Author Notes: This whole new plot twist is an attempt at giving Severus some independance...i'm not sure if it's working.
To Empath: Don't worry it's not, thanks for the review.
To Rana an Shanaan: Hopefully I can get away with it. They don't really explore her personality in the books. Thanks for the review.
Disclaimer: Time travel is complicated, costly, and as far as I can tell, only works foreword not backwards, so the Harry Potter series, and all it's characters, trademarks, whatever, will belong to J.K. Rowling, and anyone else she gave rights to.
Chapter 16
He returned to his quarters looking as zombie-ish as it was possible to be without being one of the living dead.
"I…I…should…work…on…that…potion", his speech was more broken the louder it was, and every word echoed inside the large, lonely, space.
He walked through the door on the left wall, his laboratory, not his lavatory, and wished he had been greeted with the smell of a simmering cauldron. The air was stale, not full of different, wondrous smells, and he breathed it in instantly regretting it, as he backed away and out. Back to his main office, where he saw students, to get the things he'd need.
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Severus started cutting, and continued, even though his hands shook badly forcing him to stop for a second to scold himself. It's just a simple Pepper up Potion. He started again, desisting only when the plant was so mutilated that had he been grading himself, a 'T' would have been in order.
He shoved them away disgusted with himself. A first year could've done better. Half an hour of berating himself later, he was back on track and working flawlessly…. Flawlessly until the potion turned amber. A warm amber that looked just like…he dropped the mixing spoon, and it slipped down and disappeared deep within the depths of Remus's eye.
Uncaring, he placed his hands on the sides of the giant cauldron's rim. He leaned into it, until his hooked nose was a centimeter from touching the amber liquid. For a few minutes, he wanted to fall in. To fall into Remus, into his warm embrace, into his depths like the mixing spoon had done. To be lost within Remus.
Tiny bubbles began forming on the surface, as he watched, reminding him of the expression "boiling rage". So Remus's was still small, it wasn't boiling. He continued to watch mesmerized, as if the potion were a prophet. It ruined under his watch, darkening and beginning to boil. He watched it horrified.
"No…no I'll stay away", he whispered, and the potion rose up splashing his face. Moving away quickly he repeated," I'll...stay…away", his words echoed throughout his lab, as if 10 Severus's were yelling one right after the other.
His back hit the wall, and he slid down it till he was sitting. Wrapping his arms around his legs, and burying his face into them, he whispered a final time," I'll stay away".
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Unlike how he usually did it, he shut the door quietly, so quietly that only his most attentive students realized he was present at all. By the time he'd slowly gotten to his desk, they'd elbowed each other and the message, "that their point deducting happy teacher had arrived", had spread.
He was fine with just sitting there, but after 10 minutes of all of their eyes boring into him, he found himself thinking," I should probably try and teach them something". None of them had dared move, but their eyes had been far more annoying than any rowdy class.
Their teacher pointed his wand at the board, listing ingredients for an anti-depression potion, and stopped halfway down at Tamarisk weeds. They were on the ingredient list for the Wolfsbane Potion, which was forcefully reminding him of…He slashed his wand violently at the board, making the chalk disappear.
Then he began writing the title for another, the uncreatively named, "Happiness Potion for Happiness", and stopped halfway remembering a potions class when Remus had ended up drenched in it. Erasing it again, much to his student's confusion, he wrote," Perkiness Potion" on the board, and got about ½ of the way done before he remembered that at the second stage it turned honey brown like Remus's hair.
They watched as he scrapped potion after potion, because of color, ingredient, or memory brought to surface. Finally, he turned around to face them, andhe said loudly and clearly," I…quit". Their cheering, and general loudness, after he'd left was enough to bring McGonagal's wrath down upon them, after 20 minutes.
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Curled up under his warm, silky, comforter of Slytherin colors, he couldn't help but feel numb and lost, even though he knew exactly where he was. It was just, for years his reason for living had been spying, and during the 13 years of limbo, he'd used potions as a crutch. His new reason for living had been Remus. Remus had wiped his thoughts away, made him feel complete, just like the spying had, although he felt much safer with Remus than with the spying, but now back in limbo he'd lost his crutch, and the dreaded voices that the spying, potions, and Remus, had driven away had returned.
"You hurt us. You killed us", they all said together.
"I was only eight how could you!", he could picture her perfectly as she'd been in his mind…as she'd been before she'd met him.
"I had a family, I was loved", said a woman's voice.
"-Screaming-", they all mixed together
"No! No please! Arianna! –sobbing-", said a man on his knees tied up but still trying to lunge foreword.
"I don't want to drink that….no!" she closed her mouth
"Thank you mister I'm thirsty", the little boy smiled taking the cup.
"What've you done to me!" the teenager gasped falling to the floor.
"Monster!" a blond shrieked clutching a child.
"What in the name of heaven are you?" asked the frightened old man thinking him a devil.
"Crucio", his own voice, and they all screamed with him, and they all quieted with him, as his wand clattered to the ground, and he succumbed to unconsciousness.
Author Notes: TBC. Please review if your there.