swift pull, extracting something from its depths and slamming it down on his desk.

"This!" he shouted. "This is what's wrong!"

The light in the dungeon was on the side of gloomy, so it took Hermione some squinting to understand exactly what she was seeing when she looked at the mauve colored lump. "Is this… is this a… Furby?!"

Snape stared at her in disgust. "It has a name?!"

"Well, yes, it is a Muggle child toy. It's just been released and it is very popular at the moment."

"It is hideous! My eyes hurt just to look at it. I do not believe anything more annoying or ugly has ever been created!" His eyes were blazing at this point. "And they give it to me – to me! This is not some cryptic message – this is nothing short of an insult!"

Hermione looked up at him, confused. "Who gave it to you?"

"Those dunderheads from the Ministry sent it! This is supposed to be my portkey to the ceremony! I will not be arriving carrying this monstrosity!" He was fuming. "They could not have made it clearer that they do not want me to attend. And you know what?! That is just fine by me! I never wanted to go in the first place!" Bristling, he resumed his mad pace about the room.

"You go on without me," he growled, waving his hands at her.

"I am not going without you." Hermione said in a firm voice. After three months of being his Potions apprentice, he did not intimidate her that easily anymore. "If you are not going, neither am I."

He glowered at her. "Are you trying to guilt me into it? Because I am not going. Not with this… abomination!" he seethed, pointing a finger at the offending toy that lay in a furry mauve heap on his desk.

"I heard they were supposed to talk and move," Hermione commented.

Severus scowled at her. "I fried it with my wand as soon as it started up. Can anyone imagine anything more annoying and off-putting than a small, bushy-haired, constantly babbling creature?!"

Hermione just stared at him, slowly raising an eyebrow.

Snape scowled, obviously thinking back about what he had just said to put that look on her face. Then he frowned.

"Well, not every bushy-haired, constantly babbling creature is off-putting. Some can be quite… acceptable to have around." He mumbled.

Hermione's eyebrows rose even higher. "Acceptable?"

"One might even come to like them… in a way," he hedged.

A small smile tugged at her lips. "That does sound a lot better."

Snape cleared his throat. "Still, they made a grave mistake sending me this. A very grave mistake. I am not. Going. To. Use. This." With a flick of his wand, he incinerated the offending object.

Hermione studied the pile of ash on his desk before vanishing it.

"See – no portkey, no attendance," Severus said smugly.

Hermione waited until he had settled in his chair before pulling something out of her pocket of her robes. "You could always use mine, you know," she said, giving him a careful look before adding. "We could go together."

He was silent for a minute. "Let me see it."

She held her portkey out to him and he took it from her hand carefully, studying in the light before he harrumphed. "So, you get Darth Vader, yes?"

Hermione chuckled, shooting him a quick smile. "Well I've always had a penchant for older, powerful men dressed completely in black. And a beautiful, deep voice makes the whole package even more alluring, of course."

Something glinted in the dark pools of his eyes. "Is that so?" he purred.

"Oh yes," she answered. "At first, I merely found them to be… acceptable, but now I see that there is a lot of potential for… more."

"So, is there a certain older wizard that has caught your eye?" Severus ventured.

"There most certainly is, but to him, I seem to still range between 'acceptable' and 'likeable'. Unfortunately, to my ears, that does not sound very promising." She tried for a wistful expression.

A smile tugged at the corner of Severus' mouth. "And this wizard in turn - to you - is more than likable?"

"You might say so."

Severus leaned forward in his chair. "And how exactly might you say?"

Hermione walked closer to his desk, placing her hands on top of it. "I might say that I have been waiting for a sign, any sign, that he might be interested in me, too, but so far, I have come up empty. Which is why, very recently, I have decided not to pursue this any further."

At this, he slid out of his seat and rounded his desk. "Oh, you have? How interesting. And if there were some sign of said wizard to come now, would you be willing to take back this decision?"

Hermione turned to face him, her heart racing in her chest as she looked up at him. "I might."

Severus stepped closer, so close that they were almost touching as he bend down to purr in her ear in a low voice: "If said wizard was willing to appear at some ludicrous, pompous event that has every fiber of his being recoiling in disgust, just to make said witch happy – would she take this as a sign, what do you think?"

"I think she most definitely would," Hermione whispered as his lips captured hers in a kiss.

The End

A/N: hee hee! Please review!

PS: If you enjoyed this bantering, you might want to check out "The Traggob" on the list of my stories.