Belladonna 25

The Mystery Potion

24 February 1994

"You're getting much better at that, Adrian," Ana said as she admired his handiwork.

With all that Ana had going on between the incident, Graham, Quidditch, and her own course load, Ana barely had any time left to devote to Adrian. Their tutoring sessions dropped to once a week. This actually worked out well for Adrian however, because the closer he got to OWLs the more work the Professors assigned.

"I owe you so much, Ana," he said. "I've learnt loads more from you than I have from Snape in four-and-a-half years."

"I'm not sure that's true."

"It is."

Ana smiled. She'd be sure to keep that to herself and not tell Sev.

"Now add those one at a time, stirring slowly three times in between. Twice…"

"Twice clockwise, and once anti-clockwise," Adrian finished.

"Don't get cheeky with me."

Adrian laughed but proceeded to add the root accordingly.

"Alright, so now that needs to sit, undisturbed, for thirty minutes, and then we add… Wait! Where's the salamander blood?"

"Er— I thought you were getting it," Adrian said.

"I thought you were getting it. You had it in your hand."

"I did?"

Ana nodded.

"I guess I put it back?" Adrian shrugged.

Ana bit her tongue to hold back the Wicked Witch. She was trying really hard to reform, but the less wicked she was towards Marietta, the more wicked she was to everyone else. She snapped at Sadie the day before for borrowing her hairbrush. And the week before she yelled at Hestia for taking one of her pain tonics even though she's had them sitting out for everyone to take since second year!

Ana took a deep breath. "That's all right. I should have some." She dug around in her traveling potions case and pulled out a glass vial with less than a centimeter's worth of liquid.

"Is it enough?" Adrian asked.

"No," Ana shook her head. "Still, this has to stew so I'll go get some now."

"I could go…"

"No! I mean… I'm sure you have revisions to do."

"Loads actually."

"Then it works out perfectly. I'll go. You'll stay. And that will remain undisturbed, yeah?"

Adrian threw up his hands and stepped away from the table. "I'll just sit in the corner and work on Charms."

Ana made her way through the dungeons to Sev's potions stores. Along the way, she took deep and even breaths. In. Out. In. Out. She was going to have to find an outlet for the wicked if she wanted to have friends left by seventh year.

"Hey, Sev, I…"

Ana stopped short in the doorway. The room was empty. Which was weird because the door was open and the light was on. Sev always closed the door and turned the lights off when he left. Always. Ana stepped back and looked both ways down the hall. Surely he'd be right back.

"Sev?"

There was no answer. Ana didn't expect there to be one as she could clearly look around and see that he wasn't there. Still…

"Professor Snape?" She tried, but there was still no answer.

"I'm going to borrow some salamander blood," she said to an empty room. "I'm working with Adrian and we don't have enough to finish."

Ana moved through the room easily. It wasn't uncommon for Ana and Sev to borrow from each other's stores. As long as they replaced what they took, then all was well. So Ana knew exactly where Sev kept the salamander's blood, and she went straight to it. She was about to head back to Adrian when she stopped to observe Sev's workbench. There was a cauldron sitting on it full with a potion that was emitting a strange sort of blue smoke. Ana moved towards it as though hypnotized.

It was an unfamiliar potion, and Ana knew at once it must be the mystery potion that Sev had been working on all year. She glanced up quickly towards the door, almost expecting to see Sev standing there, but she didn't. She did, however, really want to know what he was brewing; more so, she wanted to learn how to brew it, whatever it was. She tried asking him early on, but he brushed her off saying it didn't concern her. Then this and that happened, and Ana had forgotten about it… Until now.

She glanced back at the door; he still wasn't there. She looked back down at the bench. Sev had carelessly left some of the ingredients out, but Ana didn't stop to contemplate why. She just studied them and made note of them.

There were some standard ingredients like frog toe and beetle eye juice. Then there were some more uncommon ones like the stem of a belladonna flower, the petals sat in the bin at her feet, and she was fairly certain she saw the slimy residue of rat spleen on the table. Lastly, she found some rather rare ingredients like boomslang skin and monkshood.

Ana looked up at the door again; there was still no sign of Sev.

None of the ingredients Ana saw clued her in on what the potion was. There were too many variables still. There could be a dozen other ingredients already mixed in, or perhaps the ones she saw had absolutely nothing to do with the potion and were simply left over from something else. If they were used, however, then she needed to know their concentration to really figure anything out. Were there one or two stems? Six toes or eight? What was the ratio of rat spleen to water? There was no way of knowing…

…Unless she took a sample and de-formulated it. Sev had described the process to her once, and she was certain she could find a book on it in the library. She could do this. She would do this.

The first rule of being an exceptional Potions Master: always carry at least one empty vial on your person, because you never know when you might need to collect a sample. Ana reached into an inner pocket on her robe and pulled out a small glass vial. She un-stoppered it and was just about to scoop up the potion when she hesitated. What if this was one of those potions that had to sit undisturbed for a certain amount of time? What if by taking a sample now, Ana ruined the potion. Sev would be furious with her.

"Well… then he shouldn't have left it unguarded," she reasoned aloud.

She picked up the nearby ladle. She filled her vial, while the odor singed her nose hairs, and made a mental note to check her star charts at first chance. She knew that some potions could only be brewed at certain times of the month. Then she nearly left without scribbling a quick note about the salamander blood.

XXX

It took longer than Ana anticipated to de-formulate the mystery potion. First, she had to find the right book. Then, she had to gather the right equipment and set it up. Lastly, she had to find time in her schedule to even work on it, which became increasingly more difficult as Professors rushed to cram in the rest of their lessons and Marcus went on Quidditch overload; they now had practice six days a week and they were often fighting to stay on the field longer. And every day that went by, Ana was sure Sev would burst through the door and demand to know what she was doing and why she ruined a perfectly good potion.

But he never did.

Then, at last, nearly a whole month later, Ana finally had all the ingredients listed and she was 98% certain of their concentrations…if her calculations were correct. However, she couldn't make any sense of it. The potion was still a mystery to her. She couldn't even figure out what its primary function was. It had strong properties of both poison and healing potions, the consistency of both sleeping and reviving draughts, and small hints of a befuddling tonic. Ana was almost ready to give up on it…

Almost.

She had one day at the end of March where she could set aside some time to try and work it out, but it meant that she wouldn't be able to spend study time in Professor Lupin's classroom. Instead of being a no-show though, she decided to stop by and tell him in person.

"Hey, Professor Lupin, I…" Ana stopped short. Lupin was already packing up his briefcase. He smiled faintly at Ana.

"Good evening, Ana," he said weakly. "You are welcome to come in and stay, but I'm afraid I won't be able to today."

"Actually… I was coming by to say that I couldn't stay either. I have this potions project I'm working on and today is the only day I have to work on it. All my schoolwork is done, except for an essay for McGonagall, but I'll do that in history tomorrow; Binns will never know. And Graham's off who-knows-where doing who-knows-what, frankly, I don't care. And… Are you feeling all right, Professor?" Ana asked.

Professor Lupin came around his desk looking paler and sicklier than Ana could ever remember seeing him.

"I'm fine," he said with a smile that looked more like a grimace. "Just a little off color."

"Off color? No offense, Professor, but you look like total—"

Lupin arched a brow.

"—ly not yourself. I hear Madam Pomfrey has a perfectly adequate pepper-up potion in the hospital wing. Or, if you like, I have my own version. I found that if you store it at a cooler temperature, like those found in the Slytherin Girl's dormitory in winter, then it reduces the amount of steam without decreasing its effectiveness."

"That's very generous of you, Ana." He smiled weakly. "But I think just some rest will do wonders."

"Well, I hope you get it, and if you change your mind, I won't be hard to find."

They walked out of the room together and parted ways. Ana half considered asking one of the House Elves to deliver some potion to him anyway simply because he looked that ill. But she decided if he felt he didn't need it, then she didn't want to push it on him. So she carried on her way down to the dungeons.

Along the way, she pulled out her parchment on the mystery potion and ran along everything she knew about it. When the light became too dim to read her handwriting, she moved closer to the window and borrowed the light of the fading sun. Ana allowed herself one moment to look out the window itself. The air was just beginning to grow warmer; soon, she knew it would be time for the final Quidditch match, and then summer. Ana would be more than halfway through her Hogwarts life, and what would she do then if she couldn't figure out this potion? What sort of Potions Master can't figure out a simple de-formulation? Ana had to solve this! Her life depended on it.

Ana turned away from the window and moved on with renewed vigor. Then suddenly she stopped. Her mind went blank for a moment before something like clarity came to it. She rushed back to the window and looked out it again.

She saw something so clearly, so plainly, so unbelievably normal that it was often overlooked: The Moon. It wasn't quite full yet, perhaps a day, maybe two more, but…

Ana looked down at her parchment, then back at the moon, then down the hall from which she came, then back at her parchment again. The moon. The hall. The parchment.

Ana knew there was something strange about this potion, with its seemingly contradictory functions seeking both to poison and heal, sleep and revive, as though treating two different entities. And Ana knew this potion was for Professor Lupin. Professor Lupin, who only moments ago Ana saw looked so deathly pale and sick, and yet he refused a pepper-up potion.

"Just a bit of rest will do wonders."

A bit of rest? Perhaps like that found in a sleeping draught? Ana looked back out the window one last time as all the pieces fell into place.

"Mother of Merlin," she whispered aloud.

Professor Lupin was a werewolf.