I have survived the Michaelmas term of university so am now (FINALLY) able to update. I will try to create a backlog of chapters so I can update at steady intervals during Epiphany. The story shall be completed (eventually).
For unintentional homonyms in this chapter, I apologise. I am aware that has been a major criticism and I will endeavour to spot them and correct them, though I am sure some will slip through the net. Unfortunately I do not own Word 2007 and therefore have no semantic checks. Please be forgiving.
The improvement in Harry's and Snape's relationship did not extend into the following day. The extra tuition had led to Harry gaining some advanced practical skills, which he thought could be used to his advantage next term (should the situation arise of course) against Malfoy Jr. or Malfoy Sr. if a new plot should form. Harry contemplated that he could teach Ron the Furnunculus Curse at some point giving them both a slight advantage against the Slytherine trio. He did appreciate his new skills, though he doubted Snape would support his application of them. Snape had taken pleasure in playing the Defense of the Dark Arts teacher for the afternoon and seeing the improvement in Harry's skills, through resented the boys quick mastery of the spells. That must be Lily. This mutual appreciation of one another did not lead to an extended period of grace however…
Following Snape's personal tuition Harry had been exhausted and slept deeply: too deeply, causing yet another day in Snape's house to be spent in a tense and fractious atmosphere. Snape had risen early to prepare potions, healing potions, and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast after their completion. He occasionally glanced at the clock on the wall: 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock. He poured out some more tea into his china cup and went once more to his potions lab in the cellar of Spinner's End. He removed a length of parchment from a draw and placed an ink well and quill beside it before going to his store cupboard and looking inside. Yes he had some raw ingredients.
Harry finally awoke at half past ten and groggily pushed himself up from his pillow. He grabbed his glasses from his side table and shoved them on his nose letting the now familiar room to swim into focus. He looked at his watch and groaned inwardly. Maybe Snape wouldn't notice, he thought though a small voice in the back of his head added, fat chance. He swung his feet out of the bed and dressed swiftly. His stomach rumbled. Harry left his room and went down the stairs seeing Snape emerge from below.
"How kind of you to join me, Potter," said Snape dryly.
"Where's breakfast?" said Harry rubbing his tummy. As soon as he'd said it he realised that that was not a phrase that was going to illicit a positive response.
Snape frowned.
"That," said Snape pausing, while adding mentally, you ungrateful brat, "is inconsequential as at this hour you shall not be having any." Now Harry frowned. "This is not a holiday camp and I am not here to pander to your beck and call. Follow me."
Snape led the way down into the cool, dimly lit cellar and said, "Sit there," indicating a chair at the stone lab table in the centre of the room. Harry sat, stuck out his lower lip and crossed his arms as Snape walked behind him and reached to his store cupboard. Snape laid a collection of assorted creatures, leaves and minerals for preparation for potions in front of Harry pointing to each in turn and identifying them: Arrowroot, Glumbumbles and Harlstones. Harry cast his eyes down avoiding looking at them and Snape. In annoyance Snape shoved a book directly under Harry's face before dragging the chair out from under the table to the left of Harry and sitting himself down. Snape pulled the parchment towards himself and took up his quill.
"I suggest you get started. The pages are marked," said Snape before dibbing his quill in the ink and writing in an elegant hand across the page. Pointedly he said, "I suggest that you read the relevant section of that book in detail."
Harry looked glibly across the table where he could see the healing potions that Snape had brewed that morning. In neat and clear hand writing the potions had been labelled with the potion's name and strength with the approximate severity of the wounds that they would treat. Harry noted that Snape had lined them up in colour order, from the deepest red on the left to the lightest on the right, but that according to the labels the colour bore no relation to the potency of the potion. Harry wondered, and made a mental not to ask, how Snape knew how strong the potions were. Despite this interest Harry looked over the potions equipment and ingredients on the desk and frowned even more. He flicked the text book open at the first marker.
'Harlstones,' he read skimming the page and then finally looked at the items on the table, ' – to be powdered-'
The Harlstones, amethyst in colour and shaped like stalactites that had been snapped at the base, were the same strength as glazed porcelain and broke easily. Harry picked them up in a large handful and put them in an oversized granite mortar. Even with this slight movement the Harlstones snapped easily. He dragged the bowl over the table top and picked up the pestle raising it to head height and slamming it down into mortar and then raised it up to full height again. He took to his task with little grace what so ever, in the vague hope that Snape would get so fed up with the noise and commotion that he would tell him to stop.
"Grind. Don't smash. You will destroy the stone's properties if you smash them," reproached Snape scowling, "It was written in the book. Perhaps you should pay more attention to your reading as well as the time."
Harry tightened his grip on the pestle and slowly brought it down to the bowl once more pacing it on top of the crystals. Grinding this time, he broke the crystals down into small chunks, taking little care of their size or shape. As the pieces were broken down into smaller and smaller piece they released micro puffs of green dust which hung above the basin in an increasingly dense miasma. As the intensity of the clouds increased the depth of the green deepened and rose in high curling loops above the bowl. The darkening clouds formed into thinner and thinner threads, changing from a fragile gauze hanging in the air to a collection of tangible green wires. They wove in between one another, knitting together into a green tapestry while still individual loose threads reached increasingly higher. Harry continued to grind and grind. He stared into the bowl leaning his head down to the basin as the threads rose to meet his face.
"Ahh," gasped Harry as he suddenly felt a hand grip the back of his head yanking it backwards. Snape's hand grasped onto Harry's hair, dragging his head away from the green clouds, ripping hairs out from his scalp. Once Harry was up and sitting upright in his chair Snap released him. Harry had dropped the pestle on the floor where it lay cracked. The mortar rested on the table the green cloud resting low in the bowl once more. The tapestry pulled down.
"I think that that is a fine enough powder," said Snape sneering at Harry as he massaged the back of his head, wincing slightly in pain. Snape reached to the basin and picked up a glass bottle which he poured the fine powder into. The green dust clouds flowed in with purple powder creating a split layer purple and green effect, like the bottles of sand Harry had seen Dudley bring back from a school trip to the beach which Harry had not been on. Snape wrote out a label and sealed it. "Now do those," said Snape indicating the stack of Glumbumbles, "and read the book this time. In detail."
Harry scowled and took the first of the long yellow green critters. He brought the creature up to eye level staring into its lifeless face seeing its short antennas wilt and bob forlornly. He opened the book once more and rested the Glumbumble at the top of page 362. He read –
"Remove head, drain fluids… Do not inhale or drink liquids… Bottle internal liquids... Glumbumble… dangerous… misery…melancholy…antidote… Alihotsy leaves."
Harry removed the dead caterpillar like creature from the page and picked up another piece of potions apparatus: a knife. The knife was the same size and shape as a muggle box cutter and razor sharp. In one swift motion he sliced off the first Glumbumble's head. Its body hissed and deflated slightly. While the Glumbumble had been firm to hold before its decapitation, it became floppy and difficult to handle while its insides wept from the open cut that Harry had made. He quickly grabbed a rack of test tubes and ranged them in front of him on the work surface. Harry held his hand around the first Glumbumble's long thinly furred body, squeezing and squelching out a violet viscous liquid from its decapitated body and into the set of thin bottles. He had ten Glumbumbles to prepare in this way but it became increasingly difficult as the fluid splashed on the table and over the other Glumbumbles. The liquid numbed his hands, causing the animals to slip through his fingers and fall onto the table making it increasingly difficult to de-juice them. Harry's stomach gurgled unpleasantly. He was so hungry he felt sick. Harry looked away from the creatures and their gooey fluids. His stomach gurgled once more, louder this time causing Snape to cast a quick look over, which Harry missed.
"Sir, I'm hungry," said Harry, grasping the final Glumbumble firmly in his hands and squeezing it out like a puss filled spot into the last thin vial.
"Then you should have gotten up earlier and made it to breakfast," said Snape passively, not looking up form his writing. Snape raised his wand and with a flicking motion caused a set of corks to fly up and jam themselves into the mouths of the vials.
"Sir, I don't feel well," urged Harry pathetically. Again his stomach groaned audibly.
"Oh dear," said Snape sarcastically and scored out a line of what he was writing, before indicating the Arrowroot for Harry to prepare.
Taking the book once more he read the properties of the Arrowroot. It merely required dicing and aside form being sticky and vilely pungent, had no disgusting or dangerous attributes, unless combined with a further reactant. Harry's stomach gurgled again despite the nauseating smell entering his nostrils. Even the Glumbumbles deflated carcasses began to look appealing. Wait, he reconsidered, no they didn't.
"Sir, what would happen if I ate those?" asked Harry idly cutting the Arrowroot into narrow strips.
"You'd be ill," said Snape, focusing on his writing.
"But I feel ill now."
"No you don't you are merely hungry which you would not be-"
"- if I had gotten up earlier," said Harry with an exasperated note.
"Don't interrupt." There was silence, with Snape's quill creating the only sound in the room. The scratching stopped abruptly. Snape scanned the page before rolling it into a thin tube, flattening it, folding it and sealing it. He placed it in his pocket and rose to his feet and looked over Harry's work.
"Lunch time I think," said Snape, "and Potter… good job on the ingredients. Sale standard." Harry felt a strange pleasure in that and smiled slightly.
Snape spun on his heal and strode out of the room up the stairs.
Harry followed swiftly but was led to the living room rather than the kitchen. There in the corner of the room was Hedwig in her cage. She seemed to scowl at Harry, as far as any owl is able to scowl. He had ignored her to a great extent in the busyness of the past couple of days and she had not forgiven him for it. Having to sit alone and lonely in a cage with only Snape to change your food and water is not a brilliant way to spend your time. However this meant that when Snape reached into her cage she hopped onto his wrist for him to carry her out and she willingly extended her leg for him to attach the letter that he had been writing while Harry prepared his ingredients. She ruffled her feathers lightly and fluttered delicately to the widow sill before looking once into the room and with a powerful flap of her wings flew out of the window which Snape had opened wide, and into the midday sun.
"You know you should ask if you want to use my things, sir," said Harry waspishly.
Snape turned raising his eyebrow slightly, "I think someone who has ignored his pet for such an extended period of time, taking no care for her well being, has no claim to exert ownership rights. Or is your complaint merely an indication that you are not hungry after all?"
Harry frowned deeply.
"Well?" said Snape.
"No sir," said Harry. So it was to be like this for the next weeks. He was to live with a stiff and snappy man who picked on his faults and seemed to have a permanent memory block when it came to his achievements. Maybe yesterday had only been a blip. When Hedwig gets back, thought Harry, he would write to Ron. That would cheer him up.