or Harry Potter and the Potions Professor
By: Liss Havilland (lisette@chaletian.co.uk)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Harry Potter etc belong to JK Rowling, Bloomsbury, Warner Bros, and
whoever else lays claim to them. Not me. Gosh, what a surprise there. Now, the
journal Ars Alchemica is something I've come across reading other fics. I
don't know who came up with it, but it wasn't me. OCs etc belong to me.
Archive: If you want, just let me know.
*** *** ***
Prologue: Summer Holidays
"Severus." Severus Snape found himself wishing his name was not quite so… sibilant. Although that really was the least of his worries.
"I am disappointed." Well of course he was bloody disappointed. Did he think this came as some sort of surprise? Snape tried not to strain against his bonds, having no wish to appear completely undignified before it was strictly necessary.
"Did you think I would believe in such a pathetic story?" There might have been an element of wishful thinking on his and Dumbledore's parts, Snape admitted to himself. After all, he had been working under Dumbledore's aegis for well over ten years now; had betrayed Death Eater secrets to him. So, no, really, he hadn't expected Voldemort to believe anything he said. Especially anything along the lines of, "Oh, Master, I repent my former ways. I have been seeking to undermine Dumbledore and kill Potter every day." No, he had never really thought that would go down well.
"You were a dark light in my cause, Severus. I regret having to do this." That was a lie if ever he had heard one. Whatever Voldemort had up his sleeve, Snape seriously doubted that he would regret doing it. He would regret it, because whatever it was, it was going to be very, very unpleasant.
"Crucio!" In the moment before the crushing pain hit him in the chest, harder than the Hogwarts Express, Snape took a pleased instant to note that he was right.
*** *** ***
Professor Loveday stalked out of the director's office, her mouth tight-lipped with rage and frustration. Her normally cool expression was a mask of pure anger, and Elfrida Bumble, who had planned to ask her for the day off tomorrow to attend the Puddlemere Annual Broomstick Fair (Elfrida's great-grandfather, a spectacularly unsuccessful broomstick inventor, had left her the grand sum of five thousand galleons, only to be spent on broomsticks), decided on the spur of the moment that she would wait until next year's Puddlemere Annual Broomstick Fair. Other people, seeing Professor Loveday's expression, also steered clear. She was generally acknowledged to be cold to the point of frozen, and rarely even raised her voice, but they couldn't help but remember that one occasion when Griselda Dunuit, a promising seventh year student from Durmstrang, had carelessly added Deadly Nightshade to a particularly delicate experiment, and nearly blown up the entire building. Griselda had been a small heap of weeping robes when Professor Loveday had finished with her. They had no desire to repeat that experience.
Relieving one small iota of the frustration bubbling inside her, Ianthe Loveday slammed her office door closed behind her. Jaw clenched, she flung herself into her chair. Her eyes fell on the current edition of Ars Alchemica. The leading article, Healing Potions and the Use of Unicorn's Blood, stared back at her. In a rare exhibition of temper, she hurled the journal at the wall. It fell to the floor, and she glared at it malevolently. They were all so blind. Why didn't they see the possibilities, the potential? But say the words "unicorn" and "blood" and all they could think about was the Dark Arts, and bad press for the Institute. And now they were asking her to stop her experiments completely. What was wrong with them? The tension drained from her slowly, and she went over to the wall, bending down to pick the abused journal. She wandered to her desk, and tossed it on top of a pile of books and manuscripts. Unbidden, her hand fell on one of the leather bound books, a heavy tome covered in gilt patterns, and an ornate title proclaiming it to be "The International Formulary of Magical Potions and Ingredients, Volume V: U-Z". She picked it up, and it fell open at the same page as always.
Unicorn's Blood: Blood from a living unicorn is extremely powerful, as unicorns are purely magical creatures. Its main catalogued use is in elixirs of life, where it is often mixed with other ingredients (see list below); however it is in its purest form that it is most effective. However, use of unicorn's blood without permission is against wizarding law, both within Great Britain, and under the International Federation of Wizards Proclamation of 1239, and is chiefly used whilst practising Dark magic. Slaying a unicorn to obtain its blood leaves that blood tainted, and whilst it will still preserve life, it does so at a cost. The blood of a dead unicorn is poisonous.
The entry continued, but Ianthe knew it by heart as it was, and she closed the book with a dull thud. So many possibilities, but unicorns were such sacred creatures that no one had dared explore them. No one legitimate, anyway. She heaved a sigh, and sat back down, gazing round her office. It was organised and functional, a perfect representation of her working life. One wall was taken up with bookshelves. The top two shelves housed her Ars Alchemica collection. She had the current run of journals from 1983, when her parents had gifted her with a subscription. Before that were others that contained key articles, or ideas that interested her. They went as far back as 1754, but had she wanted to see the earliest editions of that famed journal, the Institute kept a complete back catalogue. The shelves below contained text books on potions, copies of diaries of famous potion makers, treatises and theses by experts around the globe, and the preceding four volumes of the International Formulary. On the bottom shelf she kept her Muggle books (Gray's Anatomy, and other medical texts) and all her old school books: after all, you never knew when you might need to transfigure a field mouse into a tea cup.
Against the opposite wall ran a long desk that she used to keep a record of her experiments. She had had, earlier that day, the blossoming of a new idea, and had started her hypothesis, but she wasn't in the mood to continue expanding it. Ianthe's clear head was legendary, but only she knew that when she was emotional she couldn't think.
"Accio cloak!" she muttered, pointing her wand absently in the direction of the hat stand in the corner. A second later, and the long black cloak was in her hand, and she was just swinging it round her shoulders when the door opened. She turned in irritation, an irritation that grew as she saw who it was. "What can I do for you, Mr Grimley?" She cordially disliked Thomas Grimley, not for any personal reasons (though he was, in most people's opinion, as unpleasant a wizard as you could hope to meet, even for someone who had been a Slytherin at school) but because he had a pedestrian mind. Ianthe had no use for people who couldn't think.
"I heard about your run in with old Nesbitt."
"Hmm," she replied, non-committedly, hoping he would get to the point quickly before she ended up losing her temper again. Twice in one day - that would definitely be a record.
"Pack of old women, if you ask me. They don't understand what you could do."
"No. They don't."
"You ever thought of working anywhere else. Somewhere where the directorship isn't quite so… restrictive?" Ianthe looked at him with some interest.
"Got somewhere in mind, do you?"
"Let's just say I know someone who's looking for someone like you."