The Potions Teacher
"Where did you find valerian roots?" Lily Evans asked her brow furrowing.
"At home," Severus Snape answered, not adding that it was actually crabgrass he'd found in his backyard that morning. He consulted the old potions book lying open in front of them, and hoped she would not ask him to elaborate.
A small thicket of trees shaded them from the hot July sun, and a light breeze passing over the nearby small river bathed them in cooling air. Severus had taken off his oversized coat, laying it on the ground for Lily to kneel on.
"Won't your mother notice the book is gone?" Lily asked, tilting her head just a bit. The sunlight streaming through the trees caught her red hair, making it look as if her head was surrounded by a blazing halo. Severus stared for a moment before looking quickly away.
"Doubt it," he said and swallowed. "She doesn't bother with magical things much anymore."
"Powdered porcupine quills," Lily mumbled as she consulted the book. She searched the ground around them, then plucked several twigs off the ground, quickly rubbing them between her hands until they were broken and almost powdery, and then added them to the plastic orange caldron she'd brought from home. She'd used the caldron on Halloween two years before, finding it again this morning as she'd searched her families basement for 'potion ingredients.'
"Can't forget the Slothbrain mucus," Severus reminded her and snatched up a worm he'd been watching progress through the grass. He held the worm over the lip of the caldron as if there was a milky substance leaking from its head.
Lily wasn't really listening; she'd gotten up from her place on Severus' coat and was headed toward the lake with a plastic cup in her hands. She came back a moment later and poured a bit of water from the lake into the caldron. Syrup of helebole she thought to herself and mentally checked it off the potion ingredients list.
In the meantime, Severus too had gotten up from sitting next to the small orange caldron, and headed toward a nearby undergrowth of bushes and flowering plants clustered at the bottom of a close growing group of three trees.
Lily joined him and they searched quietly for a few moments before Lily said: "Why doesn't your mother use her magic anymore?"
Severus flinched and a wave of disgust crossed his features. "My father doesn't like it," he answered with a quiet voice, mastering his expression and wishing he could control the rage inside just as easily.
"Doesn't like magic?" Lily asked incredulous and stopped her search for ingredients and stood staring at her friend. "I don't understand. I think my dad will be really pleased when he finds out I'm a witch." She didn't feel as confident in her theory as she hoped she sounded, thinking of her sister Petunia, the only one besides Severus who knew of Lily's magical abilities. Petunia's anger toward Lily had been so evident that Lily was beginning to worry about how her parents would actually react when the official from Hogwarts finally arrived.
Severus shrugged, then shook his head, as if erasing away the memory of his father, red faced and sweaty towering over his cowering mother, screaming at her. He yanked a handful of leaves off the bush nearest his hand, no longer caring if they even slightly resembled the wormword the potion called for. He began to turn away, when a cluster of flowers with white petals and yellow centers caught his eye. In his mind, he saw the Asphodel listed on the books instructions. He plucked two of them before turning toward the patch of ground where his coat and the caldron sat, waiting for them to return.
Lily turned slightly to watch her friend, saw him shake his head and turn away from her. "Tell me more about Hogwarts, Severus." Lily said trying to draw him back from the dark place she'd inadvertently led him to. Hogwarts was his favorite subject and she knew he loved telling her about it.
It worked, Severus turned toward her again, each hand forming a cup, palms up.
"Do the staircases really move?" Lily prompted.
"Yes, they really do. I found another book of my mothers, Hogwarts a History that said Rowena Ravenclaw jinxed the stairs to move so that students would have to keep thinking."
"Like solving puzzles?" Lily asked as she bent to pick up a tiny white rock.
"Exactly. And Helga Hufflepuff brought all the house elves in to cook and-"
"House elves?" Lily exclaimed, "What on earth are they?" The only elves she'd heard of worked for Father Christmas.
Severus sat back down on the forest floor next to the caldron and smiled slightly at her interest. He'd only seen one elf in his life, when he was five and his mother had taken him to meet her parents. There had been a house elf working for the Prince family. A shriveled, ugly thing it had been, with a nose quiet like a plum. Five year old Severus had been afraid of it, not wanting to talk to the elf, much less give orders. His maternal grandparents seemed to have taken that as a sign that he and his mother we not worthy of inclusion in the family. He'd never seen them again, and had eventually forgotten about the house elf until last night when reading about the founder of Hufflepuff house.
"They're elves who take care of wizarding households."
"Does everyone have to have one?" Asked Lily, panicked at the idea of what Petunia might say if something magical was required to live with them.
"No," Severus answered a bit disappointed. "Only the oldest wizarding families have them. And Hogwarts," he added as an afterthought. "But I don't think students ever see them much."
Lily breathed a sigh of relief and retook her seat next to him on his coat, tossing the white rock into the caldron as she did. Turning her head to the left, away from him, she scooped up some of the dirt from a bare patch where no grass grew.
Severus added the leaves from the bush and the two white flowers into the caldron.
Lily turned back around and brushed the dirt off her hands and into the caldron, thinking powered unicorn hair.
Severus had picked up a pod fallen from of the trees and began to twist it over the plastic orange caldron.
"What're you doing?" Lily asked, consulting the book.
"Trying to get the juice from this sopohorous bean."
"Maybe you should just crush it."
Severus stared at her. "There isn't any juice in it, it's just…"
"I know that. That white rock I added isn't moonstone either, I just thought…"
She stopped speaking; Severus was no longer listening to her. He'd peered into the caldron and then leaned over it to look at the book. "Lily, what potion are you making?"
"The Draught of Peace," she said simply. "Why, what are you making?"
"The Draught of Living Death."
They each turned back toward the book. The potion for Peace was listed on the left side of the book, the Living Death potion was on the right side. They looked at each other for a moment, and then began to laugh.
"Oh well," Lily said though the last of her giggles. "Here then," and she waved her arms above her head, as if gathering the air, then pushed the invisible bundle into the caldron.
"What was that?" Severus asked staring at her.
"My mother says that every recipe has a little bit of love." She leaned over the caldron as if checking on the potions progress, her long red hair fell to the sides of her face, and she did not see the pink tinge that crept into Severus cheeks.
A/N: Thank you for reading. Please check back for the next story in my project, The Midnight Duel