CHAPTER FIVE
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What do you want of me?
The rest of the week was uneventful. Friday morning the last of the herbs arrived in the mail and after her last lesson that day, a double with the sixth-years, Andy went downstairs to Snape's office to make her potion. He let her in with barely a word and then sat down to correct essays, leaving Andy to her own devices, but after a while his curiosity took over and he walked over to the table. She was slicing bladderwack while five ounces of whole cinquefoil was boiling together with chopped hydrangea on a low flame.
"Could you handle me the snake fangs, please," Andy said and Snape did so without a word. She crushed five of them and added to the brew, making it sizzle and turn bright blue. After stirring it 145 times anticlockwise she added the bladderwack. Finally Snape couldn't keep quiet anymore.
"I have never seen snake fangs and bladderwack combined this way. What are you making?"
"A sleeping and calming draught," Andy said and slowly stirred the potion.
"Madam Pomfrey has those in her stores; why would you make one yourself?"
"Because that's not all it does." Her tone of voice told Snape that she did not wish to discuss it further.
"I take it that you have been doing this for some time," Snape said and indicated the cauldron; "Potion-making, I mean."
"Yes," Andy said, more than happy to change the subject. "I graduated top of my class in Potions actually. If I hadn't gotten the opportunity to do a DADA apprenticeship I most likely would have been a Potions professor instead."
Snape was flabbergasted. He rarely met people with such knowledge and apparent interest in potions other than during the few Potion seminars and gatherings he had attended, and to hear such a thing from someone he had been set on to loathe was rather disturbing: it made it hard to despise her.
"There," Andy said and turned down the flame under the cauldron a bit. "Now it has to simmer for ten minutes." She wiped her hands on her dark grey pants, leaving faint smudges of green that she didn't even notice. 'Sloppy,' Snape thought, but didn't say anything.
When she began to walk around his office looking at his books and potions paraphernalia he followed her with an interested look. She was so... natural. Of course she knew about his reputation among the other teachers – how could she not – but she didn't seem to care. He had been treating her just as bad as he had treated most other DADA professors that he felt had robbed him of his desired goal, but she just didn't seem to care. What was wrong with the girl?
"I see that you've got a large collection of Greek potion books," Andy said and pulled out a book from the shelf. Snape frowned. No one touched his books without permission! Andy either didn't notice or didn't care because she flipped through it before putting it back.
"So," she said, "what else do you do?" She looked up at Snape who didn't understand what she meant.
"Except for teaching, I mean. These are just potions books; don't you read anything else? Do you have any hobbies?"
Snape quickly shut his mouth when he realized that he was gaping at her.
"Hobbies?"
"Yes, things you do for fun, to keep your mind off work?"
"Fun?"
"Ah, yes, there lies the rub," Andy said and gave up a small chuckle. "Professor Snape doesn't do things 'for fun'."
Snape didn't believe his ears.
"I let you use my private office," he hissed, "and you thank me by insulting me! I've never..."
"Insulting? Oh no, I am not insulting you, at least not intentionally. I am merely stating a fact. Or am I wrong?"
Snape curled his lips in a sneer:
"Were you a Gryffindor or whatever they call it at Granfjället, Professor Parker? Impertinence seems to be a very Gryffindor kind of trait."
Andy gave him a long look.
"No, I was not a Lynx," she finally said and then turned around, away from him: "I believe the potion is ready for sifting now."
After she had cooled the potion with a charm, Andy poured it into twenty small crystal vials and carefully placed them in a wooden box that had been made especially for the vials. Snape had abandoned her for his writing desk and when she left he didn't even look up at her.
At dinner the Great Hall was filled with a buzz that implied that the students were looking forward to their first weekend together since before summer break. Andy made a mental note to scout the corridors for unfortunate drunks before going to bed. She remembered very well what it was like to be a kid and didn't want anyone to be punished for a little youthful mischief.
"What are you smiling at," Sinistra said and looked at Andy, "You look like a gnome that just ate the cat."
Andy told her.
"Good," Sinistra said, "I agree with you. Just don't let McGonagall, Snape or Filch hear you talk like that. They get off on detentions, I think."
Andy threw her head backwards and laughed, just as Snape sat down next to her. He was still in a mood and Andy shook her head at the man.
"For Merlin's sake Snape, are you still upset because what I said? Look, I just think that you ought to..."
"I assure you, Professor Parker, that I do not carry grudges –" Sinistra snorted into her goblet and he gave her a quick nasty look "–and that I have larger nuisances than listening to what an insolent little..." He didn't finish the sentence.
"Yes, Professor Snape, what were you about to say? Insolent little what? Bitch?" Andy said in a dangerously smooth voice. He turned towards her and they locked eyes. The whole staff table went quiet.
"Oo, this is going to be bad," Sprout whispered and rubbed her hands together.
"Maybe we should warn the children and get them out of here," Flitwick said and he wasn't joking.
"Well, Professor Snape?"
He lent forward an inch and hissed something that no one else heard besides Andy. She stared at him for a couple of seconds and then she began to laugh so hard that all the students turned to look at her. Snape turned towards his meal again.
"You win, Professor," she chuckled and dried her eyes, "That was priceless."
Snape didn't say anything but McGonagall later swore that she had seen a fraction of smile on his lips.
At ten thirty Andy put on her robe and left her rooms. She encountered her first snogging couple outside the library and told them to find a better place before someone not so friendly caught them. She got a thankful look from both before they scurried away into the dark.
The school was a whole other place during nighttime. Silvery ghost silently drifted past her and cats out on the prowl came up to her demanding to be scratched behind the ears.
She made her way down the stairs and all the way down to the dungeons before she bumped into the next couple engaged in swapping body fluids.
"Master Malfoy, Miss Parkinson. I should point out that you are dangerously close to Professor Snape's office and would suggest that you move along."
"Yes, Professor Parker, " Pansy mumbled and scuttled away. Draco stayed behind.
"Yes Malfoy?"
The boy looked at her with his ice grey eyes. Andy could see his father through them and had to bury her nails into the palms of her hands in order not to scream.
"Nothing, Professor Parker." He turned and left.
Andy swore under her breath. Damn all the Malfoy men to hell!
Snape was sitting in his favourite reading chair in front of the fireplace reading a book when there was a knock on his office door. He grunted but got up anyway. Probably another first-year who had had too much to drink and was feeling homesick. He managed to not look surprised when it was Andy.
"May I come in?"
He opened the door a fraction more and let her in, first making sure that no one was out in the corridor.
Andy walked straight through his office and into his living room. Snape followed her.
"What can I do for you, Professor Parker?"
"You can get me two glasses and pull up another chair," Andy said and took out a bottle of Ogden's from her robe.
Snape didn't know what to make of Andrea Parker. With the name-calling and insults he threw her way she should hate him, and still her she was, sitting in front of his fireplace sharing a bottle of whiskey with him.
"You play chess," Andy said nodding towards the game that was set out on a small table between the chairs.
"Occasionally," Snape said.
"See, you do have hobbies." Andy begun to chuckle and soon she was shaking with laughter.
"Gods, I can't stop thinking about what you said at dinner! Who would've thought that Severus Snape had a sense of humour? Don't worry, I won't tell anyone."
Snape put down his tumbler.
"What is it that you want, Professor Parker?"
"What do you mean," Andy said, really not knowing what he was talking about.
"Why are you here?"
"To have a drink? I don't like drinking on my own."
He did not looked convinced and Andy shrugged:
"I don't know why. I just like it down here I guess. Do you mind?"
Snape chose his words carefully before answering.
"No."
It was well after midnight before Andy left Snape's quarters. They hadn't talked much in the end but the silence had been comfortable and not all awkward. It felt as if they had known each other for years.
Andy never saw the dark figure hiding in the shadows outside the potions master's rooms, his ice grey eyes following her until she disappeared up the stairs.
