'NOT the asphodel root, you little cretin,' Severus was to be found snarling the next week as his sixth-year class attempted to make the most basic of antidotes. He seized the piece of root – worth, he estimated, about eleven Galleons – from the arm of the now quaking boy, and stormed with it back to the stores. Then he returned to the front, and addressed the whole class. 'Why exactly, can someone tell me, should one not use asphodel in an antidote to a poison?'

A couple of Ravenclaws raised their hands on the other side of the room, but none of the Hufflepuffs moved. 'Well?' Severus demanded of the girl in the far corner.

'It's the wrong class?' she said tentatively.

'Meaning?'

'Ingredients in an antidote needs to be from the Neutral or Light classes. But asphodel is Dark, isn't it?'

'Precisely,' he said coldly, not bothering to award any points for such a basic fact. 'Asphodel in an antidote would almost certainly turn it into a poison. If you haven't got the three classes straight, I wonder if there's any point whatsoever in continuing with this. However …'

He spread his hands to indicate that they should, in fact, continue, and sat down heavily at his desk. He still wasn't sleeping well. This was a bad bout: more nightmares, more long reading sessions, more hours waiting for the dawn. The number of books he was getting through had increased sharply, but he was so tired he could hardly remember anything he had read.

And he had heard nothing from Lucius since his visit, not even to ask more about the Sirius Black incident, which he had naturally assumed would be of interest, or to say if he would be attending the Yule Feast. Not that this necessarily meant much – their correspondence was always casual and to the point – but my god, a note from Lucius would surely do wonders for his mood.

And he needed to sleep. Perhaps if he brewed something – just to get him over this bout of insomnia –

No. Not an acceptable line of thought. He got up abruptly and went over to the girl who had answered his questions, Elizabeth Quirke. 'Tell me about the composition of this potion,' he ordered.

Elizabeth looked terrified to be addressed directly by him, but managed to speak at a normal volume. 'Well … it's got four layers … the base is coconut milk …'

Suddenly Severus was paying real attention. 'Coconut milk?'

'Yes …' The girl swallowed, as if convinced he was about to enumerate to her all the things that were wrong with using coconut milk in potion-making. 'I thought it sounded a bit stupid at first, but it seems to help with the consistency, and, well, it's absorbent, which works in an antidote …'

'Where did you get it?' Coconut milk was certainly not something Severus had ever kept in his store room; nor was it mentioned anywhere in his curriculum.

'I got my dad to send me some … I just wanted to try it …' She was clearly still convinced she was in trouble.

Severus picked up her ladle, lifted a small amount of liquid from her cauldron, and gave it an experimental sniff. It had a very gentle smell, and looked creamy and extremely smooth. 'Have you ever used coconut oil as a base?' he said.

'No – would that be better?'

'Possibly,' he whispered, thinking hard. 'Yes, possibly …' He awarded her ten points for innovation – Lupin, he thought sardonically, would have given thirty – and tried to ignore her astonished, delighted expression as he strode away.

When the class was over, he scoured his bookshelves and eventually located a book containing the basic properties of coconut derivations. He studied the charts for a moment, comparing coconut oil to coconut milk. It had never even occurred to him to try something like this. Most of the traditional bases for European potions were types of water or oil that could be extracted from more common ingredients, usually plants found in Britain or Europe, but a small body of research existed around more tropical ingredients, and those from the southern hemisphere. A potionmaker he had met through the Ministry, Philomena Walker, had brought back a wealth of samples from Australia and had been exploring their uses ever since.

He seized a spare piece of parchment, a quill and some ink, and went up to the Great Hall for lunch. Between bites, he started to make a complicated set of calculations about whether coconut milk, or coconut oil, might work as a base for the Wolfsbane. Lupin, who was sitting next to him, watched Severus's quill move across the page for several minutes before Severus coughed in irritation, prompting Lupin to say, 'Coconut milk? Really?'

'I don't know yet,' Severus muttered.

'But your general instinct?'

Severus clenched his teeth, holding back the remark that his general instinct would work far better if Lupin would leave it alone. 'My general instinct,' he said eventually, 'is that it will work. Coconut oil might be better for consistency than the milk. I shall need to try both. Don't hold your breath for a prototype just yet.'

'Might I come down and ask you more about it this evening?' Lupin said.

Severus raised an eyebrow. 'As I said, there is little I can tell you at this stage. There would be little point. We can discuss it further when I have actual information.' He rolled up his piece of parchment loosely, and got up and left the Hall.

He was only a few yards down the corridor, his head already busy with calculations again, when he heard Lupin's voice:

'Severus?'

He turned around to see Lupin coming towards him. 'What is it now?'

Lupin looked quite earnest, perhaps even a little nervous. 'I was just wondering if – maybe I could come down anyway, and see what you're doing with the Wolfsbane? I'd like to know more about how you go about improving a potion, it's not really something I've ever had experience with, and since – well, given it's a potion I will need for the rest of my life, I feel I should understand the process better. But I do realise your time is short – if it's too much hassle to explain it then I understand.'

'All right,' Severus said wearily. He couldn't be bothered to argue, and anyway there wasn't much he could object to in Lupin's little speech. 'Eight o'clock tonight. But I take no responsibility for your being able to understand the intricacies, it's fairly advanced.'

Lupin smiled. 'I'll try to at least Exceed your Expectations. See you later.' He went back down the corridor and through the door, leaving Severus standing there, an odd mix of puzzlement and exasperation simmering in his mind.


A/N: A shorter chapter this time, but a much longer one is to follow ... –SS–