Dear readers,
Here is the latest bit. Sorry to be so long without updating, but I have been working on building a website! You can find me at;
I hope that you enjoy the new bit, and please let me know what you think!
Sincerely,
Chaos
~
The Warming Potion Incident
The Battle is Joined
~
The concoction – Severus could not bring himself to call it a potion – was unremarkable. One of the milder aphrodisiacs, a calefactive coupled with a mild irritant, and a vasodilator to support the increased blood flow – all in an too-strongly scented emollient base.
Child's play.
But not for children!
Severus gave the provocatively shaped bottle a resentful glare. Madam Plushbottom, indeed!
The aphrodisiac might account for Emily's uncharacteristic burst of temper – puberty was hellish enough without spitting petrol on the hormonal flames. If the girl had an itch, though, Artemisia Malfoy would be very glad to help scratch. The daughter of his old friend had been more than usually affectionate of late - grabbing Emily, kissing her, practically wearing her on certain occasions.
It was the Malfoy 'MineMineMine!' mating dance, a precursor to vigorous coition, and Miss Mayborne did not seem discomfited or even to mind at all.
Fool child.
Then again, the girl was such the model of a Ravenclaw that she might not even be aware of what was going on. From an overheard discussion amongst some fifth and sixth year male Slytherin, the child had some startling blind spots.
His wayward memory elected to produce some sordid details of his own teen years. Severus chose to virtuously ignore them and he was not either a hypocrite!
All the same, the girl was not acting in her accustomed fashion and that was unaccountably annoying to him. He had ten evenings to prod her back into line, and back into line she would go. While Severus suspected that Miss Mayborne might have a bit more backbone than he had previously thought, it was not to be strengthened at his expense. If the child needed a joust of wills, perhaps being knocked on her metaphorical arse a few times would keep her biddable.
~
Emily dressed for her day with the air of a warrior going into battle.
Her dorm mates watched in utter fascination as she came marching back from the showers, smelling so extravagantly of sugar cookies that they were actually hungry. Clothing herself in her skirt, tights, shirt and jumper she was so unaccountably grim that it was truly startling. The final touch was a pair of satin ribbons in blue and bronze, tied into her hair like a banner of challenge.
"See how he likes that, the old bat. Keep me standing about, will you? Bastard." Opening her trunk, Emily removed a bottle, a dropper and a case of phials. Sitting deliberately on her bed, she proceeded to transfer the bottle's contents into the small phials until the bottle was empty and the room was scented with Omniberry. "How's this for your nose? Eh? Hope it falls off in offense!"
By the time Emily entered the common room, robe swirling, there was a crowd awaiting her.
Eric Pangley chuckled, "If you're going down, it might as well be in flames?"
"It's a harmless little handwarming potion!" Emily protested.
"So I've heard, but what are you going to do if Snape decides to make a crusade out of it?" The tall, thin boy looked concerned, "It's not all about house points, not at all, but Emmy – the man is vicious!"
"He's a bully and a bastard and I'm not backing down!"
The Ravenclaws were fascinated. Emily Mayborne – usually as inoffensive and mild as bread pudding – had suddenly gone flambé.
Reaching into her bag, the girl pulled out a handful of phials. "I think the sixth years have him today, right? Here, each phial has enough to get you through an hour. Apply it when your hands are really cold. He might be able to guess where it came from, but won't be able to prove it."
A small crowd surged around here, even Eric too a phial without so much as a murmur.
On the way to the Great Hall, and all the way through breakfast she was being approached by Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs and Slytherins – all of them looking for a bit of the 'warming stuff.' Sickles were pressed into her hands and slipped into her skirt pockets until her book bag was empty.
"Get more, Emmy."
"I can have my older sister pick it up and give it to me next weekend in Hogsmeade."
"If you need some more phials…"
All through breakfast, Snape watched her with half-lidded eyes, face expressionless. There was the feeling of an impending storm in the air and as she rose to go she made sure to catch his gaze with hers.
Donning her most polite smile, she nodded a 'good morning' to the sour-faced man and with great deliberation pushed her glasses up to the bridge of her nose.
With her middle finger.
~
So. It was to be war. A war declared by a mere chit of a girl right over crusts of his toast and his second cup of coffee.
There must be something else in that libidinous brew – he'd run some more tests on the dregs that were left.
Severus still couldn't believe that she had flipped him off. This was beyond cheek! Moreover, she had done it in such a subtle way that he could not call her on it.
Throwing his napkin down on his plate, he stalked from the Great Hall in a swirl of robes and temper.
The first class of the morning was sixth-year Ravenclaws and Slytherins. By far his favorite houses to teach, the combination of ambition and voracious intellectual appetite was stimulating. Oh, there were a few dolts, but they were paired with lab partners who knew what they were doing. Severus had memories of his own years as a student – the incident John Trotter and Cyril Beauchamp so thoroughly blowing up the classroom that classes had been cancelled until all the furniture could be replaced.
A Reparo could usually fix what was broken – and when it couldn't it was generally indicative of an unalloyed catastrophe.
Halfway through the lecture on proscribed materials, he thought that he smelled something odd.
Five minutes later he was certain of it - sweet, fruity scent almost tinted the air purple.
As if unaware, Severus continued his lecture - watching covertly as a student would stop their note taking, and slip ashy-cold hands out of sight under the desk. The Omniberry scent would increase fractionally, and warm hands would resume note taking.
Rage flowed along his veins and it was everything he could do not to explode on the spot.
That girl! That insubordinate and rebellious infant, quite literally flaunting her defiance under his very nose! If this morning had been the declaration of war after yesterday's skirmishing – this was battle joined.
Without so much as raising his voice, Severus touched his hand to his wand. "Accio warming potion!"
…and was nearly mown down by a blizzard of quarter-dram phials.
That seditious little hoyden.
"So." The classroom was a silent as a catacomb, with the students as still as the occupants. "From where did you obtain this substance?"
Only silence, pale faces and shifting eyes met his question as he gazed about the room. The Ravenclaws were keeping silent out of house loyalty, that he understood, but his Slytherins! It seemed that they were weighing the wrath of their head of house against the future benefits of warm hands.
Sedition indeed.
Severus scanned the room, watching as his silence bore down on the assembled students. Shoulders twitched, nervous tongues licked lips, and fingers fiddled with quills.
It was a tight political game that he had to play with Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Alumni of the two houses intermarried often enough that almost a third of the Slytherin students had a Ravenclaw parent and a fifth of the Ravenclaws had a Slytherin parent.
He counted phials. Thirty-four.
"Detention for the lot of you for two days. I believe that Master Filch will have something to suitably warm your hands with work instead of questionable concoctions."
His next class – Hufflepuff and Gryffindor fifth years - was not so fortunate. This time the scent was pumpkin pie and the punishment cost three house points from each house per phial and four days detention for the entire class.
Filch came by to thank him profusely. The caretaker was mucking out the lowest levels of the dungeons and needed plenty of help.
The third class of the day was Ravenclaw and Slytherin first years – as yet too timid to even look at him – and there were no odd scents. To keep them in line he assigned extra work and handed out random detentions. By the time they raced for the door, all were suitably traumatized.
The Advanced students were doing laboratory work for the last class of the day and by the time they finished Severus was almost in a good mood. There were only twelve students in his advanced class, but he gloated over them as if over a treasure hoard. He was taking great pains to see them appropriately placed after they left school, and it was no small affair of pride that some of the top masters of the field were interested in the youngsters. Gringotts had sent letters of inquiry, as had Gadget, Widget and MacGuffin – both firms asking for those with an adventurous rather than an academic bent.
Teaching could be very satisfying. Perhaps Albus was…
Well, not as wrong as Severus thought he might have been about it.
Dinner saw more of the coming-and-goings from the Ravenclaw table, and with a bit of shadow-stalking, Severus was able to see students waylaying Emily Mayborne in the halls.
It seemed, from what whispers he could overhear, that though the wretched minx had purchased a plentiful quantity the demand was outstripping supply. What she intended to do about it was not clear, however.
"Look, I can't do this right now. I have detention with that bloody nightmare of a man and if I'm late…"
Severus slipped down to his dungeons with a smile on his face.
~
Promptly at seven o'clock, Emily entered the Potions classroom.
Snape was once more at his desk, pile of papers, quill and red ink at the ready. He acknowledged her presence with another curt gesture, this time to a bucket sitting on the drainboard of the basin. Emily returned the gesture with a chin-dip and went to her task, rolling up her sleeves as she went. As she tipped the bucket to peer inside, she had to literally bite her tongue to allay the fit of blue language that was her first impulse.
Filling the two-gallon bucket to the rim were quarter-dram glass phials – hundreds of them. A small brush with the circumference of an ear swab and a bottle of green soap sat on the sponge rest.
Tamping down her annoyance, she took deep, calm breaths, refusing to give him the satisfaction of letting Snape see her provoked. The man was a torment!
Behind her, the skritch-skritch of quill on parchment began, marking the beginning of the night.
~
From time to time, Severus looked up from his eviscerating his third-years essays on the history of and uses for Atropa belladonna. Miss Mayborne was intent on her task, meticulously soaking, swabbing and rinsing the bottles, seals and caps.
The girl was also attempting to ignore him out of existence.
He stared at the back of her neck until her shoulders twitched and then resumed his grading.
The process was much the same for the next three hours. At random times, Severus would stop grading, quill poised, and stare at her hard enough to drive nails. The girl could feel it, her shoulders would shrug minutely, her head would almost – but not quite – turn. If he caught her gaze, Severus would verbally rip her to shreds. Time after time, Emily Mayborne denied him the opportunity.
It was maddening. She was maddening.
At length, the was bucket empty, the sink drained and all the phials in their wire mesh drying racks. Emily wiped her hands on a towel and tuned to him, obviously prepared for another wait like the one last night.
Seemingly intent on his grading, he watched as the girl slipped a hand into her pocket and pulled out a small one-inch jar. As she emptied the contents into her hand and began to rub it into her hands and forearms, the room was filled with the scent of sugar cookies.
"Miss Mayborne!" Severus' roar of outrage could probably be heard in Gryffindor tower. The sheer brassy nerve of the girl! Storming out from behind his desk, he held out his hand. "Turn that over at once!"
Eyes blazing, Emily threw the tiny jar right at his head and he snatched it out of the air. "It's a lotion, you ogre! It's called body butter and it's for dry skin!"
Severus clenched his hand around the jar hard enough to feel the edges bruising his palm. The girl could not possibly be this much of an innocent! Darting out a hand, he grasped the girl by the upper arm and started to towed her – resisting him every step of the way – to his office.
Once there, Severus kicked a chair under her and sat her in it none too gently.
She looked up at him and questioned his parentage.
"In my day, Miss Mayborne, I would have been well within my rights to have you switched for that until you howled." The girl responded with a glare to the soft tone and hard words. "However, since it is an arguably more enlightened time, I will simply add another three days detention and assume that you must be enjoying my company."
Miss Mayborne made an outrageous speculation about his personal habits.
"Make that five days. Open that mouth with less than appropriate respect, girl, and it will add another day and subtract ten points from Ravenclaw."
Emily had not yet mastered a killing look, but if glares could inflict physical damage he'd have been copiously scratched.
Letting go of her arm, Severus rounded his desk and settled himself in his chair. He rested his elbows on the blotter, steepled his fingers and regarded this puzzling child over his fingertips. Miss Mayborne tried admirably to return the regard, her gaze faltering in the silence.
"I wonder, Miss Mayborne, that you are so dangerously naïve. You accept substances of highly questionable origin with scarcely a quiver of your nose, and have the brass to question my expertise on said substances." He weighed each word carefully, never raising his voice, watching the impact. "You disrupt my classes with ostentatious odors, you distribute these suspect materials to your classmates in open defiance of my edict. When I exercise my authority, indeed my obligation, to discourage you from engaging in wayward behaviour that might have consequences you are vastly unprepared to face, you become even more openly recalcitrant."
By the time the last word left his lips, Miss Mayborne was openly discomfited - her gaze dropped, shoulders slightly slumped, a thin trace of pink shame gilding her cheekbones. Much better.
Reaching into his desk drawer, Severus produced the bottle he had confiscated on the previous day and set the blasted thing on the blotter. Anyone could see what the bottle represented! Anyone!
"I wonder, Miss Mayborne, could you could tell if the shape of this bottle resembles… anything to you?" Severus cursed inwardly; this was bloody awkward!
The girl's brow furrowed slightly as she leant forward and picked up the bottle, cupping it in the palm of her hand. The curves of it filled her spread fingers and Severus was suddenly very glad to be safely behind his desk when she ran her thumb over the domed top of it. He darted a sharp glance at her face and saw nothing but concentration. There was no flirtatious ingenuity, no guile – she was simply doing what he had obliquely asked her to do and studying the bottle.
Professors always had a student or three who would 'do anything' to better their grade – usually anything but work. Miss Mayborne was a student whom he was considering for Advanced standing and any hint of the 'do anything mentality' would have scuttled that notion.
A smile broke across the girl's face. "I know what it looks like! I'm surprised I didn't make the connection before! Maybe Missy is right."
This was hardly the reaction Severus expected. Flame-cheeked adolescent mortification would have been acceptable.
"And what does it resemble to your young eyes, Miss Mayborne?" He nearly stopped breathing as Emily's thumb caressed the impudent protuberance that served as the cap.
"It looks like a cupcake. Doesn't it? One with a candied cherry or a gumdrop on top!"
Suddenly, Severus had a searing headache. "You may go, Miss Mayborne. Good evening."
~
TBC