"Miss Granger, you will remain after class." It was not a request, but a command, and though softly spoken and without any particular malice, it had the desired result. Hermione Granger looked up from the cauldron she shared with Neville, her eyes wide and her mouth working furiously. Severus only met her eyes for a moment before turning away from her and moving towards the cauldron Draco and Pansy were sharing.
There was some small part of him that wished he could alleviate her humiliation at being called to remain after class, but only a small part. She had done nothing wrong, true, but it was his prerogative as a teacher to detain her if he saw fit. Which he did. And if she immediately assumed the worst, well, that was just as well. He didn't need the rest of the school to know that his reasons were anything but his normal, sour-tempered demands.
Glancing up from across the room, Severus couldn't help a smirk as he saw Hermione peering into her cauldron and then frowning at the book on the table in front of her, and then looking at her ingredients. No doubt she was trying to work out what she'd done wrong with the potion. You know, it wouldn't kill you to tell her she does an excellent job in your class. It would probably mean the world to her. He wasn't going to tell her any such thing, of course, but it was an interesting thought.
"Gently, Mr. Malfoy," Severus murmured, turning his attention back to Draco, who was stirring a hopelessly brown mixture that should have been golden yellow. Severus didn't think he could salvage it even if he shooed the two students away from it, but they could at least keep following the procedure in the book and not make it worse. "You needn't beat it like eggs." His hand closed over top of Draco's and slowed the stirring a to a steady, even motion, then left the two Slytherins to their cauldron.
Crossing the room again to peer into the pewter receptacle that Potter was sharing with Weasley, Severus sighed inwardly. "You added the ivy shoots too soon, Potter," he said quietly, and then took the glass rod from Weasley's hand, stirring it himself. He grimaced as the rod came into contact with something solid, and he fished it out with the rod. Scowling, he lifted the rod, an ivy leaf draped over the end of it. "Do you pay attention in any of your classes, Mr. Weasley?" he asked dryly, letting the leaf slide back into the mix. "Because I would expect any Second Year to know the difference between a leaf and a shoot."
Neither of the boys had anything to say to him, and shaking his head, Severus turned away. "Five points from Gryffindor, for inexcusable ignorance." His announcement was rewarded with snickers from the Slytherins present.
Severus stalked quickly and briskly across the room and seated himself at his desk again, his eyes on a piece of parchment. His eyes, not that any of his students had likely noticed, were rimmed in red, and the circles under them were darker shadows than normal. He'd not even gone to bed last night, and if his body protested being forced to function with only a few hours of sleep, it positively rebelled at no sleep at all. He didn't pay it the least bit of attention, though, as he willed himself to continue working.
He had finished grading the essay scrolls as the sounds of students traipsing off to breakfast had filled the stone corridors above him, and he'd finished recording all those grades just before the first bell rang, signifying the beginning of classes. He hadn't spent the entire night grading, though, just most of it. Interrupted by forays to his book shelves to look at one or another text, skimming through the information with a frown on his face as the books invariably failed to tell him what he wanted to know. Nothing could ever be that easy.
He'd had plenty of time to think, though, and he thought he'd come to a conclusion. A conclusion he only wished he'd come to a week earlier, as it would have been advantageous to have a week to test these ideas of his. As it was, he was going to be taking a dangerous chance. Dangerous on many levels. Like walking a tightrope over a canyon.
It hadn't been until the Sixth Year students had walked in and Severus had seen Potter and Granger that the idea had finally occurred to him. Perhaps he was trying to make it more difficult than it was. After all, Muggles did not have impervious spells at their disposal, so it was unlikely that they used such a method in their technology. And who better to know how Muggles did something than a Muggleborn? Particularly a very bright Muggle-born student who had a knack for knowing the answer to any question anyone ever bothered to pose to her. He wasn't holding his breath, but he could bring himself to hope.
When class was over and he had the vials of potions lined up on his desk, each labeled with students' names, hopefully, and all the cauldrons had been cleaned and tables wiped down, Severus dismissed the class 'early'. Which is to say that he dismissed them in time for the ones nearest the door to reach the door just as the bell rang. Hermione was still in her seat, not moving.
"You want us to wait for you, Hermione?" It was a softly spoken question, and Severus waited impatiently for Miss Granger to respond to Harry's query.
"No," she replied, "I'll see you in the common room later."
"How long do you think you'll be?" Ron asked.
Hermione's eyes narrowed. "How should I know, Ronald? I don't even know why he asked me to stay."
Severus might have snorted in amusement were the others not likely to hear him. Instead he cleared his throat softly. "If the two of you are so interested in remaining in the dungeons, I will be more than happy to indulge your taste for it with a detention," he said pointedly, and both Harry and Ron gave Hermione apologetic smiles and all but tripped over themselves getting out of the classroom. As soon as they were gone, Severus pointed his wand at the doors, shutting them firmly.
"Well, Miss Granger," he began, crossing the room and pulling a stool from the table in front of hers, and sitting in it so that his eyes were level with hers. "I suppose you would like to know why I asked you to stay."
"Yes, Professor," she replied, and he noticed that her voice did not shake. She was not, he had suspected for some time, as afraid of him as so many of his students were. And yet, she was probably the most respectful of the Gryffindors. Ironic, that.
"Then I see no point in delaying. Though I must warn you—what I am about to say is not to leave this room, nor our confidence. Is that quite clear?"
"Yes, sir."
He rose slightly and plunged his hand into his pocket, bringing out the pills Autumn had given him, and he dropped a few of them on the table in front of her. "Do you know what these are?" he asked.
She picked up one of them and turned it over in her hand. "Paramol," she replied. "Do you have a headache? They're not as effective as..."
"Silence, Miss Granger, I did not ask you to stay so you could give me medical advice." He looked at the capsule again, and then at her. "What do you know about this?" he asked, pointing at the small scattering of pills. She frowned.
"They're... drugs. Muggle pain relief and fever reducing drugs."
"And what is in them?"
"Paracetamol and codeine," she replied confidently, though her face was confused.
"And what are those?"
She looked at them again and shook her head. "Chemicals? I'm not really sure exactly. Paracetamol is the generic name for a certain combination of... I really don't know, Professor. They're medicine."
He frowned at the pills and drummed his fingers on the table for a moment. That was the brick wall he kept hitting from every angle. They're medicine. It didn't seem to matter what was in something, if you called it medicine a Muggle was likely to take it, it seemed.
"May..." she began, then paused for a moment, and he glanced at her again. "May I ask why you want to know?"
He considered telling her it was none of her affair. He was more than a little disenchanted by the idea of explaining himself to any of his students, least of all one of the Dream Team. But, he supposed he could offer something by way of explanation. Something vague. "I am trying to develop a way to put a potion into a similar design," he replied after a long pause. "But I find myself at a decided disadvantage, not knowing what the Muggles did to accomplish this," he gestured at the pills.
Hermione stared at the pill in her hand for a moment. "You want to make a pill out of a liquid?" she asked softly, worrying her lower lip.
He watched her carefully, and then nodded. "Yes." She continued to worry her lip. "If you have a suggestion, Miss Granger, voice it."
She dropped the pill onto the table and reached down, digging in her book bag for a moment. She came up with a small cloth bag which she unzipped and upended onto the table. An array of... things... tumbled out of it, and, with deft fingers, she sorted through the jumble of tubes, pencils and small foil packets, and picked out the packets and a bottle, then shoved everything else aside. Reaching into her bag again, she produced a handkerchief, which she spread on the table, and then opened the bottle, emptying it onto the cloth. A variety of pills tumbled onto the linen, and after a moment, she came up with one.
"I was sure I had one in here somewhere," she announced with a smile, and placed a shiny, plastic-looking capsule in his hand. "A gel cap," she said, "though I don't know if it would hold a liquid very well."
"And what exactly is a gel cap?"
"I think they're made of animal byproducts. They dissolve in liquid."
"Then putting a liquid inside one would be out of the question, Miss Granger. Do Muggles not use liquids?" He placed the capsule on the corner of the handkerchief and folded his hands atop the table.
"Well, yes, but they're usually just drunk or taken with a spoon. Just like a potion."
He sighed. "Then I'm back where I began. How to put a potion into this sort of design."
She was moving the various pills around on her handkerchief, looking at them, and suddenly her hand paused over one. "I wonder..." she murmured, and he looked at her oddly. She was digging in her bag again, and came up with a small packet of what appeared to be hard candies. He opened his mouth to ask her what she was doing with food in the classroom, but shut it as she unwrapped one and placed it on the corner of her handkerchief. "Cough drops," she explained, and he picked up the bright red candy.
"You have candy to make you cough?" he asked, a little skeptical. It sounded like a Wheeze to him.
She laughed, but a glare from him silenced her. "No," she answered, still trying to suppress a giggle, "it's to make you stop coughing. Could the potion you have in mind be combined with sugar without losing its potency?"
"Yes," he replied, frowning at the 'cough drop'. "It could be combined with almost anything, actually."
"If you add enough sugar to it, will it make crystals, then?" she asked. "Because you could put crystals in a gel cap."
"The potion would need to be absorbed into the blood stream immediately, and all at once, if it is to be effective. Crystallized sugar would take too much time." He placed the cough drop back on her handkerchief.
She was frowning again. "But if you crushed the crystals?" she asked.
He considered that for a moment. "All right, for the sake of argument, then, how would one go about getting sugar crystals into a... gel cap?"
She frowned at the collection of pills. "I really don't know," she admitted. "My parents might. I could try to find out."
He raised an eyebrow, but didn't pursue the line of thought. "I haven't the time for you to research it, though you might pursue that on your own, Miss Granger," he suggested.
She frowned again, then picked up the cough drop again. "I wonder if you couldn't use a sugar coating of some sort," she speculated. "Like a sugar-water mixture or something, to make a shell that you could fill with the crystals?"
"A sugar shell would dissolve too quickly. The same thing that makes it a suitable solution for solidifying a potion makes it unsuitable for this casing."
"What if you used oil instead of water?"
He frowned slightly. "But how long would it take that to dissolve?"
"A thick layer of sugar-water over a very thin layer of sugar-oil?"
"I think I grasp you concept, Miss Granger," he said dryly. "Do you have any other ideas?"
She sighed and seemed to think for a minute. "Mostly other variations of the same theme," she admitted. "Though perhaps... maybe it could be done similar to a hard candy?"
"Forget sugary concoctions."
She scowled. "How about a fragile glass vial, then?" she asked with a note of what he suspected was sarcasm. "If it's a poison, then it could be a race between the poison and the glass in the intestines as to what would kill someone."
Until that point, he'd managed to forget that she was a student for a few minutes, and he'd merely been bantering a problem about with someone else whose mind he respected. The comment, however, was an abrupt reminder that she was a child still, and he could not expect her to remain mature and intellectual for more than five minutes at a time. He was expecting too much from her, he supposed. "That was uncalled for, Miss Granger," he said softly. "And you're very lucky I'm not inclined to assign any more detentions just now. I would advise you to remember that I am a professor and..."
"And I'm a student. Yes, Professor Snape, I know. I just don't know what you want." She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry."
"You may go."
"Is there anything else I can do to help, Professor? I really didn't mean to—"
"I said you may go."
She looked vaguely disappointed, but nodded and began gathering her things. Severus gave the array of medicines on her handkerchief one last glance, his mind a swirling mass of chaotic half-thoughts, but slowly, the chaos was beginning to develop a focal point. He wasn't sure what it was, but he knew that there was an idea in all that chaos. And if he waited patiently enough, it would present itself.
A/N: No, Cecelle, I'm not European, actually. I just took the time to research that tidbit of information. I asked Jeeves if there was Tylenol in Britain, and found a VERY helpful article some American exchange student had written for the benefit of others doing exchange terms in Europe. And that was one of the things in it-- the British equivalents to certain common over the counter American drugs. And thanks for catching the spelling error ;)