Title: Presentation
Author: CMW (BenevolntGoddess@aol.com).
Rating: Gen PG-13
Pairing: none in the fic, mentioned SS/OFC marriage
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe (inclusive of Hogwarts School, all recognizable characters mentioned, all institutions, situations, events and happenings) is copyrighted by author J.K. Rowling and her corporate affiliates. The following work is fan fiction and is considered by the author to be a respectful parody of Ms. Rowling's work while acknowledging it's derivative status. No commercial use of this work is intended nor is any revenue being made from it or any website which it may be archived on Notes: This is a character study that may be considered a prologue to a Weft of Power, Warp of Blood: Tapestry of Desire, found at http ://adultfan. nexcess. net/aff/ story.php?no=5996 Spoiler for GoF
Presentation
In the Hogwarts dungeons, he carefully set the roll of parchment on his desk and sat staring at it with one eyebrow raised. In a careful, copperplate hand that bespoke an Old Family heritage, a classical education and years of carefully controlled discipline, the man made several more notes on a loose page that was already mostly full. A strand of fine black hair that looked greasy brushed his pale cheek. The rest fell, lank, to the high collar of his shirt, just peaking out of a black silk cravat. Three tiny jasmine flowers, the mark of a well known, exclusive clothing designer, were embroidered on the back of his black academic robes. He wrote with an expensive white quill, though the nib was black with ink. Long thin fingers, free of adornment though scarred from countless burns and many untold injuries, held the quill easily. The nails were short, neat and clean. Black eyes looked up from his writing to glance at the rat and toad cages behind the girl. He pursed already thin lips and went back to writing.
The small young woman next to him, just barely eighteen years old, stood waiting. She had been breathing shallowly as she watched him read through the six-foot long scroll, but the silence afterward made her catch and hold her breath. The scroll was eleven inches taller than she, and the girl knew that the writing on it was small and cramped, but very neat. It had taken three times writing it out to make it fit on the required parchment and still be legible. Instead of taking a breath, the girl bit the inside of her lip too hard felt the hot, metallic taste of blood ooze over her tongue. Silently she reminded herself to breathe - and swallow. It wouldn't do to have to speak with a mouthful of blood when he questioned her on the contents of the parchment scroll. A bead of sweat rolled down the small of her back - one in a series that had done so over the course of the last three hours. The waistband of her skirt, hidden under a well-pressed, formal black work robe, was sodden, but she barely noticed the discomfort in her terror. Her white- blonde hair was sticking to the back of her neck, but it was disguised by the easy shoulder- length style. She had not slept well for weeks because of her class work, the N.E.W.T.S., the potion and essay. Awake all night worrying about the presentation, now she wore exhaustion and fear as a mantle though tried to disguise both.
The presentation and argument were twenty percent of the project's mark. The project was ninety-eight percent of her total grade. The grade would decide if she would be able to secure the apprenticeship that she desperately wanted, for without the apprenticeship, she would never find employment in the field of her choice, Potions.
An hour and a half ago, she had finished her presentation to her silent audience of one. He had made no comment, simply scribbled on the parchment. A flick of his hand instructed her to clean up her materials while he made notes. While she scrubbed glassware at the sink with dragon-shaped iron handles, he wrote, then stalked into his office, leaving the door open. When she was finished and packed, she brought her case and cages into the office. She stood, stiff, still and terrified for forty-five minutes; he read, comfortably ensconced in a thickly upholstered, black leather desk chair.
"So, Miss Roundtree, even knowing that your potion is a narcotic, a stimulant and would have a mild hallucinogenic effect, you still tested it on your fellow students." The words were low but without inflection. The argument for her Potion's creation was beginning on a bad note.
"Yes, Sir. They volunteered," she responded quickly, inwardly wincing. Her voice sounded strained.
"And how did you persuade your subjects to volunteer for your experimentation?"
"I had to show them that it worked, Sir, on me, not just rats," she answered.
"I see no mention of self experimentation, Miss Roundtree," he said, giving a cursory scan of the scroll.
"No, Sir. As self experimentation is an improper scientific method and responses could not be treated as anything but a subjective self analysis, I did not note it in my paper,"
"So you were the first human subject, instead of," he looked at the paper again, "Mr. Charles Weasely, Miss Edna Ethelborough, Miss Lisa Stewart, and Mr. Michael Stewart as the paper indicates? Would you consider that to be proper documentation?"
"That is correct, Sir. No, Sir, it is not, however, because my test was so successful." Kiaya Roundtree began to launch into her justification of the test, documentation and experiment subjects.
Professor Snape interrupted her, "Do you realize just how stupidly dangerous that is? You could have been killed. You could have killed four other students with your lackwitted experimentation. Did anyone else know you were doing this?"
The girl hung her head "My roommates did, they watched over me the entire time. Yes, Sir. However, er. I did take that into account, Sir." She looked up again, eyes wary. "After I took the dosage required for the potion to work and then studied an unfamiliar subject, and was tested on my knowledge of said subject by someone far more familiar with it than I, and slept for fourteen hours, I went to hospital wing to have a physical."
"And the results of that physical?" The inquiry sounded less than interested.
"The same as documented for the other students, Sir. Perfectly fine and healthy, with no discernible aftereffects, other than sleepiness due to mild overexertion and not enough rest while under the influence of the potion. I was told to get a good night's sleep and not to stay up studying all night again. I returned to the hospital wing exactly one week later, to a response of 'perfectly healthy' from Madam Pomfrey."
"Did Madam Pomfrey know that she should have been checking for any residual aftereffects of an unknown and untested student-made formula or did you lie to her to get a physical exam?" he questioned with a sneer.
Kiaya gulped and felt her face bloom with red. "No, Sir. I told her that I had a headache the first time and a stomachache the second, Sir. Neither were true," she whispered.
"Ten points from Gryffindor, for lying. Five for each lie to Madam Pomfrey," he said. It was triumphant. He ignored the inconvenient fact that he had done exactly the same thing when he had been eighteen.
Kiaya sighed miserably. It wasn't the first time he'd taken points from her, but the terrible sinking sensation in her stomach knotted itself into a painful ball. She hated losing points from her house and hated disappointing the other Gryffindors. She raked a hand through her hair and said softly, "I assume you'll take five points away for the other students doing the same thing, then? After all, I had them go, too, just to be sure they were okay. The essay says they there were declared to be in satisfactory health with no aftereffects from the potion."
"Indeed. Fifty points from Gryffindor for your utter stupidity. What did you study while under the effects of your potion?" he demanded, changing the subject to continue the required argument for her experiment.
"Divination, Sir," she said in an undertone. Her wrinkled nose indicated that it was not something that she was interested in learning any more about.
"Hardly a difficult subject to master, even without your potion," he sneered.
"No, Sir, normally I would agree, but I read and retained all information from five years of textbooks, four library books, plus all available notes and class reports from every Gryffindor to have taken the subject, Sir. I also studied for my Ancient Runes exam" She paused, taking a deep breath. "In thirty-six hours."
His eyebrow raised.
"After which I was tested by the three seventh year Divination students and deemed extremely knowledgeable concerning the subject. I was tested at one, two and three weeks later with no noticeable degradation of retention. I now seem to be a favored Divination study partner." Again her nose wrinkled and she half giggled though her posture was still ramrod stiff.
He looked sour. "Were the hallucinogenic effects of the mushrooms unpleasant in any way and how did they, from your own experimentation, affect the study process?"
"They gave a visual sensation of dissolving gray around the study material, after a clear vision field of approximately twenty- four inches. It was comfortable to look down and read, but uncomfortable to quickly look up at a distraction," said Kiaya, only now worried about the possible legal ramifications of, essentially drugging her housemates. "Because I did a great deal of research on the particular fungus, I knew that I didn't need to use more than a few gains of the powder to get the result. I was looking for a pleasant effect, rather than a drug. thing. It is documented, Sir." She thought that sounded lame, but it was the truth.
"And did it have any other effects?"
"No, Sir, just the mild tunnel vision effect."
"You clearly have a narcotic here. How much is safe to use in the long term? How do you propose to use this potion if it is addictive? Who will control its use?" The questions were sharp and rapid, though his voice didn't rise in anger or challenge, which shocked her.
"As I pointed out in my notes, Sir, serious addiction to the substance takes hold after approximately fifteen doses in rats. All students were tested at one dose with a mild craving for a second. That was indulged on the second test date where two doses were administered. An offer for further experimentation by the Stewart twins was refused and they have had no further cravings. Only the rats show any sign of addiction, and," she smiled wryly, "I'm working on fixing that by slowly lowering dosage for them. They seem to be coming down nicely. And they are very smart rats now, toads don't learn much of anything," her words trailed off, realizing that she was rambling. It was a long acknowledged bad habit.
Snape didn't respond, only made another note on the parchment.
She took a deep breath and finished answering his questions. "I wouldn't recommend it's use in the long term, which is why I think it should stay out of schools, I don't think students would use it correctly. They might ignore all of their classes right until exam time, then try to cram it all in. It might have an application for the Ministry, though. Because of its properties, I think the Potions Guild or the Ministry should have control of it."
"The Potions Guild is simply a training and employment center, Miss Roundtree. They do not control anything. Their biggest goal is to get as many seventh year Potions journeymen working to produce as many patentable mixtures for the Ministry as possible. Why do you not want to be in control of the potion?" The last question was a clearly a test.
"Well, I'm only eighteen. I really want to do other things instead of being stuck with commercially manufacturing just this one potion, which may or may not be used as a replacement for honest hard work. Plus, well, it is rather dangerous. I'd rather not have that on my head, if someone were to misuse it."
"Then why make it at all?" he asked curiously, but with intent look.
"Because. well. Sir, how many Potions do you know that would kill someone - that were designed specifically for that purpose and that alone?"
Reflexively, Snape tucked his left arm under his desk. His eyes narrowed and he asked, "What business is it of yours, child?"
"Please Sir, bear with me?"
"Two hundred fifty-four." Snape wasn't sure why he indulged her, but was curious where this was going.
"How many of those did you invent yourself?"
"Miss Roundtree, are you asking me .?"
"I'm only asking because it pertains to your question."
"Three," he said. His tone was forbidding. A muscle was pulsing in his jaw.
"And, why did you bother to do that, if there were two hundred fifty-one other ways of accomplishing the same goal?" From the look of earnest excitement on the girl's face, he could see that there was neither intent to pry information out of an ex- Death Eater - thought it was unlikely that she even knew about that - nor malice in the question. The only thing there was what he called 'devoted Potions student curiosity'."
"To see if I could," he granted.
"That, Sir, is why I made this potion," she said with a relieved smile. "I saw students - really smart students, tearing their hair out and crying and staying up for days over a single concept that they just didn't understand. It just seemed that there had to be a way to . help. I wanted to see if I could."
"How very altruistic," he said, shaking his head. "Typical Gryffindor."
The dinner bell rang.
He rolled up his notes parchment and shoved them into her essay. "Very well, Miss Roundtree. I'll go over this again and you shall have it back next week, with my notes - and your mark," he said.
Dismissed, Kiaya bobbed her head, quietly saying, "Yes, Sir, thank you. Goodnight." She turned to pick up her case and cages.
"Miss Roundtree, were you deliberately trying to ruin my eyesight with this handwriting?" he asked, looking at her name and class written on the outside of the scroll.
"Sir?"
"Your handwriting is so small. It hurts my eyes to read it," he complained.
"You said that the experiment data and discussion should be no more and no less than six feet. So I crammed it all into six feet. I'm sorry if it hurts your eyes."
"Why didn't you just come to me and ask for more space?"
"Would you have given it to me?"
"Probably not," he shrugged.
"That's why I didn't come to you, Sir." She grinned at him, light green eyes flashing with humor.
"You're to go to Edward Basilton for your apprenticeship?"
"I hope to, Sir," she said, worried. She bit her lip and winced - she'd already bitten there before.
"He's going to eat you alive in a week."
"I hope not," she said, blossoming into another brilliant smile. "I don't think I would taste very good."
The dinner bell sounded before he had a chance to reply.
"Get out," he commanded.
Resisting the impudent urge to curtsy, she silently nodded and left the room, her step considerably lighter than when she had trudged into the Hogwarts dungeons hours before. The potion and her mark were now out of her hands. There was nothing to do but wait and figure out how to get the rats into magical animal detox before handing them over to Professor Kettleburn.
With a sardonic smile on a face that would never be considered handsome, he murmured, "If there's one thing I remember from the old days - it's that all teenaged girls taste good, given the right sauce." He picked up her scrolls - vowing to make the potion to test on himself in the next few days, tossed them in a box and stood to stretch. It had been a long day. He picked up the box, looking at the scroll on top. The girl was good. Hopefully old Basilton wouldn't kill her. Snape tossed a pinch of gray powder into the fireplace in his office and said into the purple flames, "Jasmine, I'm on the way home, see you in fifteen minutes."
A whiskey and honey voice called back, "Hurry home, Love, I've got dinner waiting - and a special surprise for you made out of lace." The flames were magically doused to embers as his lips curved into one of his rare smiles.
In an instant the pretty girl and her clever and surely useful potion were forgotten in favor of dinner, a glass of brandy, his wife's tempting red tresses and lovely lush body covered - or uncovered in lace.
One week later, the day before the Hogwarts Express chugged off and Kiaya Roundtree's official leaving, grades were posted and essays returned. She received full marks for her required seventh year Potions class and ninety- nine percent for her Advanced Potions class. She passed all of her classes and had thought she'd acquired an acceptable number of N.E.W.T.S.. Once she recovered from her delirium, Kiaya read the comments on her essay. Most of them were comments on procedure and materials, points raised in her presentation and argument and clarifications on her study. Surprisingly, they were all constructive. The last notes brought mixed reactions.
The Headmaster has decided that only Hogwarts should have the recipe for this potion, though the Ministry has been alerted to its existence. It will be properly controlled from the school with your name on it's official patent. Any royalties derived from the use of your patent will be forwarded to you but your name will be kept concealed from the general public. It is unlikely that it will be used much. This being a school, Professor Dumbledore would like students to learn the old fashioned way. One point deducted for improper experimental subject data re: undocumented fifth test subject. Grade- O.
That afternoon, Kiaya slipped into the Potions classroom that had been her second home in the school carrying a long, thin box. She saw Snape organizing bottles and jars on the far wall. For seven years, he was the man she'd feared, respected and in the darkest hours before dawn, even had a couple silly romantic dreams about. Now, it was over.
"Professor Snape?"
He turned, looking irritated at being disturbed. "Yes, Miss Roundtree?"
"I. I wanted to say good-bye and thank you, Sir."
"Oh?"
She proffered the package to him, which he set on a worktable without opening. He gave it a long, curious look. A shocked look crossed his face. "Thank you."
"Sir, you've been rude, nasty, occasionally blatantly mean to me for the last seven years. You terrified me the first day I stepped into this classroom when you slammed the door open and swooped in. It never got much better beyond that." She watched his face as she recounted his faults. It was blank, but for a single raised eyebrow. Kiaya bit her lip. "Then with your opening words, you made Potions seems like the most interesting thing in the world. I never wanted to brew fame or bottle fortune, and I'm not one for entrancing anything, but you made me learn and you made it interesting." Her fingers twisted together as she boldly forged on, seeing a ghost of a smile quirk on his face. "You showed me what I want to do for the rest of my life... And now. I seem to be running off at the mouth again with my idiotic prattle, as you call it."
He nodded once, acknowledging her statement.
Blushing, she added, "So. thank you, for. being a good teacher." She stood on tiptoe to give him a quick peck on the cheek. "Thanks," she murmured.
He bowed slightly, bemused, "You're welcome, Miss Roundtree."
"I had better go. The seventh years are breaking out the tequila in celebration. though I guess you weren't supposed to know that."
"I'll chalk it up to the idiotic prattle," he said in his slow, silky voice. His face was again blank.
She grinned, understanding that this time - this one time, he may have been making a joke. She gave a little wave, murmured, "Thanks again, Professor Snape," and walked out.
Shaking his head at the oddities of students, Severus Snape opened up the box. Inside lay a beautiful black ostrich feather quill and a large student potion phial in a shiny steel stand, full of ink. The cork had been inserted into the top, but had a hole, charmed closed, for the feather to slip in and out of. A second, smaller phial sat in a twisted wire cage, obviously to rest the feather in when not in use. She had taken a long time to twist the wire into the stand and figure out how to charm the phial closed. It was clever and attractive. He set the quill and ink on a shelf above his desk.
Snape spent a long time staring at them, a small half smile on his face, before going back to work cleaning up after the odd, puzzling, frequently stupid, nasty, little beasts they called students. Sometimes it was worth it, though. Sometimes.
Author: CMW (BenevolntGoddess@aol.com).
Rating: Gen PG-13
Pairing: none in the fic, mentioned SS/OFC marriage
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe (inclusive of Hogwarts School, all recognizable characters mentioned, all institutions, situations, events and happenings) is copyrighted by author J.K. Rowling and her corporate affiliates. The following work is fan fiction and is considered by the author to be a respectful parody of Ms. Rowling's work while acknowledging it's derivative status. No commercial use of this work is intended nor is any revenue being made from it or any website which it may be archived on Notes: This is a character study that may be considered a prologue to a Weft of Power, Warp of Blood: Tapestry of Desire, found at http ://adultfan. nexcess. net/aff/ story.php?no=5996 Spoiler for GoF
Presentation
In the Hogwarts dungeons, he carefully set the roll of parchment on his desk and sat staring at it with one eyebrow raised. In a careful, copperplate hand that bespoke an Old Family heritage, a classical education and years of carefully controlled discipline, the man made several more notes on a loose page that was already mostly full. A strand of fine black hair that looked greasy brushed his pale cheek. The rest fell, lank, to the high collar of his shirt, just peaking out of a black silk cravat. Three tiny jasmine flowers, the mark of a well known, exclusive clothing designer, were embroidered on the back of his black academic robes. He wrote with an expensive white quill, though the nib was black with ink. Long thin fingers, free of adornment though scarred from countless burns and many untold injuries, held the quill easily. The nails were short, neat and clean. Black eyes looked up from his writing to glance at the rat and toad cages behind the girl. He pursed already thin lips and went back to writing.
The small young woman next to him, just barely eighteen years old, stood waiting. She had been breathing shallowly as she watched him read through the six-foot long scroll, but the silence afterward made her catch and hold her breath. The scroll was eleven inches taller than she, and the girl knew that the writing on it was small and cramped, but very neat. It had taken three times writing it out to make it fit on the required parchment and still be legible. Instead of taking a breath, the girl bit the inside of her lip too hard felt the hot, metallic taste of blood ooze over her tongue. Silently she reminded herself to breathe - and swallow. It wouldn't do to have to speak with a mouthful of blood when he questioned her on the contents of the parchment scroll. A bead of sweat rolled down the small of her back - one in a series that had done so over the course of the last three hours. The waistband of her skirt, hidden under a well-pressed, formal black work robe, was sodden, but she barely noticed the discomfort in her terror. Her white- blonde hair was sticking to the back of her neck, but it was disguised by the easy shoulder- length style. She had not slept well for weeks because of her class work, the N.E.W.T.S., the potion and essay. Awake all night worrying about the presentation, now she wore exhaustion and fear as a mantle though tried to disguise both.
The presentation and argument were twenty percent of the project's mark. The project was ninety-eight percent of her total grade. The grade would decide if she would be able to secure the apprenticeship that she desperately wanted, for without the apprenticeship, she would never find employment in the field of her choice, Potions.
An hour and a half ago, she had finished her presentation to her silent audience of one. He had made no comment, simply scribbled on the parchment. A flick of his hand instructed her to clean up her materials while he made notes. While she scrubbed glassware at the sink with dragon-shaped iron handles, he wrote, then stalked into his office, leaving the door open. When she was finished and packed, she brought her case and cages into the office. She stood, stiff, still and terrified for forty-five minutes; he read, comfortably ensconced in a thickly upholstered, black leather desk chair.
"So, Miss Roundtree, even knowing that your potion is a narcotic, a stimulant and would have a mild hallucinogenic effect, you still tested it on your fellow students." The words were low but without inflection. The argument for her Potion's creation was beginning on a bad note.
"Yes, Sir. They volunteered," she responded quickly, inwardly wincing. Her voice sounded strained.
"And how did you persuade your subjects to volunteer for your experimentation?"
"I had to show them that it worked, Sir, on me, not just rats," she answered.
"I see no mention of self experimentation, Miss Roundtree," he said, giving a cursory scan of the scroll.
"No, Sir. As self experimentation is an improper scientific method and responses could not be treated as anything but a subjective self analysis, I did not note it in my paper,"
"So you were the first human subject, instead of," he looked at the paper again, "Mr. Charles Weasely, Miss Edna Ethelborough, Miss Lisa Stewart, and Mr. Michael Stewart as the paper indicates? Would you consider that to be proper documentation?"
"That is correct, Sir. No, Sir, it is not, however, because my test was so successful." Kiaya Roundtree began to launch into her justification of the test, documentation and experiment subjects.
Professor Snape interrupted her, "Do you realize just how stupidly dangerous that is? You could have been killed. You could have killed four other students with your lackwitted experimentation. Did anyone else know you were doing this?"
The girl hung her head "My roommates did, they watched over me the entire time. Yes, Sir. However, er. I did take that into account, Sir." She looked up again, eyes wary. "After I took the dosage required for the potion to work and then studied an unfamiliar subject, and was tested on my knowledge of said subject by someone far more familiar with it than I, and slept for fourteen hours, I went to hospital wing to have a physical."
"And the results of that physical?" The inquiry sounded less than interested.
"The same as documented for the other students, Sir. Perfectly fine and healthy, with no discernible aftereffects, other than sleepiness due to mild overexertion and not enough rest while under the influence of the potion. I was told to get a good night's sleep and not to stay up studying all night again. I returned to the hospital wing exactly one week later, to a response of 'perfectly healthy' from Madam Pomfrey."
"Did Madam Pomfrey know that she should have been checking for any residual aftereffects of an unknown and untested student-made formula or did you lie to her to get a physical exam?" he questioned with a sneer.
Kiaya gulped and felt her face bloom with red. "No, Sir. I told her that I had a headache the first time and a stomachache the second, Sir. Neither were true," she whispered.
"Ten points from Gryffindor, for lying. Five for each lie to Madam Pomfrey," he said. It was triumphant. He ignored the inconvenient fact that he had done exactly the same thing when he had been eighteen.
Kiaya sighed miserably. It wasn't the first time he'd taken points from her, but the terrible sinking sensation in her stomach knotted itself into a painful ball. She hated losing points from her house and hated disappointing the other Gryffindors. She raked a hand through her hair and said softly, "I assume you'll take five points away for the other students doing the same thing, then? After all, I had them go, too, just to be sure they were okay. The essay says they there were declared to be in satisfactory health with no aftereffects from the potion."
"Indeed. Fifty points from Gryffindor for your utter stupidity. What did you study while under the effects of your potion?" he demanded, changing the subject to continue the required argument for her experiment.
"Divination, Sir," she said in an undertone. Her wrinkled nose indicated that it was not something that she was interested in learning any more about.
"Hardly a difficult subject to master, even without your potion," he sneered.
"No, Sir, normally I would agree, but I read and retained all information from five years of textbooks, four library books, plus all available notes and class reports from every Gryffindor to have taken the subject, Sir. I also studied for my Ancient Runes exam" She paused, taking a deep breath. "In thirty-six hours."
His eyebrow raised.
"After which I was tested by the three seventh year Divination students and deemed extremely knowledgeable concerning the subject. I was tested at one, two and three weeks later with no noticeable degradation of retention. I now seem to be a favored Divination study partner." Again her nose wrinkled and she half giggled though her posture was still ramrod stiff.
He looked sour. "Were the hallucinogenic effects of the mushrooms unpleasant in any way and how did they, from your own experimentation, affect the study process?"
"They gave a visual sensation of dissolving gray around the study material, after a clear vision field of approximately twenty- four inches. It was comfortable to look down and read, but uncomfortable to quickly look up at a distraction," said Kiaya, only now worried about the possible legal ramifications of, essentially drugging her housemates. "Because I did a great deal of research on the particular fungus, I knew that I didn't need to use more than a few gains of the powder to get the result. I was looking for a pleasant effect, rather than a drug. thing. It is documented, Sir." She thought that sounded lame, but it was the truth.
"And did it have any other effects?"
"No, Sir, just the mild tunnel vision effect."
"You clearly have a narcotic here. How much is safe to use in the long term? How do you propose to use this potion if it is addictive? Who will control its use?" The questions were sharp and rapid, though his voice didn't rise in anger or challenge, which shocked her.
"As I pointed out in my notes, Sir, serious addiction to the substance takes hold after approximately fifteen doses in rats. All students were tested at one dose with a mild craving for a second. That was indulged on the second test date where two doses were administered. An offer for further experimentation by the Stewart twins was refused and they have had no further cravings. Only the rats show any sign of addiction, and," she smiled wryly, "I'm working on fixing that by slowly lowering dosage for them. They seem to be coming down nicely. And they are very smart rats now, toads don't learn much of anything," her words trailed off, realizing that she was rambling. It was a long acknowledged bad habit.
Snape didn't respond, only made another note on the parchment.
She took a deep breath and finished answering his questions. "I wouldn't recommend it's use in the long term, which is why I think it should stay out of schools, I don't think students would use it correctly. They might ignore all of their classes right until exam time, then try to cram it all in. It might have an application for the Ministry, though. Because of its properties, I think the Potions Guild or the Ministry should have control of it."
"The Potions Guild is simply a training and employment center, Miss Roundtree. They do not control anything. Their biggest goal is to get as many seventh year Potions journeymen working to produce as many patentable mixtures for the Ministry as possible. Why do you not want to be in control of the potion?" The last question was a clearly a test.
"Well, I'm only eighteen. I really want to do other things instead of being stuck with commercially manufacturing just this one potion, which may or may not be used as a replacement for honest hard work. Plus, well, it is rather dangerous. I'd rather not have that on my head, if someone were to misuse it."
"Then why make it at all?" he asked curiously, but with intent look.
"Because. well. Sir, how many Potions do you know that would kill someone - that were designed specifically for that purpose and that alone?"
Reflexively, Snape tucked his left arm under his desk. His eyes narrowed and he asked, "What business is it of yours, child?"
"Please Sir, bear with me?"
"Two hundred fifty-four." Snape wasn't sure why he indulged her, but was curious where this was going.
"How many of those did you invent yourself?"
"Miss Roundtree, are you asking me .?"
"I'm only asking because it pertains to your question."
"Three," he said. His tone was forbidding. A muscle was pulsing in his jaw.
"And, why did you bother to do that, if there were two hundred fifty-one other ways of accomplishing the same goal?" From the look of earnest excitement on the girl's face, he could see that there was neither intent to pry information out of an ex- Death Eater - thought it was unlikely that she even knew about that - nor malice in the question. The only thing there was what he called 'devoted Potions student curiosity'."
"To see if I could," he granted.
"That, Sir, is why I made this potion," she said with a relieved smile. "I saw students - really smart students, tearing their hair out and crying and staying up for days over a single concept that they just didn't understand. It just seemed that there had to be a way to . help. I wanted to see if I could."
"How very altruistic," he said, shaking his head. "Typical Gryffindor."
The dinner bell rang.
He rolled up his notes parchment and shoved them into her essay. "Very well, Miss Roundtree. I'll go over this again and you shall have it back next week, with my notes - and your mark," he said.
Dismissed, Kiaya bobbed her head, quietly saying, "Yes, Sir, thank you. Goodnight." She turned to pick up her case and cages.
"Miss Roundtree, were you deliberately trying to ruin my eyesight with this handwriting?" he asked, looking at her name and class written on the outside of the scroll.
"Sir?"
"Your handwriting is so small. It hurts my eyes to read it," he complained.
"You said that the experiment data and discussion should be no more and no less than six feet. So I crammed it all into six feet. I'm sorry if it hurts your eyes."
"Why didn't you just come to me and ask for more space?"
"Would you have given it to me?"
"Probably not," he shrugged.
"That's why I didn't come to you, Sir." She grinned at him, light green eyes flashing with humor.
"You're to go to Edward Basilton for your apprenticeship?"
"I hope to, Sir," she said, worried. She bit her lip and winced - she'd already bitten there before.
"He's going to eat you alive in a week."
"I hope not," she said, blossoming into another brilliant smile. "I don't think I would taste very good."
The dinner bell sounded before he had a chance to reply.
"Get out," he commanded.
Resisting the impudent urge to curtsy, she silently nodded and left the room, her step considerably lighter than when she had trudged into the Hogwarts dungeons hours before. The potion and her mark were now out of her hands. There was nothing to do but wait and figure out how to get the rats into magical animal detox before handing them over to Professor Kettleburn.
With a sardonic smile on a face that would never be considered handsome, he murmured, "If there's one thing I remember from the old days - it's that all teenaged girls taste good, given the right sauce." He picked up her scrolls - vowing to make the potion to test on himself in the next few days, tossed them in a box and stood to stretch. It had been a long day. He picked up the box, looking at the scroll on top. The girl was good. Hopefully old Basilton wouldn't kill her. Snape tossed a pinch of gray powder into the fireplace in his office and said into the purple flames, "Jasmine, I'm on the way home, see you in fifteen minutes."
A whiskey and honey voice called back, "Hurry home, Love, I've got dinner waiting - and a special surprise for you made out of lace." The flames were magically doused to embers as his lips curved into one of his rare smiles.
In an instant the pretty girl and her clever and surely useful potion were forgotten in favor of dinner, a glass of brandy, his wife's tempting red tresses and lovely lush body covered - or uncovered in lace.
One week later, the day before the Hogwarts Express chugged off and Kiaya Roundtree's official leaving, grades were posted and essays returned. She received full marks for her required seventh year Potions class and ninety- nine percent for her Advanced Potions class. She passed all of her classes and had thought she'd acquired an acceptable number of N.E.W.T.S.. Once she recovered from her delirium, Kiaya read the comments on her essay. Most of them were comments on procedure and materials, points raised in her presentation and argument and clarifications on her study. Surprisingly, they were all constructive. The last notes brought mixed reactions.
The Headmaster has decided that only Hogwarts should have the recipe for this potion, though the Ministry has been alerted to its existence. It will be properly controlled from the school with your name on it's official patent. Any royalties derived from the use of your patent will be forwarded to you but your name will be kept concealed from the general public. It is unlikely that it will be used much. This being a school, Professor Dumbledore would like students to learn the old fashioned way. One point deducted for improper experimental subject data re: undocumented fifth test subject. Grade- O.
That afternoon, Kiaya slipped into the Potions classroom that had been her second home in the school carrying a long, thin box. She saw Snape organizing bottles and jars on the far wall. For seven years, he was the man she'd feared, respected and in the darkest hours before dawn, even had a couple silly romantic dreams about. Now, it was over.
"Professor Snape?"
He turned, looking irritated at being disturbed. "Yes, Miss Roundtree?"
"I. I wanted to say good-bye and thank you, Sir."
"Oh?"
She proffered the package to him, which he set on a worktable without opening. He gave it a long, curious look. A shocked look crossed his face. "Thank you."
"Sir, you've been rude, nasty, occasionally blatantly mean to me for the last seven years. You terrified me the first day I stepped into this classroom when you slammed the door open and swooped in. It never got much better beyond that." She watched his face as she recounted his faults. It was blank, but for a single raised eyebrow. Kiaya bit her lip. "Then with your opening words, you made Potions seems like the most interesting thing in the world. I never wanted to brew fame or bottle fortune, and I'm not one for entrancing anything, but you made me learn and you made it interesting." Her fingers twisted together as she boldly forged on, seeing a ghost of a smile quirk on his face. "You showed me what I want to do for the rest of my life... And now. I seem to be running off at the mouth again with my idiotic prattle, as you call it."
He nodded once, acknowledging her statement.
Blushing, she added, "So. thank you, for. being a good teacher." She stood on tiptoe to give him a quick peck on the cheek. "Thanks," she murmured.
He bowed slightly, bemused, "You're welcome, Miss Roundtree."
"I had better go. The seventh years are breaking out the tequila in celebration. though I guess you weren't supposed to know that."
"I'll chalk it up to the idiotic prattle," he said in his slow, silky voice. His face was again blank.
She grinned, understanding that this time - this one time, he may have been making a joke. She gave a little wave, murmured, "Thanks again, Professor Snape," and walked out.
Shaking his head at the oddities of students, Severus Snape opened up the box. Inside lay a beautiful black ostrich feather quill and a large student potion phial in a shiny steel stand, full of ink. The cork had been inserted into the top, but had a hole, charmed closed, for the feather to slip in and out of. A second, smaller phial sat in a twisted wire cage, obviously to rest the feather in when not in use. She had taken a long time to twist the wire into the stand and figure out how to charm the phial closed. It was clever and attractive. He set the quill and ink on a shelf above his desk.
Snape spent a long time staring at them, a small half smile on his face, before going back to work cleaning up after the odd, puzzling, frequently stupid, nasty, little beasts they called students. Sometimes it was worth it, though. Sometimes.