Sherri pulled her bag up on to her shoulder, her wand sticking out her bag just a little in case of immediate use, and left her common room for her first detention with Snape. She had a twisting, sickening feeling in her stomach; it was the kind of feeling she felt everytime someone mentioned a meeting with Snape. Sherri wasn't nervous, she just loathed him immensely to the point of that sickened feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She dragged her feet as she went passed the Great Hall as dinner commenced, her stomach even growling for food. Perhaps she could stop in for some on the way? Nah, it wasn't worth another detention. She could just sneak down to the kitchens once she survived this visit with Snape. Sherri walked passed many portraits, thru several corridors, and down several flights of stairs before making it into the dungeons. No torches were lit, and the slimy black walls gave the eery chill when she made it down to the door. Sherri knocked, and helped herself to the door.
Sherri walked in, closing the door behind her. She scanned the dark dungeon classroom for Professor Snape before he strutted in, his black cloak billowing behind him. "Good evening, Black." he said in his boring monotoned voice.
"Good evening, Professor," Sherri greeted, trying to sound optimistic in the dismal room. The smell of burning flobberworms casted the air almost immediately after. Sherri felt as if she was going to puke as the scent grew stronger by the minute. "Ugh! What is that?" she said, holding her nose.
"That," Snape began, "is the stench of unuseful flobberworm juice."
"And what are we going to be doing with it?" Sherri kind of regretted asking afterwards.
Snape sneered. "You are going to be cleaning up the flobberworms from their tanks, every last bit of the dead insect and put them into that cauldron. Leave the others in the tank, we are using them for class tomorrow morning."
"I thought I was emboweling horned to-" Sherri was interrupted.
"Not tonight," he said, giving her the benefit of the doubt.
Sherri gave a disgusted look before setting her bag down, taking out her wand. Snape wheeled around from behind his desk to confront Sherri. "You won't be needing this," he instructed, taking the wand from her hand.
"But, how am I supposed to-" Interrupted again.
"You are going to do every last inch of it by hand, Black."
Sherri swallowed and looked over at the clear tank. The pale purple ten-inch flobberworms squirmed freely in it, giving off its mucus everytime it passed a certain rock. She felt as if she was going to vomit. As she neared closer to the tank, she realized how much mucus it actually gave off inside its bowl. It gave off a terrible scent. Sherri turned to face Snape again.
"You haven't given me any gloves," Sherri explained, very hesitant on starting the task.
"I know," Snape sneered, sitting at his desk. "You are to do it by bare hand."
Sherri looked back at the tank and wondered how she were to excuse herself from this. What if she were to puke on accident? Of course, it wouldn't be on purpose as she had done plenty of times in McGonagal's detentions, but a sickly vomit. Closing her eyes and plugging her nose with her opposite hand, Sherri dipped her hand into the tank, feeling the pasty mucus between her fingers.
She felt around for a flobberworm, and every one she seemed to pick up was alive and wiggling in her grasp. In a matter of ten minutes time, she picked up one dead flobberworm and quickly disposed of it inside the cauldron.
Snape looked up at her from his writing. "Forty-five more to go."
It was hard to tell who gave the most look of hatred upon their faces. Sherri rolled her eyes and proceeded with the foul task of punishment.
After four and a half hours of grueling mucusy flobberworm essence and thirty two flobberworms later, Snape stood up finally. He passed behind Sherri and looked into the black, worm-filled cauldron. He smirked.
"Well, Black, it seems you have been doing this job with great hesitation. Hesitation causes lack of confidence in which you have not done this job right. Most of these worms are still healthy and alive while three of them are actually dead." Snape said, picking up a wriggling worm.
Sherri examined the green mucus all over her hands and sighed in defeat. "What?"
Snape stared menacingly. "Try again."
"Try... Try again? But, I've been doing this for nearly five hours!" Sherri exclaimed.
"You should have thought about that before you were late to my class. I expect to see you an hour early before class starts tomorrow morning or you get another weeks full of detention. Understood?" Snape pushed back toward his desk, wrote himself a memo and posted it at the top of this desk.
"Fine, Snape." she said, rolling her eyes, wiping her hands off at the bottoms of her robes.
"Fine, Sir!"
"Sorry! Fine, Sir!" She accented the last word a little too much before he came around again, grasping Sherri's shirt collar. She gasped.
"You understand quite well that you have deserved these weeks of detention. My option was to expel you, but as you are not in my house, it was up to Flitwick. But, one day, you will be expelled under my power, and you can join your filthy father," Snape muttered to her, trying to hold back shouting at her.
He let go and nodded as a gesture that the detention was dismissed. Sherri grabbed her bag, trying to take her hands off the handle as they were sticky with mucus. Sherri hurried out of the dungeons as quickly as possible, rising with anger as she recollected Snape's voice in her head. You will be expelled under my power, and you can join your filthy father. What was that supposed to mean?
Dumbledore is the headmaster. He wouldn't allow expulsion just from a potion's master, would he? He couldn't expel her unless something terrible happened, in which, most of what she did was fairly harmless. Dumbledore would think it was just adolescence. Sherri shrugged and pressed on.
She stuck her hands in her pocket, in search of her wand. Realising it wasn't there, she searched her bag for it, relieving it of its contents before she remembered that Snape took it from her when she arrived. Sherri sighed and wheeled around, heading back toward the dungeon. That familiar scent filled the air again as she went back through, searching for Snape. This time, he was no where to be found.
"Professor?" Sherri called, looking around for signs of life other than those disgusting flobberworms. "Professor Snape?" She walked in further, looking around for her wand.
It was lying on his desk, motionless. Sherri quickly filed toward his desk and tried to pick up her wand before a jet of red light shot from the doorway, shocking her hand. It almost felt like an electric shock flew through her hand and up her arm, causing it to feel numb. Sherri held her wrist with her other hand, looking around for the source of the hex.
Snape stood in the doorway, wand outstretched toward her neck. "Out," he said, quietly. Sherri rushed passed him, not looking back, still holding her numb arm.
What was she going to do for tomorrow morning's classes? She couldn't possibly survive Transfiguration without it. McGonagal would fail her for the day, and she couldn't risk that when she already had an O for the term. Sherri walked back to the common rooms silently, hoping she didn't run into any walls on the way as the hallways became darker and darker as the torches went out.
Sherri Black Community Member 
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