Chapter Two:
Detention: The Pointless Experiment and a Reason to Come Back…
Luna bounced happily down the hall towards the dungeons. She had just gone through a very odd anti-curse from Madame Pomfrey that rather tickled more than hurt as she'd said it would. Since it was so quickly finished, Luna figured she'd head back to potions class to bother the professor and Hermione some more… and maybe Neville. Neville was easy to scare… hence fun to play with in her mind.
"Hello!" Luna burst through the heavy wooden door into the potions class only to see the professor sitting nonchalantly at his desk reading.
"You missed them by five minutes," he said without even looking up. He knew it was his demon friend…
"Oh… so I assume this is my detention?" She said with a sly smile as she walked up to his desk.
"Did you know you remind me a lot of another girl I know…?" He said as he finally looked up at her.
"Yeah? Who's this?" She positioned her elbows on his desk and rested her chin on her hands, making sure he could see down her too-lowly unbuttoned uniform shirt. She had purposely not worn a bra for her first potions class. When she had looked into Hermione's yearbook she had decided that she was in love with the potions master. She had seen his grim face in the photo that stared malevolently at them as she gazed lovingly at him. Once the photo had given her a snarl she knew she had to meet him. So she signed up for as many alchemy, magical chemistry, and potions classes that she could… anything that Snape taught…
"An old friend," the Professor said as he stood and handed her a small cauldron.
"What's this for?" She asked.
"Your assignment," he said as he handed her a little box full of the supplies he had collected for her.
"Okay," she placed the cauldron down on his desk and opened the box.
"Why are you doing this on my desk?" He asked.
"Because I want to," she said as he placed a book down in front of her, already open to the page.
"Fine," he sat back down and moved everything off his desk before leaning over and watching her as she read the directions meticulously.
"What's this?" She asked as she pointed to a word in the book.
"Mint Rose?" He leaned over the book.
"Yes."
"This," he said as he pulled out a little jar of powder that was green with a swirl of pink going through the centre, like a sand-art jar or something.
"Oh, okay… only a pinch of Mint Rose," she read out loud as she dropped a tiny bit of the powder into the cauldron with the Strawberry Bloodbane she had already dropped in. The mixture flamed for a spilt second and made both the student and the professor jump.
"Is it supposed to do that?" She asked as Professor Snape whacked out a tiny flame on his cloak.
"Yes… but not that much. I think you put it too much Bloodbane," he said as he peeked into the smoking cauldron.
"Oops," she muttered with a smile.
"Well it doesn't matter, it's burnt away now, that's what the reaction is, when you put in Mint Rose it burns away the excess Bloodbane until there is the exact amount," the professor explained.
"What's the exact amount?" Luna asked.
"Now there is exactly the same amount of Bloodbane and Mint Rose in there. That's what you need to create the cure for Polio," he said as he picked up the cauldron and poured the contents into the garbage.
"That was kind of pointless," she said as she watched her experiment disappear. He just wanted me to come back, she tried to flatter herself. How cute!
"Well it was much harder to put out the flames of all your thirty one classmates…" Snape muttered. "So it took a while longer." Luna snorted. She knew who he was thinking about: Neville. Neville was always a demon in potions class… he couldn't keep anything stable.
"Well, have a nice day Ms. Azura," Snape said as she walked out carrying her little black bag with the Hogwarts symbol on it.
"Bye professor! Thank you!" She called as she disappeared around the hall.
Snape smiled slightly as he watched her run off. He realized what he was doing and suddenly changed it back to a snarl as he walked back into the dark dungeon.