Chapter Nine:
Eleanora stepped though the door, which he held open for her, closing it loudly behind her, causing her to turn in mild alarm. She found herself once again the object of his scrutinising gaze, as she stood before him, unsure as where to look or what to do. How could this man put her so ill at ease with a mere glance?
Sensing that the potions master was a man who evidently despised weakness, she straightened her shoulders, and stared squarely at him, returning his own intense gaze.
"The tonic?" she reminded him, her voice sounding stronger than she felt.
"Miss D'Souza, there is no need to repeat yourself," he drawled, his voice running like silk over her consciousness, one eyebrow curving in a derisive arch.
"Well, I have things to do. If it's not ready, I can come back another time," Eleanora shot back, knowing full well that the tonic was ready and waiting for her. As she had predicted, this cavalier questioning of his skills provoked a tangible reaction. His hard eyes narrowed, and his pale lips thinned to nothing, as he swept across the room without another word, his robes courting the thick air of the dungeon behind him.
Eleanora stood, puzzled at this sudden movement. She opened her mouth to call after him, but was stopped by his own words:
"Are you just going to stand there Miss D'Souza, or are you going to come and get the tonic so that you can get back to your undoubtedly busy schedule?" His voice dripped with viscous sarcasm, and he eyed her coldly from across the room.
She raised an eyebrow, and walked unhurriedly to where he stood at the door. She knew that the only way to fight this man was to use fire against fire, and she knew that she could give as good as she got. She inclined her head to his and gave him a wide smile, the curl of her lips too wide to be real warmth.
"Oh, after you, Professor Snape, I insist." Her voice was honeyed, but the dulcet tones coated a streak of pure sarcasm, as hard and obdurate as his own.
He flung open the door and entered the low ceilinged room beyond. Eleanora stared in wonder despite herself. The walls were lined from floor to ceiling with deep shelves, all of which contained a huge assortment of jars, bottles and vats. Their intensely shaded contents glinted provocatively in the torch light, though she knew that to touch would be a very foolish thing, fearing the rebuke of the man stood next to her more than the contents of the bottles. She instead contented herself with gazing raptly around the room, her eyes wide with approval.
Though Potions was not to be her chosen area of further study, she still possessed a fervour and talent for the subject to surpass that of any of her former class mates at Beauxbatons. The choice of which areas to focus upon for her final years at Hogwarts had been an agonising one, her favour finally falling upon Transfiguration and Defence against the Dark Arts. She had been studying at Beauxbatons for three OWL's in various areas of the art of Potion making, and it was with great reluctance that she had chosen to cease her study of the subject at the end of the next school year. The sight of the myriad of bottles and jars absorbed her attention, her eyes dancing with interest as she surveyed the shelves. The store rooms had been well stocked at Beauxbatons but nothing to rival this treasury of ingredients, carefully laid out, each of the labels lovingly inscribed with a small, flowing script.
So absorbed was she that she was not aware of the man at her side, glaring at her as he repeatedly intoned her name in a vain attempt to catch her attention.
"Miss D'Souza!" Kindly drag your attention away from the pretty bottles for a moment!"
His tone was patronising in the extreme, and she deeply resented the fact that he thought her to posses no more than an aesthetic appreciation of the contents of the shelves.
The scowl that scarred her features was one of pure fury as she turned to face him, and her voice, although quiet shook with anger.
"I would warn you, Professor Snape, not to make assumptions when it comes to me. I have not worked these past years to attain three OWL's in the art of potion making merely for it to be assumed by some uptight dogmatist that my interest in the subject does not extend beyond the pretty bottles as you so delightfully put it."
Her tone was dangerous, and her eyes flashed with rage as she made her statement. He stood; his black clad arms crossed across his chest, and weathered the storm of her anger without so much as a blink of his obsidian eyes. His lips curled into a disdainful sneer as he made his cutting reply.
"If you have quite finished your little outburst, Miss D'Souza, I shall give you this and bid you good day."
He handed her a tall, slim bottle with an elegantly tapered neck, filled with a rich chocolate brown liquid that seemed to burn with a hot, ebony intensity. She took the bottle and studied the label, swirling the liquid round inside.
"Felicia belladonna," she read. She looked up, her boiling anger having subsided, given way to renewed interest.
"An infusion of wode root, if I remember correctly?" she asked.
The potions master nodded. "Yes, the infusion is steeped then added to a solution of:"
"Asphodel and nightshade."
His eyebrow curled, this time not in derision but in surprise. The potion in question was an obscure one, and he was mildly impressed at her obviously thorough knowledge of it. However, he revealed nothing in his expression, hiding behind an expression of innate boredom as she continued.
"At what stage was the blood added?"
"After the first hour of simmering," he replied tonelessly to her engrossed questioning.
Her change in tack was puzzling, he thought to himself. A moment ago she had been spitting with rage, but now she was amicably conversing with him about the finer merits of brewing a glamouring potion. Truth be told, he reluctantly admitted to himself, he had been rather taken aback by her outburst. It was a rare occasion indeed that anybody dared retaliate to his sharp verbal bullying, let alone with such assurance and poise. Her mellifluous tones had reverberated around the cramped room; an acoustic mélange of gravel and honey, a suggestion of a French accent, no doubt another legacy of her mothers, rounding the backs of her words.
"Perhaps I could learn to brew it myself," she said, eyebrows raised questioningly.
Snape replied with an arched eyebrow of his own. "It is a rather complex process, Miss D'Souza, I'm not sure that:"
"Yes, of course: I only like looking at the pretty bottles, right?" The sarcasm had returned in full force to her voice, her lips curled into a challenging smirk, daring him to provoke her further.
He recognised the danger signs reminiscent of those that resounded in his own voice around the classroom, those same tones that reduced the lower years to a fearful quaking conglomerate beneath his piercing gaze.
He swallowed the rest of his retort and took a deep breath. Engaging with this girl in a bout of verbal sparring was arduous to say the least, torn as he was between speaking his mind, and not wishing to be further subjected to her acerbic admonishments.
She grinned, noticing his increasing discomposure, well hidden yet manifesting itself in the bands of flushed colour that painted his pallid cheekbones. She was used to reducing boys to a quivering heap in front of her, inadvertent though it was, but she knew that the professor's discomfort was not a result of her appearance, but from the realisation that in her he had met something of a match at least as far as verbal fencing matches were concerned.
"As you wish, Miss D'Souza," he countered wearily. "I have not the time to teach you right now, but if you wish, you may take the book containing the instructions to peruse at your leisure."
Eleanora nodded gratefully and followed him without comment as he swept out of the door, and strode back out into the classroom, pausing before a huge towering book case, loaded with all manner of tomes and jars which looked suspiciously like they contained pickled specimens. Eleanora wrinkled her nose in distaste and averted her gaze, letting it settle on the professor as he strove upon tip-toes to reach a particularly large and dusty grimoire, lying innocuously upon a high shelf.
Though Severus Snape was a tall man, he had to stretch to his full height in order to reach the elusive volume, crowded as it was by an assortment of specimen jars and empty cauldrons. He reached as far as he could, and closed his slim fingers around the edge of the book. He gave a hard yank and the book slid off the shelf, bringing with it a bombardment of discarded cast iron cauldrons. He cursed loudly and instinctively raised an arm above his head to shelf himself from the lethal impact. Eleanora raised her own arm above her head and made to cry out.
But the awaited impact of several heavy cauldrons upon his skull never came. The room was deathly silent as Severus Snape raised his head in disbelief, and peered through his fingers to see the awaited cauldrons hovering just inches from his head. His obsidian eyes widened in incredulity, and he became of aware of the girl several feet away, her arm still raised above her head, one finger pointed at the hovering cauldrons, quietly muttering to herself with a look of intense like concentration on her face, her eyes narrowed to steely slits.
"I'd move for a second if I were you, "she intoned softly. He obeyed, too shocked to make a retort, and watched in total silence as she lowered the cauldrons gently to the floor, her concentration broken as they rolled around on the stone floor, softly clanging together.
She exhaled deeply, and closed her eyes momentarily. Upon opening them she found the potions master gaping at her, aghast, in barely concealed bewilderment. He raked a hand though his tousled hair, looked around as if for some explanation then strode to the empty fireplace, leant down and roared with enough force to shake the desks,
"Albus! Get down here now!