Chapter 2: Under Influences

Her stomach was getting wet; the cloth bag she'd put the ingredients in was soaked.

A small part of her expostulated in furious incredulity as she realised that the charm she'd put on the bottles must have failed. This part was promptly slaughtered in a fit of disgust by a second portion of her personality that was, apparently, slightly more competent at prioritising.

Harry's cloak and Snape's goblet lay abandoned somewhere in between the wall against which she'd been standing and where she was now, in the midst of a pile of tangled limbs, cloaks, spilled potions and broken glass.

The potential ramifications of the state and location of both potions were wiped from her mind, however, as she realised that she, in effect, had Snape pinned.

Her potions master was half-sitting, his back slammed against the wall, and she had landed to find herself straddling one of his legs, one of her knees dangerously close to something she'd rather not consider, while her arms had ended up on either side of his shoulders.

He looked...well...angry fell short.

A sort of strangled croak broke free from the confines of her throat. She pushed herself off of him and scrambled for the cloak.

She reached it and threw it over her head at the exact moment that Snape managed to lurch to his feet. His eyes – the expression contained in them would have sent Neville into cardiac arrest – fixed on the spot from whence she'd vanished, his jaw clenched, and he raised his wand.

It was not, however, aimed in the same direction as his gaze.

His voice emerged into the sudden silence in a low, malevolent hiss that sent her newly recovered stomach into physically painful convulsions.

"Occludo."

And the door clicked.

Well.

That was smart.

"Miss Granger, aside from the fact that, in the past five minutes alone, you may have actually broken more school rules than the already spectacular quantity that you've flouted over the course of your illustrious, academic career – which, in your case, is saying a fraction more than something – the liquids that you've managed to douse yourself with are currently combining to form a potent narcotic - which can be either taken orally or absorbed through the skin." He paused to let the silent "you're also locked in my dungeon; give up" at the end of his sentence reverberate in the still air.

Any coherent thought processes still remaining in her brain were preparing to flee en masse as she fought to keep from succumbing to panic.

Hermione hated panicking.

She'd devoted most of her life to Always Knowing The Answer. This standard had conferred a fairly impressive reservoir of knowledge on her, which always managed to expound methods for circumventing situations in which That Feeling could manifest itself.

Therefore, how, exactly, she could be panicking now wasn't imminently clear to her; she had the cloak and her wand and Snape didn't even know where she was. She removed her eyes from the door – they seemed to be rather attached to it – glanced at her irate potions master, and took a few warranted and silent steps to the right – just to make sure.

Hermione had been involved in greater calamities before, and she'd managed to get herself out un – or only slightly – scathed. Harry always won In The End because of his unique innate combination of personality and power, but if it wasn't for her – and Ron – he'd never reach the end.

She could take care of Harry, dammit, and she could take care of herself.

As compelling as this logic was, however, the escaping thought processes didn't seem to care for it, and promptly abandoned ship.

With panic finally at the helm, Hermione could only concentrate on the one thing she was certain of: Snape had lied to her.

Hermione seized on his sneering comment about the potion that now was now inducing odd tingling sensations in the skin over her stomach and had to clamp her jaws together to keep from opening her mouth to correct him.

Who the hell does he think he's trying to fool?! Autorizzare can't combine with the potion he was about to drink! It'd be like mixing water and oil...

Unless...

She almost whimpered.

Unless she'd purloined the wrong bottle.

Unless, in her potions-cupboard induced excitement, she'd made off with a koritsu infusion instead of the autorizzare liquid.

Koritsu. Which was stored in crystal, due to the fact that it dissolved most other common storage mediums.

Which would explain why the glass-strengthening charm she'd used hadn't worked.

Koritsu.

Which, aside from being extremely compatible with Snape's potion, invariably induced hysteria when it insinuated itself the bloodstream.

Which would explain the Snape-induced panic.

Speaking of Snape...

"You will be both immobilized and unconscious in seconds, Miss Granger."

Not if I can help it.

So, you've discovered how to open the door – without him seeing – before you're reduced to a quivering, unconscious blob, then?

Not helping.

Well do something! He's getting closer in case you hadn't noticed.

Oh, god, I can't, I can't... it's... getting a little hard to...

Granger, you are not going to wimp out on me now. Come on. Stop panicking and Stay. Awake.

I can't... please...

DO SOMETHING.

I...

The world wouldn't stop moving. Or, maybe her eyes were repositioning themselves.

"Plene latito... mei corpus."

...do I really sound like that?

An overwhelming lack of sensation spread over her entire being, along with the strange feeling that the world had disengaged her.