THE JOYS OF TEAMWORK
Tap. Tap tap tap. Tap tap.
Snape looked up from his cauldron, annoyed. He stopped for a second and took a few deep breaths before looking back to the experimental potion he was brewing.
Tap tap. Tap tap. Tap tap tap tap.
Snape clenched his fists angrily. He wouldn't be able to take this any longer.
Tap tap tap.
Snape looked up again and shot Wilson a murderous look. "Would you care to stop doing this?" he spat.
The infuriating sound immediately stopped when Wilson froze, the back of her wand an inch above the desk's surface, and looked up at him with wonder. "Stop doing what?" she asked.
Snape kept glaring at Wilson for several seconds, all the more annoyed by her look of surprise and innocence, before focusing on his potion again with a heavy sigh.
He and Wilson had been working 'together' - the word might be a bit too strong - every weekday evening and all day during the weekend. As a matter of fact, this was the second Saturday they were spending together - and it was an understatement to say Snape didn't exactly enjoy the company.
Their researches advanced at a slow pace. The previous week they had survived a heated argument about whether it was the ingredients or the potion itself that should be Charmed - an unresolved issue they still argued about on a regular basis.
The previous weekend Snape had been called by his Dark Mark for a very straining meeting with the Dark Lord. The question of Wilson's survival had been raised and Snape, seeing her every day at Hogwarts, had been interrogated thoroughly. The pressure on the unknown identity of the traitor was increasing, and Snape wasn't sure how much longer he would be able to keep his cover - especially since he was blessed with a couple of Cruciatus curses at every meeting now.
When he had returned from this meeting, wishing more than anything to be alone, Snape had found Wilson still working in the Potions classroom.
"Someone tried to get in touch with you," she had informed him casually with a nod toward the chimney. "An old witch. Dark haired. And quite rude."
Certainly his mother, Snape had concluded before asking if she had left a message - which he hoped she hadn't.
"Well, when I answered 'no' to the question 'are you a pureblood?' she told me she'd rather leave a message to a trustworthy House Elf than to one of the likes of me. So, no, I don't have any message for you," Wilson had replied bitterly.
Definitely his mother, Snape had concluded. It was only a few minutes later that Wilson looked him up and down and noticed his physical weakness. If she dared…
"Do you need me to – "
"No," he had cut short.
"But you should – "
"I told you no," he had repeated firmly.
Wilson had had the sense to leave shortly after.
And now, a week later, they were still working on that cure.
"Er, excuse me?" Wilson called. Snape looked up from his cauldron. "Would you be any good at Arithmancy by any chance?" she went on.
"It depends. Arithmancy applied to Charms, probably not," he replied truthfully.
"Hmm," she said with a slight pout and a frown as she looked down to the piece of parchment in front of her. "I'll go ask Professor Vector then," Wilson concluded before leaving, taking the piece of parchment with her.
Ah, silence. A rare luxury these days. And considering how well Wilson and Vector seemed to be getting on, this unexpected peacefulness might well last several hours… Unfortunately, Snape only had a few minutes to enjoy these blissful moments.
"Sev– er, Professor Snape!" called the unwelcome voice of Mizar Ursaglow. "How are things going?"
"Very smoothly, thank you," Snape replied coldly.
Ursaglow cast a look around. "Where is Endora? I was hoping to find her here."
"She's with Professor Vector," Snape answered truthfully, not wanting to miss the opportunity of sending the DADA teacher somewhere else - anywhere.
"Oh. But she'll come back here, won't she?" Ursaglow said confidently, and took a chair close to where Snape was working.
Snape decided not to remind Ursaglow he was supposed to ignore his existence and to avoid talking to him - for the moment.
"Do you need some help?" Ursaglow offered.
"No," Snape retorted with a murderous look.
"Anything encouraging working yet?" the DADA teacher asked cheerfully after a few seconds of silence.
"NO," Snape replied venomously. "But we'll keep you informed as soon as we find the cure. So you can leave me to my work with no fear of missing anything."
As could be expected, Ursaglow didn't move, and kept examining Snape's work. Snape would have already shoved him out if he didn't have to pay close attention to his potion.
"Oh, that looks great!" Ursaglow suddenly exclaimed and extended his hand towards the cauldron.
Snape caught the DADA teacher's wrist before the fool could spoil anything, and started to squeeze dangerously with a menacing glare.
"This," Snape began on the tone of one talking to a very dumb child, "is a very delicate experiment. Thus, I will ask you to keep your hands as far from it as you can. Understood?" he finished cuttingly.
Ursaglow was still looking at the cauldron's contents avidly. "And what is – "
"Understood?" Snape repeated, squeezing Ursaglow's wrist even more.
"Oh, yes, sure," the young man replied absentmindedly, trying to free his wrist.
Snape let go reluctantly. During the next few minutes, he found it hard to keep his concentration with Ursaglow looking his work over. At least the young wizard remained silent…
Wilson chose that moment to come back, a pile of books in her arms. As she entered the room, she suddenly froze when she spotted Ursaglow, his head over Snape's cauldron. From the corner of his eyes, Snape observed her turn around warily and walk out slowly in a probable attempt to leave unnoticed.
It seemed Wilson was as unlucky as Snape when it came to Ursaglow, for the young man hailed her before she was out of sight.
"Hey, Endora!"
Snape was sure he heard Wilson mutter a curse under her breath before she turned round to face them, a fake smile plastered on her face.
"Mizar! It's so good to see you here!" she greeted with simulated enthusiasm.
"I was wondering if you would like to have a drink," he invited.
"I, er, well…" Wilson baffled uneasily. "We still have a lot of work, you see," she replied, casting a hopeful glance towards Snape.
Was she looking for help from him? Did she really expect him to back her up?
"Oh, we can work on this later," Snape intervened mischievously, "you two can go ahead."
Ursaglow turned to him with a broad smile while Wilson cast him an upset look.
"So you don't mind if I stay here with the two of you?"
Snape scowled at the innocent looking Ursaglow.
"Oh, by the way, I came across, er, Sybill on my way down here, she's looking for you," Wilson told Ursaglow. "It's about, er, the Duelling Club."
Snape arched an eyebrow at this obvious lie.
"Really?" Ursaglow asked. "I saw her an hour ago, she didn't tell me anything."
Wilson hesitated for an instant but Snape spoke up.
"Oh, you know Sybill. She looks tough but in fact she's a really shy one," Snape said sarcastically - and it was Wilson's turn to arch an eyebrow - not expecting Ursaglow to believe any of this. But he did.
"I never noticed, but… I think you're right," Ursaglow replied with a look of comprehension downing on his face. "But it doesn't matter, I'm sure it can wait."
"As a matter of fact, I think you should go see her now," Wilson argued. "It sounded rather urgent."
"Really?" Ursaglow wondered.
Snape jumped on the opportunity. "She told me about it the other day in the teacher's lounge; she seemed rather eager to start working on this project."
"A project? About the Duelling Club?" Ursaglow asked enthusiastically. "What kind of project?"
"She had a couple of ideas," Wilson offered. "New orientations."
"Great!" Ursaglow exclaimed.
Snape exchanged an amused look with Wilson.
"You should hurry so as to not let her wait," Snape remarked.
"Right!" Ursaglow agreed. "I'm sorry about this, but I guess we'll have to have a drink some other time. I'm off then! See you two later!"
As Ursaglow left hurriedly, Wilson and Snape exchanged another look, until Wilson burst out laughing. Snape gave a slight smile.
"This guy is really clueless, isn't he?" Wilson joked, putting her books down on the table at last. "But honestly, Trelawney, of all people, in the teacher's lounge?" she added with a chuckle. "She's going to have a bit of a shock when she sees him up her tower. Anyway, back to this thrilling Arithmancy dilemma…" she concluded as she sat and began to browse one of the books.
Out of curiosity, Snape eventually asked while keeping an eye on his potion: "What kind of dilemma?"
Wilson looked up, obviously surprised he asked. "Well, the problem with Charming ingredients is that they're mostly organic…"
"That is, if you decide to Charm the ingredients instead of the whole potion…" Snape argued with a smirk.
Wilson stared at him for a second. "Do you really want to go over this issue again?"
"Not really," Snape admitted.
"I thought as much," Wilson agreed. "As I was about to say, we're not trying to Charm these organic constituents to, say, make them fly or Transfigure them. What we want is basically to alter their intrinsic properties, which, since they are organic, is extremely complex."
"And you really think Arithmancy will help?" Snape asked doubtfully.
"It might," the witch confirmed. "Unless you have something else to suggest…?"
Snape moved to a bookshelf, picked a book and opened it to a specific page before handing it to Wilson. The witch started to read thoroughly, a frown barring her forehead - funny how she frowned the same way when concentrating or when she was angry at him.
"Yes, it might - hey, wait a second…" She browsed through a few pages. "What…" she muttered before closing the book to read its cover. Then she looked up to Snape with a reproachful expression on her face. "This is Dark Arts," she eventually said, pushing the book away from her.
"Yes, and?" Snape queried innocently.
"This is Dark Arts," she repeated in a tone she probably thought meaningful.
"I think you already established this," Snape retorted sarcastically.
"I will not resort to Dark Arts," Wilson stated stubbornly, "no matter how… useful it may sound."
Snape shrugged. "Fine," he said as he picked up his book. "Have fun with Arithmancy."
He heard her sigh while he moved away.
"And stop using that condescending tone on me!" she said.
Snape ignored her and dedicated all his attention to his potion again. Hours flew by and before he realised they had been working for over ten hours on that day. However, he still needed a couple of hours to bring his ongoing potion to completion.
Snape briefly looked up towards where Wilson was sitting. She was still scribbling on a piece of parchment - probably an Arithmancy computation of some kind - her head resting tiredly on her forearm and her eyes half closed.
Snape was used to working hours in a row and didn't mind strenuous day-long experiments. Wilson obviously wasn't used to it, and as he had already remarked she was one of these people who needed a lot of sleep.
He shrugged and turned to his cauldron again. A couple of hours later, he smiled with satisfaction. It did look good. However, he would have to wait until the next day before running any tests on the potion: it was already almost the middle of the night.
Snape quickly filled some flasks with the potion and stored them, before looking towards Wilson. It was only then that he realised she had fallen asleep while working. A large stain of ink had formed at the spot on the parchment where the tip of her quill had laid for what could have been hours for all Snape could tell.
Snape briefly considered waking her up, before dismissing this idea with an indifferent shrug.
She was going to have one hell of a neck-ache when she woke up, though…
Coming Next: As If Nothing Happened