I literally had no sooner turned to walk down the hall and out of the ward in search of the ghost of Hippocrates' portrait, when the brown head of Healer Channel poked out of Weasley's door.

"Excuse me, Professor?" she asked, timidly.

I whirled. "Yes, what is it? I have business to take care of."

Channel visibly wilted. "It's just that, sir... we've run out of the burn-healing paste. A couple of wizards just out of Hogwarts tried an experiment, and well, it backfired, sir, quite literally and we, er, don't have anymore," she finished lamely. "You're a Potions Master, and all the potions experts here are either done for the day or working to find a cure for this new disease, and we were wondering, sir, if you could brew us up a batch? Charlie Weasley needs it something awful for that burn on his arm."

Of course. Why not? It's not as if me finding that portrait is a matter of life and death! Then again, if I told her I couldn't take the half and hour it would probably take to brew a burn-healing paste because I had to go scour the hospital for the long, lost portrait of Hippocrates' ghost, she's probably cart me off to the Closed Ward instead.

I clenched my fists and replied as calmly as I could, "Of course. I would be delighted."

Healer Channel smiled brightly. "Oh, good! Thank you! Healer McKenzie was sure you wouldn't. I don't think she likes you very much, you know. We have the potions storeroom and lab on the third floor. Here's a pass to get in." She handed me a key and went back into Weasley's room.

Damn. It. To. Hell.

I heard someone snicker. That damn portrait of Gunhilda was laughing at me!

"Have fun making your paste," she chided me as I stalked down the hall. "Be sure to tell Hippocrates all about it. I'm sure he'll be very interested!"

Cheeky wench.

I made way up to the third floor, labeled Potion and Plant Poisoning, located the storeroom, and went inside using the key that Channel provided. Luckily, a burn healing paste was very simple, and not very unlike the cure for boils, accept that hellebore was added instead of porcupine quills. I chose a cauldron, started a fire with my wand, and began tallying up the ingredients that I would need: dried nettles, crushed snake fangs, horned slugs, and the hellebore.

The dried nettles were added first, and at the same time the horned toads needed to be stewed. I grabbed a bowl off the shelf, used Aguamenti to add the water, and then I dropped in the slugs, setting the temperature low to get them to the desired moistness and size. Their potions storeroom was exceedingly unorganized, and it took me some time to locate the crushed snake fangs, which needed to be added precisely ten minutes after the dried nettles began to smoke. Then the nettles and the snake fangs were stirred three times clockwise, and twice counterclockwise, every thirty seconds until it was time to add the horned slugs. The slugs needed to dissipate and cook in with the rest of the ingredients for the remainder of the half hour, and then the whole potion needed to be taken off the fire before adding the hellebore, just as with the porcupine quills and the boil cure. As Neville Longbottom found out his first year - that idiot boy - adding the porcupine quills beforehand, or hellebore in this case, is extremely disastrous.

The half hour was almost up, and the solution that I had been stirring meticulously had began to resemble a thick orange soup. I took the cauldron off the fire and added the hellebore, which would hasten the thickening process and be the key ingredient in fighting off any sort of infection the burns might have caused.

After about an extra ten minutes of cooling, the burn-healing paste was completed. I grabbed a glass container off the shelf, used my wand switch the paste from the cauldron into the container, and made my way back down to the second floor.

Healer Channel was waiting for me by the doors of the Gorsemoor wing. I handed her the paste, and she thanked me enthusiastically.

"We'll have those burns of his taken care of now, don't worry," she called as she disappeared behind the ward doors.

"At least I can be sure something of Weasley's is being cured," I muttered, before sweeping back my robe and heading back down the hall toward the ground floor, intent on searching every floor and every ward, bottom to top, for this fabled ghost portrait.

---------------------

Night had fallen, and most of the day healers had gone home, replaced by the night crew. They, and Healers McKenzie and Channel, were the only people besides the patients left in the hospital.

Or so I'd thought.

I had had no success on the ground floor, not that I was expecting any. The second floor, where Mr. Weasley was being held, was my next target. I moved along the corridors, my wand lit, checking every portrait, looking in every wing and room - to many patients displeasure - and behind every tapestry. I was just about the enter the last wing, called the Agrippa Ward, when I heard something move behind me. Before I had time to react, a voice muttered something indistinguishable, and quite suddenly all my aches and pains from the days' travels with Weasley disappeared. My mind felt blissfully blank, and I had the sudden urge to go to sleep.

The voice behind me ordered: "Don't turn around."

Of course I wouldn't turn around. Why would I? Who cares who this person is, and why I'm wandering the corridors of St. Mungo's at night? It's not as if I had anything important to do.

You blithering imbecile! a voice in the back of my mind yelled. It sounded strangely like Lucius Malfoy. You are Severus Snape, Potions Master and former Death Eater! You are a supreme Occlumens. How dare you let someone put you under the Imperius curse!

Imperius curse? What the devil?

I order you to snap yourself out of it this instant! Or are you as incompetent as Longbottom?

That did it.

My mind immediately cleared, and without hesitation I spun around and directed a nonverbal Expelliarmus at my would be controller. I heard a wand clatter to the floor, and in the next instant the attacker was under a full body bind. He hit the floor with a loud thud. I kicked him for good measure to make sure the curse was in proper effect.

Alright, fine, I just wanted to kick him. I was furious at myself for letting my guard down. Under normal circumstances, I would never have allowed myself to be placed under the Imperius. My exhaustion from trying to secure Weasley's safe arrival had turned me into some dim-witted second year.

I levitated him into an abandon room and decided to add an Incarcerous for good measure, rapping him in ropes and binding him to the bed. I then locked the door with a very strong barrier charm, and continued on my way.

Obviously, someone did not want me finding this portrait. Which meant that I had to find it as soon as possible.

The question was, who would want to stop me from saving Weasley?