Remus' experience with the roots are based on my own when helping my mother
to chop up plantains. Children, I urge you not to have anything to do with
the evil things. They only exist to make cooks feel bad about themselves.
Remember, you are not a Salmon.
*
Chapter 15: El Salvador
Remus carefully made his way to the dungeons. Whatever the weather, the dungeons managed to maintain their cool, brisk air.
The dungeons used for the classes, he knew, would not be the ones that Snape would be in for his own purposes, or that of any other except teaching. The first four that he passed had been locked. He hadn't even bothered to try them anyway: the scent of finished potions was stale, not fresh; lessons had finished some time ago.
Memories of his own potion classes made him shudder slightly. It was unbelieveable - and this had first been said by their teacher. He now wholeheartedly agreed with it - that he could fail so miserably in potions.
Of course, the beginning ones were simple. He quite enjoyed doing them and had been called 'promising' with 'a good attitude' but in his second year, that had all changed.
He sniffed again.
He was getting closer.
Not for the first time, he began to wonder why anyone would want to teach here, where it was so chilly, permanently. Even Snape shouldn't be able to cope with it.
One of the doors to a dungeon was slightly open and from, aromas of freshly brewing potions issued. Hiding a smile, he walked swiftly towards it and looked round.
Snape was standing on one side of a table, wearily chopping up what looked like white carrots with methodical *tak*s on the chopping board. A large cauldron, with it's lid trembling slightly as the potion inside it bubbled, was steaming gently over a medium sized fire.
"You ought to close the doors, properly you know," Remus started. "Someone might be able to see those top secret workings of yours. And you wouldn't want that, now, would you?"
Snape looked at him. With an air of impatience, he strode towards the door. "There's no need to worry, I've already shut it." Remus added cheerily.
Stopping, a look of annoyance on his face, Snape blew some hair out of his face and strode back to the work-surface. He began to chop at the begetable with more spite in his actions than before.
**They haven't done anything wrong!**
"What do you want Lupin?" Snape said quietly, brushing a pile of neatly chopped carrot things to one side.
"Oh... I was wondering if I could help you in any way at all..."
"Really now," he was skinning something now. It wasn't a shrivelfig though.
"Yes... what is that?" The werewolf walked over to stand by Snape's side.
"This? It's some sort of root... it's supposed to clear headaches." He half mumbled his reply.
"What's it called?"
"I don't know! I'm not a Herbologist, ask Sprout! All I know is that it looks like this and it clears away headaches." Snape exhaled tiredly. "Jesus."
"Do you want me to chop something up for you, then?" Remus asked weakly.
Snape paused for a moment of two.
"Very well," he said, "now watch closely, I'll only do this once." Snape slit the skin of the root with a swift, vertical ovement. Gently holding it in his hand, he slid the skinned root out, in a technique similar to how someone would pop out a clam. "Be careful not to bruise or it will stick to the cauldron. It will make the potion lumpy and horrible to drink as well."
"Alright," Remus said, chastised.
Snape clicked his tongue and briskly marched over to a cupboard.
As always, Remus was slower in skinning the roots. When Snape arrived at the table with an armful of crates, Remus had only done four.
"It doesn't matter. So long as they don't bruise," Snape remarked, sounding almost kind.
"Are they expensive?"
"No."
**Oh... right....**
Snape sighed. "It's just that other animals like to eat them and other people dig them up as well, so what starts off as a whole green full of them, ends up, two hours later, as a whole green with two or three measly little things. These roots are fairly common."
"Oh?" Remus finished his fifth one. "What's in those crates?"
"I don't know," was the dry confession. "That's why I've taken them all out." As he unpacked the crates, he nodded at Remus and said, "You keep skinning."
"Yes sir," the werewolf muttered.
He was rewarded with a very dark look.
Remus tried to hide his smile. Snape sighed, again, irritably.
After three more of the roots, Snape stopped him and began to show Remus how to chop them up. He made it look easy. The problem was, the roots were very easy to bruise and chopping them was no easy task.
"No, no!" Snape exclaimed, "here. Chop them up into *thin* slices. The potion can wait. I don't care if we're here until Christmas, just chop them up *thin* otherwise they'll stew and become all sticky in the cauldron." He grabbed hold of the knife and repeated the aforesaid action. This close, Remus could see why the man's hair looked so greasy: the vapours from the potions couldn't have made matters any better for his hair. "There! Now do the next one! Go on!"
Before he could say anything else, Snape whipped the lid off the vibrating cauldron. Several litres worth of potion came spilling over the top. Remus thought that Snape may get annoyed by it, but on the contrary, he didn't.
"It does this," Snape shrugged. "Now carry on chopping."
**Yes sir! Right away sir!**
The man began to stir the potion gently, using a small sieve to catch out any lumps or stewing solid bits of the ingredients.
He was so meticulous with his work, that Remus stood there for a good amount of time, just staring and not doing much chopping
"Are those roots chopped?" He finally said in a low voice, though he didn't look up.
"Erm..." Remus looked down. Much to his surprise, they were. "Yes."
"Bring it all over here... the whole board with all the other things on it." Snape beckoned, still stirring. Remus obeyed. "Now, tilt the board slightly... *slightly* or it will all go in at once... yes... use the knife to make those go in first.... *slowly*... right...." He began to lightly churn the potion with his ladle. "Now those roots.... fine..."
Remus coughed, choking on the thick vapours.
"Turn away, yes? Go over to the cupboard... there's some mineral water over there..."
New respect filled him as he realised how very few people would be able to go on to make the more advanced potions, simply because of the environment you would have to adapt to: the vapour, being hotter than the potion itself, could scald you. If you dropped ingredients, the splashes would burn you, maybe eat at your skin. Just brushing past the cauldron could result in disaster as it overbalanced and potion would gush everywhere. To make matters worse, unlike with Charms and Transfiguration, an accident with an advanced potion - even the less advanced, Remus thought again - would result in mostly unreversable side-effects.
He continued to splutter away, greedily taking down the tangy mineral water.
"Are you alright now, Lupin?" Snape asked.
"Better," he whispered.
"Tch." Snape began to scowl. "Hmm... well, thank you for helping me..."
"You're welcome. How's Rat?" He blinked to clear away the spots in his vision.
"Rat is fine. He's in the library at the moment."
"He can read?"
A small smile appeared on Snape's lips and he shook his head, something like laughter dancing in his black eyes. "No. He's a *rat* Lupin. He just likes to run around people's feet and not get caught."
"What would happen if he did get caught?"
"He'd bite whoever was holding him and I would know... I hope I would, anyway..."
Remus nodded. "I'm fine now. What do we do next?"
"*You* sit down."
"No... I want to--"
"If you do so badly, you will sit down. I won't have myself blamed for the stubborn will of an insubordinate lycanthrope, understood?"
"Yes sir."
"And just stop that!" He said, gritting his teeth.
"I'm sorry... alright, I'll stop..." Remus couldn't help grinning.
"It's not *that* funny," Snape growled slowly. He turned away and went back to the potion. It seemed to be a lot calmer now.
Still trying to get his breath, Remus stood against a wall. He was aware of a quiet squeak or two before noticing that Rat was 'standing' before him. "Hello, Rat," Remus smiled wearily at the rodent. "How are we today?"
Rat squeaked.
Remus bent down and extended an arm. Rat willingly scampered along it.
"Severus?"
"Yes?"
"Any chance of a few glazed walnuts...?"
Snape whirled round to him, strode over and grabbed Rat by the tail. Holding him upside down, Snape said, "You will grow *fat* and *slow*. You'll have a heart attack if you keep on stuffing yourself with glazed walnuts."
Rat squeaked, reminiscent of a child backtalking it's mother.
Snape swung him gently. Rat squeaked again. "No, listen to me! The fatter you get, the more likely a cat will get you, you idiotic rat. And you know what cats *do* to fat rats?" Rat squeaked. "Right. So stop--eating--glazed-- walnuts! Have oatmeal instead!"
**Ah yes, I can see it now: Severus Snape, health guru for rats**
Remus let out a snort.
"Go hunt." Snape put Rat onto the floor and watched him scamper up to the chopping board, where he began to lick the vegetable juices.
"How long until the potion is ready?" Remus finally asked.
"Hm? What? Oh.... every ten minutes, on a low heat, I'll go and check on it. The time varies."
There was a silence.
"I could make us some coffee, while we wait..."
"We?"
"Does Rat take coffee too?"
Snape closed his eyes. "He can't. The last time he had a whole coffee bean to himself, he wouldn't stop gnawing and running around the study until morning." He shook his head. "Idiot Rat."
"You love him really..." Remus jibed wickedly.
"Of course I do... I'll be sorry when he's gone..." Snape paused. "I prefer cappucino. There's some there... three teaspoonfuls of sugar, as well please."
"Right away!"
*
It was after a lecture, that Severus decided to go and have a look at the labs. He had to descend several flights of stairs to a cool, air- conditioned area with white tiles on it's walls and pale yellow paster everywhere else.
He nodded at a few familiar faces and some professors he didn't even know, recognised him and greeted him by name.
Lab 44 was directly at the end of a passageway which branched off from a main corridor. He decided to go down there first.
The Lab was just like the rest of the lower floors: lightly coloured and airy. Stepping inside, he heard a small sound, rather like a rusty tap being turned, immediately to his left. At first he ignored it, but when he heard it again, he turned round to see where it was coming from.
A large cage, with three different 'floors' was there. In it, were so many different rats that Severus didn't even try to count them. One of them, poking it's nose out through between the bars, was a light brown with sandy coloured dots over it. It squeaked at him again.
"Oh... Hello..." He bent over to be on the same level as the rat. "What on earth are *you* looking at?"
It squeaked again.
Smiling as much as he dared to, before his face would begin to hurt, Severus ran a finger along it's back. It squeaked again, this time in appreciation.
"Pretty thing..." he murmured absently. The rat continued to squeak, however. "What is it?" he asked softly. "What's the matter with you...?"
Twisting his neck around, something that he'd missed before came into full view: on the varnished worksurface, were large square shaped plates, each with a length of cellophane over it. Beneath the cellophane were dead rats, each cut open with their skin pinned on either side of them, numbered and some of them labelled. Severus blinked then looked back at the rat that was still looking at him.
The other rats were oblivious to him. Stupid things.
"Poor rat," Severus said, his voice calm although his eyes were smouldering. Biting his lip in thought, something occurred to him.
He unclipped the latch and brought the door down. This time, only a few other rats cocked their heads at him. Scowling at them, he reached his hand inside the cage, grabbed hold as gently as he could of the brown one and took it out. With that, he closed the 'door' and held the rat in his hands, smiling again.
"C'mon rat," he said, and placed it in his pocket. "I ought to give you a name now, shouldn't I?"
*
They sat there, in amiable enough silence, sipping cappucinos. Remus was feeling rather pleased with himself: he'd actually managed to work alongside Snape and talk to him without any mishap.
He wondered what Snape was thinking at that moment.
The cauldron bubbled in discontent behind them.
~
You were lucky. I managed to figure this out really soon. Thank you for your reviews, and remember children, bewaaaaaare the plantains of dooooooom!!!
Remember, you are not a Salmon.
*
Chapter 15: El Salvador
Remus carefully made his way to the dungeons. Whatever the weather, the dungeons managed to maintain their cool, brisk air.
The dungeons used for the classes, he knew, would not be the ones that Snape would be in for his own purposes, or that of any other except teaching. The first four that he passed had been locked. He hadn't even bothered to try them anyway: the scent of finished potions was stale, not fresh; lessons had finished some time ago.
Memories of his own potion classes made him shudder slightly. It was unbelieveable - and this had first been said by their teacher. He now wholeheartedly agreed with it - that he could fail so miserably in potions.
Of course, the beginning ones were simple. He quite enjoyed doing them and had been called 'promising' with 'a good attitude' but in his second year, that had all changed.
He sniffed again.
He was getting closer.
Not for the first time, he began to wonder why anyone would want to teach here, where it was so chilly, permanently. Even Snape shouldn't be able to cope with it.
One of the doors to a dungeon was slightly open and from, aromas of freshly brewing potions issued. Hiding a smile, he walked swiftly towards it and looked round.
Snape was standing on one side of a table, wearily chopping up what looked like white carrots with methodical *tak*s on the chopping board. A large cauldron, with it's lid trembling slightly as the potion inside it bubbled, was steaming gently over a medium sized fire.
"You ought to close the doors, properly you know," Remus started. "Someone might be able to see those top secret workings of yours. And you wouldn't want that, now, would you?"
Snape looked at him. With an air of impatience, he strode towards the door. "There's no need to worry, I've already shut it." Remus added cheerily.
Stopping, a look of annoyance on his face, Snape blew some hair out of his face and strode back to the work-surface. He began to chop at the begetable with more spite in his actions than before.
**They haven't done anything wrong!**
"What do you want Lupin?" Snape said quietly, brushing a pile of neatly chopped carrot things to one side.
"Oh... I was wondering if I could help you in any way at all..."
"Really now," he was skinning something now. It wasn't a shrivelfig though.
"Yes... what is that?" The werewolf walked over to stand by Snape's side.
"This? It's some sort of root... it's supposed to clear headaches." He half mumbled his reply.
"What's it called?"
"I don't know! I'm not a Herbologist, ask Sprout! All I know is that it looks like this and it clears away headaches." Snape exhaled tiredly. "Jesus."
"Do you want me to chop something up for you, then?" Remus asked weakly.
Snape paused for a moment of two.
"Very well," he said, "now watch closely, I'll only do this once." Snape slit the skin of the root with a swift, vertical ovement. Gently holding it in his hand, he slid the skinned root out, in a technique similar to how someone would pop out a clam. "Be careful not to bruise or it will stick to the cauldron. It will make the potion lumpy and horrible to drink as well."
"Alright," Remus said, chastised.
Snape clicked his tongue and briskly marched over to a cupboard.
As always, Remus was slower in skinning the roots. When Snape arrived at the table with an armful of crates, Remus had only done four.
"It doesn't matter. So long as they don't bruise," Snape remarked, sounding almost kind.
"Are they expensive?"
"No."
**Oh... right....**
Snape sighed. "It's just that other animals like to eat them and other people dig them up as well, so what starts off as a whole green full of them, ends up, two hours later, as a whole green with two or three measly little things. These roots are fairly common."
"Oh?" Remus finished his fifth one. "What's in those crates?"
"I don't know," was the dry confession. "That's why I've taken them all out." As he unpacked the crates, he nodded at Remus and said, "You keep skinning."
"Yes sir," the werewolf muttered.
He was rewarded with a very dark look.
Remus tried to hide his smile. Snape sighed, again, irritably.
After three more of the roots, Snape stopped him and began to show Remus how to chop them up. He made it look easy. The problem was, the roots were very easy to bruise and chopping them was no easy task.
"No, no!" Snape exclaimed, "here. Chop them up into *thin* slices. The potion can wait. I don't care if we're here until Christmas, just chop them up *thin* otherwise they'll stew and become all sticky in the cauldron." He grabbed hold of the knife and repeated the aforesaid action. This close, Remus could see why the man's hair looked so greasy: the vapours from the potions couldn't have made matters any better for his hair. "There! Now do the next one! Go on!"
Before he could say anything else, Snape whipped the lid off the vibrating cauldron. Several litres worth of potion came spilling over the top. Remus thought that Snape may get annoyed by it, but on the contrary, he didn't.
"It does this," Snape shrugged. "Now carry on chopping."
**Yes sir! Right away sir!**
The man began to stir the potion gently, using a small sieve to catch out any lumps or stewing solid bits of the ingredients.
He was so meticulous with his work, that Remus stood there for a good amount of time, just staring and not doing much chopping
"Are those roots chopped?" He finally said in a low voice, though he didn't look up.
"Erm..." Remus looked down. Much to his surprise, they were. "Yes."
"Bring it all over here... the whole board with all the other things on it." Snape beckoned, still stirring. Remus obeyed. "Now, tilt the board slightly... *slightly* or it will all go in at once... yes... use the knife to make those go in first.... *slowly*... right...." He began to lightly churn the potion with his ladle. "Now those roots.... fine..."
Remus coughed, choking on the thick vapours.
"Turn away, yes? Go over to the cupboard... there's some mineral water over there..."
New respect filled him as he realised how very few people would be able to go on to make the more advanced potions, simply because of the environment you would have to adapt to: the vapour, being hotter than the potion itself, could scald you. If you dropped ingredients, the splashes would burn you, maybe eat at your skin. Just brushing past the cauldron could result in disaster as it overbalanced and potion would gush everywhere. To make matters worse, unlike with Charms and Transfiguration, an accident with an advanced potion - even the less advanced, Remus thought again - would result in mostly unreversable side-effects.
He continued to splutter away, greedily taking down the tangy mineral water.
"Are you alright now, Lupin?" Snape asked.
"Better," he whispered.
"Tch." Snape began to scowl. "Hmm... well, thank you for helping me..."
"You're welcome. How's Rat?" He blinked to clear away the spots in his vision.
"Rat is fine. He's in the library at the moment."
"He can read?"
A small smile appeared on Snape's lips and he shook his head, something like laughter dancing in his black eyes. "No. He's a *rat* Lupin. He just likes to run around people's feet and not get caught."
"What would happen if he did get caught?"
"He'd bite whoever was holding him and I would know... I hope I would, anyway..."
Remus nodded. "I'm fine now. What do we do next?"
"*You* sit down."
"No... I want to--"
"If you do so badly, you will sit down. I won't have myself blamed for the stubborn will of an insubordinate lycanthrope, understood?"
"Yes sir."
"And just stop that!" He said, gritting his teeth.
"I'm sorry... alright, I'll stop..." Remus couldn't help grinning.
"It's not *that* funny," Snape growled slowly. He turned away and went back to the potion. It seemed to be a lot calmer now.
Still trying to get his breath, Remus stood against a wall. He was aware of a quiet squeak or two before noticing that Rat was 'standing' before him. "Hello, Rat," Remus smiled wearily at the rodent. "How are we today?"
Rat squeaked.
Remus bent down and extended an arm. Rat willingly scampered along it.
"Severus?"
"Yes?"
"Any chance of a few glazed walnuts...?"
Snape whirled round to him, strode over and grabbed Rat by the tail. Holding him upside down, Snape said, "You will grow *fat* and *slow*. You'll have a heart attack if you keep on stuffing yourself with glazed walnuts."
Rat squeaked, reminiscent of a child backtalking it's mother.
Snape swung him gently. Rat squeaked again. "No, listen to me! The fatter you get, the more likely a cat will get you, you idiotic rat. And you know what cats *do* to fat rats?" Rat squeaked. "Right. So stop--eating--glazed-- walnuts! Have oatmeal instead!"
**Ah yes, I can see it now: Severus Snape, health guru for rats**
Remus let out a snort.
"Go hunt." Snape put Rat onto the floor and watched him scamper up to the chopping board, where he began to lick the vegetable juices.
"How long until the potion is ready?" Remus finally asked.
"Hm? What? Oh.... every ten minutes, on a low heat, I'll go and check on it. The time varies."
There was a silence.
"I could make us some coffee, while we wait..."
"We?"
"Does Rat take coffee too?"
Snape closed his eyes. "He can't. The last time he had a whole coffee bean to himself, he wouldn't stop gnawing and running around the study until morning." He shook his head. "Idiot Rat."
"You love him really..." Remus jibed wickedly.
"Of course I do... I'll be sorry when he's gone..." Snape paused. "I prefer cappucino. There's some there... three teaspoonfuls of sugar, as well please."
"Right away!"
*
It was after a lecture, that Severus decided to go and have a look at the labs. He had to descend several flights of stairs to a cool, air- conditioned area with white tiles on it's walls and pale yellow paster everywhere else.
He nodded at a few familiar faces and some professors he didn't even know, recognised him and greeted him by name.
Lab 44 was directly at the end of a passageway which branched off from a main corridor. He decided to go down there first.
The Lab was just like the rest of the lower floors: lightly coloured and airy. Stepping inside, he heard a small sound, rather like a rusty tap being turned, immediately to his left. At first he ignored it, but when he heard it again, he turned round to see where it was coming from.
A large cage, with three different 'floors' was there. In it, were so many different rats that Severus didn't even try to count them. One of them, poking it's nose out through between the bars, was a light brown with sandy coloured dots over it. It squeaked at him again.
"Oh... Hello..." He bent over to be on the same level as the rat. "What on earth are *you* looking at?"
It squeaked again.
Smiling as much as he dared to, before his face would begin to hurt, Severus ran a finger along it's back. It squeaked again, this time in appreciation.
"Pretty thing..." he murmured absently. The rat continued to squeak, however. "What is it?" he asked softly. "What's the matter with you...?"
Twisting his neck around, something that he'd missed before came into full view: on the varnished worksurface, were large square shaped plates, each with a length of cellophane over it. Beneath the cellophane were dead rats, each cut open with their skin pinned on either side of them, numbered and some of them labelled. Severus blinked then looked back at the rat that was still looking at him.
The other rats were oblivious to him. Stupid things.
"Poor rat," Severus said, his voice calm although his eyes were smouldering. Biting his lip in thought, something occurred to him.
He unclipped the latch and brought the door down. This time, only a few other rats cocked their heads at him. Scowling at them, he reached his hand inside the cage, grabbed hold as gently as he could of the brown one and took it out. With that, he closed the 'door' and held the rat in his hands, smiling again.
"C'mon rat," he said, and placed it in his pocket. "I ought to give you a name now, shouldn't I?"
*
They sat there, in amiable enough silence, sipping cappucinos. Remus was feeling rather pleased with himself: he'd actually managed to work alongside Snape and talk to him without any mishap.
He wondered what Snape was thinking at that moment.
The cauldron bubbled in discontent behind them.
~
You were lucky. I managed to figure this out really soon. Thank you for your reviews, and remember children, bewaaaaaare the plantains of dooooooom!!!
