a/n: My second Harry Potter story. I am quite proud of myself for branching out into a different category. I hope you all enjoy this oneshot. Please review. Thank you!
Special thanks, as always to my amazing beta Gwynne G. I know I drive you insane with my constant grammar mistakes, but your efforts make me a better writer, and this story couldn't be posted without you. Thank you very much!
Disclaimer: Just in case you all didn't know, JK Rowling owns Harry Potter. And, since I am clearly not JK Rowling, that means I don't own Harry Potter. Nothing is mine, except for the plot of this oneshot. She owns the books and the characters and everything about that amazingly wonderful world of wizardry. All the credit goes to her.
Science and Magic
Crouched over his potions set, a first-year Severus Snape every so carefully tilted the test tube over the lip of his beaker.
The light blue liquid in the tube trickled into the beaker slowly. Snape leaned down low to watch as the liquid in the beaker crept upwards past each of the little white measurement ticks on the side of the mixing cup. Narrowing his eyes, he slowed his pouring as the liquid inched closer to the half cup mark.
"Incoming!" a shrill voice shouted. Snape had just enough time to look up before a red quaffle came crashing down in the center of his carefully arranged potions equipment.
"No!" Snape shouted. His beaker toppled over. Its carefully measured contents spilled across the cobblestones of the courtyard.
"Hey, I didn't hit you, did I?"
Snape looked up as two of his classmates hurried over. One of them had scruffy black hair; he was the one who'd spoken. Behind him was a boy with dark brown hair and glasses – Sirus and James. They sat at Snape's table in Charms class, he didn't find much to say to them. They were the rough and tumble lot while Snape considered himself a pure academic.
Snape muttered a sour "No" and scooped up his scattered cups and tubes.
"Oops," Sirius said, when he noticed the spilled liquid seeping across the cobblestones, "Sorry about that."
"It's fine," Snape mumbled, not looking at the boys, "I have more."
"Do you need any help picking up?" James offered.
Shape shook his head.
"Okay," James said, "Well, do you want to come play catch with us?"
Snape pretended not to notice the incredulous look Sirus shot his friend.
"No, thank you."
"Okay, then. James scuffed his foot to and fro over the ground. "Well, umm – see you in class."
"See you in class," Sirus parroted. He wanted to play catch with James. Snape would be hopeless. He snatched up his runaway quaffle and ran with it back to the open area.
Snape blinked three timed quick and sniffed hard once when he was sure they were gone. His precious potions set had been a gift from his teacher, and he had been mixing the ingredients to grow a little crystal as a thank you. Now, there wasn't enough left – he'd been lying.
Snape set the lid on the box and scooped it up. He climbed to his feet and looked for a safer place to resume his work. He wandered his way across the large courtyard, hopelessly trying to figure if the few ingredients he had left would be enough for at least a little crystal.
"Hey!" someone shouted. Startled, Snape looked around. "Over here," a laughing voice said. It drew Snape's attention to the large tree at the far end of the playground. A girl he recognized from his Defense Against the Dark Arts class sat among the tree's roots. She waved him over.
"Hi!" the girl chirped as Snape walked over to her. She grinned, pushing a strand of bright red hair behind her ear. She then grabbed something that lay on the ground beside her and showed it to Snape. It was the lid from the box of her own potions set, identical to Snape's except that it was the girl version, its crystal pink instead of blue.
"I saw what happened to your stuff," she explained, "I have extra stuff, if you need any."
"Uh, thanks," Snape said, as he lowered himself down on the ground next to the girl. "I'm Severus Snape," he added with a little smile.
"My name's Lily Evans," Lily said, grinning brightly.
"Nice to meet you, Lily," Snape said politely, as he began unpacking his potions set.
"It's nice to meet you too, Severus," Lilly giggled, as she handed Snape a few packets of the various potions ingredients he needed. She continued to talk as she did so, "I didn't know you were into doing magic."
"Magic? Snape asked. He felt a little thrill as he took the packets she offered and their hands touched. "You mean potions?"
Lilly shook her head and motioned to his potions set.
"This isn't magic. Magic is charms and hexes and stuff," Snape explained, "This is potions. It's science."
"What's the difference?" Lily lifted her beaker to eye the pink mixture inside.
"Potions is different. It's science. And science is real. You can see it and do it."
"Not all of it," Lily pointed to her beaker, "You can't see why mixing this stuff makes crystals."
"It's because of a chemical reaction," Snape told her. Lily shrugged.
"But you still can't see it. Just the result. Which is how magic works," She paused for a moment, and then added, "And love."
"What?" Snape glanced up from his test tube preparations.
"Love," Lily repeated, "It's like science and potions—you can't see the reactions and stuff, but you can see the results. And my big sister calls love magic. So why can't science be magic too?"
Snape opened his mouth to respond, but then hesitated. A good answer simply didn't come to him.
"I don't know," he finally said. He He motioned to the still liquid contents of Lily's beaker. "Aren't you going to add the powder, so it turns into a crystal?" he asked.
"I was going to wait for you. We can add it together!"
"Oh," Snape blinked, Um, okay."
He hurried to finish mixing his ingredients, and then Lily held his beaker steady while he poured them all in.
"Just two more," he said as he set down an empty measuring cup. He held up his packet of powder and his test tube of dye. The blue dye had been topped up with Lily's pink, the two swirled together to form an odd, half mixed color. Snape gave it an uncertain look, before pouring it into his beaker.
"Crystal time," Lilly said. Her face beamed as she poured the contents of her beaker into a shallow dish. Snape followed suit.
"Ready?" she asked, tearing open her packet of powder. Snape nodded, and did the same.
"One," Lily counted, poised over her dish and ready to pour, "…two…three!"
Snape and Lily poured their powder at the same time, the white specks dissolved into their colored mixtures. They bent over their dishes so close their noses almost dipped into their creations. They watched enchanted as the liquids solidified and changed shape
"They're so pretty," Lily said, as her crystal grew upward into a shimmery pink tower. She then glanced over at Snape's and gasped, "Yours looks so awesome!"
Snape's crystal was growing outwards, like an opening flower. And, unlike Lily's solidly colored rock, Snape's was a mixture of blue, purple, and pink, covering the crystal in random splotches.
Snape blushed at the complement and ducked his head, muttering a sheepish, "Thanks."
The crystals didn't take long to grow; Snape and Lily were prying their new possessions from their dishes just as a loud bell charm called them in from recess. The pair quickly packed away their things their things. With their creations held close, they hurried inside the castle with the rest of the students of Hogwarts. Once inside their Potions class, they timidly showed the professor their new crystals. He complimented them both on a job nicely done and shooed them off to collect the day's supplies from the cupboards.
Snape was about the gather the supplies he needed when a thought occurred to him: his original plan was to give his crystal to his professor as thanks for the gift of the potions set. He really should thank Lily in the same way.
With a quick glance to be sure the professor wasn't looking, he scampered out of line and scurried over to Lily's table. He struggled a moment with his rock before he managed to break off a small piece, which he left on Lily's desk. He hurried back to line of students at the cupboards, selected his supplies and make record time back to his seat.
"Hey, what's that?" A neighboring student pointed at something on Snape's desk as he dropped into his seat.
"Huh?" Snape asked, his gaze following the student's pointed finger.
A small blush blossomed on the Snape's cheeks, and a smile spread across his lips as he spotted, sitting neatly on his desk, a little piece of pink crystal.