Chapter 16 Brewing the Cure
"These are the control samples, and this is the sample from Miss McNicholas," Snape stated. He indicated two wooden racks on the laboratory table in front of him; the one on the left held six glass phials of blood, and the one on the right, two.
"I must confess that I have never done this before," said Sherlock Holmes. "I've made considerable headway in haematology, but never in immunology. I understand the principle, Snape, but I'm at a loss as to how you will execute it."
Snape sniffed audibly. "The principle, Holmes, is as foreign to me as magic is to you. It was my intern, Miss Granger, who managed to convince me that Muggle medicine was sufficiently developed to allow isolation of a contagious factor and the manufacture of an immunizing agent from that factor. The first step, then, is to produce the isolate. Muggles do it with the aid of a device called a 'centrifuge,' which spins phials of liquid around rapidly until the cells within separate from their surrounding fluid. I shall then essay to identify the charm used to inhibit the victim's magic and neutralise it."
Holmes looked around him. "Astonishing," he said. "How do you propose to begin? I take it you do not have a centrifuge."
Snape smirked. "You shall see, Holmes, how the simple use of magic improves on the original theory. Observe." He affixed a metal pentacle onto a rod held in a vise clamped to the edge of the laboratory bench. Holmes noted that each of the pentacle's five points was fitted with a small mesh basket with an attached wire loop that hung from a drilled hole. Carefully, Snape put four of the control phials into f the pentacle's baskets, and one of the McNicholas samples into the remaining basket, until all of the five baskets were filled.
"Now, keep your hands away, Holmes, and you shall see how I employ natural centrifugal force, aided, of course, by magic." Holmes stepped back. Snape withdrew his wand from his sleeve. "Centrifugus volvens," he intoned, and the pentacle began tor revolve. Faster and faster it spun until the phials, in their metal baskets, stood straight out from the points of the pentacle.
"How long must it spin?" Holmes was fascinated; the phials as well as the pentacle itself were spinning until they were a blur.
Snape waved him away impatiently and crouched over his homemade apparatus with total concentration. He's keeping the spell going, mused Holmes; mustn't distract him. He set an empty phial rack on the workbench top, and brought over his Swiss magnifier. He perused Snape's store of reagents, wondering if any of them would be required. A bottle marked "Aqua Regia" drew his attention; he was about to reach for it, when a muffled "Flump!" and a flash of green light issued from the fireplace. Quickly he went over to it and bent down, to meet the stern visage of the chief mediwitch of Hogwarts.
"Yes, Madam Pomfrey?"
"Please tell Professor Snape that he'd better come up here right away. His nephew has something to tell him."
Loath to disturb the Potions Master, Holmes turned away from the fireplace as Snape straightened up, murmured something, and the pentacle slowed. "Look, Holmes. See the isolate at the bottom of the phials."
Holmes hastened over to the workbench. Sure enough, the red blood had separated into two distinctly different components: pale slurry at the bottom, and a straw-coloured fluid over it.
"Madam Pomfrey wants me in the Infirmary; I heard her," stated Snape. "Whilst I am gone, Holmes," and here he looked sharply at the detective with narrowed eyes," you need not sit idle. Take a drop of the isolate from each of the tubes, using a new glass pipette for each, and put it on a glass slide, which you will find in that green box over there. When you have deposited the drop, put a cover-slip over it, label it and lay the slides on a folded towel."
Holmes noted that the Potions Master's long nose twitched, and he looked distinctly uneasy. Doubt my ability, do you?
"Is nothing to be added to the isolate?"
"Not at this time. " The Potions Master's brows lowered. "Don't muck about with it, Holmes. If you cannot do what I ask, I shall be forced to ask Longbottom to assist me, perish the thought. And Longbottom as well." He turned on his heel, his robes swirling about him.
Longbottom was in the Infirmary, wheezing terribly, with a high fever. Holmes suspected that Snape knew; he could not resist an opportunity to taunt the detective. "It's simple enough to do as he asked," thought Holmes, and he took the empty rack over to the makeshift centrifuge and commenced to delicately detach the phials, one by one.
Everyone who was awake in the Infirmary heard the loud bang as Severus Snape pushed open both of the doors and stalked into the large room. Maura, pouring herself a glass of pumpkin juice, almost dropped the glass and shrank back as the tall man billowed (yes, everything they said about him was apparently true) past the rows of beds. She saw him stop for a moment and look to where a desperately ill Hermione Granger lay before proceeding on. Draco, cringing in his bed, noticed as well.
Snape glowered at his godson. "What is it, you ninny? I have left a crucial procedure to attend you; it had better be worth my while."
Draco, his thin face marked with tear-stains, clutched the sheet to his chest. "Draw the curtain, Uncle Severus," he whispered. "No-one can hear what I have to tell you."
Impatiently, Snape flung the curtain around the bed. "All this because you refuse to take medicine which will save your life?" he demanded. The revolting potion still sat on Draco's bedside table, the Flobberworms moving lazily now and then. Snape placed his hand on Draco's forehead. "You're not feverish."
Draco looked down, then up. "No, I'm not." His voice dropped to an almost inaudible whisper. "I'm not sick. I didn't get the influenza."
As Snape straightened up and opened his mouth to roar at the blond miscreant, Draco dropped the sheet and held up his left arm, forearm turned to the front.
If it were possible for the Potions Master to become even paler than was his wont, it happened: he blanched. The Dark Mark stood out, skull and serpent, on Draco's white skin. "You've taken the Dark Mark. When?"
"Two weeks ago. My father had a private audience with the Dark Lord; he brought me along. I – I wanted him to be proud of me."
Snape grasped the boy by his upper arm and pulled him bodily out of the bed. "Get dressed," he grated. "This bed is needed by someone who is truly sick, not by you, you faker." His voice lowered to a syrupy purr: "Get out of my sight. You are confined to Slytherin quarters, and if I catch you anywhere else, believe me, it shall go ill for you." He ripped aside the curtain and approached Madam Pomfrey, who had been standing close enough to hear everything.
He loomed over the mediwitch. "Say nothing."
She looked up at him, her face stony. 'You know you can trust me, Severus. The sooner that boy is out of my infirmary, the better."
Draco, hastily buttoning his robes, slunk towards the infirmary door. He stopped and looked over his shoulder at Hermione's still form, and then at Snape, who, with a sweeping gesture, pointed to the door. "Out!" The boy ran, leaving the door open. Madam Pomfrey went to close the door, and almost ran into two figures, holding one another up, staggering into the room.
"Brigit!" she called, and the nurse aide looked up from her patient. "Here's Potter and Weasley!" Harry Potter, green as grass, clapped his hands over his mouth. Sister Brigit reached him just in time, held a basin under his mouth, and put her arm around his shoulder.
"Come on, love. Let's get you to bed," she said. She turned to see Madam Pomfrey supporting a fainted Ron Weasley, his freckles livid on his chalk white face.
Snape looked past the two new patients. He walked over to Hermione Granger's bedside and moved the curtain aside. The girl lay on her side, supported by pillows. She was still, still as death, her chest barely moving. Someone had plaited her wild, curly hair into two braids; she looked even younger than her eighteen years. With swift grace, Snape sat on the edge of the bed. He took her hand, her limp, cold small hand. The last time he had touched her hand, he had kissed her fingers, apologising in his clumsy way for the clumsy way he had taunted her with his own jealousy.
He was always taunting her, provoking and insulting her, challenging and encouraging her in the same breath. He moved a stray curt off her forehead, and leaned closer to her, emboldened by her unconsciousness. "Granger," he whispered, "wake up, Granger. Sit up and tell me not to hover over you like a giant bat. Push me with your little hand and call me a nasty old git, a self-centred egotist, a sadistic masochist, an overbearing bore. Oh, Granger, put your arms around my neck as you started to do before you realised it was me, the most unpleasant excuse for a man to ever draw breath. Granger, curse me to perdition, anything, but do not leave me."
He brushed his lips over her cold forehead, then the high curve of her cheekbone. "If you do not live I will be right behind you," he murmured in her ear. "I lacked the courage to tell your listening ears, I will tell your unconscious, unheeding ears."
A gentle hand on his shoulder made him straighten up and turn round. "She's not good, Severus," Madam Pomfrey said, sitting next to him. "I don't want to give you false hope. I don't know if she can last the night; her heart's been weakened by the influenza. Stay with her if you want to." She stood up and drew the curtain closed, then left them to attend to her duties.
Snape bowed his head and laid it on Hermione's breast. Tears leaked down his face and wetted her hospital gown; tears of shame, of regret, of loss.