In which Severus Snape discovers George and Fred Weasley's innate talent at Potions.
Author's Note: AU in the year the Chamber of Secrets was open. No romance. I don't own Harry Potter.
Warnings: AU, Slight spoilers, Definitely Epilogue Non-Compliant, Bad Grammar.
Allies or Partners
One day in Hogwarts
"What do you think you two are doing?" was the sibilant hiss that made Fred and George Weasley freeze in mid stir. As one, they turned to look at the dark figure standing in the doorway of the abandoned girl's bathroom on the second floor. Professor Snape's glare was as potent across the tiled room as it would be if one was standing a mere foot away. His glare intensified when one boy elbowed the other, as if cueing him to sprinkle some pulverized powder into the simmering cauldron, causing the volatile liquid to sprout off large bubbles that popped black gas.
"…OWLs," was the non-intelligent reply from the left, who winced as he heard Moaning Myrtles wails from the third toilet stall.
"Because we adore your class, sir," the other said haltingly as he waved his wand frantically to cast an air circulation charm. Snape took a discreet sniff, not hazardous, and with a few strides, he was glaring at the concoction directly over the shoulders of the twins, who jumped at his sudden presence.
The man tsked, "Students are not allowed to brew alone…"
"We're not brewing!" The right one said indignantly.
"We're experimenting." The left spoke as if that made the difference between wrong and right. There was an awkward pause between the three of them as they contemplated how much worse the latter sentence was than the former. Professor Snape raised an eyebrow, dully unimpressed. The twins gulped: at times they were the most infamous pranksters of Hogwarts since the whispered legends of the Marauders, but at times, they would rather not be expelled from school. Merlin knows how hard Mum would tan their hides. With the petrification of a few students and the bloody writing from the so-called Heir of Slytherin (not to mention dear Ginny acting like a total sod at mornings and a cry-baby at nights) it was no surprised that everybody, especially staff were more jumpy than usual in an expel-first-ask-questions-later manner.
"Do you realize the mortal peril you both are in at this moment doing this without knowledge or supervision?" Snape muttered icily, waving his wand in a manner that mimicked Pomfrey's diagnostic charm, reading the runes and numbers that appeared a few feet above the cauldron. With another wave, the cauldron, its contents, and even the logs underneath the made the fire were vanished in the midst of dual cries and protest. "Fifty points from Gryffindor." The twins clicked their jaws shut sullenly.
At that moment, Moaning Myrtle decided that now would be the perfect time to throw a fit and have three toilets simultaneously explode in a spectacular, pungent fashion. The twins warily watched as the Potion Professor developed a tick at the corner of his jaw as they mentally communicated and thought up of tortures and detentions that Snape will make them live through. Maybe he'll string them up by their toes and leave them there. Maybe he's in with the Heir of Slytherin and turn them into stone. No wait, he has a wand, he can do that anyways.
"First of all," a quick flick of the wand, the twins were thrown back by an invisible force and unable to move any part of their body neck down. Being Gryffindors, they had the audacity to glare back with every fiber of defiance that they contain in their little fourth year bodies but Snape could tell that even they hesitated when he walked evenly towards the pair, "I need to know whether you are merely fools or also thieves."
"What?" They shouted in unison, personally insulted by the accusation. Snape maintained his expressionless face.
"Weasleys are honorable," the left one declared, struggling against his invisible binds.
"Weasleys are proud of their honest living," the right one continued.
"Weasleys never steal," they finished together.
"Are you sure?" Snape sneered as the two redheads bristled at the hinted insult, "Boomslang skin is not only a restricted commodity but also rather expensive. It has disappeared suddenly from my private stores and don't think that I do not keep an eye on the student cabinet, I've noticed somebody take the lacewing flies, Antimony, Sal Ammoniac, fluxweed and other ingredients known to make-"
"Polyjuice Potion?" the Gryffindors asked in tandem and in confusion.
"Why would somebody want to drink that horrid-" the right one said before his brother glared sharply at him. "I mean," the Weasley forced his voice to calm and tried to address the adult with courtesy that he usually didn't give out freely, "it's impractical, professor, because it works for only an hour and very easy to mess up." The Potions Professor listened for the tone and the wording of the twin's responses and rolled his eyes. They didn't steal from him that much was obvious, so the thief was still out there, unpunished within these walls. But there was this new worry that they had brewed Polyjuice sometime in the past. The Weasley seemed to have also come to this revelation and vainly sought for another mode of backtracking, "I mean: we were experimenting with different alternatives of Boomslang skin, sir."
Ah, out of the frying pan and into the fire. "You're not helping, brother," his companion muttered.
"The pit you are digging for yourselves grow by the second, boys," The professor smiled mockingly; his smile quickly faded as he pinched the bridge of his nose, "I'm not even going to attempt to ask you when you tried to brew that OWL level potion."
"Nicked a bit of ingredients from Mum's storage before first year," the left one said smugly, recalling the fond memory.
"Thought we might need it but they all went bad before we could use them. Didn't realize the shelf life," the other said sourly. Thank Circe, they would probably have taken to sneak around in the other House's commons or even worse, use a staff's hair for nefarious means. "Still, Mum never found out, it was a plus."
And the Prewett's blood still breeds true. Snape thought, staring critically at the two miscreants before him. Prewetts were known for magical twins and potions prowess, as many of their members went on in their lives to become Potion Masters of Mistresses. He stared hard at the twins till they started squirming uncomfortably in their spots. He idly formed an invisible barrier to prevent the toilet water from reaching them and cast a silencio at the toilet stall where that blasted whiny ghost was sniffling. There were many questions that begged to be answered that were swirling around his head, each demanding to be first. Finally, Snape settled on one, "experimenting with Boomslang alternatives?"
The responses switched from one twin to the other ever five or so words- it was one of the headaches one has to endure when dealing with magical twins. In the end, he managed to summarize it despite the repeated cut and paste report he received, "For prank ideas, you see, perhaps not an hour long transformation but a tad shorter. We got the idea when somebody began killing all the chickens and roosters outside, drove Kettleburn mad, that, and so we thought, what if we transformed people into chickens. There's this muggle expression of cowards and chickens, right? I guess that came from this thought that one squawks out of fright or something. Merlin, that would be bloody embarrassing and bloody funny. Ok, ok, not funny. Right. …Err, anyways, we realized that chickens don't work but canaries do!"
That would be reasonable- canaries were bred between some magical creatures by the monks in the seventeenth century and sold to muggles as charmed pets who then proceeded to abuse the privilege and use them as guinea pigs in the coal mines. Chickens, on the other hand, were an animal that held not a drop of magical blood between their entire populations. The Potion Master felt another migraine at the back of his head. The Weasleys were talking earnestly enough; Snape didn't think that a minor mental probe was needed nor Veritaserum though there was a small vial for emergencies in the inner pockets of his robes. They held the legendary Weasley characteristic: the love to tinker, that much was obvious.
"The product is still in the works, but we're hesitantly calling it… Canary Creams. It has a ring to it that would surely attract the customers. Guaranteed to turn the user into a giant canary for at least a minute and guaranteed to turn yellow. It was bloody hard to isolate the color, took us about two months but the results are wicked." The right one gushed with delight, "The only problem is that the user will tend to squawk at random times for the next week or so. We've been varying the speed of the stirs when we finally add the canary feathers, picked on the new moon mind you, instead of Boomslang."
And that was the perfect example of potential, untapped talent going to waste on frivolous gags to turn people into a giant, yellow avian… honestly. Snape waved his wand and the twins found that they could now move everything above their torso. Even though he had allowed more freedom of physical mobility, that doesn't mean that the interrogation was anywhere near finished. "That still doesn't explain that monstrosity that you were brewing minutes ago."
"We had the right safety equipment!" They protested.
"We didn't steal any ingredients, had to owl order them from Sluggers'."
"Delivery's expensive."
"Not to mention one of the biggest hassles."
"It's like this," the left one said patiently, "We needed to make a variant of knockout-drops but one that makes the user look like they were getting fevers and about to faint. Once you take a dose," he clapped his hands together, "into the Hospital Wing you go. We were," the Weasley cast a discreet look at the Professor, "going to extract the active ingredients and isolate the fumes to create an antidote."
"It looked to me like you were going to make biological warfare," The Slytherin Head of House snapped back.
"Fainting Fancies," Weasley replied with a hint of bravado, "We were going to call them Fainting Fancies. The Belladonna and crushed potato leaves would counteract each other if both are soaked in pure alcohol for five minutes, just like when one mixes Aconite and asparagus berries, Professor, on a full moon."
"Congratulations, you're knowledgeable enough to apply Gaunt's Fortieth Law to practical trial and error." Snape muttered. The twins were unsure whether he was being sarcastic or grudgingly impressed but took the words with a positive light, after all, they only had fifty points taken from their House; they had been expecting detention for possibly forever from Snape. Encouraged, the left Weasley continued to chat about their results.
"But we couldn't just grow Belladonna or Aconite in our backyard, Mum would blow a gasket. But we did grow Panthercaps and Fly Agaric in our pockets. Had to beg Charlie to do the spell, but it was worth it. We tried substituting some plants with fungi and found that you can get rid of the volatile effects of the fungi spores by mixing the pulverized fungi with equal amounts of Aloe Vera paste and Kneazle saliva which when incur…"
Professor Snape was now staring at the twins with an unreadable expression on his face. He would have to make the calculations and consult theory texts to confirm the truth in the twin's words but it sounds rather credible at this point. Kneazle saliva was known to become twice as potent in the presence of a plant based magic category group which Aloe Vera most certainly was a part of and can diminish fire-based, combustible characteristics on an intrinsic scale by pushing those specific properties out to protect the potency of the paste. ("…pletely wicked but not really what we wanted. So we put the fire on simmer and used bluebell flames since we know that their magical properties fuel the potion but give off no heat, right? But it went too well and we had to find a counteract for cinnamon which was impossi…") Fungi based potions were unpopular amongst the magical Britain though were making a comeback in America who's increased demand of European fungi was due to the extra muggle-chemistry curriculum they had placed for NEWT potion students. Most masters, however, were not inclined to suddenly learn alien topics such as multi-cyclic peptide structures of amatoxins and phallotoxins.
Temporarily ignoring the fact that the previously thought dunderheads were sprouting off topics that no fourth year should ever be able to grasp, his mind latched onto a revelation that made his entire body go numb.
He asked slowly and deliberately, "Do you taste your creations yourselves?" When the twins nodded, Snape suppressed the urge to groan. Years and years of repeated oaths to make sure that his students are safe from potion hazards and this has been going on under his nose. "How are you two still alive?"
"We knew we weren't going to die." The right one looked affronted; the left one crossed his arms trying to look intimidating. "The bartender at Hog's Head supplies us with a lot of bezoars. Bribe him with Aunt Muriel's old recipe of spicy Fire Whiskey. Bezoars can counteract any fungi-based poisons. It wasn't like we were boiling the potion and then adding essence of eel eye, right?" Snape felt the urge to wring their little necks for their brash attitudes towards their personal research. Boiling the potion and adding the eel eye would not only make the potion more concentrated but would triple the potency. Did the twins enjoy playing with their own life lines?
There was a prevailing silence between the three of them that reeked of awkwardness. The silence was as obvious as Parkinson's fake eyelashes, as Diggory's elevating social status, as the near explosions and close calls every time they brew, as the potion stains on Snape's hands and the potion grease and fumes that shine in his hair. The stains on the hands were inevitable for any brewer but the shine can only come from Masters who have been brewing mental potions, such as Wolfsbane, for an extended period of time. "Are you going," one began hesitantly and the other finished rushed, "to give us detention?"
The smile on Professor Snape's visage wasn't quite a smile as smiles should never be able to induce a panicked shiver in those who see them. "No." He said simply. The twins brightened up and their shoulders slackened; they couldn't believe their luck- rule breaking and potion analysis without supervision and they are basically getting off scot-free! "You two are going to become my apprentices."
Cue sound of a Ford Angelica crashing into the Whomping Willow.
The world tilted: the owls in the Owlery hooted in alarm. The Weasley twin's eyes widened to the size of Bludgers. "What? No way, we can't-."
"Yes you can. …And you will." Snape added as he waved his wand one last time, the redheads felt their invisible bonds completely dissipate and appreciated the unspoken chance the professor gave them to refuse and walk away. Yet they sat there and eyed him suspiciously.
"Why? There are other potion students at Hogwarts." They pointed out.
That was something Severus Snape had thought about and eventually came to a conclusion. While his NEWT students were certainly talented, the numbers hardly ever gone past the double digit mark. The majority were aspiring Healers or Aurors. Snape knew that there were students who didn't agree with his style of teaching: there were the ones who decided not to enter his NEWT classes and instead hired a tutor or did private study, but those students were less desirable to the Auror Academy or any magical hospital in Britain. The remainders of his NEWT students wanted to open or continue their family's apothecary business and were merely brewers; people who take instructions and recipes created by Potion Masters and Mistresses and create the potions to supply to the public. No one, it seemed, cared about the exact science that went with potion creation.
It's similar to those who were interested in advance magical theory and spell crafting, where history and mathematic equations combine to make the most absurd rules that seemly fit into charms, hexes, curses, and the likes. Unfortunately, every time there is a prodigy, everyone vied for him or her and the Potions Guild could rarely make a viable claim. Perhaps the last person who was just within the reaches of the Potions Guild but didn't quite make it was Lily Evans, but the Department of Mysteries snatched her up like it had been starving for centuries. Severus Snape was the last person to have obtained a Masters, a high ranking one at that. There were other prodigies out there though but they were quickly claimed by other interest groups. Bill Weasley was snatched up by the goblins, Helena Bones was snatched up by the Auror Black Ops, Lupin entered into a ten year servitude contract with Greyback (werewolf bonding rules of sire and childe), and Bellatrix Black was snatched up by the Dark Lord… The list could go on and on.
But the unclaimed twins before him… They weren't just twins, they were magical twins, two brains between them, two beings of the same mind, able to mentally communicate, magically powerful and magically talented. Fabian and Gideon Prewett were primary examples of twin magic, powerhouses in their own rights. It took five of the Dark Lord's inner circle and a well-timed ambush to down the pair. "Granted that you aren't immediately going to become apprentices, I demand at least a month long probationary period to gauge your skills." That was for mere courtesy, he didn't have any intention of letting them go, not if they insisted to work with no adult which would happen if he wasn't their master. At the very least, apprenticeship means no life threatening, dangerous, hazardous cauldron related accidents. (Severus tried to squash the memories of himself doing the exact same thing, brewing alone in an empty classroom with Lily occasionally accompanying him before the great fall out in fifth year.)
Also, it didn't seem to be likely that the Weasleys would suddenly lose their valuable insight in the span of a month. A little part of Snape still couldn't believe what he had heard. The infamous Weasley twins had sprouted theories that First Level Masters would have a hard time to conceptualize.
The twins blinked and cocked their heads to the right at the same angle, off centered by the surprised offer that is so uncharacteristic of the Greasy Vampire of Slytherin. Apprenticeship is an oath by both the master and the apprentice: one to care for and teach and the other to obey and learn that usually lasts anywhere from one year to one decade where the master agrees to teach the apprentice everything… everything. They were expected to ultimately become as good as or even better than their master.
The twins debated. The Yearly Potioneers magazine doesn't just wax poetic about the infamously enigmatic Hogwarts professor just for his hair. Everyone wanted to become Snape's apprentice but the man didn't want to teach anyone whom he hasn't taught as a firstie, which was reasonable: anybody who couldn't handle him in the school years would not be able to handle him as an adult. It takes years to grow accustomed to Snape's …quirks. Some might never become used to him.
Say somebody like Harry Potter. The twins had heard through Ronnikins of the disastrous first day of Potions. Ron had complained that the professor had just began isolating Harry with questions that no one had any idea what the answer was save Hermione the Bookworm and had humiliated him in front of the entire class. (There were definitely not going to be any NEWT students from that year, at least none from Gryffindor or Slytherin [Hermione was smart but there was a difference between understanding and rote memorization that cannot be compared].) What Ron and Harry didn't know was that all the questions concerning Draught of Living Death, Bezoars, and Aconite were in the introductory paragraph of their text book.
Writers of Yearly Potioneers often gushed over Severus Snape's precise cutting and revolutionary theories that he never ever publishes and Snape would've needed to beat off his fans with a stick if it wasn't for his acerbic personality. There were rumors that Draco Malfoy was going to become Snape's apprentice, godfather favoritisms and stuff, but those were apparently false.
Still… This would put a hitch on their future aspirations for the better or for the worse. Originally, they wanted to get OWLs in charms, transfiguration, and runes, DADA, Magical Creatures, and Astronomy and possibly splitting the workload in half, 3 OWLs each, but that plan seemed to have gone moot. "We like pranks. We will keep pranking even if you try to stop us." They set out bluntly before the professor and waited for his reaction. Yes, the twins adored creating and venturing out into that unknown, obscure field of potions but first and foremost, their priority is setting up a Joke Shop and selling fun and happiness, possibly bringing in some galleons for the family and not making Mum ashamed of them.
Snape closed his eyes and took deep breaths. Two prodigies, magical twins, were sitting before him, unnoticed by the world because of their childlike mentalities. "We will write the contract between us and your parents and make compromises then." He leaned in, "There is no way I'm letting you waste your entire intellect on something so trivial as little jokes and high jinks. I've waited for more than a decade for an apprentice and there is no way I'm letting this be thrown out the window simply because you want emulate Zonko's." The twins gave him a very strange look and rolled over his response in their heads.
Apprenticeships mean that the master will care and provide for his students in every way and since Ginny just entered Hogwarts, that would make it easier for the family in terms of financial stability… (Ronnikins cannot know. Ever.) Snape would also be teaching them Defense Against the Dark Arts and well as Potions. He was currently the number one most demanded Potion Master in the western hemisphere, the magic school in Russia kept stealing him over the summer for seminars and speeches, according to Yearly Potioneers. He seemed rather adamant for them to learn under his tutelage. Overall, it didn't seem like a bad idea. McGonagall would skin Snape alive if he dares to take them off the Quidditch team- so no worries on that front. There was that probationary period… Snape would be a hard taskmaster but they were never really scared of him, intimidated as hell but not terrified like Longbottom. Snape would probably be strict about grades but they could deal. They would need to look at the contract carefully.
It would provide a solid ground, knowledge that most would give their first born for; it was a chance into the unknown that could either give them a brighter future than they could ever hope for or blow up in their faces. Gryffindors were known for charging headlong into things.
Fred and George Weasley exchanged glances and shrugged, this might work. Why not?
To Be Continued
Author's Note: That's how far the plot bunny went. What I planned in the future-
=== Snape treats the twins as one single entity and there would be lots of tension between them at first (bezoars become a running gag between them) but they will grow to respect each other.
=== The twins still get Harry Potter's Triwizard winnings to Snape's horror and use it to buy safety equipment and a piece of land in Vertical Alley for a future home/store.
=== The bond between Snape and the Weasleys made it so that they were unable to keep secrets from one another. Snape had to reveal his double-agent status and his love for Lily Potter.
=== The master-apprenticeship contract remains a secret till the Battle of Hogwarts and had revived him using a bezoar.
