Done with her studies for the day, Mauve was once again wandering the halls of the large school. Although they somehow seemed to always lead her to her classes on time, she never quite knew where Hogwarts' halls would lead her after class hours, though it did always seem to be someplace relevant and, of course, intriguing. Nothing like her old school, this seemingly timeless castle never seemed to run out of secrets it was willing to divulge to her.
Today she wandered the dungeon halls enjoying the quiet that was the absence of her fellow University classmates. Out of the 75 or so total students taking Uni level courses here during the summer, she was one of a severe minority who did not mind the dark, stony depths of the castle.
Following the dark passageway, she walked at a leisurely pace, trailing her fingers along the stones of the right-hand wall, allowing the calm of the ancient rocks to soak into her skin. Nearing the end of the corridor there was light glowing from a slightly open door. Creeping up to it, she peered carefully into what was visible of the room behind it. Tables lined the far wall, evenly covered with simmering potion cauldrons; a narrow shelf ran along the stone wall about eye-level, and was lined with flickering candles that seemed to be providing the room's lighting.
As she watched, the tall, dark form of her professor tred down the line of potions adding a pinch of ingredients to this one, stirring that one, checking the consistency of another, stopping directly in her view of the cauldrons, and began muttering notes to himself about the contents. Leaning forward, concentrating, he seemed unaware as to how close his hair was to the severely melted and deformed candles and the flames that were now licking hungrily at the loose strands. She slipped through the door intending to warn him when she saw the flame grasp a firm hold upon his hair. Raising her hand she acted purely on training, shouting "Aquias Expungent" shooting a small stream of water towards his head, drenching his hair as she also pulled him forcibly back a step or two by the back of his robes.
Off balance, he spun, roaring, his face contorted by rage to face her as the potion he had been consulting began to sputter and spit. Robes snapping around him he stalked quickly towards her retreating figure. Grabbing the collar of her shirt he lifted her, slamming her up against the door, jarring her severely as it slammed closed from the force of the action. Dizzy, her head beginning to throb she attempted to shake her vision steady as he composed himself enough to hiss at her.
"What," his face twisted ugily with each word, "are you doing here."
Mauve felt the blood draining from her face, her ability to move having fled. Deathly still she just hung there, the tightness in her throat growing and beginning to feel light-headed. Just as it began to occur to her that he could kill her, here, now, just by continuing to hold her there, he released her allowing her to collapse in an undignified heap on the hard floor.
"Get Out." He growled as he turned away from her in disgust. Unable to get her mouth to wrok in order to attempt to explain herself, she slowly pulled herself painfully up to standing, needing the door to support legs that refused to find strength. Glancing at his back, hoping to find her words as he raised his wand to vanquish the now ruined potions her eyes fell on the one in his line of aim. Spurred on by instant adrenaline she leapt towards him, "NO!"
"Don't fret," he sneered, "thanks to your little prank, this potion is already thoroughly ruined."
"Not, prank. Not ruined." She gasped as shooting pains made their way up the arm she had landed on when he had dropped her earlier. She threw herself at him grabbing his wand hand, knocking his spell awry to harmlessly dissipate against the classroom's stone walls.
"What was that?" he snapped as he turned on her, forcing her to stumble back.
She pointed towards the cauldron now containing an impossible, yet vivid silver-blue of a potion that wasn't supposed to exist. "The color, Merlin himself recorded it, it's the Remedium alucinus potion." She pushed off of the table she had backed up against in the middle of the room, and walked to the shelf of potions materials that covered the wall opposite the door. "No one's ever been able to re-duplicate this step." Pushing the growing pains in her arm and head she quickly scanned the shelves, reaching automatically for several ingredients and carried them back to the table. "But the next steps are still documented."
Severus Snape watched his meddlesome student as she shuffled through his stores and then returned to the offending cauldron. He was fighting a battle between his anger at his only, and now ruined, Cruciatus-relief potion, and his growing curiosity as he sneered at her motions. He knew of the obscurely referenced potion she mentioned, and felt a strange sense of déjà-vu as he watched her uncanny familiarity as she worked the ingredients into the potion. The University level Advanced Potions class had briefly touched on the subject, one of the potions of legend, one theorized to not even exist, perhaps never to have; as for what it was fabled to do, well that was just that, fable, legend, a holy grail of sorts to potion-makers.
The girl's movements were stiff, but knowledgeable and sure. He could hear her mumbling to herself and, his curiosity getting the better of him, he stepped up behind her to watch. Her movements were sure and precise as she stirred and added dashes of sugar-root and crushed Devil's-thorn. As he listened, she seemed to be reciting a text to herself, words reaching his ears that he vaguely recognized as ancient English. Suddenly she stopped, turning her head to the right to look past him to his stores again. Her eyes were glazed, eyebrows wrinkled in concentration as she mumbled.
"Oak's blood of theory and simmer in 2 to 4, oak's blood of theory and simmer in 2 to 4." He looked at her face trying to decipher her words. Sweat was forming on her forehead and her skin was a pale grey, almost buried under the intense concentration she was showing flashes of pain. Surely she wasn't thinking that hard.
"I don't know, oak, tree, blood, sap, theory…" her voice faded away.
"Honey-sap." Her realized what it was and went to retrieve the thick substance, when he returned, she absent-mindedly took it and began to add small amounts of potion to the half full container watching the yellow goo turning red and gold and begin to swirl until turning a shimmering green. Stoppering the jar she set it carefully on the table and vanquished the remainder of the potion in the cauldron, extinguishing the fire and then set the jar into the empty cauldron.
"Must be simmered in 24 hours till it turns silver," she said quietly as if to the air and turned to leave.
"How did you know…" he began to ask her about the potion now existing on his bench but wasn't able to finish as his student crumpled to the floor landing painfully hard and obviously unconscious, not having reached out to catch herself.
"Brainless child," he muttered as he scooped her up into his arms and promptly carried her lithe frame up to the hospital wing and into Madame Pomfrey's care.