Chapter 8

Esmeralda woke a while later to silence. She sat up and looked around curiously. She had learnt in the month that she had been here, that silence didn't always mean peace.

Fortunately, this time, it did. Lucius had given up on the paper work a while ago, and was snoring on the sofa softly. Bella had wandered off, probably to find her husband, and Snape was still immersed in his potions in the other room. Tom, on the other hand, was engrossed in his work, writing furiously on a growing roll of parchment.

Esmeralda yawned and looked around for something to do. Tom wasn't having any fun when he was in this mood. There was nothing but piles of papers in the room, so she hopped off the desk. The door to the potions lab was slightly ajar. She pushed it open gently, and slipped into the room.

There was a haze of rainbow smoke that covered the roof, and the lab felt stifling. But, none-the-less, it was familiar, and somewhat soothing.

Well, Esmeralda reflected, as soothing as Snape could be.

But still, she had seen Snape brew so many times in the past, during her numerous detentions with the sour man.

Well, maybe not so sour, reflected Esmeralda, thinking over his behaviour from before. If this was how he acted around Voldemort – no, Tom (He wasn't Voldemort really) – then it was no surprise that the light was losing. Their spy wasn't on their side.

Ah well, sniggered Esmeralda, she wasn't exactly on their side either.

She trotted along the floor, before jumping onto the large walnut desk that lay in a corner. It gave her a good view of the room, and she settled comfortably on a pile of reports, watching as Snape brewed.

He was brewing a variety of potions, several cauldrons going at once, each on a different bench, so that the different fumes and vapours didn't interfere with the delicate balance in each potion. She watched as he diced and sliced smoothly, and found herself, like so many other students, completely enraptured by the way the colours and smoke patterns changed as he added different ingredients.

Watching as he left the room for more ingredients, she took the opportunity to wander over to look at the potions.

She jumped up onto an empty bench, then up onto a shelf. She walked along it, pausing over each potion so she could see if she knew what it was.

One was obviously polyjuice potion. Having brewed it herself with Hermione and Ron, she knew what it looked like. Another was a completed Draught of Living Death. And another was a blood replenisher. And yet another was a rather nasty poison that resulted in the victim dying as their organs slowly solidified until they were completely petrified. It was a slow, painful, and completely incurable death, unless one was given a bezoar.

However, the final three potions were unidentifiable to Esmeralda. She hadn't expected to identify all of them anyway. This was a war, and Snape was a very experienced potions master.

Pausing over the first of the three, a violent blue potion, with magenta fumes, Esmeralda took a moment to breath in a very satisfying scent of sandalwood and mint. Perhaps this one was an antidote to some poison or other. Poisons tended to be either acrid, nasty smelling things, or so utterly enticing they closed off the victim's mind. Esmeralda wasn't feeling fuzzy, so she assumed it was an antidote, or a healing potion.

The next potion was a lurid red, and seemed to be rather gluggy. Considering the amount of ingredients half sliced on the bench, Esmeralda decided it probably wasn't finished as yet. Snape was such a neat freak that he often removed points for messy benches. Esmeralda, a rather absent minded person when it came to cleaning, despite her relatives efforts, usually had one of the messiest benches. She generally had everything perfectly clean after she was done, but it was during the actual brewing that she generally lost points.

"What are you doing?" asked a cold voice behind her, and she spun to see Snape glaring at her from the storeroom door.

"Mreowr," said Esmeralda succinctly.

"Get away from that," he said, walking closer, "It's unstable, and you'll end up blowing yourself up,"

Esmeralda gave the equivalent of a cat shrug and trotted along the bench until she reached the blue cauldron, which she sat next with a yawn. It smelt nice, and it looked interesting too.

"Could you please not sit near the potions!" said Snape and Esmeralda blinked at him. Was he pleading?

"Mreow?" said Esmeralda, tilting her head.

"Please!" begged Snape and Esmeralda almost toppled over. He was!

She got up and started to walk away, when a yell distracted her.

"MERA! Where are you!" yelled tom, and there was a shrieking sound. Unfortunately it also managed to startle Esmeralda, and she jumped violently, and she slipped off the shelf, knocking the blood replenisher into the antidote. Normally two healing potions mixing would have rendered each other useless, and that would have been the case, had the poison not been there. the three mixed, and Esmeralda managed a startled meow, before it blew up.

Esmeralda found herself airborne for a moment, and she briefly wondered where her broom was, before she hit the bench with a thud.

There was another muffled boom, that seemed to filter in as if Esmeralda was hearing it through a wall of water, before something splashed on her. Esmeralda felt a burning sensation before blackness swallowed her.