Hello again! A large thank-you to cait, lei van, xikum, tee hee, tantz, xirleb70- haha! Again, good luck with that door.. maybe you should try blasting it with the imperius curse and ordering it to move.., atari420, lady lightning, litine, candledot- actually, his last name is Potter. James adopted him when he was a baby. Weird, huh?, Kemenran, calani, fnxmoon, piggie, crazycheesecake, charma1219, enahma, and athenakitty. You guys have been great!!
Let's see.. more potions in this chapter. Yay!
~~~****~~~~
"Hey Professor? How do you transfigure a napkin into a rubber band?" Harry asked as he chowed down his food.
Minerva was eating quickly, keeping an eye on her cauldron at the same time. She looked at Harry quizzically, pointed her wand at a napkin, and muttered a spell. Immediately, a rubber band took its place.
"Thank you!" Harry said as he pulled his hair back. He had cut it to about six inches beyond shoulder length the day before, but it was still getting in his way.
"No trouble at all," Minerva replied. She had finished her food and was now standing over her cauldron, frowning.
"Harry? What did I do wrong?"
Harry looked into the cauldron and saw a thick blue-green liquid. He hit his forehead with his hand.
"It shouldn't be that color! How much unicorn hair did you add?" he asked, not once tearing his eyes from the substance.
"Unicorn hair?" she asked. "The recipe didn't call for unicorn hair!"
"I thought I added it! The silver fibers next to the gillyweed are unicorn hair. The directions don't say it, but you need to crush the hairs and add about a cup of them if this potion is going to turn out correctly. You can still add it, but put in about half a cup of goblin's blood in with it to even out the reaction," Harry ordered.
McGonagall did as she was told, and the potion slowly turned into a brilliant yellow color.
"Excellent," said Harry. "Keep working."
Snape, who had been residing in Harry's head since the boy woke up that morning, was very impressed. Harry had shown an incredible amount of knowledge, talent, and wisdom throughout the eight and a half hours he had spent in Snape's dungeons. Severus had been almost positive that he was going to have to be issuing directions at every turn, but none of that had come to pass. The only directions Snape had given were to go get lunch. The rest had been all Harry. And Minerva, of course. She was doing a good job as well, not that he would ever say that to her face.
"Snape thinks you're doing a good job," Severus heard Harry's voice say.
Minerva laughed and Snape wished he could roll his eyes.
I said no such thing.
Yes, you did. Be careful, Professor- sometimes you think too loud.
Severus decided he would have to be more careful.
~~~***~~~~
An hour and a half later, Minerva's potion was finishing up and Harry was running back and forth from his cauldron to hers, eagerly issuing instructions to ease the finishing process. For some reason, all of the potions he had picked had to be finished quickly and bottled before something bad happened.
And something bad was happening. Minerva had turned to grab the vials, and the potion started smoking.
"Damn it!" yelled Potter, immediately getting Minerva's attention. He couldn't do anything, as his own potion was seriously in need of attention, so he was stirring furiously, adding in parts of a beak of a baby hippogriff to his clever concoction, and telling Minerva what to do at the same time.
Smoke.. smoke.. um.. pepper? Gillyweed?
"Did you add the pepper?"
"Yes!"
"The gillyweed?"
"Uh huh!"
Damn!
Potter, relax. It's the phoenix tears. She didn't add the phoenix tears.
"Did you add the phoenix tears?" Harry asked urgently.
"OH!" cried Minerva, and she dumped a carefully measured vial of the substance into her cauldron. The potion immediately stopped smoking.
"Thank you, Harry," said Minerva as she bottled the now-finished potion.
"Thank Snape," he muttered as he continued to stir.
Any time.
Don't let it boost your ego.
What are you talking about, Potter?
Go ahead and say it. I messed up. Whatever. I don't care.
That's not what I was going to say.
You- you weren't?
No. You can't possibly know everything.
Harry was silent. Could this possibly be Severus Snape, his evil git of a potions professor?
Maybe he was dreaming.
Harry snapped out of his thoughts and realized by the color of his potion that it was time to add one of the Suelian Snake's eggs. The eggs were very valuable and rare, as the Suelian Snake was a crystal snake, nearly invisible to the naked eye. The eggs played a major part in the potion.
"Okay, Harry, what next?" asked Minerva, thrilled to finally be done.
"Right now, not much to do. I have half an hour to kill. Want to help me with some charms? Or if you're tired, you can go to sleep, or whatever. I don't mind."
Minerva smiled at the boy's thoughtfulness. Here he was, willingly risking his general health and training to try to help a professor he hated get back to Hogwarts. Not only that, but he saw another professor's exhaustion and was perfectly fine with her leaving instead of helping him. Harry was so good. She felt like she would always be in his debt.
"Actually, Harry, you deserve to have some downtime as well. What do you say we go to the library to find Albus and Remus? You can rest for a while, if you want. You've been going all day."
Harry grinned and nodded, following his transfigurations professor out of the dungeons and into the library.
Lupin and Dumbledore sat across from each other in matching armchairs, a mountain of books in between them. However, their attention seemed to be on anything but the books.
"No, of course this won't go over well with Sirius. He hates Severus, you know that. And he's completely loyal to James," said Remus.
Harry froze. Bloody hell, he hadn't even thought about Sirius. The man would kill him- or worse, kill Severus. He wouldn't want to be around Harry anymore- imagine, Harry, the son of the man he hated! Sirius would never accept him, would never want him. Sirius was the only one he had ever considered family, and that was going to be ripped away form him.
Harry felt a wave of despair crush the air in his lungs.
"He would never abandon his godson. He loves Harry.. as much as he hates Severus. He'll learn to deal with this, Remus," replied Dumbledore.
There was an awkward silence between the two, and that's when Harry and Minerva decided to make their presence known.
"Hello," greeted Minerva.
The two other professors snapped to attention and laughed- no, giggled- as they took in Harry and McGonagall's disheveled appearances.
"You took look a mess!" said Remus, between giggles.
"Thank you kindly," said Harry sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "We have three of the four potions done," he continued, "and the invisibility potion is simmering for another twenty-two minutes. We have time to rest, thank the Lord. We haven't had hardly any downtime at all."
"And I actually managed not to mess anything up," said Minerva happily.
"That's excellent, you two. Now, we've been looking for the Riddle House all morning, and we've finally found it. I don't know what use that knowledge will be of now, since we already know what we're doing, though," said Dumbledore.
"We should have a back-up plan," suggested Remus. "It's possible that Harry's rescue attempt won't work. We're leaving him totally alone on this mission. After he's gone, he won't get any help from us. We need to have some other ideas, in case Harry's magic and the potions don't hold up."
"Quite right, Remus," aid McGonagall, pulling up an armchair. Harry did the same and quickly sunk into his chair, completely exhausted. And he only had eighteen minutes left. Damn.
"Why were you talking about Sirius?" asked Harry, surprising anyone.
"Well, we were, um.."
"You think he'll be pissed that I'm not James's son."
"Not at you, Harry. He'll be angry with Severus," said Dumbledore, trying to sound as soothing as possible.
'I couldn't deal with that,' Harry thought to himself.
"God, he's my only family. He'll leave me, you know he will. Even if it's only for a while, he'd reject me."
Minerva looked at Harry sadly. It was true, she knew that. Sirius Black was not going to be a happy camper.
"Not your only family, Harry," reminded Dumbledore.
"What, you'd classify the Dursleys as family? I'm never going back there," Harry said hotly.
"I'm not talking about the Dursleys."
Harry knew that. He knew exactly what Dumbledore was implying, but regardless of how much he wanted- needed- a family, he certainly wasn't going to find one in Severus Snape.
"I know perfectly well who you're talking about. But come on, Headmaster, you know that it's not going to happen. He and I hate each other. We might as well be mortal enemies. I don't want to be a family with him," spat Harry.
And you can tell Dumbledore that he can rot in hell, compliments of me.
Dumbledore was giving Harry a weary look. "But Harry-"
"Oh, and Snape wants you to know that you can rot in hell."
Dumbledore's eyes widened. "Does he really?" the twinkle in his eyes was going like crazy.
"Mm..hmm."
Dumbledore smiled. "You may tell him that if I were to rot in hell, he would be taking my position as headmaster and would therefore have to move up into my chambers and interact with all of the students on a daily basis. And if he wasn't pleasant, I would personally come and haunt him until he at least pretended to be cheerful."
Harry grinned as Snape started shouting obscenities in his head.
"I don't think he's thrilled."
"Good. Now, Harry, you probably need to go back to your potion, and the rest of us will think up a backup plan. Alright?"
Harry nodded.
"I'll bring down some dinner for you later," Minerva offered helpfully.
"Sounds good. See you later!" Harry waved and left the library, leaving a few sorrowful teachers behind.
Dirty old man.
You deserved it.
Shut up, Potter.
How long have you been in my head? I'm going to be emotionally scarred by this, you know. When an evil being lurks in your mind for too long, you go crazy.
Heh.
I'm just kidding, Professor. In fact, having you in my head, although it's weird, is kind of cool.
In that case, I'm leaving.
No, I mean, it's good that you can help me out with this stuff. The potions stuff, I mean. The anti-pain potion would have exploded and ten hours of work would have been wasted if not for you.
This is why I am a potions master.
Oh, right.
(silence)
Professor?
In that moment, a terrible, horrible, searing, never-ending pain erupted inside of him, and outside of him, invading body and soul like Anima Interficio itself. It was the Cruciatus, but so much worse. So much worse.
Harry couldn't hold back his screams as a wave of nausea hit him, causing whatever was left of his lunch to be let go, and he hit the floor, spasming violently.
He was no longer in Hogwarts, no, he was with Severus, in his cell, where, though he could hardly see, he knew that both Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy stood before him, wands outstretched, both casting the curse and practically daring each other to see how could keep it there the longest.
Harry heard Snape's screaming, felt his pain as it seemed that one by one, his bones were snapping out of place, and his insides churned within him dangerously, spasming uncontrollably as he rolled in his own blood..
~~~***~~~~
Minerva was the first to hear Harry's screaming, though Lupin was only seconds behind her. All three wizards jumped up and ran out into the hall, toward the dungeons, where Harry was going.
Only a hundred feet or so down the corridor, Dumbledore could make out the figure of Harry gasping desperately for breath in between intense seizures that were repeatedly racking his body. He had obviously thrown up on more than one occasion, and in a rare moment of sanity, Dumbledore could see Harry grab his stomach, as if willing himself not to repeat the horrid action again.
His screams were earth-shattering, and the blood pouring out of his scar, both arms, and torso was coming off of him in waves. The poor boy was literally rolling in his own blood, sounding as if he were going to die, and there was absolutely nothing that any of the teachers could do about it.
