Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter NOR any of his friends NEITHER any of his enemies. It's hard to admit, but when I'm done with them all, I have to return them to Joanne K. Rowling in an original wrapping and unharmed.
I make no money, I mean no harm.
Patchwork
Something Wrong
Patty kept one eye on her cauldron, where the Wit-Sharpening Potion simmered, and the other on Romilda. She was making a fool of herself, trying to impress the Potions Master with her hair-do and make-up, instead of working on the assigned potion.
Not to mention the added benefits of her using said potion on herself.
Snape bent over Romilda's cauldron, took the ladle and inspected both the colour and the consistency of her brew. It was supposed to be purple, but it was red instead.
"How did you achieve this particular colour, Miss Vane?" The girl pursed her lips and batted her eyelashes - she had applied a generous amount of Longest Lashes of Love just before the lesson, and Patty thought she looked like a painted doll.
"I must have let the potion simmer for too long," Romilda said and fluttered her eyelashes again. Patty turned down the heat on her own cauldron and added more ginger root. She managed to get the correct colour, although she suspected she stopped following Romilda's attempts at flirtation just in time.
"This performance is unacceptable for a N.E.W.T. level student... is there something in your eye?" Snape said in a cold voice, finally acknowledging Romilda's eyelashes. The girl beamed and straightened her shoulders. Patty almost dropped her stirring rod - that was not the same set of robes Romilda wore in other classes.
Snape didn't seem to notice, though - or he chose not to mention anything. He ordered Romilda to write an essay about her mistakes and quickly moved to check the other students. The potion was one they had brewed in their fourth year, so there weren't many comments - although, as Patty noticed with amusement, it would probably kill Snape to tell anyone they had done a good job.
After receiving a nod of her own, which was the best she could have hoped for, Patty cleared her table and cleaned her cauldron. She glanced sideways at Romilda. She was beaming. Attention whore, Patty thought without any heat. Rather spoil her own potion than go through the lesson without being noticed.
There was no doubt that Romilda knew how to brew the potion. She wasn't stupid - not in the academical sense of the word, anyway - and usually got better with practice. She usually didn't get the desired effect on her first try, whatever it was she was learning, but was fully capable of getting it right on the second go.
"This lesson is not yet over," Snape announced from the front of the classroom. "Get seated and open your textbook on page twenty-eight. That applies to you too, Miss Greengrass." The Slytherin girl reluctantly sat down.
"We have been revising the Wit-Sharpening Potion in order to prepare for the next N.E.W.T. level potion. As much as I had hoped this revision to be unnecessary, your performance once again proved my hopes to be undeservingly high. Chapter three of your Potions textbook, which starts on the page twenty-eight, details the instructions for brewing and correct usage of Mind Relieving Potion. Do you require my assistance in finding the page, Mr. Berrow?" That made two Slytherin students in a row in whom Snape showed displeasure. That wasn't unheard of since beginning of the year - one more would still make a record.
"As you can see, or you would be able to see, should you look in the book, Miss Vane, the Mind Relieving Potion is in many aspects similar to the potion you have just, with more or less success," here Snape glared at Romilda to make it clear which group she fell in, "finished brewing. Now, does any of you see any of the similarities?" The class bent over the books. Out of corner of her eye, Patty noticed Romilda's hand shot in the air. She dismissed the feeling of annoyance and blinked to better concentrate on the text.
"Miss Vane?" By the resignation in Snape's voice, he didn't expect a correct answer.
"Two of the ingredients are the same, grounded scarab beetles and armadillo bile." Snape paused, then nodded.
"That is correct. Although I was hoping for a more insightful answer. Something less trivial and obvious, if you will. Yes, Miss Pitty?" The dark eyes focused on her for a searing moment, then turned away to take account of the rest of the class.
"In both cases, the brewer must measure correctly the intermittent simmering times, otherwise the potion will not have the desired effect." If Snape had been a human wizard, he would have smiled. Of course he glared at her.
"Well noted. Miss Pitty is correct." Romilda turned to glare at Patty behind Snape's back. The exaggerated eyelashes made the glare somewhat less lethal that Snape's. The professor, unaware of or uncaring for the silent communication, continued, "I believe the rest of you still can come up with another correct answer. Mr. Berrow?"
"Both are prepared in a cauldron over fire, sir!" Snickers and other sounds of merriment could be heard for the few seconds before Snape silenced them with another glare.
"Mr. Berrow, if you wish to visit a class that is a joke, perhaps you should have chosen Divination instead of Potions." Berrow grinned sheepishly.
"Sorry, sir."
"I find it hard to believe you all passed your O.W.L.s at all, not to mention with the highest marks. Yes, Miss Greengrass, and if you please could restrict your answer to something non-obvious, particular and at least marginally important."
"Well, Professor, both the potions can be used to counter the effects of Confundus Charm." Astoria didn't smile when Snape acknowledged her answer as correct. As most of the Slytherins after the war, Astoria Greengrass didn't like Snape. It even appeared, at times, that she hated him.
"As you can also deduce from the instructions, brewing the potion correctly will take up all of the alotted time for our next lesson. You are therefore to learn the instructions in advance, so that you would lose no time trying to comprehend them. The quality of the potion will contribute to your final marks. All unfinished potions will be marked as failed." Patty looked over the instructions again. They would have barely enough time to fetch supplies - better to learn the ingredients by heart and make it an only trip.
"There are still several minutes until the end of the lesson," Snape continued. "Five points from Hufflepuff and I will have that parchment, Mr. Pewsey." He collected a piece of parchment from the blushing boy, scanned it and raised an eyebrow before addressing the class once again. "You may use this time to make sure you understand the instructions and to ask any questions."
Patty fished a piece of parchment from her bag and started going over the instructions and taking notes. The assignement was too hard to grant a good mark to everyone, as skilled as they already were in spite of Snape's lack of faith in them, but she was determined to finish the potion in time. She was fairly certain that whatever her marks during the sixth and seventh year, she would pass the N.E.W.T.s, but she also wanted a summer job in a brewery and good results from this year could get her a better pay.
Unless it came out that there was something wrong with Snape. Which there was. She dared a look at the professor. He was sitting at the desk and studying the parchment he had confiscated from Gareth Pewsey. By the blush the Hufflepuff was sporting, it was another love note he wrote to Romilda. Only good for him she didn't see it - she could be very inconsiderate.
There was something wrong, something off about the lesson. If only Patty could put her finger on it.
When Snape caught sight of Ginny Weasley entering the Great Hall for dinner, his frown deepened. If the girl noticed, she didn't show it. She was after all accustomed to Snape's frowns and glares.
"Is anything the matter?" Unlike Professor Malfoy, who had the annoying habit of noticing and discussing.
"Why should anything be the matter?" he countered her.
"Severus likes to frown when students are around," Sprout piped in. "I'm surprised you haven't noticed it earlier." The Potions Master's patented glare turned on her, but she must have grown immune to it.
"It didn't seem the ordinary frown to me," Tisha continued quietly when Sprout leaned away from them to take part in another conversation.
"It merely occured to me that there are only two students in both my N.E.W.T. level classes who have any talent for Potions at all."
"Just to make it clear, of all the inept and inadequate children, two managed to surpass their ignorancy to the point that you noticed they have talent?" Tisha smiled, obviously pleased with herself. "Not to mention passing the Ordinary level," she added when Snape refused to deign her jibes with an answer.
"We all know Hermione Granger is one of them, but who is the other?" Sprout turned back to them. The woman's ability to participate in several conversations held by other people was truly uncanny.
"I did not include Miss Granger in the survey," Snape finally decided to reply.
"Really," Tisha encouraged.
"I'm afraid she escapes comparisson with her peers."
"Being way more commited to her studies," was Sprout's contribution.
"But really, Severus," Tisha insisted when she checked the Herbology Professor was closely listening to Madam Hooch's story about a first year unable to turn left on a broom. "Two talented students - and I know your expectations are very high - that's quite a lot, isn't it?"
A group of sixth-year Gryffindors came in through the door, led by Romilda Vane. She still wore mascara on her eyelashes, appearing nothing short of ridiculous. She was whispering with her friends and laughing over the shared secret. When she spotted Snape watching them, she hushed the group and attempted to behave more maturely. Patricia Pitty trailed in behind them, head buried in notes. She stashed them away in her bag before taking a seat.
"The number is high enough, although how the rest of them managed to qualify for the class is a mystery," he finally admitted to Tisha. Instead of pressing the matters further, she inspected her dessert minutely.
"Do you like black tart?" She offered him her piece.
"Not in particular." She placed the plate back on the table and checked that Sprout had her back to them.
"So, I suppose since two talented students are a good count for you, there is something else that is wrong with them?"
"Of course. They are both Gryffindors."
"All three of them, Severus. You really shouldn't leave Granger out like that," Sprout lectured.
Tisha pretended to cough to cover up laughing. Snape glanced over the three culprits: Granger was barely eating, studying an unfamiliar book which was undoubtedly his Dark Arts text in disguise, Weasley was reading a letter, and Pitty was enjoying the dinner. Vane was trying to glare at Tisha.
"You may want to be careful around Romilda Vane, Severus," Minerva said in his ear. She had stopped behind his seat on her way out of the Great Hall. "She seems to be infatuated with you."
Vane was again trying to impress him with her prolongated eyelashes.
"I would have never noticed, Headmistress," Snape replied, turning his eyes over to the Slytherin table.
"Careful, you're dripping irony on the floor." Great, now Sprout's bad habit rubbed off on Tisha.
"My fourth years are doing great with the Blushing Blossoms, are you interested, Severus?"
There was something wrong with the school, Snape decided. He sorely missed the times when the only one interested in talking to him was Albus Dumbledore. And another great thing passed away with the former headmaster: there used to be only one member of the faculty completely off his rocker.
"Draco!" The blond stopped and turned around. Ginny was on another staircase leading in a slightly different direction when she spotted him. He briefly considered showing off his athletic skills by swinging through between the pillars to stand beside her, but decided against it. The staircase could start moving, and his athletic skills might prove to be lacking.
He was standing slightly higher, so he crouched to talk to her eye to eye.
"Hi Ginny."
"I didn't see you at dinner," she said somewhat breathlessly. It was nice to pretend, inside his head, that it wasn't because she had run up the stairs.
"I was visiting Blaise. He says hello, by the way."
"Oh, thanks," she muttered. The lack of enthusiasm didn't escape him. "Would you do me a favour?"
"Certainly," he smiled his best smile. As much as was Draco above stealing his friend's girlfriend, he wasn't above taking an opportunity should one arise. Nothing wrong with being nice and friendly and close in case the crisis between Blaise and Ginny turned out fatal.
"It's more like the twins asked me a favour and I don't think I can pull it off myself," she continued and pulled out a crumpled letter. "Maybe we could talk about it somewhere more private?" she smiled.
Draco swung through the opening between the pillars. Merlin, she was beautiful. No wonder every Gryffindor worth wearing trousers was crazy about her, if she treated them such smiles for small favours. No wonder Blaise switched sides for her.
"Like where?"
No wonder Blaise was desolate that there was something wrong between them.
Just several minutes later Snape and Tisha mounted the same staircase Draco so recklessly deserted on their way to the Muggle Studies office.
"Maybe you could update the Slytherin requirements to attract more adequate students," Tisha was saying in response to Snape's complaints about his house.
"That is preposterous. Slytherin defined the house traits and the Sorting Hat makes sure his definition is met. I have no hand in the process." He let her walk first through a decorative arc dividing the staircase from a corridor.
"I don't see how a thousand years old definition suits a modern world. The perception of success is changing."
"Really."
"The castle is changing. That doorway wasn't there yesterday," she pointed over her shoulder. "Just a corridor joining a staircase, nothing fancy. Change is the mark of life."
"It's a shame you were never sorted," Snape noted with a glance out of the window. It was cloudy and already dark outside, the window reflecting his own face rather than displaying anything.
"How come?" Tisha turned back from the door.
"You'd make a fine Slytherin."
"Oh, thank you." She turned the knob, but hesitated and faced him again. "Provided you're not comparing my intelectual capacity to your current students." She didn't bother pretending to be insulted and finally opened the door.
"Ah!" She backed away into Snape and threw him off balance, so that he too had to take a few steps backwards. Her office was a disaster: her Muggle books haphazardly on the floor, several pieces of clothes wrapped around a chair that hung from the chandelier, pieces of parchment torn and drenched in a pile on her desk, and a terrible smell so thick it hit them with physical force.
"Peeves," Snape uttered unnecessarily. What was wrong with the poltergeist?
Hidden from the half-giant with an elaborate spell, the wizard in the forest was once again watching the castle. He had followed their progress from the Great Hall, if they had been in the Great Hall for dinner, catching glimpses of the pair through various windows. It was not the first evening he watched them. He was counting steps he couldn't see before they appeared at the next window, unaware of being followed. He had seen Snape's face, as indifferent as ever, gazing out towards the forest. But he couldn't see him. Not even Hagrid could see him, neither his dog could find him here, even though they had walked so close to him he could have reached out and touched them.
But he wasn't here for Hagrid and his mutt.
The pair up in the castle now stood in a close embrace just at the window. As if mocking him. But to mock him, Snape would first have to know about him being here, and that was impossible. He gripped his wand. Casting the spell now, with Hagrid so close, could give him away. He had to wait - wait, but not for long.
His eyes once again gleamed with hatred as he watched the two walk away from the window. The world was all wrong. Absolutely wrong. But he would set it back right. Somehow.
A/N: I'm a little depressed. Twenty-eight chapters and I haven't gotten them to the end of October! And I'm so looking forward to Halloween!