14 – Ingredients
"Harry, are you lissstening at all?" Lissy hissed, causing Harry to sigh.
"Yesss, Lisssy; I'm just a bit tired, but it would be great if you could go and ask Amaterasssu how we can get to her."
"Okay, but that'ssss not what I meant. The dark one isss there and wantsss to sspeak with you."
Harry lazily opened his eyes. "Sorry sir," he mumbled in exhaustion.
Severus let out a long sigh. "There is nothing you have to be sorry about, Harry. On the contrary; I am sorry to make you aggravate your condition by translating a recipe for me."
"No problem sir. I'm glad I could help. Lissy knows Amaterasu she told me. Maybe she can lead you to her and ask her for the egg."
"No," Lissy hissed in an upset voice. "I have to go and asssk her to turn her eyesss white, before I can take the dark one to her; otherwise, he'll die asss ssoon asss he looksss at her. Tell him that I'll be back shortly."
Harry translated, and Severus nodded his agreement. "Thank you, Lissy. I really appreciate your cooperation," he said gratefully and proceeded to check on Harry and make him drink a fever reducing potion. "Now try to rest for a while. I might need you later on to translate what Lissy says," he said in a soft voice and gently placed a cold cloth on the boy's forehead, before he quietly left the room.
Severus, Kathy and Brianna eagerly studied the recipe, as far as Harry had translated it, until Lissy returned and motioned for Severus to follow her into Harry's room.
"Lissy said Amaterasu was willing to lay an egg for you, provided that you use it for the wolfscure. She told her that she helped with an egg for the wolfscure before," Harry translated. "Lissy will go and collect the egg in two weeks' time."
"Does he want me to ssspeak with the unicornsss?" Lissy queried.
Severus gratefully agreed, and together with Kathy, who insisted to accompany him, he followed the small snake into the Forbidden Forest, while Brianna stayed at home to keep Harry company.
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Severus was glad when they met Hagrid on their way and the half-giant offered to accompany them to the unicorns. However, even Hagrid couldn't help them to comprehend why the unicorns let out angry growls at their sight, and they couldn't understand what Lissy tried to tell them.
Suddenly, Lissy quieted and to Severus' surprise, after a short while, the unicorns suddenly
bowed their heads in his direction, before finally five of them stepped in front of him, turning their heads, so that he could cut their hair. A short while later, Severus carefully pocketed the necessary amount of unicorn hair and thanked the animals profusely.
"Ye better ask Fawkes to flash ye to the end of'e forest to get'em mulberry leaves," Hagrid advised him when the small group returned to the castle.
Severus and Kathy agreed but decided to return to the Mackenzies' quarters and check on Harry first. They were torn between laughter and annoyance at the scene in front of them. Harry was sitting in his bed, reading and translating the recipe of the wolfscure potion aloud, while Brianna had made herself comfortable on the edge of his bed and was eagerly scribbling his words on a parchment.
"We're nearly finished," Harry said absentmindedly as he continued to dictate Brianna the rest of the brewing instructions.
Kathy smiled as she sat next to Brianna, while Severus stood behind the girl and read over her shoulder with interest. Only when Harry laid the book aside and Brianna put down her quill, Severus asked sternly, "Which part of 'rest for a while' did you not understand, Mr. Mackenzie?"
"I'm sorry, Professor, but I felt fine and we wanted to finish the recipe for you," Harry replied in a small voice. "Did the unicorns understand what you had nothing to do with the slaughtering of unicorns by the way?" Seeing that Severus looked at him in confusion, he elaborated, "Lissy asked me telepathically what she was supposed to tell the unicorns. Apparently they were angry, because a few months ago, a human came and slaughtered several of them. They were not willing to work together with humans anymore, and I asked her to tell them that you vanquished that human because of what he did and that you would never harm a unicorn."
"Ah, all right. Yes, all of a sudden they were cooperative and allowed me to take their hair. Thank you, Harry," Severus replied and showed the students the unicorn hair. "Now I'm going to put this into my lab to keep the hair fresh, and then I'll try to get the mulberry leaves," he said and excused himself, nodding absentmindedly when Kathy followed him out of the room.
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On a Saturday morning two weeks later, Severus strode behind the Slytherin table when breakfast was about to end and snarled, "Mackenzie and Mackenzie, follow me."
Brianna and Harry exchanged a confused look, but immediately stood up and hurried behind the professor out of the Great Hall. Their Head of House was waiting for them in the entrance hall.
"Mr. Mackenzie, I took the liberty to instruct your familiar to visit the basilisk and ask her to turn her eyes white, so that I can go to fetch the egg from her. I thought you might want to accompany me into Salazar Slytherin's rooms?"
"Of course, sir," Brianna and Harry blurted out simultaneously, looking eagerly at the professor.
A few minutes later, Lissy made her way into the entrance hall and motioned for them to follow her. She led Brianna, Severus and Harry out onto the grounds and behind the lake, where she hissed, "Open" at a huge stone that turned around, revealing a narrow corridor. "I'm sorry, this is made for snakes," she told Harry, seeing that the three humans had to crawl in order to follow her.
The corridor went downwards for a while, before they suddenly found themselves in a huge room. "This is Salazzar Slytherin'sss chamber," Lissy informed them, "and thisss iss Amaterasssu."
The three humans looked in awe at the huge basilisk that was curled up in front of them, letting her huge, white eyes wander over them.
"I have an egg for you," she hissed gently, revealing a huge, dark grey egg from under her large body.
"Thank you ssso much for your help," Harry hissed gratefully as he carefully accepted the present.
"Aww, a speaker like Salazzzar," Amaterasu hissed back happily. "I understand that you are in a hurry now, because you have to brew an important potion, but you mussst come back and visssit me. I will show you around Salazzzar'ss chamber. It iss huge and has many interesting roomsss."
"Thank you very much for your offer," Harry said with interest. "My sisster, our Professor and I would love to see everything. We'll come back ass soon ass we can."
"Go back this way," the basilisk instructed him, nodding her head towards a different part of the room. "This path is easier for humans to walk. At the end, you just have to tell the door to open. It leadsss straight into the main part of the castle. Don't forget to close the door afterwards."
"Now we can begin to brew the Wolfscure potion," Severus said contentedly as they made their way back to the exit right behind the lake. "Do the two of you want to assist?"
He did not have to ask Brianna and Harry again. Of course they wanted, and they spent the whole day brewing the difficult potion together with their Head of House.
"I just hope it'll work," Brianna said, sighing, as they tiredly watched Severus magically clean up their work space.
The professor smirked. "We'll have to wait for two weeks. Professor Lupin needs to take the potion next week, and the full moon is in twelve days. Provided that the translation was accurate..."
"Oh no," Harry interrupted the professor, looking at him in shock. "What if I made a grave mistake, and the potion causes him harm? Professor, are you sure that it is safe for Professor Lupin to take the potion? I wouldn't want to kill him. He is really nice," he blurted out, terrified.
Brianna chuckled as she looked at Severus, who observed her brother with apparent amusement. "Of course your translation was accurate," he said, smirking. "I am sorry, Harry. I was just teasing you. While we waited for the basilisk egg, I researched the potion in detail, and I am sure that it is correct. Of course I can't guarantee that it will work though. We can only wait and see."
'I hate waiting for such a long time,' Harry thought, sighing.
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During the following week, something happened that made Brianna and Harry for once forget the matter. It was just a few days before Slytherin's next Quidditch match that the reserve Seeker, Terrance, who was following Harry into a huge dive, did not manage to pull up in time and crashed into the grounds. According to their Head of House, Terrance was lucky, because he didn't break any bones; however, he was in the hospital wing with a bad concussion. Unfortunately, later the same day, Harry noticed that his ears began to hurt again. He secretly told his sister about it, who advised him to go to Madam Pomfrey to receive a potion, before it became really bad. However, when Harry complied, hoping that he would be allowed to leave right after taking a Pepperup potion, the Mediwitch grudgingly let him go but informed him that he had an infection of the middle ear again and wasn't allowed to fly for at least a week.
'Oh no, but I have to play in the match,' Harry thought, terrified. However, before Brianna could say anything, he quickly replied, "All right," resolving to forget the Healer's instruction right away. 'If I just agree, maybe she'll forget to tell Snape about it,' he thought, wondering if he should skip the last two practices in order to let sleeping dogs lie before the important match.
tbc...
Thank you so much for your kind comments and sorry for the delay!
I'm not a native speaker of English. Please excuse my mistakes. All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story.