Chapter 8    The Potion Masters'Conference

"I had no idea there were so many Potions specialists in the world!"  Hermione tried to distribute her load of notebooks and texts between both arms as they made their way down the crowded corridor.  "What's the next lecture?"

 Snape, two long-legged strides ahead of her, did not bother to turn his head.  "New Developments in Reagents," he said.  "Didn't bother to bring your schedule with you, eh, Miss Granger?  Too distracted?"

She made a face at his back, thinking that she would rather have cocked a snook at if him if she had a free hand.  Of course, she was mightily honoured that she should have been invited to attend the Potions Masters' International Conference with her famous teacher.  He did not deign to acknowledge that it was her experiment, much derided by himself in the beginning, that won the Masters' competition, and it was her experiment, now refined, codified and verified, that they would demonstrate in a couple of hours, to the huge assemblage of dignitaries, geniuses, experts and just plain potions wogs that would fill the auditorium.

Snape stood still at the door of the lecture room and waited until she stood beside him.  Then, he opened the door and swept through, leaving her to trail along in his wake. I hate it when he does that, she thought, and he does it all the time. He has to make an entrance, what an ego.

Where was that ego a month ago? She had been playing the harpsichord in the Common Room, bumped into him and seen the tears on his haggard face, and dragged him over to the fire where he sat, hunched over as if he were two hundred years old, staring unseeing into the flames, old ghosts and demons flickering in his black eyes.  She had never seen anyone so lonely, and that aloneness had wrenched her heart.  She had summoned tea, and they had sat for a while, drinking tea, saying little to each other.  When she saw some colour return to his face, she rose and went to the side of his chair.  She squatted on her heels next to him, and took his hand in hers.  She looked up into his face, and saw puzzlement and hope.  "Be still, it's all right," she whispered, as one would to a child.  Then she leaned her head against his knee, and his other hand gently touched her springy curls.  They had stayed thus for a long time, and she had been content in his presence.  . 

When she heard the chimes announcing dinner, she had put her hand under his elbow and gotten him up out of the chair, walked him to the dining-hall, and when he stopped, trembling, unable to enter, she turned him around and brought him to his rooms.  He had stopped at the entrance of his study, straightened his back, and looked at her with weariness beneath his dignity.  "Thank you, Miss Granger," he said.  "I shall be all right now."  She had felt his hand tighten on hers, and then she had fled.

The next day, Professor Snape was his usual surly self, and she found herself wondering whether she had dreamed the previous afternoon.  What did it cost him to suppress his humanity, swallow his tears?  She had felt a fatherly presence from him when he put his hand on her hair; she had rested her head on his knee, like a child secure with her parent.  How could she feel a mother's tenderness towards him at one moment, and a child's confidence the next?  And yearn to brain him with a Quidditch bat withal?

During the next few weeks, everyone's unfavourite greasy git was as usual:  nasty, sarcastic, exacting and brilliant.  Neville Longbottom ended up in hospital yet again; Gryffindor was fined points until they despaired of finishing the form; Slytherin got away with everything short of murder, and the advanced students received a new challenge:  to enter the qualifications for the Potions Masters' International Competition.

Hermione knew that she could reach the finals.  It was not for nothing that she was an intern to Professor Snape, one step above the student aides and one step below apprentices.  An unwavering focus, precise attention to detail and the ability to compute Arithmancy formulas in her head had earned her Snape's grudging approval.  Her willingness to explore new territory, take risks and their consequences with aplomb and defuse Snape's attempts to bully her with a calm and serpentine stare that rivalled his own, garnered her the favoured position.

She loved mathematics for its logic and order, and thereby Potions.  Although most potions were brewed for medicinal or agricultural use, there were others that offered more challenge: they changed one's appearance, attracted or repelled water/heat/cold/others; some that were specific to Transformation.  Everything Hermione studied had, it seems, some relation to either maths or potions, or both.  Lately, her elective class in Runes had given her quite a different view.

The Runes Mistress was a druid, and probably as old as the Standing Stones.  Hermione liked her instinctively; the small, slender woman in her archaic dress had a most interesting view of the universe and of life in general.  Mostly girls from Hufflepuff and Gryffindor attended the Runes classes; immature students who thought that Runes was a version of Tarot used primarily to identify and attract one's true love.  Hermione saw something quite different:  a mystic's view of the world (or worlds), and interpretation on many levels.  It was the Runes Mistress who gave Hermione the idea for her Potions competition entry.

"The world entire exists on many levels at once," stated Dame Angharad.  She looked around at the vacant or puzzled expressions on her students' faces.  Except for Miss Granger: she sat, chin in hand, riveted, following the lesson with her heart as well as her mind.  There's much in that curly head, Dame Angharad thought to herself.  At the end of the lesson, she invited Hermione to stay and have a go at throwing the Runestones herself.

A Champion.  She is, as I suspected, a mystic warrior, and she is girding for battle.  Now, whom shall she save?   "Now, Miss Granger, how would it be if we could command the Runes' ability to move through time, if we ourselves could go backwards and witness what has already pased, or forwards and know what is yet to come? 

"Isn't that dangerous?  What if going back in time results in someone's never being born, or something like that?"

Dame Angharad laughed.  "Tis never so!  Your Muggle writers scare children by telling them tales of time travel, and their grandsires never met, and they were therefore never born!  Ye can't change the past, and the future is unknown to us.  The Runes tell us only what we might expect if the world turns one certain way – but the ley-lines cross all worlds, and we do not know where we shall come out."

Hermione frowned.  "Yet the Runes can do it.  What if – what if we could perceive what the Runes see, even if only momentarily?"

The Green Lady placed several runestones on the triskellion, the patterned cloth that gives order to the reading, and pondered the arrangement.

"T'would need the passing of the doors of perception," she said. "The runes would tie ye to the present, so ye never need be lost, but ye would need to come out of yourself."

"I could do it!"  Hermione exclaimed.  "A potion that would surround one with an aura of opening, releasing one from the perceptual hold on the moment, yet contain one – one would have to breathe it, and as long as one breathes it one can follow the runes…" She bounced up and down on her chair with excitement.

Dame Angharad laughed to see her enthusiasm.  "Well, then, to your cauldrons and elixirs!  Try to do it – I can see a fine mist, surrounding the reader…" Hermione could contain herself no longer.  She hugged the Runes Mistress round the shoulders and ran out in the direction of the Library.

It took her four weeks to come up with a working prototype of the Doors of Perception potion.  When she explained it to Professor Snape, using a very simple layout of six runestones, he almost had a fit of apoplexy.  "Runes!" he bellowed.  "Whatever ridiculous nonsense is this, Miss Granger? When I think of the galleons wasted on purchasing ingredients for this childish exercise—"

She interrupted him.  "Professor, you're missing my point entirely.  How would you like to be able to witness firsthand what the Dark Lord has in mind for you in the near future?  How would you like to be able to see clearly what predisposed a sufferer to a chronic disease?"

He had to admit that there were useful applications for her invention; he objected to the runes because, for reasons best known to himself, he despised the Runes Mistress.  Hermione didn't argue with him.  After several dozen unsuccessful starts, she came up with a potion that, when placed in an atomiser, produced a fine mist that lingered in the air for a few moments.  She found that when she sprayed the mist directly in front of her face and stepped into it, she had the odd sensation of being inside a lens – a glass lens that changed the look of everything seen through it.  She could see the rot barely beginning in a piece of fruit; mould on a wall, the immature eggs inside a chicken.

Well, that much was fine:  the doors of perception had been cleansed, and one could see clearly through them.  Now, the runes.  She sought the Runes Mistress' help.

She lay out a simple pattern taught to her by Dame Angharad:  Then, she sprayed the mist:  nothing.  She saw the rune pieces, as they had been when they were brand new, colourful patterns incised into the bone.  "You must cast the runes and read them," said Dame Angharad.  "Then we will see what there is to be seen."  With much coaching, Hermione read, for hersel, an enigmatic journey, a reversal of fortune, a time of peril and something to do with money.  Then she sprayed the potion.  She was inside the lens once more, seeing a young man and woman trudging wearily down a road, a pack – a child! On the father's back a child rode – it was herself.  Her mother, walking alongside, tripped on a stone and fell down, the father bent to help her, and the child sailed over his head – and the mist dissipated; she was looking at the triskellion and the rune pieces.

"It worked!" she enthused.  "My mother used to tell me that I fell off my father's back and clouted my head, and that is why I am a Muggle-born wizard!"  The Runes Mistress laughed with her.  "I want to try again!" cried Hermione.

"Not today, not today, my love," said Dame Angharad.  "You must do this sparingly.  And always remember: the runes never fall the same way twice.  You don't know what you will see."

Hermione thanked her and ran to find Professor Snape.  The Potions Master was returning from a Quidditch match with a most excruciating expression on his face:  Slytherin had not done well.

"Professor!" she cried, pouncing on his arm and dragging him along.  "Come and see!  You can't imagine how splendidly the Doors of Perception work!"  I want to submit it to the competition!"

Snape peeled her hands off his arm and stopped stock-still.  "Miss Granger," he said icily, "I will not waste my time on gimcrack oddities.  Bring me documentation.  Then we will discuss your – er – experiment."

He turned away with a swirl of his cloak and was gone.  "Damn!" muttered Hermione.  Documentation indeed:  twelve proven trials in a row, each one exhaustively logged.  Grimly she returned to her quarters.  She was running out of time:  entries for the Potion Masters' Conference Competition had to be submitted before the weekend.

Hermione spent every available moment on the Doors of Perception.  She brewed several batches of the potion, noting down every ingredient and proportion and step in the preparation.  With Dame Angharad's help, she studied the lore of runes and how to read them. She ran trials; each throw of the runes with each of the potions, until she had twenty in a row.  She found that as she worked, she experienced a brief wave of disorientation after the mist dissipated.  This was disconcerting, because she threw the runes for herself, and saw much that she did not understand.

She enlisted the help of her good friends Ron and Harry, and did ten trials each for them.  Here, it was not so simple; she had less experience reading the runes for others, but as she persevered, she learned more.  Harry's readings were obscure; she concentrated on Ron, and even dragged Professor McGonagall into her efforts.

At last, on Friday afternoon, the documentation was complete. Hermione sought out Professor Snape at the door of his last class of the day.  House elves scurried around the laboratory, cleaning and polishing and removing the fragments of yet another exploded cauldron.  Snape looked at her, standing in the doorway with her parchment in one hand, tapping it nervously against the other.

"Well?  The doorpost appears sound, Miss Granger, you do not need to hold it up," he snapped.  "What is it?"

Hermione stepped forward and handed him the parchment.  "Here it is, Professor," she said.  "The Doors of Perception, my documentation.  Twenty successful trials plus another ten for other subjects.  I've brought my materials for you, to perform a demonstration."   She put a small packet on the laboratory bench, withdrew her wand from her sleeve and the packet expanded into a tray containing her runestones and triskellion, three phials of the Doors of Perception potion, a notebook and a quill.

Snape perused the objects.  "Really," he said impatiently, "I'm wanted for a staff meeting, Miss Granger.  I'm sure your little experiment can wait."  He prepared to gather his books.

Hermione literally saw red.  "No!" she cried.  "You know full well that tonight's the deadline for the competition, Professor, and you know full well that I've done it, I said I could and I've done it! Now you'll witness my demonstration and sign off on my entry."  She was breathing hard, her heart pounding.

The Potions Master cleared away a space on the bench next to her materials.  He pulled over a stool, sat down on it, and looked at her with those eerie black eyes.  "Proceed," he said.

Hermione was nonplussed.  She had expected an argument, but once more the man had surprised her. She spread out the triskellion and lined up her three atomisers.  She took the runestones out of their pouch; they were warm in her hand.   To her astonishment, Snape held out his right hand, palm up.  He's had his runes told before.   She poured them into his hand; he closed his fingers on them.

She took runestones at random from his hand and built the Celtic cross on the triskellion.  The other runestones went back into their pouch.  The stones told a simple tale:  hard times past, ambiguous present and ominous future.  Hermione explained the meanings as clearly and simply as she could, while Snape stared at the runestones.  "I don't believe in this," he said.

"Well, you must finish the experiment, Professor, and then let us see what you believe or don't believe," she said tartly.  He stood up and moved directly in front of the pattern of stones on the cloth.  Hermione handed him the atomiser marked, "Batch One." 

"One full spray, directly in front of your face, Professor," she said.  Snape pushed the plunger and leaned forward slightly.  His face went vacant for a moment, then his jaw dropped with astonishment.  The mist was gone, and Snape sat down heavily on the stool.

"What did you see?"  Hermione demanded.  "Did it work?"

Snape's hooded eyes turned in her direction.  In a barely audible voice, he replied, "It works, Miss Granger.  It works perfectly."

"Oh!" she cried.  "I'm so glad!  Then you'll approve it, Professor?" She tugged on his arm, realised what she was doing and backed away from him hastily.

"Yes," he said.  "I will approve it and send it on.  Congratulations, Miss Granger.  You have done well."  He rose, took her parchment documentation and strode to the door.  He turned sharply, his cloak swirling about him.  "I shall send your experiment to the competition prefects. Thank your Runes Mistress for her assistance."  And he swept out of the door.  Gods, he has to make an exit like an actor.

Within a week, word had come that her experiment had indeed made it into the finals, and a practical demonstration at the Potions Masters' Conference would be expected.  Trust Snape to toss the news over his shoulder in the most offhand manner as he passed her in a corridor.  Hermione shrieked and ran after him, but he had already disappeared around a corner; she suspected that he had Apparated to get away from her.  She flew down the moving staircases to Dame Angharad's classroom just as a group of senior Ravenclaws was exiting.

The Green Lady looked up from her parchment diagrams and scrolls.  "Well, Miss Granger, have you news?" 

"Dame Angharad, I've made it into the finals!"  Hermione panted, and flung herself into a chair next to the Runes Mistress' desk.  "And, can you imagine, Professor Snape actually thanked you for helping me?"

The Green Lady smiled.  " 'Tis hard for him, my dear.  Of late he's learned some lessons he never thought he would learn, and there's much more ahead.  A piece of work he is, indeed."

Hermione frowned. "Maybe that's why – Dame Angharad, may I tell you?  You won't say anything?"  The lady nodded. "I thought he must be sick.  He's been even odder than usual lately (here, Dame Angharad's smile quirked at the corners of her mouth) and he was in tears a few weeks ago – I was playing the harpsichord, and I saw him standing still on the colonnade, listening.  When he came down, there were tears on his face, and he looked perfectly dreadful – I dragged him into the common room, and gave him tea…"

Dame Angharad had Seen Hermione take the Potions Master's hand and lay her head against his knee.  She had Seen Snape touch the young woman's curly hair softly, and Seen the unaccustomed tenderness in his face.  A champion…."

She sat down at her desk.  "Dear Hermione, it is well that you comforted him.  He needs it desperately, although he does not seem to deserve it.  Ye may not know it, but he wants you to win the competition, and he is proud of you."

"Would it kill him to let me know?"

Dame Angharad patted her hand.  "No, 'twouldn't kill him, but himself is unused to considering the feelings of others, and it feels odd to him when he does do it.  Indulge him, then, and when the opportunity presents itself, dear sister, if ye can teach him anything, do so."  She rose and lay her hand on Hermione's forehead.  "Blessed be," she said, and looking into the young woman's chocolate brown eyes, Dame Angharad Saw blooming wild roses.

***

The auditorium was vast, larger by three times than Hogwarts' Great Hall expanded to its full interdimensional size.  A prefect led Hermione and Professor Snape up to the stage, and seated them next to the other contest finalists, each one an intern with a mentor.  Hermione felt as if she was in a fog; all she could think of were the precise steps of the experiment, so familiar they were instinctive.  Snape sat next to her, still as a stone.

"Hogwarts, Master Severus Snape," someone intoned.  Snape stood up, threw back his cloak and strode to the long table at the front of the stage.  He bowed.  "Severus Snape, Potions Master," he said.  "My intern, Hermione Granger, and her experiment, the Doors of Perception."  He wheeled and beckoned to her, and she rose, suddenly in desperate need of the loo.  I should have gone before," she thought.  Gods, I hope I don't pee down my leg with nerves.

She felt a warmth on her forehead, and recalled Dame Angharad's blessing.  Confidently, she walked to the table, bowed to the assemblage, said her name and lay out her experiment.  She took the runes from their pouch, and looked expectantly at Snape.  He hesitated only a moment, then he indicated the Master Prefect.   "Sir, will you judge?"  The old man hobbled over to the table, bobbed his head cheerfully, looked through his glasses at the pretty contestant, and then perched them on his head.  "Proceed, young lady," he said.

Hermione placed the runestones in the Master Prefect's hand.  He held them, then opened his hand, and she set out the pattern.  She looked at it: quite clear – fortuitous past, wealthy present and auspicious future – and handed the old gent the atomiser.  He looked at it closely, nodded and sprayed a mist in front of his face. 

His expression went blank -  and then he sneezed.  The air began to vibrate in front and around him, and Hermione and Snape, as one, grabbed his arms and attempted to pull him backward out of the mist.  He flew backwards, as the reaction took them, and they flew forward.  Hermione pitched headfirst into a ringing, racketing tunnel, and flailed out, screaming.  A hand clasped her own, and the air flew out of her lungs.