Chapter 11: Love Potion No. 9
The weeks until Christmas holiday flew by, though Sasha suspected this was because she spent all her time doing schoolwork and studying for end-of-term tests. Since it was N.E.W.Ts year, the teachers were all working the seventh-years incredibly hard. Sleep was a thing of the past for most of the seventh-years, and there was something comforting in seeing her classmates sporting the same dark circles and weary expressions that she did.
Fortunately, several students dedicated themselves to finding the best ways to make studying reasonably enjoyable. Several Hogsmeade study sessions were arranged, in which they basically took over the Three Broomsticks, shoved all the tables together and worked for hours over mugs of hot butterbeer. Twice, groups of students stole to the kitchens at night and were feasted by house-elves as they worked.
The best one by far, as far as Sasha was concerned, was when Clive O'Malley, one of the current school tricksters, got a Slytherin prefect drunk and weaseled the password for one of the prefect bathrooms out of him. Over the next several days, a group of people, made up of O'Malley's friends and the people with the highest scores in each subject, was invited to a midnight party in said bathroom the week before finals. Jas and Sasha had been invited, Jas for Transfiguration and Sasha for Potions. Disillusioned, they had snuck to the bathroom, given the password, ("bubbles") and entered to find a party in full swing. They spent the next four hours swimming, socializing, and occasionally studying, until Moaning Myrtle ratted them out to Filch because a tipsy Hufflepuff suggested a soap that would work wonders on her skin. The entire gathering had dispelled and fled back to their common rooms. Only a few people were caught by the cantankerous caretaker, and they staunchly refused to give up names.
Bless their Gryffindor hearts, Sasha thought. Of course, it hadn't hurt that they had been quite drunk and probably couldn't have remembered everyone there if they wanted to.
All in all, it hadn't been a bad month, but Sasha was very happy that the Christmas break was starting.
On the first day, she woke to an empty dorm room; it was one of those years where the school was abandoned, and as far as she knew, she was the only Ravenclaw around. A glance out the window showed her the school grounds covered in a blanket of thick snow. Sasha smiled; she loved snow. Cracking her knuckles and neck, she swung her legs out of bed, wincing at the cold flagstones of the dorm, and got up. After going to the bathroom and yanking the tangles out of her hair, she returned to the dorm to get dressed. A pair of jeans, a light green long-sleeved shirt, and fuzzy sheepskin boots made up her outfit that day, and for warmth, she selected an oversized Beatles hooded jumper, smiling at the bright yellow submarine emblazoned on the front. It had long been a goal of hers to bring Muggle music to the wizarding world, one way or another; the only problem was figuring out how to play it for people when no electronics worked at Hogwarts. For now, she would simply explain to anyone who asked about her jumper.
Ambling along the corridors to the Great Hall, Sasha noticed that there was tinsel hanging off some of the paintings, and that many of the inhabitants were either celebrating the Yuletide or looking at the décor with expressions that radiated "Bah, humbug!" She was toasted by several parties, all of whom looked to be deep into a keg of some beverage or other. A wave and a cheerful, "Good morning to you, too!" usually contented them, though one group of nuns tried to get her to join in a carol with them. By the time Sasha reached the doors of the Great Hall, she was smiling and feeling full of holiday spirits, though Christmas was a week away.
"Good morning, Sasha."
She looked around to see Professor Lupin approaching from the opposite direction, wearing his usual shabby robes and looking cheerful, if tired.
"Good morning, sir," she replied, stopping in front of the doors to allow him to reach her. "Happy to be on holiday?"
"Yes, even though I'm spending the first few days grading final exams," he said with a wry smile that erased some of the lines on his face for a moment, making him look closer to his true age than he usually did.
"If it'll make your life easier, sir, just go ahead and give me an 'O' on mine," she suggested with a mock-helpful expression on her face. He chuckled and opened the door, ushering her in.
Sasha raised her eyebrows when she looked at the Great Hall. All the long House tables were pushed to the sides, and a large round one was set up in the center of the hall. In the chairs around it sat the people who were staying at Hogwarts, which was made up mostly of staff, and about five students, including Sasha. There were two empty chairs, one on the left side, between Headmistress McGonagall and Professor Sinistra, and another on the other side, between Snape and a very unhappy-looking Hufflepuff second year, who was leaning slightly away from the dark Potions teacher as though he might explode. If Sasha knew anything about that man, it was that he was probably enjoying this to the hilt. As she watched, he turned to the student and said something so softly that Sasha couldn't hear it, but it made the kid go pale. Slowly he reached out and grasped the sugar bowl and held it out to Snape, and Sasha could see his hand trembling; he flinched when the professor reached towards the bowl and took it from his hand, never taking his black eyes off the student's wide blue ones. Without a word he turned back to his breakfast, and so did not see the boy slump in his chair, looking like he had been stared at by a dragon that had decided not to eat him yet.
Sasha suppressed a smile at the professor's games, and decided to put the poor child out of his misery for a time. Nodding to Lupin, she set off around the table and slid into the empty seat next to Snape, who glanced at her before returning his gaze to his plate. He had been like that since the incident in the hallway with Decoste: never looking her in the eyes, saying even less to her than he had previously, and giving her tasks that seemed to require the minimum of instructions. In class, he had barely looked at any of her potions, but her essays had been critiqued and graded with even more brutality than before. It was as though she had done something to offend or upset him, but she had no idea what it could be. Still, she decided to try talking to him during the break, outside of the context of academia, and see what happened.
Before she could do that, coffee was required.
"Good morning, Professor," she said cordially, turning to him and looking up slightly with a small smile on her face. "Could I trouble you for the coffee?"
Severus had been having a reasonably enjoyable morning. Since all of his tests were practical and performed in-class, he had no tests to grade nor essays to review, and he had spent the past ten minutes terrorizing a young Hufflepuff who had the misfortune to sit near him. The look on the boy's face when he had asked for the sugar probably would have been the same had Severus asked for the boy's head on a platter.
Then he had glanced up and seen Sasha standing at the doors with the werewolf, and his good mood had vanished. Well, not entirely. He had discovered in recent weeks that he was often pleased to see the young woman, and that fact was more than enough to make him unhappy. There was no particular reason for him to be happy to see her, and so it was perplexing and irritating that he did. He had avoided contact with her as much as possible both in and out of class and took out his frustration on her essays; it was a somewhat indirect form of revenge, but satisfying nonetheless.
And after all that work to stay away from whatever three-foot wide aura of attractiveness that she exuded, she had the sheer nerve to sit next to him and ask for coffee.
Without so much as a glance in her direction, Severus reached one long arm across the table and seized the coffeepot. He perfunctorily thunked it down in front of her, and did not even grunt in response to her, "Thank you, sir." Swiftly, he inhaled the rest of his sausage and toast, stood, and swept out of the hall and back down to the dungeons. A few fronds of tinsel and mistletoe met a fiery end as he stormed down the corridors, and any painted characters who acted a little too jolly for his mood received snarled epithets.
Still irritated, Severus wrenched open the door to his quarters and slammed it shut behind him. He leaned against it, breathing deeply through flared nostrils as he surveyed his sitting room, letting his eyes wander freely.
It was not particularly large; he was not a man who required a lot of space to live in. A fireplace was set in the left wall, framed by a layer of green marble, with a matching hearth; matching armchairs and sofa, all in worn black leather, were placed in a semicircle around it, with two small wooden tables between them. The remainder of that wall, and the one opposite it, was bookshelves, except for the doors leading to his bedroom and private lab. Tomes of every subject filled those shelves, the result of twenty-five years of searching and collecting, not to mention a generous portion of Severus' income. No silly knickknacks cluttered those shelves – he abhorred the sort of stupid objects other people filled shelves with, and he wanted nothing in his way when he was searching for a particular book.
Heaving a sigh, Severus moved away from the door and across the floor to the door that led to his private labs. As he walked, he reached into the pocket of his robes and withdrew a folded piece of parchment, which he unfolded and reread for the tenth time, still wondering about what it said.
It was from none other than Messrs. F. and G. Weasley, Proprietors of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. He had choked on his tea when he had seen those names. Once he stopped coughing and wiped his watering eyes, Severus read the letter.
The red-haired wastrels were apparently preparing their joke shop for the holiday season, and for reasons unknown, their previous Amortentia supplier had disappeared. Their insane minds had decided that Severus would be the ideal replacement, and they had written him to request that he make twenty gallons of the love potion. He had considered writing them an extremely nasty (and possibly explosive) letter in response until he saw how much they were paying per gallon. After some quick multiplication, he decided that four hundred galleons would be a very nice holiday bonus, and he had written them a civil letter telling them when the potion would be ready.
Now seemed like a good time to make it; brewing always soothed him. He slipped into his lab, forcibly shutting out the memory of that girl sitting on that stool while he worked to save her vision. Quickly, he unbuttoned his trademark billowing robes, and hung them on a hook. Under them, he wore a black undershirt and trousers; he preferred that outfit for brewing, since it eliminated the problem of his sleeves dragging in the potion. That done, he turned to a seemingly empty part of the wall, and said "Maestrato."
Immediately, a woman's soprano voice sounded, backed by an orchestra. Severus winced at the voice – it struck too close to his problem – and hastily intoned, "Adonc." The music switched to classical, with no vocals of any kind, and a knot in his shoulders relaxed slightly. Calm now, he set to work.
Three hours later, he was hungry, tired, and confused. One of the scents emitting from the potion was the same as whatever Sasha wore, but its name continued to elude him. More mystifying than that was the fact that it was coming out of the potion at all, and though Severus knew very well what that meant, he was determined not to draw conclusions until he had thought about it for a while. To that effect, he seized a thick black jumper and his winter cloak and went out to watch snow melt.
There was a bench under an elm tree overlooking the lake that he preferred at times when he needed to think something over, and he made his way there. One black glare was all it took to convince two first years to take their snowball fight somewhere else, and soon Severus was alone with his thoughts. He sighed, the vista before him becoming momentarily clouded over by his breath freezing, but it soon cleared, revealing the lake and the distant snow-capped mountains. He stared out, not really seeing them as his mind whirled. He was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he didn't hear the warning crunch of snow under boots, and he started when he was addressed; when he recognized the low, throaty voice, he suppressed a groan.
"Hello, Professor. I hope I'm not disturbing you."
Disturbing me, Sasha? Most definitely, Severus thought.
He forced himself not to look at her as he curtly replied, "Good afternoon, Miss Cupris." Hopefully, his chilly tone and refusal to meet her gaze would drive her away; they had that effect on most of the world.
So it was an enormous shock to Severus when he felt her slide onto the bench beside him. She left about a foot between them, but he could feel the warmth of her body, and out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed her face in profile, bordered by her golden hair. To his immense relief, she was wearing no perfume that day, so there was no scent to tease and tantalize his nostrils on top of everything else.
They sat for a time, neither one of them saying a word. Severus risked a look at her, turning his head slightly. Unfortunately, she picked the same moment to risk a glance at him, and he found himself staring into a world of green. She looked away first, and reached inside her cloak, fumbling for something. A small smile appeared on her face, and she pulled out a red, leathery-looking fruit, which she began to divest of its peel with practiced ease. Severus watched, interested despite himself, as she ripped out bits of the skin with her nails; the snow beside her was soon peppered with bits of it. As she worked, the inside of the fruit was revealed – a cornucopia of small red jewels, glistening like drops of blood. It was beautiful.
Sasha looked up and saw him watching her work. She smiled again, and said, "Pomegranate, sir." Short fingers carefully eased out several of the seeds, and they lay in her palm like rubies before she tossed them into her mouth. Her jaw worked briefly as she chewed, then swallowed. She paused again, regarding the fruit for a moment, then shook her head slightly, causing her hair to shimmer.
"I'm being rude," she stated, wryly. Her eyes met his again, and one eyebrow quirked up. "Would you like some, sir?"
It actually took Severus several seconds to process that she, a student, had just offered him fruit. Acts of generosity, especially from his pupils, were so rare that he wasn't quite sure how to respond to them. Fortunately, part of his brain was still functioning, and it forced his mouth into a blunt, "Thank you." Recovering from his shock, he reached out and took some of the seeds.
At least, he tried. They burst when he tried to pull them out, and his fingers were covered in sticky red juice. Scowling, he jerked his hand back, fumbling for his handkerchief before a thought struck him. He had acknowledged, at this point, his attraction to her. He might as well get some direct revenge on her for it. Abandoning his search through his pockets, he brought his sticky fingers to his lips and slowly, but daintily, licked them clean. The juice was tart, but sweet, and it smelled familiar; something he had smelled recently, very recently…
His head snapped around to stare at her, just in time to see her glance away form him, blushing. No doubt she had watched him clean his fingers with considerable interest, but he didn't care. He could name it now – pomegranate. Her perfume was pomegranate.
