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Severus Snape was fuming as he headed back to his quarters. Hermione's insults still rang in his ears. She'd called him a miserable human being! He had never been so humiliated in his entire thirty-seven years!
He hardly noticed Madame Pomfrey coming in his direction with some medical equipment.
"Ah, Severus, I…" she began, but he just strode past her, scowling, paying her no attention.
She paused and stared at him, astonished and offended by his rudeness. He had never behaved like this before! What's his problem? she wondered.
Snape felt a bit better when he was in his quarters, but he was still very angry; he couldn't forget what had happened between him and Hermione.
He was fully aware of his bad qualities, but nobody had ever dared to point them out to his face! It was one thing to know what people really thought of you, and quite another to have it confirmed to your face.
So humiliating! He thought, and set about to clear his table in the Potions lab of all the ingredients he'd used to make his little infusion – and his headache was still there.
Snape was all but shaking in anger and mortification and wondered if he should take a shower to cool off. Then he realized that it was too cold to take cold showers. Damn.
And then, he felt something…wearing off.
He paused and frowned, momentarily forgetting about Hermione. Could it be that his potion was wearing off? If so, it was supposed to have cured his migraine, not leave him with it.
Still frowning, he went back to clearing his desk and he was putting the ingredients in their right places, still thinking about his beloved, when he came across a tiny vial. At first, he did not pay it much attention since he thought that it was the lemon juice he'd used earlier. Then, he noticed how clear the liquid was. So unlike lemon juice.
Knitting his eyebrows in confusion, he opened the vial and brought it to his nose. He sniffed it.
And a horrible realization dawned on him.
This wasn't lemon juice.
This was Veritaserum.