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Chapter 9
The Potions Master
- "I am glad you are back, Severus."
His eyes lingered on her for just a second, somewhat relieved to see her standing up, with a better colour and with her eternal smile drawn on her face. For a moment he felt his own lips try to curl into an imperceptible gesture of satisfaction as he heard his name being spoken by the woman's soft voice, but he stopped on his tracks when he saw Enoby bowing to him.
- "Does the master want Enoby to prepare dinner for him?"
Severus shook his head.
- "Bring only hers."- He said, pointing to Laurel.
- "I've already eaten, Severus."
He shrugged and dismissed the elf. His gaze immediately shifted to the fragmented remnants of the magic seal that he had summoned and that only he was able to see.
- "Who has entered?" – He asked.
- "Have you been to Hogwarts?"
Severus turned to her, raising an eyebrow in surprise to hear her talk about the school.
- "Who has entered?" - He repeated and this time he put more effort to use his customary cold and threatening tone.
- "Draco." - She answered. - "But he was not looking to do any harm."
- "Of course he didn't want to do you harm. Otherwise, the magical wards would never allow him to pass. But you keep disobeying me, Laurel."
A brief blush appeared on her cheeks, and she mumbled an apology that Severus ignored. Going back to his trunks and with the help of his wand, he began to set up his potion lab, taking special care with his supply of valuable magical ingredients. Laurel walked over to one of the trunks and looked inside, discovering that its internal dimensions were completely altered to contain several piles of heavy books placed one on top of the other. She took one of them curiously, but when she opened it, she realized that it was written in an ancient language that she was unable to recognize. The next one contained illustrations of human bodies in varying degrees of decomposition that made her stomach turn. A third manuscript looked so old that she thought it had been written during the years of Methuselah, its pages all stained with what appeared to be blood. She was about to open the fourth book, a huge volume bound in black and silver, when Severus, still focused on the installation of a delicate drip funnel, said without looking at her:
- "I would be very careful when opening that one."
Laurel stopped immediately and with shaking hands put the book back in the trunk. She stood up and approached Severus, admiring the various glass flasks and alembics that floated unsupported, waiting for the expert hand of their master to place them in their proper place.
- "Have you been to Hogwarts?" - She asked again in a low voice.
Severus did not answer her, he seemed willing to pretend that Laurel was invisible. She even doubted if her question had been heard, but the taciturn expression on the man's face was enough to make her abandon her efforts to obtain any information. She turned her eyes to a large cabinet that had appeared in one corner of the suite: Countless jars, all of them containing animals and plants floating in liquids of different colours, boxes filled with various powders and crystals of different sizes, all duly catalogued and labelled with a small and cramped handwriting.
- "Unicorn horn." - Laurel read aloud in surprise. -"I cannot believe it."
Seeing no reaction from Severus, she decided to keep snooping around in the cabinet. He slyly turned his head to her, awed by the ease with which Laurel had accepted her fate, with an innocent curiosity that reminded him of Lily during her first year at Hogwarts. During that time he had enjoyed explaining to her the workings of the magical world, the secrets of the castle; He had shared his knowledge with total enthusiasm with the Muggle-born, he had been happy to be the guide of that beautiful redhead who treated him as if he were the wisest person in the world, that gave him the attention that he had never gotten from his parents, or from his peers at Hogwarts, until little by little the illusion faded and Lily's light was completely removed from the growing darkness that ended up enveloping Severus Snape . Without meaning to, he had fixed his eyes on the figure of the Akardos and could not help but compare her with his beloved. He noticed that she was much shorter than Lily when he saw her standing on tiptoes and reaching out her arm so she could reach the highest shelf in the cabinet. Her straight dark hair was much longer and her hourglass figure curvier. A supernatural force pushed him to his feet and approach with silent steps towards her, desperately wishing to see Lily's emerald gaze on her round, battered face.
Laurel was still looking without seeing the various magical ingredients. In her mind, the image of Severus face when entering the room. There was something in his dark eyes that made her feel content, safe. That is why it had hurt her the way Severus insisted on ignoring her. Maybe it was better this way, she must assume her place as an Akardos, she should assume her role as a prisoner and accept that perhaps for Severus, she was nothing more than a nuisance, a problem that had crossed his path and with which he had to deal with by risking his own life in the process. She still had a lot of questions in her head, but she did not want to annoy or cause any extra trouble to the already overworked wizard.
She bit her lips and gulped down her growing distress, focusing her attention back on the magical items. Something caught her eye on the top shelf of the cabinet. A beautiful cut-glass vial containing a liquid redder than carmine. Laurel stretched out her arm to reach it and as she took it, she could see how the liquid changed colour as she turned it between her fingers, like an iridescent kaleidoscope, the thick liquid changing from red to green and then to a deep blue. Curious, she tried to read the label, but the handwriting was so tiny that it was difficult for her to discern one word from another.
- "It is Tarsus subterranean dragon blood. It is exceedingly rare and unbelievably valuable."
Severus' breath made the hairs on her neck stand on end. His soft voice tingling in her ear made Laurel froze. She had not noticed when the wizard had gotten so close to her.
- "I'm ... sorry." - She said as she tried to put the vial back in its place.
He reached out his arm helping her reach the last ledge, brushing her hand in the process.
- "You apologize too much, don't you think?"
- "You intimidate me too much, don't you realize?"
Severus stared at her warm, docile eyes; the russet-brown shine glowed the same way he remembered Lily's eyes staring at him during their play time afternoons at Cokeworth. His pale fingers moved unconsciously, brushing a lock of hair from Laurel's face and tucking it behind her ear.
- "It is not my intention to intimidate you..."
Laurel shivered a little at the sudden softness of Severus' touch, and he must have realized her bewilderment because he walked away briskly, turning his back on her and heading back to the long table where his cauldrons and crucibles awaited him. He took a deep breath trying to stop the slight trembling in his hands that prevented him from continuing his work. He had overstepped, he was sure. Laurel would be scared of him, of his audacity. How could he have gotten carried away with such basic and immature impulses? She was a poor Muggle, trapped in a house of horrors with a greasy son of a bitch who pretended to save her life while condemning her to abuse and torture that the innocent woman did not deserve.
- "It´s all right, Severus."
She was standing next to him, her hand squeezing his arm gently.
- "Pardon me, I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable."
- "You did not." – She said with a smile. – "You don't have to apologize. It is my habit, not yours."
Laurel turned her eyes to the lab instruments and began to ask about each of them, distracting Severus as he resumed his work. He did his best to explain how each one worked in words that a Muggle would understand. He realized that Laurel was not at all like the dunderheads of his students, she was actually more intelligent than he expected, and she seemed very excited to learn about the art of potion making, a branch of magic so pragmatic and exact that even an Akardos could execute.
- "Well, look at you." - Said Laurel when she was finally able to differentiate the fluxweed from the root of the knotweed. – "You are not as bad a teacher as you seem."
- "Draco told you, didn't he?" - Severus asked as he lit a flame under a pewter cauldron and filled it with different ingredients. – "He told you about Hogwarts."
- "Well yes." - She answered, carefully choosing her next words. – "But I heard about Hogwarts first from your father."
Severus' hand hovered over the cauldron, his eyes darting over to Laurel in a questioning way.
- "I still can't believe that the old bastard has been able to overcome the memory charm."
Laurel frowned when she heard him insulting Tobias, but she did not berate him.
- "Well, he seemed to remember almost everything about you. He talked about Eileen too, but not as often. He remembered things sporadically. It always broke my heart every time he started to mourn about his family." - She said while cutting the roots of knotweed as Severus had indicated her. - "But sometimes they were happy memories, like when he told me about the day you received the letter from Hogwarts. You and another girl from Cokeworth, maybe you two were the only apprentice wizards in town. Yes, Tobias mentioned that girl several times. It is a pity that he could never remember her name because we searched heaven and earth for information from someone who might know the whereabouts of his family."- Laurel had stopped cutting roots and stared at the silver knife thoughtfully. – "Well, it didn't matter if he remembered the girl's name, we're Muggles. We would never find anything."
- "Lily."
She raised her head and looked at Severus. He had an expression on his face that Laurel had never seen before. His glassy gaze was fixated on the emptiness, his hand brushing his shapely lips nervously.
- "Lily? Her name is Lily?" - She asked a little concerned by Severus' shocked expression. - "Does she still live in Cokeworth?"
Severus turned his glassy eyes on her and in a firm voice replied:
- "No."
- "I must assume that I should not repeat that name in front of anyone else, correct?"
- "Correct."
- "And I also must assume that I should never ask about your duty as a spy of Dumbledore or the reason why you are working for a supremacist terrorist group."
Severus gulped, but kept his voice steady and cold:
- "The less you know, the better."
Laurel had an urge to rub her face with her hands in exasperation, but she caught herself in time. She did not want to add more pain to her already battered face. She picked up the knife again and resumed her tedious task, putting all her irritation into obtaining the most perfectly cut knotweed roots in the entire wizarding world.
- "It's for your own good. I don't want to lie to you, that's why I prefer to keep certain information to myself. You must understand that you are very vulnerable and if any of the Death Eaters wanted to..."
- "They would torture me to get anything out of me, real or not." - She cut him off. – "I think I have a right to know what is happening."
Severus considered her for a moment, he did not want Laurel to feel underestimated or belittled, at least not when she was alone with him. However, she had been very reckless to disobey him and strike up a conversation with Draco Malfoy. Not that he didn't trust the boy, Severus knew very well that Draco was merely a bully at school with students weaker than him, but that he cowered in the presence of the other Death Eaters. However, it would be dangerous for him if he found out about his plans through Laurel.
- "I hope you're not dumb enough to talk to Draco again, right?"
- "I will be dumb enough to forget about any progress you make with your experiments and cunning enough to extract information about his brilliant plan for the Dark Lord."
- "You have spoken like a true Slytherin." - Severus said with a smirk. – "Just don't forget that he is also a Slytherin."
Laurel laughed and shook her head.
- "I don't think I belong to your house; I think I'm more of a Hufflepuff."
Severus could not help but let out his usual disdainful laugh, although this time it was not accompanied by its respective scowl. Truly, Laurel was made to belong to Hufflepuff.
- "I will tell you all in due course." – He said, repeating the words he had heard from Dumbledore so many times. – "I promise."
- "I believe you, Severus."
They turned their attention to their respective work. He showed her how to carefully remove the delicate wings of the dried flying seahorse with tweezers and put them apart in a glass container.
- "I have news from your friends." - He said after observing her for a while and after finishing mixing the potion that was brewing in the cauldron.
- "Seriously?! You waited till now to tell me?"
- "They escaped the club unscathed." - He continued saying as he scooped out a ladle of thick, dark liquid and poured it into a ceramic mug. – "They are well. Muggle authorities have blamed a gas leak for the fire. Unfortunately, several were seriously injured, two deceased... and a missing woman."
Laurel was staring at him with wild eyes, her trembling lips not letting her say a word. Severus handed her a Muggle newspaper from that morning. The photograph of the burning building occupied the first page, and at the bottom of it, her face in black and white with the label: Missing
- "So, my family... my friends... Everyone will think I'm..."
- "Dead." - Severus whispered as he added a sweet-scented powder to the steaming mug. – "I am sorry."
Her eyes watered at the thought of the pain her poor mother must be feeling right now. She felt her chest burst with anguish. She had gone missing; this was a worse fate than being dead. At least if she were dead, her family would have some sort of closure, but gone missing? A few tears fell on the winged seahorses and Laurel immediately tried to wipe them away. She did not want to show any more weakness, she could not take one more blow to her spirit. She had to be strong. She had to get out of that nightmare alive. She had to see her family again.
- "Drink it, Laurel. It will make you feel better." - Severus pushed the mug with the steaming potion towards her.
She took a sip not caring what magical ingredients it contained or if the magic worked on her. Severus had said that it would help her, and she did not doubt his words. At the first sip she realized what it was.
- "It's hot chocolate."
Severus nodded and dared to wipe her wet cheeks with his hand.
- "Chocolate mixed with herbal tinctures to calm the nerves. Muggle witchcraft."
