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Chapter Five: He's Adorable and Yet So Disturbing
I turned back to the class to see if anyone was encountering any trouble. One student, the boy who was so impressed with my fire, was sweating profusely as his cauldron was exuding thick, acid green smoke.
"You there!" I cried, pointing at the boy. "Did you stir it before or after you added the belladonna?"
"B – before, miss," he stammered, trembling. I hopped off the beanbag and walked over to his cauldron.
"Well, there's the problem. If the belladonna isn't properly stirred in it stays separate from the other ingredients, then when the potion reaches boiling point it burns and lets off this smoke. In fact, if you don't remedy this situation immediately we'll all pass out. Isn't that interesting?"
"Yes, miss," the boy said, looking like he wanted desperately to pass out. I clapped my hands together and walked over to the store cupboard, peering at the jars for a moment before extracting the small vial I needed and walking back to the boy's cauldron. I tapped the vial so that two drops were added into the boy's potion. The smoke immediately cleared and the potion turned the bright turquoise that it was meant to. "Wow!" he said, looking at me in wonder. I smiled.
"This is a simple enzyme, derived from dandelion seeds, that will help to break down any substance. It helped the belladonna integrate into the rest of the potion." I ruffled the boy's hair again, resisting the urge to call him 'champ' and make the patronizing party complete.
"Thanks, miss," he said, looking up at the blackboard to see the next line of instructions. It was to add three pinches of dried raspberry leaf mixed with a combination of bubotuber pus and lavender oil.
Bending down next to him, I whispered; "if you add an extra drop of lavender oil to the mixture it'll take away the horrid stench this potion usually has." He beamed at me. I was good. I was really good. I could tell I was good because Severus was glaring at me again. Number eleven.
The rest of the lesson absolutely flew by. Severus occasionally swept around the room, being his usual evil self, but mostly he was just writing stuff on that parchment of his. I figured he was just finishing some paperwork he hadn't got done during the holidays. I'd laughed to myself, thinking of the ornery professor too busy partying to do his duties. But before I knew it, it was the end of the lesson and the first-years were decanting their potions and scurrying away without a backwards look at the creepy professor.
"So, what's next?" I asked Severus, vanishing my beanbag and sitting on his desk, legs crossed. I placed my hands behind me on the table and looked over at him, smiling benignly. "Who are we teaching now?"
"Seventh-years," he said, not even looking at me. "Even if you can dazzle the first-years with your party tricks, I daresay the seventh-years will be less receptive of your attempts to befriend them."
"We'll just see about that, you grumpy old fool," I muttered, so that he could hear me. He glared. Number twelve. That man had to be taught a lesson, so I waved my arms above my head. A small breeze wafted in through the open door, causing Severus to sneer.
"I'm slightly colder than I was before. I'm so very impressed," he droned in a monotone, sending the thirteenth glare my way. Lucky thirteen, I figured, as I smiled to myself and stood up. He hadn't noticed it yet, but the wind was picking up. It began to flip some of his papers up into the air and cause his robes to flap in the wind, and soon enough there was a small hurricane centered on his desk. Though he was trying his hardest to pretend he was unaffected by my powers, it was becoming more and more difficult as he began to have trouble keeping his feet on the ground. However, when a letter opener zoomed past my face, narrowly missing my eye, I decided enough was enough. With a snap of my fingers, the hurricane died down and his papers were returned to their original positions on the desk. I could see how impressed he was now. Nept had said he'd never encountered anyone who could revert objects to their original placements after invoking the air element so forcefully. And didn't Severus just know it. He was itching to tell me off, I could see that just by looking at his furious face. "Well, aren't we just the proudest little child of the class."
"I'm twenty-seven, Barry, I'm hardly a child," I said, trying to maintain an evenly annoyed tone of voice.
"WILL YOU STOP CALLING ME BARRY!"
At a small giggle, I turned to my right, only to see a group of seventh-years standing in the doorway, looking at me in awe. Upon realizing they had been seen, they began to file into the room, taking their seats and waiting patiently for their instructions. All the while, they were staring at me with a mixture of awe and curiosity. I couldn't blame them.
"Er… hi there, kids," I said, raising a hand. They bristled. "I mean, uh, students. Hey students. I'm Raphaela Vialle, I'm going to be here for a while, I'm training to be a teacher or something. So, if you have any questions, I'm pretty good at potions and shit like that, and I promise I'll be nicer than Severus."
"I thought his name was Barry," one boy called out, to laughter from the rest of the class. Oh yes. I was in.
"Stop swearing in front of the students, Vialle, or I will have you forcibly removed from this school," Severus seethed at me through clenched teeth. I turned and smiled broadly at him.
"Oh, you," I said, flopping a hand in his direction. "So adorable when you think you're being intimidating." The students laughed once more. If there was one thing this man was not, it was adorable. He looked at me, a glare of bewildered outrage plastered across his pallid face. Fourteen.
"I will say this once and once only, Raphaela Vialle," he said, speaking so low that I was sure the students wouldn't be able to hear. It unnerved me somewhat, but I kept a straight face in spite of it all. "You are not here to interfere, annoy, or pester. You are here to learn. If you say one… more… word to me this lesson, I will kill you."
He actually looked serious. I decided to call his bluff, speaking as quietly as he was. "You said you wouldn't let snotty kids cost you your job," I said, leaning forwards and angling my upper arms inwards somewhat. Even if he were grumpy and crotchety, he was still male, and a little cleavage could work wonders in the right situations. I mean, it had to have been decades since Severus had last had… relations. Not that I made a habit of thinking about his sex life, because that was one visual I certainly did not need. It just went without saying. I mean, who was he going to... y'know? McGonagall? Yeuch. Suddenly, I couldn't remember what I'd been saying to Severus. It didn't seem to matter though, because he opened his mouth to retort.
"Your pathetic life will cost me nothing," he said, his voice so low I could barely hear it. He seemed to be speaking without moving his jaw at all, and keeping his mouth as small as possible. "I do not think one encounters many teachers on the walk from the staff chambers to the dungeons, especially at seven in the morning. And there are creatures in the Forbidden Forest who would gladly take care of any… excess meat I had lying around."
Okay, it was terrifying. Pants-wettingly so. He was shooting me a look to kill and I felt as though my insides were shriveling up under his fifteenth glare. I felt sick. I was going to throw up all over him. But then, I realised what he'd said. "Well, Severus, if you have an excess then I'm sure McGonagall has a lovely receptacle for your meat." I covered my mouth with my hands as I giggled uncontrollably, and then some chuckles from the students arose and I realised I'd said it quite a bit louder than I'd intended. I went beet red, but didn't avert my gaze from Severus'. Our eyes were locked over the corner of his desk, and it seemed inexplicably as though his black irises were growing larger. Or was it just my eyes playing tricks on me? The latter seemed more likely, as I didn't think there was a spell that would make your irises larger. Even if there was, why would Severus bother to cast it when we were in the middle of a stare-off? Unless he wanted to completely freak me out and make me doubt everything I knew. That seemed logical. But then, why stop at an iris-expander spell? Why not cast a spell to turn his eyes bright purple? That would certainly weird me out, but I guess it wasn't really his style. He probably would cast an iris-expanding spell actually. Yeah, that's what he'd do. "Cheater!" I cried, jabbing a finger towards him. "You cast a spell!"
"I have no idea what you're talking about, Vialle," he said, and his eyes looked normal again. Maybe it had been just a trick of my eyes. The next part was so quiet I had to strain to hear it, and even then I wasn't sure if I'd heard it properly at all. "And McGonagall isn't going anywhere near my meat."
No. He didn't say that. He couldn't have said that. He doesn't talk about that. He doesn't think about that.
"And put your fucking tits away."
Okay, this time I was sure I'd misheard. He did not say that. Severus Snape does not swear. He does not talk about relations. He does not say the word 'tits'. I think 'bosoms' would be more his style. Yes, I was sure he said something like 'put your gosh-darned bosoms away'. Of course, he doesn't even refer to bosoms. I'm sure I misheard. He said 'put the far kintix away.' He was referring to the kintix over at the far corner of the room, and he wanted me to put it away for him. I had no idea what a kintix is, but I was sure it was a real and valid ingredient that is absolutely integral in potionmaking. I didn't see any potions ingredients anywhere aside from the ones on the shelf he had taken out for the first-years, but I decided to err on the side of keeping my fucking sanity and not ask what a kintix was. I'd just safely assume that he'd referred to the legendary kintix and sit quietly for the rest of the lesson, trying not to think about anything.