"Do you accept, Professor?"
The Potions classroom was full of hushed whispers and a few loud complaints from some of the Slytherins as Anon stood defiantly in front of a very angry Snape.
"Very well, Suomy." He spat with an angry glare. "You have until class ends. Do use your time wisely, because these will be your last hours at this school. The rest of you, watch closely at this exercise in futility, and see what arrogance gets you. Begin."
Snape and Anon turned their backs to each other and set about their work. Anon ran over to the supply closet, and pulled out several flasks, phials, tubes, and instruments - some of which Merula had never seen or used before, and laid them out neatly next to his cauldron. Snape was already well on his way to brewing his potion, while Anon had only just begun filling his cauldron with water from the tap.
"...Do you really think he'll do it? Take away all of your house points?" Penny whispered to Lewis.
"He bloody well not. Suomy is nothing but trouble, so seeing him expelled would make my day, but fuck me if he's taking our house points with him."
Merula bit her lip in frustration. This idiot... After the events of yesterday morning, he really had avoided her, and everyone else. And now today he shows up in class and picks a fight with the Professor, though to be fair, Snape was being a bit unreasonable. He had told Anon to get out of his classroom the moment he walked in, as second years had potions on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and then immediately deducted 15 house points for "skipping class" the day before. And Anon being Anon, didn't let that go. He told him Dumbledore had given him permission to take fourth year classes, Snape said he didn't care and that Anon lacked the knowledge or experience to brew potions on a fourth year level, and then Anon challenged him to a brewing duel. He said that if he won, Snape would have to allow him to attend classes AND restore his house points, but if he lost he'd leave school and let Snape take all the house points from Slytherin for his incompetence.
And now here they were, in the middle of brewing two calming draughts. Snape had given him permission to use any tools or ingredients in the classroom, however he was not allowed to ask for help from any student, and could not leave the class for any reason, or else he'd forfeit. They were also not allowed to interfere with each other's potions, either.
"That stupid mudblood is ruining everything, Merula! He's not even brewing it properly, look! Bah, if only the Dark Lord were still here, people like him would long be dead."
Ismelda was lurking around behind her, occasionally commentating on the situation. But she had a point, Anon wasn't brewing it correctly. He was adding in a bunch of extra ingredients that shouldn't be there, was cutting, grinding, and squeezing all the wrong things, and getting all the measurements wrong. It was so very frustrating to watch.
"We're doomed, Lewis. Doomed. All those points... Gone..."
Merula looked over at Rowan, who Lewis was patting on the back in comfort as he sulked. He had a point, at this rate-
Several girls gasped in horror and a loud murmur once again flooded over the class. Even Merula couldn't help but to gasp in shock.
Anon had just deliberately sliced open the palm of his hand with a knife, and was letting his blood flow in to an empty ink bottle on his desk. Once full, he pulled a large handkerchief from his pocket and tied it around his hand to stop the bleeding, and kept going as if he had done nothing out of the ordinary. He began ripping a sheet of parchment in to squares, and then dipped a fresh quill in to his blood, using it for ink. That caused even more reaction from the onlookers.
Merula had a bad feeling about this, and Even Snape looked back with shock before quickly sorting himself. Using ones own blood in any sort of potion or magic? That was dark, dark stuff. He was a muggle though, maybe he just didn't understand the implications of what he was doing...
Anon tossed in one of the squares of parchment along with a few dashes of a white powder, and his potion let out a cloud of thick brown smoke. With a content smile, he took a nearby ladle and gave the potion several good stirs before letting it sit for a moment while he prepared another device. It was a tall object with a hand crank, and several long metal wires jutting out from it in a circle. He placed a long tube in to the metal ring at the end of each wire, and began spooning his potion in to the tubes.
"Oh dear..." Penny said upon seeing his potion, putting a voice to what everyone in the group was thinking. That was no calming draught... It looked more like a thick muddy mess.
"Yeah, we're doomed." Rowan whined, and sunk down on to his knees.
"I dunno, that looks pretty good to me." Barnaby said, before getting a smack on the arm from Ismelda.
"Does that LOOK like a proper calming draught to you?"
"When I brew it, yeah."
"You're hopeless, you know that? Absolutely hopeless."
After filling each tube a good 2/3rds of the way full of...whatever that was, Anon began to turn the hand crank rapidly, setting the device in to motion. The metal arms spun around quickly in a circular motion, and raised up slightly to have the tubes spinning at an angle. Anon grabbed another square of bloodied parchment from the table using his free hand and stuck it to the side of the device, which then continued spinning on it's own.
He then took his cauldron over to one of the nearby wash basins, and began washing out the remainder of his brew. After scrubbing it clean, he brought it back to the table and set it aside. He then began to prepare several large glass objects that connected to each other via a series of stoppers and tubes, sticking the remaining parchment and a few ingredients in to different portions of the contraption before sealing them with the tubed stoppers.
After a good 15 minutes of Slytherin agony and Hufflepuff snickering, the spinning device slowed to a halt. Anon got up from his seat and examined his work, muttering happily to himself upon seeing the results. The contents of the tubes didn't look like mud anymore, at least not fully. There was a brown substance at the bottom of the tube, and the top was filled with a clear liquid. Anon grabbed a small rubber tube nearby, and siphoned out the liquid from the top, emptying it in to one of the large glass jars. Once all the liquid was gone from the vials and only the brown mud remained at the bottom, he lit a small fire on one of the burners under the jar, and sealed it up to boil.
As the liquid heated up, Anon cleaned up the vials in the wash basin and let them dry nearby before removing the cloth wrapped around his hand. He washed off the blood, revealing a fully healed wound. This set off the crowd once again. First blood magic, then no cut wound? Something was seriously wrong with this guy.
"Oi, look at that!"
A random Hufflepuff from the crowd drew Merula's attention back to Anon's glass contraptions. The potion inside had started to evaporate, and was being sent through one of the rubber tubes and tiny droplets of liquid were dripping in to the next container. Upon hitting the paper and ingredients at the bottom, the liquid turned in to a deep purple smoke that traveled through another tube, continuing on through the device. In each chamber the smoke turned from gas to liquid, changing an array of colors along it's journey, and shrinking in quantity each time. Eventually, the potion made it's way to the final tube that was hoisted above an egg shaped phial, and dripped a light blue concoction in to it.
Snape had long since finished his potion, and had several bottles of a yellow liquid sitting behind him. He was watching Anon's process intently, awaiting his final result. After a few minutes, Anon's phial was full of the liquid, and he presented it to the Professor.
"Are you finished wasting my time, Suomy?"
"I'd hardly say it was a waste, but yes. It's done."
"And you are aware that, per your own request, we were to brew calming draught?"
"Indeed sir."
"So then what," Snape hissed at him with a sharp glare. "Is this?"
"A highly concentrated calming draught?"
Snape angrily snatched the phial from his hand, and uncorked the top, bringing it to his mouth.
"Sir, wait!" Anon stopped him, and Snape smirked.
"What's wrong, Suomy? Is this not a calming draught? Or is this travesty truly a waste of my time as well as your ticket out of this school?"
"Oh no sir, it very much is a calming draught. But like I said, it's highly concentrated. I'd say one drop to a glass of water? Otherwise I can't say what'd happen if you drank it straight."
Snape narrowed his eyes, but didn't drink the potion flat out. Instead he went over to his desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a clear drinking glass. With a tap of his wand, it filled with water, and he gingerly added one drop of potion to it.
"He's not really going to drink that, is he?" Lewis whispered. Merula had wondered the same thing. Why was Snape so willing to drink something he knew absolutely nothing about? That could very well be a phial full of poison...
Snape swirled the glass around a few times before swallowing the contents, causing several gasps as the students looked on in anticipation.
Merula found herself grasping at her ropes tightly. Please don't be poison... Damn it, Suomy! You better not get yourself expelled!
Snape blinked a few times, raised his eyebrow, and set his glass down. His usually stern expression was now quite neutral, which was a surprise to the entire class. He corked the phial, and handed it back to Anon before speaking.
"...I'll see you Friday, Suomy. Class dismissed."
There was a long moment of silence before the class burst out in to a rabble of confusion and relief. Several students shouted that he had cheated, or that the professor was drugged, but Snape ignored them and returned to his desk. Anon was smiling to himself as he pocketed the phial, gathered his things, and made his way towards the door. The crowd naturally parted to let him through, though Merula had a feeling it was mostly out of fear more than anything, and he left without saying a word.
What in the hell had just happened?