Who: Regulus Black and Severus Snape What: Snape assists Regulus in Potions. When: 20 April 1978 (BACKDATED) Where: Slytherin Common Room. Rating: PG-13 Perhaps for foul language and gratuitous amounts of snark.
Severus Snape sat hunched over a book, his long, dirty hair covering his face in a dark curtain. It was only a month before his last round of tests at Hogwarts would begin; he wouldn’t allow himself to do poorly in any subject. Severus glanced through his Potions book to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. Although, he had no doubt that he would get an O regardless of how much he read. They’d gotten most of it wrong, anyways.
Once he was sure that there was nothing left for him to study for that particular subeject, he reached across the table he was working at for his transfiguration textbook. Instead, his fingers felt rough wood instead of the scuffed leather of his book. Annoyance welled up within him. He looked around the desk, in his bag, and on the floor for the book, but when it was still nowhere to be found Severus came to a sudden, definite conclusion.
It had to be Potter.
He had a sixth sense for all things Potter and he had no doubt that miserable troublemaker was involved in this. There wasn’t a chance he’d lost the book, they were much too expensive for him to simply misplace. It looked like he would be taking a premature break from his studies. After all, Severus could simply not allow this to go unpunished, so with a feeling of great resentment he gathered up his belongs and headed to leave the common room. On his way out, Severus noticed Black’s younger brother to be among the few studying in the room. A brief, curious glance down at Regulus’ work revealed something unacceptable -- Black was doing his potions homework all wrong
Severus was simply unable to watch one of his fellow slytherins fail and thusly he said, “You use gillyweed in dreamer's draught, not sphinx hair. If you were to use sphinx hair it would explode, unless, of course, that was your aim.”