Ron realized he had put his foot into it the moment Hermione's eyes went dark. The cheerfulness in her face was replaced by something that seemed to fill her eyes and slide across her face, and then her entire demeanor shifted.
"Excuse me, my friends, but I need to prepare a batch of potions so we can continue working on the west wing today," she said flatly. Her voice held no warmth. "I will see you all later at the construction site." She tilted her head and bowed it to Minerva, turned on her heels, and walked out of the Great Hall, her robe moving behind her like a flag in the wind.
"What did you say to her, Ron?" Hagrid asked with his eyebrows furrowed.
Ron held up his arms in a shrug. "I just said we should go camping one of these days like we used to."
Severus sipped the tea he was holding, his dark unwavering eyes smoldered within his stoic expression.
Hermione had five cauldrons going at once. She eyed them as her mind slowly counted the time even as she cleaned the silver knife she was using and the cutting board. Stirring one, then another, stirring another counter-clockwise, and dropping a leaf into another, her mind told her which one to stir and which one to wait upon.
The color changed on one, and she lifted it off the fire, letting it cool as the dark emerald color turned clear. Another began to change color, and she did the same, placing a pinch of ground root as it cooled and waved her wand over it. The other cauldron burbled and she cooled it slowly with her wand until it settled into a pale blue liquid. The other two cauldrons would have to wait, and she whispered the charm over each cauldron to place the timer over them. Pointing her wand at a nearby stool, she turned it into an easy chair and flopped into with sigh, grasping the bridge of her nose as she slumped into the chair. Her mind attempted to wrestle with her about what it refused to let go of.
A pale hand moved in front of her, dangling a small potion. She eyed its crystalline bottle and the sapphire blue liquid inside. "Drink it," Severus said softly. "You will feel better."
She opened the bottle and sniffed it. It didn't smell like anything she had taken before. She looked up into Snape's dark eyes and then quaffed the potion quickly in case it was foul tasting. She swallowed the last of it with a squint and held her hand back up, offering him back his bottle. He took the bottle from her hand, his fingers lightly brushing against hers before he turned and walked towards her simmering cauldrons.
Hermione closed her eyes a moment as her head began to clear. Thoughts that refused to dissipate only a few minutes earlier, were retreating back into the corners of her mind she normally shoved them. She felt herself relax, and the encroaching fury that was threatening to consume her faded.
Inhaling deeply she stood up, waved her wand to restore the lab stool, and walked over to the cauldrons. Severus had already bottled the potions he had completed for her. His hand flicked outward as a dozen or more written labels flew onto the various bottles written in his elegant script.
She approached him from behind, brushing her shoe against the stone floor in the customary and courteous hi-I'm-here-please-don't-blow-up-a-cauldron-on-my-account shuffle. It came instinctively after working in the same laboratory with Severus. Even if he knew you were already there, it was like knocking.
Severus had already removed her cooking potions off the flames and had bottles set out for filling. He handed her a ladle silently as he wrote the rest of the labels with his practiced quill. She carefully measured doses into the waiting bottles, put a stopper onto each one, and cleaned the cauldron and the ladle with a flick of her wand. A flurry of more labels flew by her, wrapping themselves around the potions with a gesture from Severus' hand.
"Sometimes I think we waste our time labeling them," Hermione said with a small chuckle. "It's not like most of the people out there today are going to read it before they drink it. They will just take our word for it."
"Their funeral," Severus droned, his voice rumbling. "Their laziness will ultimately give them reason to be more careful in the future… if they survive their mistakes."
Hermione smirked as Severus turned around, flicking his wand to vanish the remnants of the cauldron remains and sent all of the bottles they had filled and labeled into a crate. He tucked his wand back into his robe and shook his head.
"Maybe they just have faith in their Potion Master, Professor Snape," Hermione said in return as she watched him pick up the crate into his left arm.
He regarded her with slight upward tilt of his chin and lifted his arm for her to attend. She stepped into his space until his arm folded around her, bringing her close to him as the CRACK of their disapparation filled the laboratory.