Home Brew
In Snape's defence for the Philosopher's Stone, the poison always stood beside the nettle wine. But where did Snape get his nettle wine from? Missing moment, PS/SS.
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The ditch at the bottom of Hamish MacDonald's garden was a Bad Place. The Land of Nettles grew there, taller than Hamish, taller even than Hamish's cousin Alec who was seven. It ate tennis balls. It ate footballs. It bent down and stung you if you tried to fish the balls back with a plastic golf club, and quite often it ate the golf club too.
Only one good thing happened in the Land of Nettles. Once a year, the big Road Crew men came with their big strimmers and cut it all back, until you could see right out to the back lane beyond the ditch. If they found a ball the Nettles hadn't chewed to pieces, they'd toss it back. If their strimmers hit a rock, the blades made Thrillingly Awful noises and the Road Crew men would use Thrillingly Awful words. So, when Hamish saw a tall figure in the Land of Nettles early one morning, he ran down the path as fast as he could.
But it wasn't a usual Road Crew man. At least, he had no reflective jacket, no strimmer, no Mickey Mouse earmuffs. He was wearing a long black dress and picking the nettle tops into a brown sack.
Hamish stared. "What are you doing?"
The man jumped. Perhaps one of the Nettles had stung him, for he scowled down at Hamish. "What does it look like I'm doing?"
"You look like you're wearing a long black dress and picking nettles," said Hamish earnestly. Most Road Crew men didn't usually ask questions, beyond 'This yours?'
There was silence in the Land of Nettles. "Yes," said the man eventually. "I am … picking nettles." And he took another stride forwards through the nettles.
Hamish trotted after him. "What are you going to do with them?"
The man stopped again. "What do you think I'm going to do with them?"
Never had there been such a chatty Road Crew man! Hamish bobbed on his toes, and considered. "Well, the other Road Crew men-"
"The what?!"
"Other Road Crew men," Hamish repeated keenly. "They usually just leave the nettles, which is why it all comes back, Mam says. But Uncle Steve puts his in the bonfire and Uncle Douglas puts his nettles in his muck heap and old Peg at the corner feeds hers to her goat and Granddad makes His nettles into nettle wine!"
This time, the man shut his eyes. A shudder passed across his face as if he had heard a Thrillingly Awful noise. "That-" he said, opening his mouth just far enough to show that he had his teeth clenched together for some reason. "That is exactly what I'm going to do with them."
And with a very rude popping noise, he vanished.
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