Disclaimer: Neither the world or the characters are mine, I merely borrowed the to have a bit of fun. When I am finished, I will return them slightly used.
Next day when Hermione walked down to the potions lab the wards were already down and the door open. She doublechecked the time, but she was not late, probably Professor Snape started the brewing early. She entered, and to her surprise practically every single horizontal surface was covered in piles of books. The cauldrons full of half-ready polyjuice potion were simmering softly on the working bench at the far back of the room.
"Good morning, professor" she peeked around a towering pile of ancient tomes. "Did you sleep well?"
"Miss Granger" he raised his head from a book looking surprised. "It was acceptable." He motioned her to sit.
"Research day?"
"Yes and no. Experiment schedule planning day." She pulled up a lab chair across from him and sat, waiting for an explanation.
"How much do you know about quantifying magic?" He asked. The seemingly off-topic question surprised her. She frowned slightly, trying to remember what she red on the topic.
"It is not something that any of our school books mentioned, but I did read a book from McLane and Zakrevsky on the topic."
"Of course you did" he interjected without his usual acerbic tone. "What did you think about their work?" he asked, tapping his fingers together.
"I thought they did an excellent job of trying to approach the subject in a very scientific, meticulous way. The book I picked was an easy digest version, so it did not go into too many details, and presented a number facts without offering proof, as if it were, undisputed truth. I would not call it a full compendium on the topic, but it gave a good basis of understanding for perusing further information if necessary."
He nodded at her assessment. "Some of their views are somewhat outdated, but none fundamentally wrong. Most likely your knowledge on this will be enough for the experiment we are conducting. Can you summarise what you remember?"
"What I remember is that quantifying magic is difficult, because there are a lot of factors still poorly understood that influence the outcome, and arithmentic calculations of acceptable precisions are extremely complex. Calculations are usually used as more of an estimation. A person's magical capacity can be measured using Hecate crystals. The unit of magic commonly used in one Hecate, which is the amount needed to saturate one gram of crystal. The necessary amount of magic needed to preform most spells, curses and transformations can be estimated, but the accuracy varies, which is the reason it not commonly used. The theory is most often used in product development, estimating how much magic charge it takes to keep an enchanted product working at a satisfactory level. Unlike enchanted objects artifacts do not require recharging or re-casting as…"
"That will be enough." He nodded seriously and slapped the book shut he had been examining, setting it aside. "Now, the reason I brough this up is, because we will be attempting to capture an extremely powerful curse in a potion. To succeed, we will need to create a brew that has the capacity of absorbing at least five hundred Hecate's worth of magic per a hundred millilitre, which is no small amount." He counted one on his forefinger. "Also, we will need to come up with a reproduceable way of measuring this capacity," he said ticking out a second finger. "For this we need to grow a variety of Hecate crystals" he ticked off three. "And experiment with trapping smaller spells in the liquid before we can move onto fiendfyre." He finished with four fingers open.
Hermione could barely contain her excitement. Hecate crystals were not easy to grow, and they were a very advanced form of magic that combined casting wards and brewing potions.
"Obviously we will have to start with growing crystals" professor Snape declared. "And a large amount of them too. The potion we are attempting to brew takes a long time to complete, thus there can be some overlap in the work. Also it might be useful to measure your magical capacity. Questions?" Hermione was bursting with them.
"Can one increase their own magic capacity through training and practice?" she asked curiously.
"That is exactly what the Hogwarts syllabus is attempting to do. Why else do you think first years start transfiguring matches and needles and work up to buttons, boxes and furniture later?" he asked with an irritable wave of his hand. She probably should have thought of that.
"So… there are no exercises specific to this goal?" He rubbed the bridge of his nose with a deep sigh.
"When I asked if you had questions, Miss Granger, I meant regarding our experiment, not about how the universe works. I will give you a short, overly simplified rundown, but then I wish to move onto the experiment planning. Yes, there are such exercises, but the effectiveness varies greatly depending on unquantifiable inborn attributes, talent if you please. Training magic is like trying to train singing, drawing, dancing or intelligence. Some people have an inborn talent and makes progress quickly, others need to work hard for the same or lesser result, but eventually there is a plateau for everyone. The reason these exercises are not used much is, because one's quality of magic usage is not only dependent on the raw quality of magic they can wield, but also on the amount of power wasted, the precision, reflexes, the ability to think on your feet and come up with better, faster more efficient solutions. Does that satisfy your curiosity?"
"For now, yes. Thank you, sir." To her surprise the corners of his mouth pulled up to a nearly-sile before pulling a parchment in front of him and grabbed a calendar.
"Now, the potion required to grow Hecate crystals is a strictly one hand work, which I will be doing. You will be allowed to set up the required wards. Talk to Black and clear out a room completely in the headquarters. Nothing but the floors will remain, and the room should be left undisturbed. The floor will have to be treated with a series of charms" he pushed a page of an open book in front of her. "I trust you can handle these?" She scanned the list quickly.
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Once done, you can start drawing the ward. I will pick up some drawing paste for you, and leave it in the lab. I do not suppose you have done ward-smithing before?" It was more of a statement than a question. He pushed another book in front of her. "Read this chapter before you begin. Drawing the lines should not be more difficult than simply copying the exact shape. Ask Minerva for pointers, she has some experience with artificer work." He plopped a third book on top of the pile. Hermione wondered when he had the time to do all this extensive research. He tapped his wand on the diagram. The page unfolded, doubled, turned, and a drawing appeared on it. It looked mostly like a complex, circular-looking maze, that had some bigger and some smaller clearings in it. It made her think of the last trial of the Triwizard tournament. "The room should be big enough that you can draw the pattern on the floor and have room to walk around it. The cauldron with the potion comes here, in the centre the crystals will be forming, and here we place and object in the shape we want the crystals to copy" he kept tapping at the clearings in the maze. "Do try to finish the preparation work before the school starts. Any suggestions of the object shape?"
"Beads" Hermione said after a bit of thinking. "Small enough to be granular for the experiment, and threading them into chains can keep them together, easy to carry around, and in a pinch they could be disguised as gaudy jewellery."
"I am not going to go around wearing a crystal necklace" he announced in a deadpan voice. Hermione had to supress a giggle, imagining him in the spangles of professor Trelawney, but she could not help grinning. "But the rest of the suggestions do have merit. It will be a few days before we can start growing the crystals, keep an open mind, we might come up with an even better shape. Let me know when you are done with the preparations. Questions?"
"No sir, it is all clear."
"Hermione Granger out of questions. Let me mark the occasion in the calendar" the corner of his lips tugged into a nearly-smile. "Now, onto the potion. There are two different ones that have a potential to be what we need them for. We will be doing the brewing in my private lab at Hogwarts, for the simple reason that it is not worth the effort to try to move them around. As discussed before, all brews mentioned in the book you gave me need more than one set of hands to prepare, at least occasionally. We can hide this preparation in plain sight, and pretend it is part of your NEWT project. Usually I do my best to… discourage students from picking a practical rather than a theoretical work area." She could only imagine that 'discouragement' took the shape of scowling, acerbic retorts and name-calling that would probably leave most students a shivering mess. "I will have to come up with a good excuse as to why I allowed you to go with a real potion, but there is nothing that can be about that."
"Sir, I was wondering if I could create a re-live potion for the project." His eyebrows shot up.
"That is certainly an idea that would provide for more than enough brewing time. But are you certain, Miss Granger? The potion needs a lot of customising, has limited usefulness and the difficulty of preparation is way beyond NEWT level."
"It is not for me, professor. It is for Harry. We have been discussing the war effort against You-Know-Who and well, it all comes down to what happened the night when he attacked Harry and his family." Some emotion flickered through the face of the potions master. It could have been alarm, pain, shame, embarrassment, hope or even something else she has never seen him display, but it was gone faster than she could identify it. "We feel that currently there are only two people alive who witnessed what happened, but he-who-must-not-be-named is unlikely to share, and Harry cannot remember. Hence the potion. We could prepare a double dose, one for me and one for Harry, and in my NEWT proposal I can come up with some reasoning of wanting to do a potion that needed customisation, and picking a day of my life I could not remember to have an unbiased experience. Maybe something about a Halloween story my parents keep telling me about but I have no memory of." He kept tapping a finger against his lip, listening intently.
"Are we even certain that Potter still retains these memories?"
"Yes, sir. In our third year, when he was attacked by dementors he… he heard the final words of his mother." Professor Snape rubbed his face, suddenly looking tired. Hermione wished she had done more research on what exactly brewing process entailed, if the potions master was this cautious about committing to it, it must be something gruesome. She decided not to mention that the headmaster was against the idea. If things went south, professor Snape could claim ignorance, and she would shoulder the blame.
"That is an ambitious project" he said finally. "And it may indeed provide us with new insight. As for now, we need to discuss the unofficial project. As I said, we have two candidates for your idea. This first potion has a brewing time of a month" he said piling a fourth book in front of her, open at the page that claimed to be Prison of magic. "But has no special timing needs regarding the start. The other potion" he drew yet another old tome from one of the piles, and opened it at Essence of Void. "Needs to be started on the day of the new moon, and has a brewing time of two weeks." He pushed the pile of books somewhat aside, and flipped a lunar calendar over, turning it towards Hermione. "The next new moon is in a few days, on the first of September. The next one is the last day of September. Usually NEWT projects are handed out and approved around the end of October. If I reschedule my syllabus just a bit, we can start working on the third new moon from here" he tapped on a date in the middle of October.
"Sir, that leaves us with less than ten chances of getting the potion right before the end of the year" Hermione frowned. "This project is very important, maybe the most important thing I will be doing all year, we can't afford to wait that long. We cannot hope to defeat You-know-who while his horcruxes are out there, we need a way to get rid of them."
"Do you have any better suggestions?" he asked in a calm tone. She bit her lip.
"Give me a series of detentions" she said looking him in the eye. "It would be very much in character of you, sir, to pick on Harry for no apparent reason. And it would be very Gryffindor and in character of me to defend him. I am sure you could keep needling us long enough for me to, ehm, have an outburst or two."
"I cannot give you two months of detention for talking back to me. I know I have a reputation, but that kind of unreasonable overreaction would have Minerva breathing down my neck, and I do not think I have to explain how dangerous it would be for anyone to know what we truly are doing." Hermione covered her mouth with her hand, scared to even make the suggestion she was thinking.
"What if… what if I got so carried away I tried to hex you?"
"You would be lucky I would not be demanding you getting expelled." He considered her a few seconds seriously. "You are aware that you could not tell anyone, not even Minerva, Potter of any of the Weasleys that you were not truly stupid enough to draw a wand on me? Can you truly face the backlash from that, Miss Granger? The disapproval of the other teachers?" His tone was neutral, nearly kind. He wasn't taunting her for the suggestion, he was giving her a chance to back out. She has not done anything wrong yet, but she was already blushing in shame.
"I will have to" she whispered, mortified at the imagined reaction of professor McGonagall. And she could never explain it to her. This would give her a small and bitter taste of what professor Snape had to face on a daily basis. Well, she did want to learn to be more of a Slytherin. "When I said that this is the absolute most important thing I could do, I meant it. I can pretend, I can take a bit of shame" she added, her voice becoming stronger, steeling herself. When she looked him in the eye there was some undefinable understanding passing between them. "In time they will forget it again. There are enough of other students who get into trouble all the time. And, well. No offence sir, but you are kind of known to be cruel to Gryffindors." She blushed. "They might be surprised that I lost my cool head, but…"
"But no one will truly believe it was unprovoked, or that I would not have deserved it, had you actually managed to hex me" he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"I am sorry" she wasn't even sure what she was apologising for. It was none of her doing how others perceived the potions master. He waved her apology away.
"This is a workable solution" he concluded. "I can start up the brewing process of Essence of void on the first of September alone. I have not received my timetable yet, but I will have more than enough opportunity to give you a chance to throw a tantrum in my class, and be able to join me for the next preparation step, and we can start on the Prison of magic too. With a bit of coordination we can get to synchronise the brewing. Some of the ingredients are rather expensive. Fortunately I have an endless resource of dunderheads landing themselves in detentions. Looks like this year they will be spending a large amount of time wandering the Forbidden Forest with Hagrid looking for unicorn tail hair, griffin scales and mooncalf dung." He grabbed a quill and started to add notes to the lunar calendar. Once he was satisfied with the details, he flicked his wand over it, and gave Hermione a copy.
"I do not suppose I need to explain that no one is allowed to see this" he said seriously. He dropped it on the pile of books he gave her without waiting for an answer. "That leaves me with the final item on our to do list for now. The potions we will be working on are volatile beyond anything you could imagine. The question is not if there will be an accident, but when. You will need proper protective gear." He flicked his wand and a bundle of slightly faded black cloth appeared on the tale between them. "On a short notice, and by short notice I mean the original, October starting time, this is the best we can do. Personalised protective gear is expensive and time consuming to make." He motioned the clothes closer to her with his wand.
"Thank you, sir" Hermione said reaching out for the fabric. She stood, and her breath caught in her throat as she shook the bundle out. She was holding one of professor Snape's teaching robes, albeit an apparently old one which started to fade from black to dark grey from the extended use and numerous washings. "This… this is one of your robes, sir" she said with awe. She had the strongest urge to throw her arms around the potions master and hug him. She did not even notice when she hugged the heavy woollen fabric to her chest with a huge smile. "This is… thank you so much."
"I thought you already moved beyond the need of stating the obvious, Miss Granger" he drawled, visibly uncomfortable with her happy enthusiasm. If Hermione had not known better she would have sworn there was just a slightest flush of pink in his ears. "Did you honestly think Mr Longbottom was the only menace in my classroom? I have treated all my robes with a wide range of spells, wards and potions to dunderhead-proof them. Now, what are you waiting for, a marching band of leprechauns to come by? Put it on over your clothes so we can fit it to your size." Hermione started to work the buttons free on the robe, her hands trembling with excitement.
Professor Snape flicked his wand at it impatiently. "Botonare" he incanted and the buttons all popped free. Hermione made a mental note to lean the charm. She knew from her last year of defence against the dark arts lesson that the potions master was also extremely skilled in non-verbal spells, the incantation was probably for her own benefit. She shrugged into the robes, surprised by their weight. The sleeves were way too long, and the hem pooled around her feet on the floor. She had no chance of buttoning it over her chest, and to her dismay, over her hips.
While she was busy trying not to trip on the extra fabric, professor Snape walked around the table, his wand drawn. He waited until she was as ready as she could be, and started waving his wand over her in a sharp pattern. The sleeves receded, the hem of the robes shortened, the fabric around her breasts expended, until the buttons could fasten themselves in the button holes. She must have looked like a miniature version of the potions master, and the idea made her want to giggle, but she supressed the urge.
"How is that?" he asked, twirling his wand between his fingers. Hermione moved her arms up and down experimentally, pulled her elbows back as if she wanted to reach behind her. The robes strained, and two buttons popped open over her chest.
"Nearly good, I think" she blushed. He looked unfazed as he brough up his wand again and adjusted the clothes.
"Thank you, professor, they fit like a dream" she said turning around on her heel, watching the fabric billow. He handed a vial of lime green potion to her.
"Wash the robes with this to make the change in shape permanent." Hermione took the vial and nodded enthusiastically, and turned around again, grinning with glee as the fabric flapped around her. "Miss Granger, do I need to impress on the importance that you are not talk around like this in Hogwarts?" She stopped in her tracks, turning towards him, suddenly serious.
"No, professor. I do understand the full implications. I will keep it under a ward, hidden in an undetectable extension charm. I can put it on in the lab before we start brewing, and I will return it to my bag before I leave." He nodded seriously. Hermione bit her lip, considering whether she would dare to ask. "Sir, would it be ok to scare Harry and Ron by bursting into their room, robes flaring, door banging open? Just once, here is Grimmauld place." She looked at him half expecting to be told she was being childish, and could not be trusted to keep a secret. The corner of his mouth curved up.
"As tempting as it sounds, even that would be unwise. However" he lifted his arms, palms facing up and shrugged, eyes twinkling uncharacteristically. "I can hardly stop you from using a glamour to appear to be wearing my robes, now can I?"
When Hermione finally ascended from the dungeon, she could hear the voices of Sirius, Harry, Ginny and Ron from the kitchen. By the sound of things they have found a box of cookies she has hidden in the kitchen cabinet, and they were fighting over the last brownie. She drew her wand with a grin, and backed up a few paces from the door to give herself room to build up speed to a dramatic entry. She has never attempted a glamour before – upon closer inspection it was easy to see though it, but at first glance people would see what they expected to see. She waved her wand muttering an incantation. She let her unruly hair down from her strict bun and charmed it black. She moved it over her clothes and laid an illusion of black billowing robes over them. She tugged her wand away, and took a quick start towards the kitchen.
She threw the door open with a loud bang, and stormed in with a flare of black robes around her. Ron gave a scared little squeak, dropped the coconut cookie he was eating, and nearly fall off his chair, arms flailing. Sirius dropped the heavy metal tin onto the kitchen table, and stumbled back a few steps. Harry has mis-swallowed a mouthful of cinnamon bun and tried not to choke on it while staring at her with wide eyes. Ginny was the only one who's first instinct was to go for her wand – her hand was hovering over her sleeve, but upon seeing it was only Hermione, she did not draw it.
"What is going on in here?" Hermione demanded in her opinion in a not too convincing impersonation of professor Snape. The effect on the others was priceless though. "Which of you dunderheads thought it was a smart idea to eat something from a heavily warded tin jar of unknown origin?" she demanded. She found it difficult to supress the urge to laugh.
"Bloody hell Hermione" Ron muttered righting himself, picking up his cookie, looking at it suspiciously. "Why would you do that? We weren't doing anything." Harry managed to cough up his bit of cinnamon bun, and looked embarrassed about his scare.
Hermione pulled up one perfect arch of eyebrow. "Is that so, Mr Weasley? Pray tell where did you get those delicious snacks than" she drawled. Ron swallowed a big gulp, and Harry was frozen in place with surprise. The effect was only ruined by the giggling of Ginny. Hermione could not help it anymore, she dissolved into laugher too. A giggling potions master had so little connection to reality that her glamour slowly dissolved into a smoky mist around her, leaving her standing in her muggle clothes with her curls in their natural colour.
"That wasn't funny" Harry uttered, shaken. "That was a way too realistic impersonation."
"Oh, cheer up" Ginny grinned patting his back. "I think it was hilarious. Though you might be spending a touch too much time in the dungeons, that was a cool eyebrow arch. Took me back to potions class" she ginned grabbing a cookie from the box unfazed.
"Blimey, Hermione, one Snape running around is more than enough."
"Amen to that" Sirius said sitting down at the table.
"Is that so, Mr Weasley?" This time it was Ginny asking, but her giggling took the edge out of it.
"Har-har" Ron said still eying his snack suspiciously. "Say, Hermione, are these safe to eat?"
"Of course they are" she smiled back at him. "They are the same as the ones I served at the last Order meeting. The wards were merely supposed to keep your grabby little hands out, so I could spare a few of them for myself for a coffee break. Oh, well" she reached into the tin and got herself a ginger snap. "I could always make some more. How is the train model project going?"
"It is progressing great" Harry answered with a sincere smile. "We were discussing whether we should include the lake, and if yes, if it should be real water, or maybe just pour some resin mould. I know electricity is not a real issue with magical train set, but I cannot shake a feeling of unease putting that much water so close to the rest of the setup."
"But resin water just doesn't move" Sirius countered. "How are we going to add enchanted weather if the water can't even make waves?"
"Why not compromise with a jelly lake?" Ginny asked. "You can enchant it to move and won't be a danger of spilling it. And because it is you know, jelly, you can even add gradual coloration to it, to make the middle look deeper and the shoreline shallower."
"I like that" Harry grinned, looking at his godfather.
"It is an elegant solution" Sirius twirled his beard around his finger. "I need to make a shopping list for making enchantable jelly, and some nice dies, but it would work. I guess in the meantime we could paint the roof of the castle?" the two of them exchanged a fist bump.
"Actually, Sirius, I wanted to ask you if there was a room in the house I could completely empty out for an artificer project. I would need something as big as the library, but if it is smaller I could use an extension charm on it." Sirius scratched the back of his head.
"Well, I always hated the saloon" he admitted. "There it was that all those oh so noble pureblood meetings took place, trying to impress each other with their own elegance, richness and importance" he sneered. "You can have the saloon."
"Thank you. What should I do with the furniture? Move it to the attic?"
"You can pulverise it for all I care" he answered.
"But won't you need it again after I am done with the project?"
"Hermione, I am a wizard. If I need new furniture, I can transfigure it. Or ask Minerva to transfigure something really lush. Regardless, I doubt I would ever want to have a 'saloon' again, so feel free to demolish it all. I have never really given much thought of what I wanted to do with the place. Actually… Let's turn this into a little contest!" He grinned, suddenly excited. "Everyone, try to come up with the most fun way to use the room. A mancave? A billiard room? An in-house greenhouse? The winner's idea gets to be turned into reality."
"A quidditch paradise" Ron whispered, his eyes getting glazed over.
"Well, thank you Sirius" Hermione grinned. "I think I have some furniture to demolish." Ginny set up straight, looking newly energised.
"I am going with you" she announced. "I want a piece of that. I need to practice my ball-busting moves" she grinned. Hermione saw Ron blanche, and Harry seemed to be fidgeting uncomfortably.
"I am good" Ron announced, pulling the cookie box towards him. "I will be designing the altar to the Cannons."