A/N : Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed, the reviews really encourage me to keep writing. Hope you enjoy :D
Róisín shuffled her feet on the rough stone of the dungeon corridor. The breezy smell of asphodel lily along with a hint of musty wormwood floated under the crack of the potions classroom door. The smell told her that the sixth-years were attempting to brew a draught of living death. Her eyes darted across the wrinkly parchment in her hands as she waited anxiously for the sixth-year class to finish. The title, "Notable criminal cases of the past decade involving the use of potions in Great Britain" was scrawled with an inconsistent slant across the top of the parchment. She had written the essay in such a rush that even she couldn't interpret some of her squashed vowels. Was she sure it had been clause twenty-four and not forty-two of the Amortentia Act that led to the acquittal of Mr. Borgis Beasley? She bit her lip and tapped her foot. Should she have added that extra paragraph on the use of Felix Felicis for the England defeat of Wales in the quidditch quarter-final of 1870?
The sixth years swarmed out of the classroom, the smoky fumes from their brews spilling out the door with them. Róisín was glad to spot Ida's tall figure manoeuvring through the pack of younger students. She had no desire to be alone with Snape as they waited for her classmates to arrive.
"Hey, what cases did you include for your essay?" Róisín asked her.
Ida unrolled her immaculate white parchment printed with inhumanely neat handwriting. Róisín hurriedly attempted to smooth her own blotched, dog-eared essay with her hand.
"Well, the Faust and Beasley cases, the time in eighty-five when Veritaserum was slipped into the Ministry's water supply, the Kraus poison scandal and the rape case involving Polyjuice potion."
"Oh, I didn't include that one, I felt weird writing about it in an essay for Snape, maybe I should have." Róisín's picked at her nails nervously.
Ida looked taken aback at Róisín's nerves. For a Ravenclaw, Róisín was usually laid-back about homework, however after last night's meeting she suddenly cared a great deal about her potions essay and wished she had worked harder on it.
"You got an E on your last two essays, Róisín, it'll be fine," Ida said with a smile. "Is Anna awake yet?"
Róisín's heart gave a little guilty lurch.
"I popped in this morning but she was still asleep."
The classroom door flew open and banged against the wall. Róisín took a deep breath and followed her classmates inside.
Snape was sitting at his desk scowling as he examined the potion vials left by the previous class. Most of them contained an oily black liquid but a few were an unpleasant shade of green. The students took their seats in silence. Snape took a bottle out of a drawer and lifted it up for the class to see. He tilted it and the potion inside slid as if it were cool, liquified metal.
"What is this?" he asked without preamble.
"Ignis Immunitas, sir," Ida answered.
"Correct"
Snape rose and stood in front of his desk while undoing the buttons on his shirt cuff. He folded up his sleeve to reveal the pale skin of his right forearm.
"Miss Johnson, come here."
The Gryffindor flinched. Snape rolled his eyes.
"There is no need for the look of abject fear, Miss Johnson, I simply need a student with a steady hand."
The students shot each other curious looks as Angelina approached the potions master cautiously. Snape uncorked the bottle of the metallic potion and swallowed the contents.
"Light my arm on fire."
"Pardon, sir?" Angelina gasped.
"You heard me. Avoid my robes."
The Gryffindor hesitated. Snape raised his eyebrows.
"I-Incendio"
Hungry orange flames shot out of Angelina's wand and licked the potions master's bare forearm. Snape did not react. Róisín, who was sitting close by, could feel the heat from the fire on her face.
"Finite," Snape said. Angelina's flames disappeared.
The students stilled. The fire immunity potion was cool, but Róisín knew the reason for their unease was that Snape had ended Angelina's spell, even though she had been holding her wand and he was not touching his.
"Magically mature", Róisín's mind taunted her. She reddened as she thought of last night's meeting.
Angelina was staring at her wand as if it had betrayed her. Róisín's eyes lingered on Snape's forearm as he rolled his sleeve back down. It was weird to see his bare skin. She had never thought of him as human, and it dawned on her that he didn't sleep and bathe in his long black robes, that underneath he had skin just like everyone else.
"Sit down," Snape told Angelina and she retreated to her seat. He leaned against the desk behind him.
"What are the key ingredients in the Ignis Immunitas brew?" There was silence as his dark eyes inspected the class. Was it her imagination or did his gaze skip past her? Finally, Anthony Atkinson, a fellow Ravenclaw with round, thin glasses spoke up,
"Fire-crab claw, sir."
"A lucky guess, fire-crab claws can be used, but a more potent substitute would be?"
Marchand, a tall, dark-haired Slytherin with elegant features answered,
"Salamander blood, sir"
"Ten points to Slytherin." Another pause in which no one volunteered an answer. "Five points from the two houses whose students could not name a single ingredient."
"But there's no one from Hufflepuff in this class!" Angelina exclaimed. Snape ignored her.
"The other vital ingredients are crushed dragon scales and perpetual ice, both of which are rare and expensive." He glared at them as if it were their fault he had to waste precious resources on their education. "Therefore, get in teams of three or four. Six months before your NEWTS, I expect a perfect brew from each group."
Two and a half hours later Róisín's group, which included Ida and Angelina, were drenched in sweat, with their outer robes in a heap on the ground. Snape's black shadow prowled through the steamy fumes, seemingly immune to the heat from the fiery potions. Róisín and Angelina watched as Ida used a metal tongs to place a perpetual ice cube into the blistering red potion. The ice cube dissolved into snowflake shapes. The snowflakes divided again and again until they turned into glistening specks and disappeared. The potion cooled and turned a steely blue. Róisín sighed with relief.
Suddenly, the dungeon air cleared and Róisín could again make out the other groups of students.
"Two students from each group will come forward with a vial of their potion," Snape instructed.
Róisín and Angelina approached Snape's desk with the other pairs of students. Anthony, the Ravenclaw, made to place his group's vial in the basket on the desk.
"Drink it," Snape instructed. Anthony stilled. He glanced at his potions partner, a very dark-skinned Slytherin girl called Naishiye.
"Sir?"
"Drink. It," Snape repeated, each syllable clear and sharp. Anthony hesitated for just a second before gulping down the grey liquid with a suppressed grimace.
"Miss Kiserian, incendio Atkinson's arm." Naishiye's almond-shaped eyes rounded with disbelief.
"Is that a refusal?" Snape asked, his voice dangerously low, "in that case your group will receive zero and will write a five-foot essay on the importance of precision in potioneering."
Naishiye looked at Anthony uncertainly.
"I would not ponder your decision, Miss Kiserian, the potion grows less effective every second."
Anthony gave her a tiny nod. He held out his arm, his shirt sleeves already rolled up because of the heat. Naishiye said the incantation and fire spurted from her wand onto Anthony's skin. His sharp inhale through his teeth indicated that it was not entirely painless, but his skin was seemingly unharmed.
"Enough," Snape said after a second. Naishiye extinguished the flame. The skin on Anthony's arm was tinged pink as if he'd gotten mildly sunburnt. Snape glanced at his arm.
"Acceptable," he said without emotion.
Róisín saw Anthony wince when his arm brushed past another student as he returned to his seat. Herself and Angelina were next. Angelina had unstopped their vial and was about to drink the contents as Snape made a note on a piece of parchment.
"No don't!" Róisín whispered urgently, "let me drink it."
"I can handle it," Angelina replied stubbornly before swallowing the potion. Ugh, Gryffindors, Róisín inwardly groaned.
"Dunno if that was a good idea Johnson, you don't want to end up splattered on the wall like her bestie." Róisín froze. It felt like an ice cube had been slipped down her back. She looked around and saw the owner of the voice, Marcus Buckley, a small, thin Slytherin, sniggering with Marchand.
"Fuck off," Angelina spat at them beneath her breath.
Snape looked up from his desk,
"Five points for language, Miss Johnson."
His eyes flickered between the four of them and Róisín noticed that he paused for a heartbeat, as if unsure of his next move.
"Feral, sit down and tell Evrard to come up." His voice was low as if he didn't want the other students to hear. Buckley and Marchand smirked at her as she went to get Ida.
Their potion was very effective, Angelina told them that the flames felt like warm air from a hair dryer and her skin remained chocolate brown and unblemished. Ida said she'd seen Snape mark an E grade beside their names. The two girls didn't comment on how Snape had made Ida perform the Incendio spell instead of Róisín, for which Róisín was grateful. She tried to push to the back of her mind the fact that she hadn't trusted herself to do such a simple spell, and neither had Snape.
Four more groups tested their potions and then, the last pair of students, Lee Jordan and another Gryffindor, stepped forward. Snape held out his hand for their vial before Lee had a chance to unstop it. The potions master held the vial in front of him so that the light from a candle illuminated the dull grey potion.
"Which species of iguana skin did the instructions say to use Mister Jordan?"
"Er… there's more than one species?" Lee replied.
"You have used green iguana and not desert iguana skin," Snape explained. "Green iguanas live in the tropics and therefore their skin offers less protection against heat. Although I am inclined to allow you to test the potion to see the effect of your blunder I do not wish to incur the matron's wrath." He stopped and scrawled something in his leger as Lee and his partner made to return to their seats. "An essay on commonly confused reptile species and the possible consequences of such mistakes from each member of your group will be on my desk Monday morning," Snape added.
The students left their essays about criminal cases of potion use on Snape's desk before leaving the classroom. As Róisín placed hers on top of the pile she noticed how crumbled it appeared next to its rivals. She brushed her hand on top of her essay and felt her skin tingle with magic as the creases smoothed to make the paper perfectly straight with razor sharp edges. When she lifted her hand however, she saw with dismay that she had distorted her writing, it was now so slanted as to be illegible. Stop using wandless magic! she scolded herself. She glanced at Snape hoping he had not seen, but he had been watching her. She stood still, her heart fluttering as she waited for him to snap at her. But he didn't. He simply reached across the table, took her essay and placed it underneath the pile before the students chatting behind Róisín noticed. Róisín opened her mouth to apologise but stopped when he gave his head a minute shake.
He doesn't want anyone to realise there's something wrong with me, Róisín thought as she slipped out of the classroom. She joined Ida who had been waiting for her in the corridor. As they scurried from the bowels of the castle up towards the Great Hall for lunch, Róisín wondered if she would be given the usual punishment, detention, for not handing in a legible essay. I suppose I could ask him in the meeting with Dumbledore later today, she thought, huffing as she clambered up the last steps into the Entrance Hall, the fragrant smell of roast vegetables greeting her.