Tara counted the vials one more time, just to be sure. Not that chrystella was particularly valuable, but she wanted to make absolutely certain that her first major inventory of the storeroom was correct. On a second piece of paper, she jotted notes about ingredients she thought would be frequently pulled. She felt him hovering behind her, tainting the air with his overbearingly foul presence, but she opted to ignore him for as long as possible.
Snape cleared his throat loudly, then spoke to her back
"Miss Maclay," he said, stretching her last name out, "what exactly do you think you are doing?"
"I-inventory, Professor." She turned, willing herself to stay calm and fighting back the equal parts of fear and anger that were creeping into her mind.
"I see. Why are you doing that? I keep very strict inventory records."
"I know, but I wanted to know what was in here. I wouldn't want to hold up your class because I didn't know where something was."
"Very well." He paused. "I will have you know that I will not tolerate a repeat outburst such as the other day. In my classroom, you will behave yourself and respect my authority at all times. Is that clear?"
"Y-yes, sir."
"Just because Dumbledore believes your meager talent is worthy of my time," he continued, eyeing her coldly, "does not mean that you have the right to intrude on the way I conduct my class."
Tara had decided earlier that allowing him to bully her at the start would be an invitation for him to dominate her all the time. "You take yourself pretty seriously, don't you, Professor?"
"What exactly are you implying with that statement?"
"If we're going to be working together, y-you need to understand something." She silently cursed her stutter again. "I'm here to help teach these k-kids, not t-to fetch ingredients for you and kiss your ass," she said bluntly. "Professor Dumbledore asked me to stay here with you, and I will. You know a lot about potions that I want to learn, but don't think you can insult me whenever you w-want. I won't stand for it."
The tirade from the seemingly sweet, shy Tara drove Snape back a mental step. The girl's stutter belied the force inside her, and he decided instantly that crossing her would not be wise. Snape respected that; people who folded quickly under his pressure were worthy of nothing but derision. This girl, on the other hand … he had been thoroughly surprised by her acceptance of Dumbledore's request, which had come from Snape himself. The Potions Master had not meant to drive the girl away, only to establish that he ruled his own classroom. Despite his earlier comment, he believed she possessed a true gift for potion-making. Much like cooking, the brewing of potions required a healthy dose of artistry to accompany the science. Tara had that in abundance.
Even so, he would not surrender so easily. He was still a full Professor, and her superior.
"You … won't stand for it? Little girl, I have been a full professor in this school since before you parted the pages of your first spellbook. I have seen hundreds upon hundreds of students pass through my classroom. I have guided some of them to brilliant careers in this field. I …"
"Professor," she said, her hand whipping up to cut him off, "I-I know you have more experience than I do, and that this is your class. B-but … the children … some of them dread coming down here."
"Yes, they do, don't they," he replied with a joyful sneer.
"How can you like that?"
Because I am making them stronger, Snape answered silently. He had no respect for weakness, and worked as hard as he could to attack it. And no one, he added with a self-satisfied mental smirk, conquered weakness better than Severus Snape. Even Longbottom had toughened dramatically under Snape's fierce assaults. How could this girl not see that? How could she miss the service he had done for these children, searing the weakness out of them? Had someone done that to him as a boy … he might be vastly better off. Either way, he certainly felt no need to justify himself to her.
"I think, Miss Maclay, that this discussion is at an end. If you are to work with me, you will accept my methods and follow my instructions. Should you have a question, you …" He gritted his teeth, accepting the small concession Dumbledore had insisted upon."You may approach me with it after class, and we will discuss it."
Tara accepted that. She had no choice, really. It was his class, after all, and she could, she hoped, do as she had told Willow: hover in the background and soften Snape's sharp edges.
"O-okay, Professor. I'm fine with that."
"Very well, then. Show me your notes." She looked at him askance. "I wish to know what items you focused on." They both stood there, waiting, until, under his breath, he added, "please."
She smiled and handed them to him. His beady eyes moved rapidly across the pages.
"What is this? I have four vials of arsirrah, not three."
"N-no," Tara said, pointing to the shelf. Arsirrah had the unique ability to enhance the properties of whatever it was mixed with, though on its own it was useless. "I only count three."
He glared at the three jars, then looked quickly back to the list. Nothing else seemed to be missing. Except for …
"Someone has been stealing again. And I know who."
Dinner had almost concluded when Snape stormed into the dining hall. He made a beeline for Harry, who was eating with Ron, Neville, Fred, and George.
"Potter! Where are they?"
"Where are who, Professor?" The anger in Snape's twisted visage ignited every fear alarm in Harry's body.
"Don't play with me, boy," the Potions Master snarled. He leaned his fleshy beak down into Harry's face. "Do you remember what I told you before about stealing from me? And supplies to cheat on your quizzes, no less." Snape rocked backwards, opening up a gap between them. Harry's heart hammered in his chest. He had no idea what Snape was on about. "Shameful. The famous Harry Potter, reduced to cheating to pass his classes."
"Now Severus," Dumbledore said, coming up and resting a restraining hand on Snape's shoulder, "I seriously doubt that Harry is cheating on anything. What seems to be the trouble?"
"Once again, supplies have gone missing from my store room, Professor."
"Which supplies would those be?"
"Tell him what you took, Potter!"
"B-but …" Harry had no idea what Snape was talking about. They hadn't stolen supplies from him in a very long time.
"Severus," Dumbledore warned.
"Arsirrah, Professor. A jar of it, along with two boxes of skry root, are missing from my stores. As you know, when combined, those two can produce a very potent memory enhancer."
Grey, who had walked over to join the discussion with Willow following quickly behind, caught Dumbledore's eye and raised his left eyebrow. He got a slight nod in return.
"I do not see how that implicates Mister Potter," Dumbledore intoned, "as his grades have, I hear, been superb this term."
"Yes, well …" Snape blustered, unsure what to say. Ron smirked behind his hand, knowing that Snape's dislike of Harry had been his only evidence.
"I suggest you discuss this with Hagrid and Mr. Filch. Perhaps one of them might find it somewhere." With that pronouncement, Dumbledore turned and glided back to his meal.
"What was that all about?" Willow asked in the hallway afterwards.
"Snape's an ass," Grey answered with a shrug.
"I know that, duh. I've met the man, after all. No, I mean the little coded tete-a-tete with Professor Dumbledore?"
"Oh." Grey paused. "How much do you know about potion-making?"
"Pretty much not much," she admitted. The subject interested her very little, and as she once explained to Tara, all of her efforts ended up soup. The result had always been a rare bout of scholarly apathy.
"Me either, but to be an auror, you have to learn about magical poisons. Arsirrah and skry root, with a few other common household goodies tossed in, can make a pretty intense one."
"Great, so now we have to do what? Hire one of those food tasters? That'd be way medieval."
"On the plus side, though, you'd have someone other than me calling you 'your highness' when they kiss your ass."
She wiggled her eyebrows with a suggestive smile.
"That could be fun," she said sweetly, giggling at his scowl.
"Honestly, don't you two ever do your homework?" Hermione was asking Ron and Harry in the Gryffindor common room.
"Only when you bloody well make us," Ron muttered under his breath. Her brown eyes went wide; for a moment he imagined he saw flames burst from her nostrils. "Kidding, hon, kidding. Really. Just rufflin' your feathers."
"Well, we'll see later who …"
"Hermione, come on." Harry cut her off, not wanting to hear her retort about the two of them ruffling anything. "Just ignore him and tell us what's so important about a couple of missing ingredients."
She glared at him for a second, then explained about the possible poison.
"That's not good," Ron said after a moment. "Who d'you think they're gonna poison?"
"We don't know that they'll poison anyone," Harry answered. To Hermione, he asked, "couldn't someone be making a memory potion, like Snape thought?"
"Could be." She thought for a moment. "There are easier ones to make that are more powerful, though. And they could easily buy the ingredients in Hogsmeade for very little, whereas skry root is enormously expensive. Arsirrah is not exactly worthless either."
"Great. Now we have to worry about what's in the bloody food. Because Death Eaters and crazy witches weren't enough to worry about."
"Calm down, Ron. I doubt they'll poison everyone," Hermione lectured. "They would need quite a bit more to do in the entire school. From what you told me Snape said, it sounds like they only took enough to poison one or two people."
"Dumbledore!" Harry shouted suddenly, the realization hitting him like an anvil. "They're going to poison Dumbledore!"
"He'd be the obvious one," Ron agreed. "We should find 'em, right? Tell him?"
"I'm sure he knows," Hermione said. "We can't do much to help him that he can't do for himself. What we need to do is find the people who took the ingredients and stop them."
"They're probly workin' for You-Know-Who."
"Agreed," Harry asserted. "We must flush them out as soon as possible."
"How?" Ron asked.
"I've got an idea of where to start."
"You're not goin' to that wanker Malfoy, are you?"
"D'you have a better idea how to find out which one of the Snakes is going to do Voldemort's dirty work?"
Ron scowled fiercely, glaring at Harry.
"I don't like it. Before, that was one thing. We had no choice when he came to us. Now, it's completely different. Besides, this isn't about his slimy family. How do we know he'd help? Or that he'd tell the truth?"
"What else can we do?" Hermione broke in. "I mean, I'll look in the library for the cure, but I seem to recall that the poison acted fast enough that there wasn't time to brew it. Our only other choice is to find whoever has it before they use it."
"You KNOW how I feel about Malfoy, Ron," Harry said patiently, "but you saw his face that day. He hates them a lot more than he hates us."
"I don't trust him," Ron mumbled.
"And we do?" Hermione responded, her voice rising. "I just don't believe that we have any other choice."