Disclaimers: I do not own anything from the books of Harry Potter and I'm certainly not making any money from this story. Everything you might recognise belongs to J K Rowling, her editor and Warner Bros. (Though as far as I know, the plot, and some minor characters, are mine.)
Summary: One usually says that "bright minds think the same", but do they listen to their hearts – especially when the minds are as stubborn as those of Severus Snape and Hermione Granger?
Author's notes: I've actually received some reviews. Thank you! I love you! Billiejoe pointed out to me that the saying probably was "bright minds think alike". That's very probable. I've only heard it once so it might have been that person's own version. However, I'm going to keep the title anyway.
About surfactants; what I write about them is true (at least according to my former chemistry teacher), but I have absolutely no idea whether or not it's possible to find them in soap roots. Conclusion: surfactants exist and are good for removing grease, but the herb combination is completely made up and I can not recommend testing it when you do the dished at home.
Bright Minds Think the Same
Chapter two – More experiments
Hermione went up the stairs to Gryffindor Tower where she deposited her heavy bag in the dormitory. With a sigh she said goodbye to Lavender Brown, who was busy rearranging her wardrobe, and left for the dungeons. When she reached the door of Snape's classroom she stopped. Nervously she tucked some of her bushy brown hair, which had managed to escape from the hair-slide, behind her ear. She knocked on the heavy wooden door and when she heard a stern "Enter!" she opened it. To her amazement the classroom looked exactly as it had when she'd left an hour ago. Normally the Potions master kept everything in perfect order, alphabetically sorted by their Latin names as she had realised when stealing ingredients for the Polyjuice Potion she, Harry and Ron had made in their second year. Today, however, he was still seated by his desk and she couldn't help wondering if he had been in the Great Hall for dinner at all. His voice called back her attention.
"Since you showed such an enthusiasm for the task of cleaning cauldrons, Miss Granger, I thought that you wouldn't mind putting the classroom in order as well. Hand me your wand and you can start immediately, and by the way, I have papers to correct so I would appreciate if you carried out your work in silence." Well, so much for his strange behaviour. The reason as to why he hadn't taken away the ingredients and the cauldrons was simply that he wanted her to be even further punished and with this conclusion forming in her mind she put her wand on his desk and started to collect the ingredients that came from the students' cupboard.
The room was horribly silent. All that was heard was the scratching noise of his quill as he wrote comments on the assignments, comments that Hermione without any doubt thought were both rude and unfair. Occasionally some of the bottles or jars she carried clinked together, but this task was soon carried out and she changed her attention towards the cauldrons. Without looking up, Snape told her that there were cleanser and a brush under the stone sink and she started scrubbing. She soon found out that, as the professor had predicted, no one had managed to make the permanent sticking brew correctly, but most of them had indeed managed sticking brews of different levels of strength.
At nine o'clock Hermione had finished little more than a third of the cauldrons and during this time she had mentally cursed her teacher, whishing that she never had helped Neville, which would have granted her one easy cauldron, and that the brews would simply disappear, but neither helped her carry out her awful job and she thought that when she was done she would never want to see another cauldron again.
However, after another hour her logical mind had beaten her feelings, in truth it had been working all along, and she started to consider possible ways of making her task easier. She knew quite a few spells which would have taken care of the matter in a few seconds, but that was obviously out of the question. Instead she started to consider different "chemical" ways of dealing with the problem. A quick look at the cleanser told her that the Wizarding World didn't know about surfactants, small particles which were great at least when it came to getting rid of grease and they had used some lard in the potion. Perhaps she could use soap root. She also thought that mint, with its strength, might be good against the sticky potion. While scrubbing madly at Malfoy's cauldron she put the two ingredients together in her mind and when she came to the conclusion that they wouldn't counterwork each other and that it would be perfectly safe, she suddenly felt a need to try her idea.
Meanwhile Severus Snape continued to correct papers, but he somehow felt like his thoughts had come in contact with the sticking brew. They were very reluctant to focus on the papers about Mandrakes; in fact he felt very disturbed by the presence of the young woman. She didn't say a word and worked as hard as ever in class, but her presence still made it impossible for him to focus on his task. He kept repeating the scene during the lesson in his mind and every time he did his fists became white as he clenched them in anger. Why had he let her talk for so long? He should have thrown her out of the room. She had been obstinate and rather rude, yet her arguments had been sharp and she definitely knew what she was talking about. A voice broke his line of thoughts.
"Professor, would you possibly allow me to use soap root and mint on the cauldrons?" Hermione was chocked by her own courage, but she wanted to know and she knew that this was her only chance given that it would be impossible for her to make the potion on her own since you couldn't buy Basilisk scales and by the way, she wouldn't fail like her classmates had.
"I most generously gave you cleanser. Do not push your luck, Miss Granger. And I thought I told you that this room should remain silent." his voice was stone cold.
"Yes Sir, but it isn't working very well and I know I'm not supposed to use magic, but mixing two different herbs is no more magic than the cleanser is and to be honest both are actually as much Muggle chemistry as magic." She had thought it before, but now she was sure she had pushed her luck too far. She could almost hear it scream as it fell of the cliff.
"Your statement that you are not supposed to use magic is most correct and to be -hm- honest, was that your word, the cleanser is a magical one and so are mixing herbs, which you should be aware of after studying Potions for more than six years. I'm afraid little Miss Know-it-all has another detention on Monday. Go back to your work or you might as well stay here until then." His voice was still cold, but not quite as stern as before. Reluctantly, the Potions master in Snape had woken. He would never had thought of this combination and as Hermione had done earlier he put the two ingredients together in his head and as she had done he came to the conclusion that the mix was safe and that it would work. Well, you could never be entirely sure until it was tested, but he would have bet quite a lot that the mixture would clean the cauldrons easily. He looked up from the parchment he'd been staring at and saw that the girl had returned to her tedious job.
"Miss Granger, you can leave one cauldron and I will test this idea of yours when you have left." He said the words unwillingly, but he had to know and he would never fail with the potion like his students had, meaning this was his only chance for a year to test it.
"Actually," Hermione said while she imagined explaining to Harry and Ron how she'd lost a hundred and fifty points in a detention, "I wonder if you would let me stay and see the result, I'll even make the mixture if you want me to, but I just have to know if it works."
"I thought that you were done experimenting after today's lesson, Miss Granger. You have just secured a detention every night next week." he said in a voice Hermione thought extremely cruel. "However, I will let you stay, if nothing else to learn you how to experiment without risking people's necks." he continued in the same voice, but now Hermione thought it much warmer and nicer, even though it still had a sharp edge.
Two and a half hours later, at half past twelve, Hermione had finally cleaned every single cauldron except for one. She rose from her crouched position in front of the sink, stretching her arms first high then wide. She took of the slide from her hair and held it between her lips while she brushed through her wild curls with her fingers.
"Am I to take these athletic outbursts as you have finally completed your task?" a deep voice asked in a way that almost, but just almost, sounded amused. Hermione took the hair-slide from her mouth at once and quickly put the hair around her face to the back of her head and fastened the slide.
"I'm sorry I disturbed you, Professor," she said, "but yes, I've cleaned the cauldrons." Snape approached her and for a brief moment she wondered why before he turned slightly towards the cauldrons. He inspected them carefully and turned away without a word, a gesture Hermione had learnt meant that he couldn't find anything to complain about.
"I want you to collect the silver cauldron from my private cupboard and the jars with soap root and mint from that of the students. Bring along a mortar as well." he commanded in a harsh voice while causing the now clean cauldrons to place themselves on a shelf along one wall. Hermione did what she was told and when she returned the teacher noticed that she had been careful not to put anything in the cauldron, something that many wizards did and which according to Snape was completely foolish since things on the outside of the jars might get landed in it and then destroy the potion. However, this was not something he normally told his students since they never fetched their cauldrons at the same time as the ingredients.
"Do you really think that the mixture will be affected by the iron from a normal cauldron?" she asked as she placed the silver one on a stand.
"I doubt it since the ingredients will work in a way that won't affect metal. Have you ever heard about surfactants?" he said and she nodded with mild surprise. "But on the other hand you can never be too careful while dealing with unknown solutions, the first lesson when it comes to safe experimenting." He gave her some dried mint and told her to powder it in the mortar while he started to cut the soap root half way through then squeezed it to produce white foam. They worked in silence for a while.
"The second lesson, Miss Granger, is that you should always add the strongest ingredient to the weaker. This way you can stop adding it when you have got the result you wanted and you do not have to worry about unwanted, strong reactions which you might get if the proportions are wrong and the stronger one is in control. Now, which one should I add to the other?"
Hermione spoke her thoughts aloud. "When used on the sticking brew the soap root will be the stronger part, but when added, the mint will cause the strongest reaction." As she spoke her professor nodded slightly and did what she had said. The potion fizzed, but settled again and Snape took some of it on a cloth and started to rub the inside of the one cauldron that still held remains of the lesson earlier that day. It loosened from the cauldron very easily and he gave Hermione the cloth and a minute later she put the cauldron in the sink and rinsed away the remains of the two potions.
"The third lesson, Miss Granger, is never to let your skin get in contact with an unknown solution. The fourth, however, is that when you have an idea and you have a feeling for potions, try it and do not let anyone stop you." He gave her a small smile, if you could call the miniscule twist of his lips he made that, and bid her goodnight.
Although it was over one o'clock Hermione didn't feel tiered at all, in fact she felt a rather inappropriate alertness. With a most content feeling in her stomach, she walked up the stairs towards Gryffindor tower, carefully scanning the corners for Mrs Norris. Her idea had worked. The soap root and the mint had taken care of the sticking brews easily. Well, at least she had taken away one punishment from the Terror of Hogwarts, she thought as she reached the portrait of the Fat Lady. "Sacrus", she told the painting and it flung forward letting her in. She noticed without surprise and without breaking her line of thoughts, that the common room was empty. The thought about the Potions master made her remember the events of the evening. At first he had been as unpleasant as ever, but when she had collected all of her courage and asked him about the mixture she wanted to try, he somehow seemed to have changed his attitude, if ever so slightly. He had actually instructed her on experimentation and if she wasn't completely wrong he'd actually acknowledged her by telling her that people with a feeling for potions should carry out their ideas and she couldn't help but thinking that he somehow had included her in that group of people. A most unexpected tickling sensation flooded through her body when she thought of the two of them working so close side by side that their arms occasionally had come in contact and when she thought about the weak attempt of a smile he'd given her, the tickling sensation returned. She shook her head. The only reason she felt this way was because she was so happy that her mixture had worked and because she was up in the middle of the night when her body really demanded sleep. She left the common room and went up the stairs to the dormitory where she fell asleep the moment her head touched the pillow.
Snape put the ingredients they'd just used in their cupboards and uttered the word "Nox!" as he waved his wand to turn out the torches on the walls. That had been one of the best detentions he'd ever given a student. Little Miss Know-it-all had suffered a most severe reprimand and hopefully she would think at least thrice before she tried to disturb his classes again, but somehow he doubted it. Nothing seemed to pacify that girl. During the six years he had taught her, she had never stopped asking questions or spend what he could only assume must be several days just finding information for the essays he sat them. Already in her first year he had realised that she had good prerequisites of becoming a Potions mistress, but that was something he had only known in his subconscious. He would never admit to anyone, not even himself, that a student actually did well in his lessons. He dropped the subject of Miss Granger and thought about the concoction he, well they, back to Miss Granger again then, had tried at the end of the detention. Snape reached his private rooms and when he'd pulled out a grey nightshirt he started to unbutton his robes. He thought about the ingredients and whether or not they might be useful on other potions as well, but as he pulled the nightshirt over his head something disturbed his track of thoughts. In front of his eyes he could see her face. Her eyes shone with excitement and eager interest when he told her she was allowed to remain in the room to try her idea and then her face changed slightly as she realised that the potion worked and she knitted her brows, clearly thinking about other uses of the mixture. He placed himself under the cover and closed his eyes, but he wasn't tiered and he couldn't fall asleep. Instead he saw, like had he been watching a movie, how he and the young woman worked side by side. He shook his head. He knew that he only thought about this because the potion had interested him, making his mind focus on everything connected to it and because it was the middle of the night and his body really demanded sleep. Again he closed his eyes and this time he fell asleep.