Dumbledore had left another tray of food, all easily eaten with one hand as Snape stirred his third attempt. This time, he held back with the basilisk poison, adding it just after the amethyst. As he had hoped, the mineral damped down the more explosive properties of the mix and he had a slow-blooming sense of victory growing inside him. The instant it began to sparkle under its oily surface, Snape waved the fire away and set the cauldron to cooling. He retrieved the vial with the original sample of the poison in it and compared the two - they looked the same.
He spelled a reinforced parchment with his testing charm and tested the two side by side. His mixture wrote itself out neatly and correctly. The substance that had poisoned Potter grudgingly wrote out half a dozen ingredients, then snarled itself again into an inky blot. That meant that the one thing he was now missing was the charm that had keyed the poison to Potter's blood.
The next several hours were spent mumbling every kind of keying spell and charm he could remember or look up. He was reduced to trying the most childish unlocking spells before snarling and throwing his quill across the room. He stared at the disaster area that was his workroom and briefly wished it all to Hell. That was the other problem with Perpessio - it made you short-tempered. 'But then, how would they ever tell with you, Severus? ' Terrific. Apparently it also made you talk to yourself.
Deciding there was nothing he wanted to hear, Snape bent his mind back to the task at hand. Perhaps if he saw the poison at work again... He reached for one of the vials of Potter's blood that he had kept spinning lazily in the air to prevent clotting. That wave of weakness struck again and the vial slipped from his fingers, falling to the table and smashing. Blood splashed everywhere. Snape looked with dismay at the mess of glass shards and bloody parchment and growled.
It was the movement that caught his attention. Droplets of blood had splattered across his test parchment. Where they had touched the drop of original poisoned blood pooled at the top of its column, they had boiled away into greasy trickles of smoke. But where they had dripped into the tiny puddle of his concoction, the blood and the purplish liquid were swirling together, spinning counter-clockwise. As he watched, the two liquids separated again, blood slowly draining into one splotch on the right and the purple poison collecting into a puddle on the left. A much larger puddle, he realized, than had been there just a moment before.
He grabbed his head and thought furiously. Was it possible? He knew about homeopathy - Professor Sprout swore by it. A small amount of a substance caused dysfunction in the body, so a larger amount of the same substance was expected to kick the body's natural defenses into higher gear, curing the imbalance. He'd never heard of a poison that did that, however.
He poured more of Potter's blood into a glass dish, then added a drop of his version of the poison to it. He watched the tiny whirlpool form again, then gnawed on his lip as the blood and poison trickled away from one another. The new poison was definitely drawing out the old poison from the blood sample. He tried the same process with the hair and urine Pomfrey had sent down to him; the results were the same, although it was a little disturbing to watch Potter's hair writhe like a dying worm, then leap away from its pool of purple.
It was counter-intuitive. It couldn't be right. Many medicinals were helpful in small doses and harmful or fatal in larger doses. This was... the exact opposite. It was ludicrous. Ridiculous. Insulting, really. It was intricate and devilishly elegant and Snape felt his lips draw back in a toothy grin that would have frightened the life out of his students had they seen it. He made a mock bow to the unknown Poison Master who had concocted this horrifyingly complex poison with its outrageously simple antidote.
Then he grabbed a vial of his poison, snatched up his crumpled robes from the cot where Potter had left them and shrugged into them. He strode out the door, robes flapping behind him. His exit was only slightly marred by his stumble into the door frame. The damned Perpessio potion was wearing off again... it must have been an expired batch.
He spelled a reinforced parchment with his testing charm and tested the two side by side. His mixture wrote itself out neatly and correctly. The substance that had poisoned Potter grudgingly wrote out half a dozen ingredients, then snarled itself again into an inky blot. That meant that the one thing he was now missing was the charm that had keyed the poison to Potter's blood.
The next several hours were spent mumbling every kind of keying spell and charm he could remember or look up. He was reduced to trying the most childish unlocking spells before snarling and throwing his quill across the room. He stared at the disaster area that was his workroom and briefly wished it all to Hell. That was the other problem with Perpessio - it made you short-tempered. 'But then, how would they ever tell with you, Severus? ' Terrific. Apparently it also made you talk to yourself.
Deciding there was nothing he wanted to hear, Snape bent his mind back to the task at hand. Perhaps if he saw the poison at work again... He reached for one of the vials of Potter's blood that he had kept spinning lazily in the air to prevent clotting. That wave of weakness struck again and the vial slipped from his fingers, falling to the table and smashing. Blood splashed everywhere. Snape looked with dismay at the mess of glass shards and bloody parchment and growled.
It was the movement that caught his attention. Droplets of blood had splattered across his test parchment. Where they had touched the drop of original poisoned blood pooled at the top of its column, they had boiled away into greasy trickles of smoke. But where they had dripped into the tiny puddle of his concoction, the blood and the purplish liquid were swirling together, spinning counter-clockwise. As he watched, the two liquids separated again, blood slowly draining into one splotch on the right and the purple poison collecting into a puddle on the left. A much larger puddle, he realized, than had been there just a moment before.
He grabbed his head and thought furiously. Was it possible? He knew about homeopathy - Professor Sprout swore by it. A small amount of a substance caused dysfunction in the body, so a larger amount of the same substance was expected to kick the body's natural defenses into higher gear, curing the imbalance. He'd never heard of a poison that did that, however.
He poured more of Potter's blood into a glass dish, then added a drop of his version of the poison to it. He watched the tiny whirlpool form again, then gnawed on his lip as the blood and poison trickled away from one another. The new poison was definitely drawing out the old poison from the blood sample. He tried the same process with the hair and urine Pomfrey had sent down to him; the results were the same, although it was a little disturbing to watch Potter's hair writhe like a dying worm, then leap away from its pool of purple.
It was counter-intuitive. It couldn't be right. Many medicinals were helpful in small doses and harmful or fatal in larger doses. This was... the exact opposite. It was ludicrous. Ridiculous. Insulting, really. It was intricate and devilishly elegant and Snape felt his lips draw back in a toothy grin that would have frightened the life out of his students had they seen it. He made a mock bow to the unknown Poison Master who had concocted this horrifyingly complex poison with its outrageously simple antidote.
Then he grabbed a vial of his poison, snatched up his crumpled robes from the cot where Potter had left them and shrugged into them. He strode out the door, robes flapping behind him. His exit was only slightly marred by his stumble into the door frame. The damned Perpessio potion was wearing off again... it must have been an expired batch.