Entry for "Alchemy" at "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges and Assignments)"

Task: This week your task is to write about some kind of experiment. Min 100 words

Entry for the "Chocolate Frog Card Club" at "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges and Assignments)"

(Gold) Hungarian Horntail; Challenge: Write a story set in Harry's fourth year.

Entry for the "Gringotts Prompt Bank"

Magical Objects: Cauldron; Broomstick


There was something like a perfect sunday for Severus Snape – getting up late, having breakfast in his chambers and than spend the day in his private potions lab, doing research or brewing potions that Madam Pomfrey had requested for the Hospital Wing.

So, every week he would look forward to having his hours of relaxing time, away from the noise the students created, save from all the exploding cauldrons of Neville Longbottom. And now, as the Triwizard Tournament was taking place at Hogwarts, he even more felt the urge to retreat himself to the silence and privacy of his potions lab. For once, the castle seemed to be even louder with the guest students present, and he also wanted to get away from Igor Karkaroff – that man was really annoying him in so many ways.

Now, he had locked himself in, the only unblocked way in and out of the lab being the secret passage that led directly into his private chambers, to which only a few selected people had the password.

As the potions master he was, he felt the urge to experiment around a little bit, trying to enhance the wolfsbane potion he had been brewing for Lupin over the last school year. They maybe were as close to being friends as a mouse and a hungry cat, but still he secretly felt some twisted kind of pity for the werewolf who had been suffering so much lately. Even though he would not be able to provide him with the potion, he thought that it could be useful for the future if he researched and experimented around a little bit. Hopefully, he would be able to find out some new things and maybe improve the recipe so it could make the condition a little bit more bearable.

But of course he would say to anybody who would have bothered to ask that he was doing this purely out of scientific reasons, no emotional things involved.

How he loved the air of professionalism that filled his lab... no students that were unable to read instructions, no danger at all...

After about an hour, his cauldron was full of a dark liquid, half-finished wolfsbane, and he stirred it calmly while he thought about his next step. Maybe he should just try and see what happened if he added just a little bit more of the nightshade herbs...

A second later, he wished he had not done that.

The cauldron exploded with a loud bang, the shockwave throwing Severus' off his feet while a thick could of green smoke filled the lab. Coughing and gasping for air, Severus staggered out of his lab into the living room, where Rolanda Hooch had just entered, holding her broomstick in her hand, her eyes wide.

"Severus, what happened? Oh my... don't tell me you did the Longbottom! The great Severus Snape blowing up a cauldron..."
And suddenly, she started to laugh out loud, while Severus felt his reputation falling apart.