Published 27th of September
Powell's Potion Laboratory
Before noon
Hermione didn't come to the Laboratory until midday. Before that, she came to the Clinic to check on her patient who came to the ward yesterday after trying to eat the Streller. After a brief round, she Flooed to the Ministry to report on the inspection to Octavia Banks, then went to the Aurors for permission to enter Lab Eight.
She wasn't sure how to behave towards Snape. She even considered the idea of apologizing to him, but eventually decided that she will do so IF he apologized to her first.
Forget. The day Severus Snape says "Sorry" to you, you are going to play the Morgane Lottery!
Besides, especially today she wanted to avoid him, not only because of what happened on Friday, but also because of what she was supposed to do. She had to control the usage of A and B ingredients Class. The problem was that there were only two people in the Lab who used them. Chase and Professor Snape. And to question his competence could not end well.
So Hermione decided to come to the Lab rather late, start with the Seven, which now was empty after Chase's death, and then, when Professor Snape goes to dinner, to sneak into his lab. And only then she will go to the Eight.
Since she was wearing work clothes and dragon-leather boots today, she made upstairs noiselessly, sneaked into the Seven, and started to work.
She put aside the burners, summoned a large brass scale, a duster for powdered ingredients, brought glass beakers, prepared parchment, quills and colored inks, and went to the shelves of ingredients.
As she leafed through the labels, she looked for Class A or B. They should be somewhere apart, and their containers should be labeled IN-A or IN-B.
She walked along the first wall and found them halfway through the second. They were all on a separate shelf, at the bottom Classe A, at the top Classe B. The first bottle was one of the ingredients she chose! Brilliant! She took it off and started looking for others. The second! Great, where is the next one… Wiggentree bark ...
She took a step forward and at that moment she heard the door open. She turned quickly and ... saw Professor Snape standing there.
They both looked surprised. They looked at each other for a few seconds, then Snape nodded slowly at her.
"Miss Granger," he said slowly.
"Professor," Hermione acted exactly the same.
He walked past her and bent over a bucket full of special perforated spoons. He briefly browsed through various of them until he found what he wanted and turned to her. And only at this moment Hermione realized she was staring at him.
"Sorry," she mumbled, and quickly went back to reading the labels on the bottles.
Ailhosta, Griffin Claws, Sopophorous bean, Bloodroot ... she reached the end of the shelve and turned to the next. She pretended she wasn't paying attention to anything else, but in real she was focusing on the man behind her. She couldn't hear his footsteps or the click of the door closing, so she knew Snape hadn't left. He didn't come out so he stood and watched her. She felt as if she could feel his eyes on her.
"Can you tell me what you're doing?" His low voice sounded right behind her.
Striving for calm, Hermione turned and replied:
"I'm looking for ingredients."
He didn't answer, just narrowed his eyes a little and continued to stare at her without a word as she bit on her lips. Oh, here it comes!
"I have to weigh some of the ingredients," she explained. "As part of the control, I have to check a few from Class A and B and I have chosen three and I am looking for the third one."
Severus Snape took two bottles from her hand and stared at them for a long moment in silence.
"Why only three?" He asked finally. "And why these? The Re'em horn isn't really dangerous, it will be moved to Class C soon. Runespoor eggs... eventually can be checked. Brugmansia is used to prepare love potions. According to you this is a serious check, Miss Granger? I doubt it"
He pushed Hermione's empty beakers and began summoning other ingredients. He caught each of them easily, put them on the table in a smooth movement and summoned another one. And the next one. And one more ...
Soon the scale, parchment and quills were lost between the row of bottles, jars and flasks. Hermione was about to protest when Snape set a small cardboard box in front of her and turned to her.
"The most dangerous A Class ingredients and some of them from Classe B. I suggest you to check all of them. If you want, of course you can also check the Runespoor eggs."
Hermione stared at them all. Until now, she thought that Professor Snape was just looking for FEW others to check. But EVERYTHING?
„... all ?"
It's just a routine check after all.
The corner of Snape's mouth twitched in a mocking smile.
"Is that too much for you? Are you afraid you won't make it? It is really surprising. This is the first time I see that Miss Granger is unable to carry out such a simple command..."
Holy shit! I'm unable?! Oh, you will see!
"Of course I'm able to do it, professor," she snapped and straightened proudly.
"How are you going to control them?"
Hermione pointed to the empty beakers and dusters.
"I will transfer all the liquid ingredients to the beakers with the binding spell for a moment, weigh them and send them back to the bottles. Concerning powdered ingredients, I will transfer them to the pan and then sweep them all with duster and send back with the spell."
"You won't need the dusters," he disagreed. "Depulso!" He sent them back with a wave of his wand.
"That's how we handle powder!" The girl protested.
"Indeed, correct reasoning," a shadow of a smile crossed Snape's face. "But there are easier ways."
He pulled up the brass scale, uncorked the first bottle of valerian infusion, and gestured at it.
"What's the binding spell?"
"Colligus."
"Watch and listen carefully. Colligus" he pointed his wand at the content of the bottle and the liquid inside suddenly clumped into one ball. "Levimaterium," he moved his hand very softly and the ball slipped out of the bottle and hung in the air.
It turned slowly, taking different shapes, floating to the sides and back, towards the center. It looked as if it was breathing. As it lived its own life.
Snape pointed to the deep bowl on the pan with his wand, and the ball felt down very slowly and filled it.
Hermione watched as he placed a few weights on the other pan, released the handle, and the long, narrow pointer twitched and tilted just a little away from the scale center. Snape chose the smallest weight, one tenth of an ounce, levitated it, and lowered it with stunning softness. She saw the moment when the weight touched the pan cause the pointer had shifted by inches and ceased exactly on 0 in the middle.
Hermione exhaled and realized she had been holding her breath so far.
Snape arrested the scale, lifted the valerian infusion in the air and pointed at the bottle with his wand. The swirling ball drifted and slipped inside and with Finite Incantatem it scattered violently all over the bottom.
"Three and four tenths of an ounce," he said. "Did you remember the spell and the wand movement?"
Hermione, still a little dazed, nodded and suddenly realized it must be his own spell.
"I shouldn't be using it. It is not ... recommended." She bit her lower lip again.
Severus Snape shrugged.
"Do as you will. And I suggest you to hurry up, you have two other labs to check."
Then he got up, looked at his watch with wicked smile.
"Given that you wanted to do it during the lunch break, I suppose there is no point in wishing you "good appetite"?"
Oh you asshole !
"Enjoy your meal, professor," she retorted, and turned her back to him.
"Thank you very much. And tie your hair better."
Flushing crimson, Hermione bowed her head until she heard the click of a spell-locked door.
I am going to kill you. Merlin, I'll strangle you one day!
She looked at the table stacked with bottles and vials and tried to judge how long her professor took to weigh the first ingredient.
Three minutes? Maybe a little more? Okay, let's say four. And there are still ... twenty-two ingredients...
She reached for the other bottle and beaker and tried to do it properly. Four minutes later she managed just to weigh the beaker. She wrote down the weight and transferred the contents of the second bottle to it. She couldn't judge the weight roughly, but looking at the quantity, it could be more or less the same as the first one, so she put three one-ounce weights on the pan for try. When she released the handle, the pan with the beaker fell down violently, hit hard against the table, and the liquid in the beaker almost spilled out.
Be careful, Granger!
Holding the pan and beaker, Hermione added three more weights. A bit better, the pointer twitched and moved a little to the center. The next two weights. She had to place them too forcefully and touched the pan, because the pointer swung violently from side to side. Not enough. Another. And one more.
Damn, how many more ?!
Biting hard on her lip, she added two more weights and the pointer tipped too far to the right. She removed one weight and tried to add smaller weights...
Five minutes later, mentally cursing Severus Snape, Merlin's pants, this damn inspection and her idiotic, crazy, stupid sense of honor, she added a hundredth of an ounce and the pointer finally stopped in the middle.
Hermione breathed a sigh of relief and the pointer twitched and tilted a hair to the left.
Bloody damn hell!
When she finally put the other bottle aside and wrote down the weight, she looked at her watch and groaned. It took a little more than a quarter of an hour to weigh one bottle. And there were twenty-one others ahead of her!
She couldn't even dream of weighing the ingredients at the same pace as her professor. He judged the weight with stunning perfection and levitated weights with a delicacy she had never suspected him of.
Hermione picked up a third bottle and compared its weight to the previous one. It looks twice as heavy. Besides, you don't have to weigh that goddamn beaker anymore.
She reached for the beaker, used a spell to bind the Glumbumble syrup and tried to pour it into the beaker. And then it turned out that the syrup is so thick that it does not want to leak even when tilted ...
Twenty minutes later, Hermione gave up. She wrote down the weight of the syrup and set the empty beaker behind the scale. It was time to put her pride in the pocket and try Snape's spell. Since he has used it a thousand times and nothing happened, she can use it sixty-nine more times.
An hour and six bottles later, her professor paid her a visit. He looked closely at the weighed ingredients and sent them back to their places.
"What's your problem?"
Hermione shook her head.
"I don't have any. Everything is all right."
"Granger, don't tell me stories," Snape hissed. "That's the answer I would expect from Potter or Weasley, but not from you."
Hermione hold back the sudden urge to bite back.
"I have no problem. It's just that it takes me a little longer to weigh than you, which is perfectly understandable."
He nodded and sat down on the stool next to him.
"Show me how you do it."
Hermione moved a compact cloud of powder to the flat jar, covered it with a lid, and tossed the Finite Incantatem. The powder scattered to the sides, but Hermione was already screwing the lid back on, so not even the tiniest puff could escape.
She looked hurriedly at Professor Snape, but to her relief she saw only approval in his eyes. So she reached for the crystal flask and was about to reach for another, similar, already weighed, when she recalled that Snape had already sent them back to the shelves.
"Are you looking for other flasks?" He guessed.
"Yes. Just to know more or less which weights to take," she nodded.
"How predictable. But it doesn't make any sense." Snape took two empty beakers behind the scale, one much smaller than the other, and handed it to her. "Often the weight depends not on the ingredient but on the container itself. Crystal flasks will be much heavier than glass flasks, first because the crystal itself is heavier, and second because they are cut in the cristal, so they are much thicker than the glass ones that are blown. Besides, you are probably looking for a different flask of similar size, am I right? A lot will depend on the density of the ingredient. One tablespoon of Ramora roe will be much heavier than the same tablespoon of beetle shells."
"So how am I supposed to estimate how much it weighs?" Hermione protested.
"You should use THIS for that," Snape tapped a long, narrow finger on the scales. "Comparing bottles, vials, flasks is not a method. It's just a not very clever way of getting out of a problem, which in itself won't teach you anything. It's a half-measure. Learn to weigh. Learn to recognize ingredients, understand them. Feel them. Recall their properties and then you will be able to guess the weight without errors based on their quantity, and not on the completely false premises of comparing them with others."
The girl took her eyes off his hand with an effort and looked at him in amazement. THIS was something completely different. It was not criticizing and mocking, but showing the way. It was a challenge.
Even his voice was different. Slow, low, silky, alluring with knowledge and at the same time full of promise. He roused her completely and suddenly she felt that this was what she wanted. To KNOW.
Severus didn't let her cool down.
"Erumpent horn liquid," he said. "What can you say about it?"
The girl straightened up immediately and focused on the question.
"It is extremely explosive, in case of collision ..."
"I'm not asking about properties," he interrupted, staring intently into her eyes. "What's its density? Is it sticky or is it just the opposite?"
"It is very liquid," she said immediately. "That is why..."
"Stop," he shook his head. "Don't try to recite everything you know about it. Don't try to bewitch me with your knowledge. I want to hear precise answer to my question and nothing more. Go on, focus!"
Hermione bit her lip, staring somewhere at his arm, searching frantically in her mind.
"I've got it! It is semi-liquid - semi-gas!"
Severus Snape didn't comment on her answer in any way.
"So what can be the weight of such a small amount of liquid?
"Not even a half ounce?" Hermione answered and tried to see in his eyes if she was wrong. "Maybe a quarter?"
He nodded and took the jar of perfectly round gray stones.
"Saargo Stone."
"Much heavier," Hermione replied immediately. "It's very dense and hard ... The weight of a medium size stone should be about ... half a pound."
"Aconite tubers," he showed her a bottle of brown-black bulbs with some dried, broken fibers at the ends.
"Dry, but ... they are very thick. The ones we use are old so they have a lot of secondary growth…"
"Spare me deep analysis. Hard, thick, stringy, is is? How much it weighs?"
"Ten drams each one (1 dram = 1.77184519 g, = 1⁄16 of an ounce)"
Snape set the bottle aside and stood up.
"I assume that you understood now. So you can get to work. Remember, you are to think and feel, and not just to throw weights on it and wait to see what comes of it. A scale is just a tool, but you are the mistress here."
Hermione smiled a little, then to her amazement, much more.
"Thank you, Sir."
He nodded and left. Hermione reached for the aconite tubers, cast a binding spell, and transferred them to the bowl. There were fifteen of them, so she set a half-pound weight on the pan next to it and released the handle.
The pointer tilted slightly to the left, so she very carefully added a ten dram weight, and then one gran weight (1 gran = 64.79891 mg, = 0.035274 ounce). The pointer stopped a hair from the middle of scale, so as carefully as she could she levitated another one and held her breath. And she smiled as she saw the pointer twitch and stop right in the middle.
Outstanding!
Two and a half hours later all the ingredients were weighed. Hermione's shoulders, back, and neck started to ache, and her fingers tingled. But she was proud of herself!
She cleaned up the lab and went on to number Six.
"Can I?" She asked as she entered.
Snape pointed to the other end of the table without saying a word and continued to stir in the cauldron, so in order not to disturb him, she walked to the wall as quietly as possible, found A and B ingredients and began to set them on the table. For the next two hours, they both worked in silence. Neither of them spoke except whispering some spells. Sometimes one could hear a quill squeaking, a spoon scraping, a potion bubbling and the sound of liquids pouring into it.
After Hermione had finished and cleaned the table, professor Snape set the ladle aside on the stand and turned to face her.
„Listening to advice can be helpful."
"Well, yes," Hermione muttered.
"I must admit, it is quite… promising."
The girl began to flex her fingers to ease the pain.
"Sir ... can I ask you something?"
"Yes, Miss Granger?" he favored her with a raised eyebrow.
"Why didn't you explain that in class? It was ... " she searched for a word, finally said, embarrassed: "Fascinating."
Severus smirked, but his expression turned serious immediately.
"I would rather say… "illuminating". But certainly not for everyone. Most of those dunderheads who attended potion class wouldn't listen to more than the first sentence."
"Certainly not! Most of them were quite skilled."
"It's already six o'clock and you have twenty-three more ingredients from lab Eight to weigh," he changed the subject. "I deeply suggest you to continue to work, instead of loosing your time on pointless discussions about what was five years ago."
Hermione sighed deeply, gathered her writing instruments, and made to the exit.
"Of course. Again thank you very much."
"Anytime. See you tomorrow."
The girl held the door, pressing her things to her chest.
"Until Thursday. I wasn't going to come..."
"But you will because I have something to show you," he interrupted impatiently. "I shall expect you here at eight tomorrow morning. Now you are dismissed."
Hermione wanted to say something, but didn't really know what. On the one hand, she wanted to hex him into oblivion, but on the other ... It occurred to her that Severus Snape wasn't the bloody asshole she had taken him to be.
Spinner's End, 6pm
Snape left home as soon as Granger went to Eight. He had the ingredients of the poison to identify, and although he knew that thanks to the retaining solution they won't loose their properties for weeks, he wanted to do so as soon as possible.
When Granger told him today what she was going to do, the idea occurred to him that he could use it for his own purposes.
He could only identify the poison components himself, but he wouldn't know if they came from the Laboratory's stocks. Granger however, knowing their quantity at different times and in different labs, last deliveries and having access to the full Register, could easily track who and what for was using them. And find out if they have been used illegally.
That was the reason why today he gave her to weigh up all the ingredients that might have caused such abundant bleeding in the stomach and digestive system and, to confuse her, several others.
And he mocked her to make her do what he wanted. You can always count on Gryffindor pride. Especially suggesting that Miss Know-It-All won't be able to manage something.
He ate the leftovers from yesterday's dinner and went down to the basement where he made a small lab. With his wand, he lit the candles in candelabrum and sat down at the wide table with plenty of beakers of retaining solution. In each of them, exactly in the middle, as if suspended in a vacuum, there were tiny balls of different colors.
He started with yellow-orange one - he withdrew it with a spell, checked its texture and smell, removed it on a glove and rubbed it carefully between his fingers for a moment. In fact, rubbing was not necessary. The smell clearly indicated armadillo bile, but he wanted to be sure. The thick blood of the Norwegian Ridgeback dragon had a similar color, but in this case he couldn't rub it so easily between his fingers.
With the same skill of Potions Master he discovered the other ingredients. Sometimes just a short look was enough, sometimes the touch or the smell were also necessary, but he handled each of them with the same care and attention, like a diver handles a unique black pearl he had just found.
The black obsidian eyes weren't fathomless at all, quite the opposite. Narrowed in absolute concentration, they blazed with passion and intelligence, but also with implacable anger and pain, as, with each ingredient, he discovered the nightmare that had taken his friend.
When he finished at midnight, he examined the ingredients list. He guessed correctly, indeed. All of them were among those he had given Granger to check.
Bloodroot extract was able to kill even such strong creatures as hippogriffs, sphinxes and unicorns.
The Bundimun secretions were extremely acidic and capable of rotting building structures. It was normally used diluted as an ingredient in magical cleaning solutions. But here the secretions were not diluted. In the contrary…
The octopus powder was used to increase the power of potions.
Severus wished he could put the ingredients back in the retaining solution once he had removed them, but it was not possible. He discovered what was in the poison, but at the cost of destroying the evidence.
It does not matter. Whoever you are, you will pay for it. I swear it.
He headed up, to the living room and waved his wand. Suddenly, the smell of hot vax and blown out candle wicks filled the darkness.
Something else happened that day related to the mysterious deaths, but neither Snape nor Hermione found out about it. Snape because he didn't watch Muggle TV, and Hermione because she came home so sore and tired that she didn't even have the strength to turn on the TV. She bathed with difficulty and fell asleep.
On all BBC channels, short information about the last few unexplained deaths appeared in the breaks between the broadcast. The commentator described in details the symptoms that must have appeared in the victims. He also called for immediate visit in the nearest medical facility in case of developing such symptoms.
In the morning, 80% of the public saw the news and a real storm on hospitals and medical clinics began.
From the next day, the news appeared also on Sky News, a 24-hour news program.
Professor Neumann and Dr. Roberts alerted the National Supreme Medical Chamber, they informed Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), who on his turn informed Alain Milburn, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. Milburn reported immediately to Tony Blair.
Wednesday, April 23th
Ministry of Magic, Research Office, 8:00 am
"Paul!" Augie smiled as he saw Auror entering the Office. "It's great to see you. I've finished analyzing your goodies and have some news for you."
Paul said hello to two other researchers and walked over to pat Augie on the shoulder. Usually everyone greeted him this way, because Augie was a left hand and stubbornly tried to shake his left hand to everyone. It was a bit hard to respond.
"So?" He asked as he pulled a chair back to front and straddled it. "Do you have anything interesting?"
"Not really, but better than nothing."
Augie fumbled for a moment in the pile of papers on his desk.
"Look, here ..." He ran a thick finger across the report and grimaced. "Shit, that's not it. Wait a second..."
Paul was a little sleepy, and he was sick of everything today. He rested his chin in his hands and waited for Augie to find the correct parchment.
"Okay, I've got it. Well. I found dragon fangs, octopus powder and bloodroot. I am not able to identify the last three ingredients. There was not enough of them."
Paul took the parchment from him and began to read.
"You weren't talking about the bundimun?" he said finally.
"Because it probably doesn't belong to the sample. You can find Bundimun in cleaning solutions," Augie explained. "Someone must have cleaned the floor recently, or it was rinsed badly and some of that got on the chocolate."
Paul scanned the report for a long time.
"Okay ... and speaking English, what does it mean? Dragon's fangs could have killed that guy?"
Augie laughed happily, looking expert.
"Professor Snape didn't teach you anything? Not all ingredients are critical ingredients. Some are used to acidify or alkalize the liquid, or only help to combine the basic ingredients. The snake's fangs didn't bite him. But the bloodroot could cause bleeding."
This interested Paul.
"Just "could" or "did"?"
"Depends on dose," Augie replied. "You gave me too little of that chocolate for me to say exactly. But I admit that I don't like it. So I wrote at the bottom that the hemorrhage may have been caused by Sanguinaria Canadensis."
"Can you give it to me?" Paul asked, waving the parchment.
"No, I have to archive it."
"Archive? Already, that soon?"
Augie winced apologetically and reached for the previous report.
"I'm sorry. But you know how it is. That," he fanned the parchment, "is a priority now. The shirt sucks the blood from the owner and does not leave even the slightest trace on it. Evidently black magic. I barely found time for your chocolate, but I'm not gonna get anything more out of it."
Paul patted Augie on the shoulder, stood up and turned the chair with one hand. Augie looked at with admiration.
"Thanks mate. I will remember about this."
Powell's Potions Studio
Around 8 a.m.
It was half past seven and Hermione gave up on brushing her hair, just gathered her hair into a ponytail, ran into the bathroom to brush her teeth, and apparated to the Winding Alley. She arrived in advance, but before meeting Snape, she had to wait at least twenty minutes for the Veritaserum to stop working, because what she was going to tell him was far from the truth.
Yesterday she had no time to think deeper, but this morning, eating toast with jam and orange juice, she managed to focus on something more than her hurting shoulders, back, hands, hands and neck. Yesterday she was so absorbed in estimating the weight, weighing it up, moving ingredients in and out of containers, that she did not think what ingredients she was working with.
Today she remembered them all, and almost immediately looked through Snape's little game. The vast majority of the ingredients, when consumed, could somehow damage the digestive system.
Further conclusions were obvious. Severus Snape didn't wait for the Aurors to find Chase's murderer, but he was looking for him too. And he wanted to make use of her.
For a moment she wondered if she wanted to let him do that, and finally decided she didn't.
She will not allow him to manipulate her for his own purposes. She will help him only if he tells her what he knows.
Well, that was the theory. The practice was much worse. She wanted to somehow threat or delude an extraordinarily intelligent double spy who had managed to lie to the greatest wizard of our time, mislead his followers and the entire wizarding world about his true role.
The fact that Severus Snape didn't like her didn't make matters any better.
Because in this situation, she understood why he had spent so much time yesterday explaining and giving good advice. And he was kind to her in some way. When Severus Snape wanted something, measures were indifferent to him. Whether she would figure it out or not also didn't matter. He was just going to get it.
Monica looked at her jeans and a thick, black and white sweater in oddly way and the girl felt her ears turn a little red. Next time dress as benefits the Inspector of the Ministry of Magic.
She climbed two steps upstairs, hid in the bathroom, and only at eight o'clock she open the door to lab number six.
They both looked at each other, then Snape looked over her loose sweater, stupid jeans and sneakers and grimaced involuntarily. Granger in Muggle clothes reminded him of Miss Granger - his insufferable student. And old times.
Hermione smiled and closed the door behind her.
"Good morning, professor Snape."
"Good morning, Miss Granger."
"You wanted to show me something ... Can we see it now because I'm in a hurry?" Hermione shrugged and hissed from pain.
Snape stood up without a word, nodded at her, and left the lab. They went downstairs and he led her through a long corridor almost to the end of the building.
"Yesterday you finished weighting all the ingredients," he said, and Hermione didn't know at first if it was a question or a statement. But as he pushed open both wings of the door and lit the bubbles under the ceiling, she felt her knees get weak. "These were just handy storages in the labs. You have the essential warehouse here. I advise you to deal with this immediately. If someone takes something out of here before you write it down, everything you did yesterday will make no sense."
Hermione groaned and looked around in disbelief. There were shelves everywhere with hundreds of boxes, trunks and huge bottles, and nothing resembled yesterday's bottles and flasks! Merlin, without a time-turner, I am going to spend my whole life here before I find those 23 ingredients from yesterday!
Suddenly she had an idea how to get Severus Snape's help!
"Could you please show me where yesterday's ingredients are?" She asked politely and a little naively. "There should be exact weight on the trunks, so I just need to write them down, but I don't know where they are. And the sooner I do it, the better. Then I will just drop everything off for my colleague from the Ministry and I will be able to return to the Clinic."
Snape, who somewhere halfway through her speech just wanted to tell her to shut up, raised an eyebrow at the last words.
Hermione got up her courage.
"I will let him calculate everything. He is able to count ..."
In one step he was right in front of her. The girl abruptly stepped back and hit her back against the wall. Merlin, I must be crazy if I thought I could make it...!
"Granger, don't be stupid," he hissed.
Now or never!
"I can just give them the data. They can check for themselves if you are following the registration procedure for A and B Class of ingredients," she answered quickly. And she added:
"And to track the usage of certain ingredients."
"Don't play games with me," he warned in a low, menacing voice.
Hermione met his eyes, determined to hold his gaze. They both knew. And each of them realized that the other one knew about it.
"You'll have to help me if you want the results."
Snape quickly considered the options.
"Don't try to order me around. I don't like to hear that I HAVE to do something. Not from YOU," he drawled.
"Do you know that if it turns out that I informed you about the results of the checks ... I can be fired from the Ministry?"
"You don't need to open your big mouth."
"I do not have to. But I need to know why."
"No. You don't need to know why. You will learn what I want to tell you. And it will have to be enough for you."
Hermione had already opened her mouth to say that she wasn't going to be content with just anything when Snape broke away from her and went into the room.
"Now move on. I don't have all day," he snarled.
Her heart pounding, she followed him. What were you expecting? That he will sit next to you and tell you everything? Idiot. Be glad he tells you anything at all. Unless he changes his mind.
With Snape's help, it only took a quarter of an hour to write down the weight of all twenty-three ingredients. He dictated, Hermione wrote. Each unopened box was labeled with the amount or weight, in the case of already open boxes, Snape looked inside, counted the number of bottles or boxes left in his mind and gave it the final result.
When they finished, they went to the door and they both stopped. Neither one nor the other seemed to want anyone to overhear them.
"Analyze me today bloodroot extract, octopus powder and bundimun secretions," Snape said. "You can do with the rest what you want, I do not care".
"Bundimun secretions?! Oh Merlin ..." Hermione gasped. "How do you know ?!"
"It is immaterial to you. Check out the last two months. I shall expect it tomorrow".
Hermione tried to return to her senses. Bundimun secretions? ! Holy God ... It really must have been a nightmare !
"I don't know if I should come here." She shook her head and adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder. "Inspections are not normally that frequent. Someone may pay attention to this."
Severus Snape considered it for a moment.
"Tomorrow at 4 p.m. I will bring the potions to the Clinic. Wait for me by the warehouse downstairs. You know where?"
The girl nodded.
"Tomorrow at four then."
They both went out into the hallway and Hermione turned left instead of right. With a sigh she turned and her eyes fell on the normal door, with door knob.
"Do you have normal doors here?" She asked surprised.
Snape turned to her and shrugged.
"This is a cleaning solutions room. We don't go in there, so there's no need for swing doors," he replied.
Suddenly the thought of the cleaning solutions made Hermione think about bundimun secretions and decided she needed to go in there. She pressed the door knob, pushed the door and opened it slightly.
It was dark inside, just a horizontal strip of light almost straight ahead. Undoubtedly the crack under the door behind which the light shone.
"Lumos!"
In a dim light they saw the door. Another ordinary door with a door knob. Hermione walked over to them and Snape did the same. The girl pushed the door and they saw a small enclosed backyard with garbage cans and a carpet hanger.
They both looked around. There were bathrooms and toilets upstairs in this place with small barred windows so no one could see the backyard. On the opposite side was the wall of the neighboring building without windows, and on the sides simply a wall reaching both roofs.
"This backyard belongs to the Laboratory area?" the girl asked.
Snape frowned, spun on his heel, and disappeared with a soft crack. Seconds later, he reappeared. They both looked at each other with a sudden flash of understanding.
"Holy shit," Hermione muttered.
"Indeed," Snape concluded and shook his head in disbelief.