We walked through the door and entered a street which looked exactly like all the other streets.
I followed Severus through many streets. He seemed to know the way through this maze very well.
After a few streets, we walked past an older woman. She looked like seventy years old with her gray locks. Her face looked gentle compared with her small body. She first looked confused when she saw me, but then smiled at me. I didn't understand her confusion. However, I wasn't in the mood to think about why she had looked at me that way.
Severus passed her without even looking at her. I nodded to greet her and she nodded in response.
After a walk- which had seemed like five minutes- we reached a line of green shrubs and trees at the end of a street. A path through the woods let us to a small lake with a river which flowed further into the woods. The water looked black and unhealthy in contrast to the green grass- surrounding the lake- which looked very healthily.
We both looked at the place. It was beautiful. We had looked in awe for a while before Severus interupted the silence.
"We are going to searche for ingredients for potions." he said monotonously. "Can we find those here?" I asked incredulously. I couldn't imagne that those things I had seen in his basement, things like unicorn horns and unicorn hair, could be found here.
"A lot of things can be used for magical purposes. You should only know how to use them." he replied. "First, we are going to look for nettle."
"What does nettle do?" "Nettle is a defensive and at the same time, an aggressive plant. The leaves hurt all the animals and people they touch to protect itself." he explained. "I mean, what happens if you add it to a potion?" "Well, that depends, but like I said, it's a defensive and aggressive plant, so it normally makes potions stronger." he explained. His face lit a bit up as he spoke about his potions. It was clearly his passion. And that was logically for a Potions Master.
"Well, let's go and find it." he said.
We were walking towards the edge of the woods again when Severus asked: "do you know how to find nettle?" "No, but I guess it grows on moisty soil." I replied, cause those were the only places I had ever seen nettle.
"You are right. You can find netlle along the waterside, but also on random places in the woods. They love moderately dry to wet soil, nutrient-rich soil and places in the shadow." he explained to me. His face looked politely and strictly at the same time. He liked teaching me about it- and of cours. He was a professor at Hogwarts.-.
"Interesting." I simply said and walked further along his side.
"So, if I tell you that there is a river." He pointed at the right. "Then you know where to find it, right?" "Yes." I replied. "You can go and get a full jar of netlle leaves. When you are done, you come back to the backpack. Do you think you can do that?" he asked the question as if intended rhetorically, but I said 'yes' in response.
He placed the backpack on the ground. "I am going to get some stuff by myself. So just wait for a moment. It won't take long." he said while opening the backpack and getting out two jars. Not very big ones. I imagned that it would take ten minutes to fill if I would find enough plants.
Severus gave me the jar and walked away without looking back.
After watching him walk away for a moment, I decided to do what he had asked and walked off to find the netlle plants.
I walked through the forrest, in the direction he had pointed to. After a few minutes, I reached it.
The water was black, just like the lake, but this looked better, fresher, cleaner. It rippled over a few stones and made a fine sound.
On the left, I could see the river ending in the lake. On my right, I saw the river going deeper and deeper into the forrest.
I saw no nettle on this spot, so I walked upstream, deeper into the forest.
After I had done some seaching, I found it, a few nettle plants. I opened the jar and wanted to pick a leaf, but stopped. I had realised that touching a netlle leaf hurts a lot.
I wrapped my hand in my coat and touched a leaf. No reaction, no pain. So I picked a leaf and put it into the jar. I picked another leaf and put into the jar. No pain. My idea worked. However, after a while of picking leaves without pain, things went too well. It had made me reckless.
My grasp, to hold my wrapped hand, weakened and when I wanted to pick the next leaf, the coat dropped a bit of my hand and fingers touched the nettle.
I pulled my fings away, immediately. My fingers hurted. I waved my hand back and forth, but the pain did not disappear. My fingers felt warmer and warmer every second. When I looked at my fingers, I saw red spots appearing on them. The red spots started to itch, but I knew I should not scratch. That would only make it worse.
My best idea was to put them into the water of the river and when I did so, it gave me a feeling of relief. But when a got my hand back out after a few minutes, the pain returned and I put them quickly back into the water.
"What do I have to do with this? I can't stay here forever." I thought. I looked around and saw the jar standing on the ground. It was only half full. I sighed. I knew I couldn't complete the task with my fingers hurting like this, so I got out of the water, grabbed the jar and walked back to the backpack.
Severus had already been waiting there. He seemed a bit impatient.
"Where have you been?" he asked a bit angrily when he saw me walking towards him. "I accidentally touched a nettle leaf with my bare hands, so I couldn't fill the jar completely." I answered, disappointed in myself.
"But it doesn't take that long to fix that, does it?" he asked irritated. "I can't do magic like you." I replied. "I know you can't, but you don't need magic to fix everything. There are other ways you know." he said even more agitated. "I thought you as a… well, raised as a muggle, would know there are other ways." I scowled at him for being so rude.
"But a assume you don't know that way, do you?" "I don't know that way." I said, now standing infront of him. He looked me right in thee yes, his features softened. He sighed.
"Does your hand still hurt?" he asked nicer. I let go of my anger frustration too.
"Yes. Well, a bit." I replied, trying to not sound like a wimp. "Show me your hands." he demanded nicely. He examined my fingers and said: "I will show you how to undo the pain of nettle."
"Follow me." he demanded while walking towards the river. I followed him until he stopped besides the riverside. He looked around, but didn't find where he had been looking for.
"Where did you find the nettle?" "A bit more up the stream."
We walked further and found the nettle plants. "The antidote to the poison of the nettle grows next to it. It's called: plantain." he explained.
He looked at the ground and walked through the bunch of nettle plants. He seemed not afraid of the nettle poison. He also had no reason to be so. His black clothes showed nothing from his skin, except his hands, nack and face. His cape swept behind him as if he was an evil lord out of fairy tales. He actually acted the same sometimes.
After a few seconds, he bowed and picked a small, green leaf.
He walked back over to me and showed me the leaf in his palm. "This is plantain, the antidote to nettle." he explained. "Give me your fingers." he demanded. I did like he had said and laid my finger in his hand. He started to rub the leaf over my fingers. He did it hard and fast. First it hurted, but the pain disappeared quickly.
Severus stopped rubbing when the leaf had become unusable. He threw the remaining of the leaf on the ground and looked me right in the eyes with his dark ones.
"Better, right?" he asked, still holding my hand. "Yes, it does." I replied. "Thank you." "You're welcome." he said, while letting go of my hand.
"What did you find?" I asked curiously. I was actually curious. However, I also wanted to change the subject. Severus had not been happy with me, not knowing about plantain. Although I knew everything was okay now, it still didn't feel good about the situation.
"I will show you." he said and walked away without waiting for me to come along.
We walked back to the backpack. Severus got out a jar full of white flowers.
"How do you call the flowers in your jar?" "That's cow parsley. I found them a little further into the woods, on a place with enough sunlight. These flowers need that." "And what happens if you put into a potion?" The question seemed to better his mood. His eyes sparkled a bit as he told me: "A lot of things can happen, but it can give an unexpected ability to a potion. Do you know why?" he asked even though he knew I simply couldn't. I nodded with a small smile. "I will show you. Follow me."
We walked a little further into the woods, just like Severus had said. He showed me a bunch of large plants. All green with on the end of each branch a half a circle, made from small, white flowers.
He took a stem from one of the plants and broke it in half. "Look." he said while showing me the end of the stem. I could see the inside of the stem." The stems are hollow, grooved and often red faded." he explained. I looked at it and saw a red, just like he had said.
"You did not expect that, did you?" "No, I expected it tob e green." "And that's the 'why'."
"Did you know that people can make flutes out of the stems of this plant?" "I didn't, but now I do." I said still fascineted by the beautiful white flowers."
"How does it come you know soo much about plants?" I asked him. "Reading." he simply said. "And Hogwarts?" "Yes, Hogwarts too, but most of it is due to self study."
"Well, I think that's enough ingredients for today. Let's go." he said while turning around and walking to the backpack.
He put the jars in the backpack, put the it on his back and we walked back his house.
On our way back, we passed the same houses as on our way towards the lake. Or at least I think so, cause all those houses look the same.
A car passed us when we turned around a corner. The driver looked at us. The expression on his face told me he was confused. But why? Why was everyone confused to see me? "Probably because I'm new in the neighborhood." I thought.
Once back home, Severus started to cook supper and I started reading. I had grabbed a book about plants and it was very interesting. I read about plants I had once heard the name of- plants in the Muggle World- and plants I had never heard of. "Probably plants which only grow there." I imagned, cause I couldn't find that information in the book.
After reading about many plants, Severus walked back into the living room. "Supper is ready."
We ate our supper in silence. The silence wasn't uneasy like the silences had been before, it felt nice and safe this time.
"Thanks for today. I really liked it." I said thankfully. He looked genuinely surprised by my comment. "You're welcome." he said and took a small pause before he said: "You seem interested, unlike a lot of my students. They don't care about the needed ingredients. They only want to get a good mark for their tests." "It's strange they aren't so motivated for your class. I learned a lot today and liked it really much." "Don't forget that I give potions and not herbology." "What's herbolgy?" "A subject at Hogwarts which learns students about plants." "Oh, so you don't take kids out on trips like today." "No."
"How do you learn kids about potions than?" "Well, I first explain how to make a potion and what it can do and so on. The students take notes of what I say, or that's what they should do." I nodded. "Than, I let them make the potions like I told them to make it." I nodded agian. "And they hand in their potions after the lesson, so I can mark them." I nodded and said: "sounds doable." "That's what I think, but a lot of students screw it up." "Than it must be at least a bit hard." I stated. "I will show you tomorrow. It really isn't that hard." "Okay, seems fun." "Potions is fun if you know how to do it correctly." he stated proudly. I hated that arrogant tone of his, but he was going to show me how to make potions, so I accepted it.
The rest of supper was silent again.
After supper, Severus did the dishes with his magic and I read further in my- apparently called: herbology- book.
After Severus was done, he seated himself in his armchair and started to read a book about potions.
"Do you want some tea?" He asked around eight o'clock. "Yes, please." I replied politely, just like my mom had learned me.
We drank tea together and read further in our books.
"I think it's time to go to bed now." he said around nine o'clock. "Oh, yes. I forgot the time. This book is really interesting." "I am glad you are into reading. A lot of children aren't." "Well, if the book is nice, than I like it, otherwise I don't." "Obviously." he said with his monotonous voice. "Well, go to bed now. It's late."
I placed the book on the coffee table and said: "goodnight." "Goodnight." he responded.
Author's Note:
Will Snape really show Ellea how to make potions? Read next weeks' chapter to find out.
See you next week!