Chapter eleven - Below the fumes

Gina had a hard time concentrating next potion lesson. She found herself staring at Snape rather than listening to his lecture on the proper way to store Truth Potions and almost let her Antidote to Veritaserum boil over when he stood a desk away, answering Gregory Munts' question if the Antidote needed to mature as long as Veritaserum itself. But she was pretty sure Snape had not seen that. When the bell rang, she walked to his desk, after mumbling to Jonathan and Andre that she needed to talk to professor Snape about her last piece of homework. He looked up from the essay he was grading when she reached his desk. She felt very nervous, but plunged in before she could chicken out.

'I was wondering if you could help me with something.'

'What is it?'

His eyes were just the slightest shade lighter than his pupils, she noticed. It distracted her.

'I- I want to brew Wolfsbane Potion but-'

'Wolfsbane Potion is not in the N.E.W.T. curriculum, miss Aldaya.'

'I know that. It's more of a personal curiosity. I was wondering what would happen if you would mix Wolfsbane Potion with a sleeping potion. A diluted version with less Asphodel that is.'

To her delight he looked a little taken aback.

'And why would you want to do that?' he asked, the corner of his mouth twitching a little, as though he was suppressing a smile.

'It may prevent consciously experiencing the transformation. Which I can imagine can be traumatic.'

He nodded, actually smiling now. It was a modest smile, but still, Gina thought happily.

'Alright,' he said, looking at her calculatedly. 'You can use the classroom, tomorrow night. Take the ingredients from the Store Cupboard, I will set Giant moonwort and Myrrh aside for you.'

Gina pressed on.

'Actually, could you help me brew it? I tried it before but instead of dark red it keeps turning-'

'Orange?'

She smiled. 'Yes. And I can't figure out what I did wrong. I'll be wasting ingredients without help really. It would be very helpful for me to get a better understanding of Mental potions.'

He looked at her for a moment.

'Wednesday, 8 pm than,' he said slowly. 'I do not have time tomorrow.'

She tried not to look too happy.

'Thank you.'

Severus knew he should not have said yes. He knew that. He should have told miss Aldaya that he could not possible help her brew a potion that wasn't in the curriculum. That it wasn't in the curriculum for a reason. That he wasn't allowed to let students brew potions like that, let alone help them brew it. But he had acted egoistically. As he couldn't possible fuck her, like he so badly wanted to, he had thought rather viscously no one could stop him spending a few hours alone with her, being able to stare at her without anyone else noticing. He would look at her beautiful face and her gorgeous body, listen to her slightly husky voice and help himself the moment she left. He might make her blush a little, if an opportunity would present itself. It had given him a huge thrill to see her physically respond to his presence, seeing her breath falter just because he touched her.

Looking forward to spending a few hours alone with him, Gina arrived way to early at the potions classroom on Wednesday. She hadn't brought her bag to the carriage but had descended the stairs down to the dungeons right after dinner. She was sitting at one of the desks, reading, when professor Snape entered.

'I had said 8 miss Aldaya,' he said slowly.

She looked at her watch. It was still only half past 7.

'I had an early dinner,' she said. 'I don't mind waiting until you are ready.'

'I am, as a matter of fact.'

'Great.' She closed her book and forced herself to look at him. She could not start acting like she was suddenly shy now she was alone with him. 'How do we start?'

'You can start with the Wolfsbane Potion as you have made it before.' He sat on the desk across from hers. 'You can walk me through it. I will tell you if it is correct.'

She nodded, feeling nervous. She had taken her Spanish Potions book with her, since it was that version she wanted to make, and laid it open at her desk. His lips curled a little when he saw this.

She waved her wand and the Store Cupboard opened, the needed ingredients zooming out, laying down neatly at her desk.

'Is it alright if I cut them by magic?'

He didn't allow this during class. Probably because of the change of shearing knives around the classroom.

'Certainly. But tell me what you are going to do.'

'Okay. I start by chopping up the moonwort and Ginger root.'

He nodded.

She gave her wand a little flick and the knife shopped the moonwort and Ginger in neat, even blocks.

'Then I'd fill the kettle for two-thirds, cold water, as the moonwort is tough and needs the cold bath to open it's skin.'

He nodded again and she did so.

'I'd light a medium fire after 2 minutes, and add the Ginger root when its boiling. I can squeeze the Sopophorous bean in the meantime, by hand.'

He nodded approvingly. 'With what?'

'A sickle, the recipe says.'

'Try the flat side of your Silver knife.'

She nodded, made a note in the book and tried it.

'That works a lot better,' she said smiling when the juice immediately started flowing out of the tiny shrivelled up bean. 'I've only tried that with horns before. I thought Sopophorous beans were too tough.'

Almost two hours later, the potion was done. He had given her only four directions that differed from her book, two of which were very small changes, but the subtlety had made all the difference. Instead of a murky orange, the potion was bright red.

'That's wonderful,' Gina said happily, scooping up a bit of potion in a flask, holding it to the light.

'You know I can't let you carry that out of this classroom,' Snape said.

'Oh I know,' she laughed at him. He looked at her and she felt the familiar sense of electricity run through her for the hundredth time that evening. She wondered for the hundredth time if he felt it too.

He had cleared his throat. 'You mentioned mixing it with a Sleeping Draught.'

'Yes.'

'Why don't you brew that next. Strongest one.'

'Really?' Gina felt elated. 'That would be great.'

She looked appraisingly at him while she looked up the recipe. 'You are curious as well,' she said.

'Maybe. Or I do not want you to blow up the Promodores carriage by trying to mix them by yourself.'

She smiled while riffling through the recipes. 'It has been a while since I blown up my last cauldron. That was about three years ago.'

'You are too old for it to be such a short while ago,' Snape said with a slight sneer.

'I tried to make a Erumpent Potion lookalike without Erumpent horn by mixing Exploding Fluid with Dragon blood. I know,' she laughed, seeing his expression. 'I didn't get serious about Potion making until my fifth year. Though I've learned a lot at home as well.' She started summoning ingredients from the cupboard and starting working, checking with him before she proceeded to the next step.

When the potion needed to simmer for seven minutes, she sat down for a minute.

'Can I ask you something?'

He did not answer right away.

'May I see your book?'

She hesitated, than handed it to him her Spanish Potions book. He browsed through the recipes and looked at the notes she had scribbled in the sidelines of most pages. She felt a little uneasy, but tried not to show it. After a few minutes, he handed it back to her. His expressing gave nothing away.

'I did not mean to make you feel uncomfortable, he said slowly.

She stared at the recipe they were making, even though she knew it off by heart.

'I wasn't.'

'You were.'

'I was.' She looked at him. 'You have an amazing sense for subtility. You must be a great cook.'

'I'm not.'

She smiled when she picked up her knife.

I'll make notches in four Valerian sprigs.'

He nodded. Make them shallow, or the juice will flow out.'

When the Sleeping Draught was ready, Gina hesitated, not sure how to continue.

'I'd like to tell you what I would do, and then hear from you what we should do.'

The corners of his mouth twitched. 'Certainly.'

'I would dilute the Sleeping Draught with, I want to say three decilitre of water, when the potion is at room temperature. Than maybe add an emulsifier to it?'

'What would you use?'

She thought for more than a minute, with her eyes closed to concentrate.

'Peperomia Obtusifolia or llamada grasilla- Pinguicula vulgaris I mean. Or... lecithine? I'm not sure.'

'You are very intuitive. But you think too much in adding ingredients. And it's called Common butterwort.'

'We have already brewed the potions, you can hardly remove ingredients at this stage,' she pointed out.

He let her think it through.

'But you could work with temperature, stirring... and casting spells,' she said eventually.

'Very good. The first thing we are going to do, is transfuse the Wolfsbane Potion in a copper kettle. Than add four decilitre of water, we don't want it to explode. You were right about the temperature. Than add the Sleeping Draught. Yes, all at once, he said almost smiling again, seeing her expression. You can do that as long as you start stirring at once, counter clockwise to start with. We'll see from there, that might be all it takes.'

Gina wrote this down and got started. When she had carried out the last instruction the potion had turned a beautiful heliotrope colour.

'It looks really good,' she said happily, scooping a bit up in a flask and holding it to the light. 'When do you think we can test it?'

'In about a week, I think. Depending on how it matures. We'll see. Five will do.'

Gina had hold up empty flasks, looking questioningly. She filled four more flasks and cleaned up with a few flicks of her wand. She was feeling tired and light-headed from being near him for so long. She didn't want to leave yet, but she packed her bag nonetheless and heaved it on her shoulder. He walked with her to the door.

'Thank you for this. Really,' Gina said.

'My pleasure. I hoped you learned something besides how to brew a probable useless potion that takes 4,5 hours and about fifty ingredients to make.' The corner of his mouth twitched again.

She smiled. She had taken a little step towards him. 'I did actually.'

They looked at each other for a second, and even though Gina could see something that looked like caution in his black eyes, she thought she also saw something else.

She closed the remaining distance between them, almost touching him, her lips just inches from his. But when she leaned in to kiss him, he was ahead of her.

'You should go, miss Aldaya.' He spoke in a horrible definite voice. He sounded rather icy and unperturbed.

He had turned around and Gina closed her eyes as he walked away from her towards his desk. She let out a long, inaudible sigh. She turned for the door.

'Good night,' she said, not looking at him, forcing her voice to sound unfazed. And she left.

Severus had regretted granting her request the moment he walked into the classroom. Realising he only had been alone with her twice before, the first time in the Entrance Hall, when his feet had voluntarily walked over to her, and the second time when he had ordered her to stay behind after her second lesson, and he had ended up putting his hands on her desk and leaning over her, putting his face so close to hers he could feel her breath on his skin. This wasn't a good idea.

But he had put her to work, and told her to brew a second potion after the first one. He knew very well by now that he was addicted. That he was playing with his life. But the waves of electricity every time their eyes met made him feel more alive than he had in years.

He had been infatuated once before, but being looked at by the subject of his infatuating with longing in her eyes was something he had never experienced before. He had been in love with a girl at school, Lily Evans, but she hadn't returned his feelings. Even so it had took him years to get over her.

Severus didn't want to get over Gina. He wanted her so bad. When he had read her notes and scribbles in the margins of her book, he had realised she was even more clever than he had thought. She had corrected the textbook and invented spells, just like he had at school.

He had seen more spells like the Fingertip Cutting Curse he had seen before, definitely tending towards dark magic. Some had really surprised him, though he had made sure not to show this. He had not expected this from her. It had made his heart beat painfully. Maybe she would not mind his past...

But he would have to tell Dumbledore. And he couldn't do that.

And than she had made to kiss him. And he had panicked. He had been afraid he might not be able to stop if she had gotten any closer and touched him. He would have ripped her clothes from her body and taken her against the classroom wall. And he couldn't. He couldn't.

Merlin he was in trouble.

On Friday Gina had potions again. When Snape opened the door and waited for the students to enter, she shot a glance at him. Their eyes met for a moment and Gina looked at him without blushing. She felt a powerful wave of electricity and longing in her stomach. The fact that he had rejected her had induced a painful feeling in her chest that had been present for two days, but she refused to act like a blushing schoolgirl. She was an Aldaya after all.

She worked quietly on her Antidote to Veritaserum, which would take at least another three lessons to finish. And when she handed in her flask by the end of class and she accidentally touched Snape's hand she lowered her eyes, leaving with Jonathan as soon as the bell rang. Laying wide-awake in bed that night, Gina wished she hadn't lingered before kissing him.

Severus felt light-headed with longing during his seventh year Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff class on Friday. He had avoided the great hall during meal times yesterday and it was the first time since he was face to face with her again since she tried to kiss him. She was sitting at her usual desk in the back, slowly chopping Valerian root and not looking at him.

She had tried to kiss him. She had tried to kiss him.

Despite him being nothing but sarcastic, mean and just downright unpleasant, she liked him so much she had tried to kiss him. Him. He could not put into words how that made him feel. Seeing the longing in her beautiful hazel eyes, knowing she wanted hìm. Of all people...

Why couldn't he just have lèt her?

She had stood up to take something from the table next to her and he stared at her, her long shiny hair and her stately, elegant way of moving. He would give anything for a night with her. Anything.

He stood up and started his round around the dungeon, hoping against hope this would distract him a bit, but he had never had so little interest in the concoctions the seventh years had brewed. When he walked over to miss Blainey's cauldron he thought about how the girl had walked into Gina, causing her to twist her ankle. Would her breath still catch in her throat when she was near him now, after he had rejected her? She hadn't looked at him once all lesson. He felt a longing so intense it was painful.

He didn't say anything about the murky brown potion in miss Blainey's cauldron, but turned around and walked back to his desk, where he sat pretending to grade essays the rest of the lesson. He wasn't sure how to handle these kind of emotions, nor was he sure he would be able to control himself the rest of the school year. It was only mid-November. He would have her in his classroom for another seven months...

When at the end of class, Gina approached his desk, he held out his hand and took the flask filled with bright green potion, touching her hand when he did so. He could see it was brewed perfectly. Gina lowered her eyes and turned around, walking back to her desk. When she left the moment the bell rang, chatting to Belby, Severus felt incredulously disappointed.