Disclaimer: Everything associated with the Harry Potter universe belongs to J.K. Rowling and her publishers. Not me. M&Ms belong to the M&M Mars company. Dwarf hair in aspic, as a wizard's ingredient, originated with the late John Bellairs. Read his book "The Face In The Frost" – it's brilliant.

Five bat wings. Two tablespoons of dwarf hair in aspic. A drop each of yew and foxglove extracts. A handful of M&Ms -

Severus Snape froze, hunched in front of the cauldron that hung in his fireplace. Where had that last thought come from? He had better not start thinking about those ridiculous chocolates again. It was after midnight, and he had a potion to finish brewing before he could retire for the evening. And besides, he had devoured the remains of his supply before dinner. There were no more in the cupboard.

It was all Dumbledore's fault that he'd discovered the wretched things in the first place. The Headmaster was notorious for sampling exotic confections and then urging his staff to do the same. He'd decided he liked this particular brand and given everyone a ridiculously large bag for the previous Christmas. Snape hadn't wanted to try them, but the moment he had, he'd become a hopeless M&M junkie.

His obsession went beyond simply consuming them. He had a whole ritual built around the experience: tearing open a fresh packet, pouring out the brilliantly hued contents in a slithering, rattling heap, sorting them into smaller piles and eating them from his least preferred to his utmost favorite. Brown first, then blue, then red, then yellow and orange, and finally green, the rarest and most delicious of all. (Anyone who said they were all the same, he thought, had defective taste buds.) He ate them one by one, sucking them first to soften the candy shell so he could crack it without disturbing the insides, then letting the chocolate slowly, slowly ooze onto his tongue and palate. Sometimes it took him hours to work his way through a small bag.

Stop it! Stop thinking about them. You haven't got any, and there's nothing you can do about it at the moment. Just finish the potion and go to bed.

To his credit, he tried. He sat brooding while the potion simmered, then snuffed the fire, set the cauldron aside to cool and crawled under his covers. Sleep, however, eluded him. All he could think of were those sweet bits of heaven, shining like jewels, melting in his mouth, not in his hand.

Snape scowled into the dark. Why couldn't he be addicted to something less embarrassing – something that fit better with the image he wanted to project? Cigarettes, prostitutes, Ogden's Old Firewhiskey, anything. But no. It had to be chocolate, as if he were a woman with PMS. And not an easily obtainable chocolate - the sort his students gorged themselves on in the streets of Hogsmeade – but Muggle chocolate.

And here he was, bereft of it at one o'clock in the morning, and the nearest shop that sold it was miles and miles away. Not to mention closed.

He got up and brushed his teeth, brushed them till his gums were raw and the foam he spat into the sink was tinged with red, hoping that the minty taste of toothpaste would kill the craving. It didn't, though. He was starting to sweat with longing. What did the Muggles put in the stuff? Crack?

At last he could bear it no more. "Fine!" he hissed to the empty room. "Fine, all right, I'll go!" Jamming his feet into his boots, he threw on a cloak over his sleeping attire and stormed out so quickly that a passing ghost in the corridor was blown about in his wake.

The path to Hogsmeade was cold and poorly lit, but he strode down it without noticing, cursing, against all reason, the wards that prevented anyone Apparating on the castle grounds. Yes, yes, protection and constant vigilance and all that, but they made popping out for a quick snack nearly impossible. The very instant he got beyond them, he vanished.

When he materialized in a faraway train station, the only witness was an ancient wreck of a man so drunk that he didn't bat an eye at the sudden appearance of a furious, lank-haired stranger in black. The pathetic creature did, however, feel moved to share a bit of vital information he had in his possession.

"There have been signs, brother!" he said urgently. "Repent! The end of the world is at hand!"

"You don't know the half of it," snapped Snape, stomping off in search of a vending machine.

He finally found one stuck between a bank of pay telephones and a reeking rubbish bin. Its glass front was cracked and dirty and covered with greasy fingerprints, but he could see the familiar brown packages inside, tucked snugly into their metal coil. His mouth cramped painfully and watered at the sight. Digging into an inner pocket of his cloak, he pulled out a handful of Muggle coins and began feeding them into the slot. Three more to go – two more – one more –

NO!

Snape stared into his open palm in rage and dismay. It held two Knuts, a Sickle and a large wad of pocket fluff, but not the coin he needed. He was one short.

Behind the ticket counter at the other end of the station, the bored night clerk straightened up from his contemplation of his fingernails. He'd thought he heard noises – a banging sound, and a voice raised in anger.

Just then, the cleaner came by, pushing her broom, and the clerk asked "What's all that racket across the way?"

"Some idiot shouting and kicking the snack machine," the cleaner said. "Should I tell him to stop?"

"Oh, leave him be," said the clerk. He slumped back down in his rolling chair. "The damned thing's been broken for months anyway."