Hermione didn't have long to wait to learn why Moody had reacted as he had: the discovery of such a long-laid plot being executed and carried out as thoroughly as it had been justified his insane paranoia to the Nth degree.
"Do you see?" he demanded, slapping down the paper on his desk, glaring out at all of them. "This is not some random act of violence. This is the careful, methodical work of someone who knew what they were doing. And it worked. Yes, Miss Greengrass?"
"Professor, are we sure it was deliberate?" Daphne's voice was wobbly, like she had been crying. "It is a lovely-tasting tea. Surely some confusion along the way could have caused this entire thing."
Moody gave Daphne a hard look. He went up to the board, grabbed the chalk, and marked out three columns: EVIDENCE, CONCLUSIONS, MOTIVES
"Let's analyze this," he growled. "What's a piece of evidence from this that supports one theory or another?"
"The components of the tea," Draco said immediately. "One or two bad ingredients could possibly be excused. But five of them indicates a deliberate desire to make a tea that would cause miscarriages."
"The name," Mandy Brocklehurst contributed. "It said in the article – Queen Anne never managed an heir despite being pregnant seventeen times. This could very well have been why."
"The marketing," Blaise said, when called upon. "The tea was sold at a high price and marketed to the 'upper crust', so to speak. By positioning the tea as a pricey luxury, it targeted only one socioeconomic class – mainly, those likely to have fancy tea parties or those who could afford such luxury regularly."
There was one more piece of evidence supporting a deliberate plot, one Hermione hadn't expected.
"It's similar to a tea known as Bleeding Tea," Lisa Turpin said. Her voice was quiet, her tone neutral and completely emotionless. "It's quietly passed down from pureblood woman to pureblood woman as needed, to those who wanted to avoid bearing children."
The class gasped, and Lisa didn't react.
"And you just know this?" Moody growled. "You're not even of age, and what, you got told this deep secret?"
"No," Lisa admitted. "I eavesdropped on one of my great-aunts telling my aunt about it a long time ago. I didn't realize that Bleeding Tea was probably this same tea until this morning."
Murmurs broke out in the class, but Moody added 'Traditional Bleeding Tea' to the board.
"Now from this," Moody demanded, "what are we looking for in a culprit?"
Her classmates all looked around at each other, puzzled. Hermione bit her lip, but when no one else raised their hand, she put up her own.
"Someone with a grudge," Hermione said, when Moody called on her. "This was deliberately targeted. Not a muggle-born, and probably not a halfblood, either – they'd have no access to the information of the Bleeding Tea. Someone with connections to the uppercrust of wizarding society in one way or another – they knew what to exploit in the marketing. Probably somebody old – I'm not sure when the tea started being produced, but it's been out for at least fifty years or so now, I think?" She hesitated. "If I had to guess, I'd guess either a squib or somebody's bastard child. They'd have a reason to hold a grudge against those who cast them out, and potential access or lingering knowledge to the information they leveraged."
Moody raised an eyebrow.
"Read a lot of detective novels, do you, Granger?" he drawled.
"A few, sir." Hermione wasn't about to explain to the ex-Auror Moody that the plot sounded like something Tom Riddle might have come up with for revenge on the purebloods who'd bullied him if he'd been born a girl.
"Now," Moody said, "what can we learn from all of this?"
Hermione looked at the things listed on the board; the specific elements used, the length of time this would have needed to be carried out over, the strength of the grudge behind the entire enterprise that fueled it through the decades. If anything, she thought, she could learn a lot about the lengths to which some people would go for revenge.
That wasn't what Moody was going for, though; Moody made his final point by waving his private flask around and strongly encouraging them all to get secret flasks or bottles to drink from so they couldn't ever be poisoned, and Hermione rolled her eyes so hard her head hurt, immensely grateful to hear the bell finally ring.
Snape had regained a little of his color by the time the Slytherins had double Potions with the Gryffindors, but he still looked very pale.
"Today," he informed them, "you will be brewing one of the most potent Fertility potions known: The Taweret Tincture."
It was an ancient Egyptian potion, and it had a lot of unusual ingredients they weren't accustomed to working with – hippopotamus skin, rabbit uteri, crocodile scales, lion's claws, and cat hair. They needed ivory stirring rods instead of the usual copper or steel, and one of the steps was required to be carried out in complete darkness so the eye of Ra could not observe the secret mysteries of feminine fertility. Snape watched over them all like a hawk, barking instructions and making sure everyone kept up and did everything correctly, even pausing to demonstrate how to properly shred hippo skin for Ron Weasley.
It was one of the weirdest potions classes Hermione had ever experienced, but also one of the most fun.
After they had all finished, everyone had a gold-green potion that shimmered in the light, the only variation slight differences in the shade of green. The Gryffindors all looked uncharacteristically excited, and Hermione imagined few of them had ever brewed a potion that would get a top grade from Snape before.
Coincidentally, the bell rang before they had a chance to decant their potions and label their flasks, but Snape dismissed them anyway.
"I've had enough of your idiocy today," he snarled, as the Gryffindors rapidly packed up their bags. "I will clean up my classroom, and you will all get out of my sight and not plague me any further."
The Gryffindors scrambled out the door, not needing to be told twice. Snape glanced over at his Slytherins, all of whom were standing and had remained behind. Hermione raised her eyebrows at Snape, smirking at him slightly.
"Your flasks, professor?" Hermione asked politely.
Snape rolled his eyes and waved his wand, and a large crate of flasks appeared, bits of newspaper helping them nestle together. Though he made a show of being annoyed and exasperated, Hermione thought she could see pride flicker across his face, which made her smile.
Without discussion, the rest of the Slytherins began decanting the potions into the flasks. The flasks were much smaller than what was usually used to test their potions by Snape – almost serving size, one might say – and soon, a large cauldron was nearly full of the small bottles, green-gold liquid inside each one.
Once everything had been decanted and all the equipment cleaned, the Slytherins gathered their things to leave. Before they left, Daphne hung behind, wringing her hands.
"Professor?" she asked. "Can I—can I take—"
"I will visit your mother, Miss Greengrass," Professor Snape told her, his voice the gentlest Hermione had ever heard. He glanced up and over, to where Draco and Theo were standing. "Yours as well, Mister Malfoy."
Draco looked surprised at this, then slightly ill, while Daphne relaxed, giving Snape a watery smile. The Slytherins all filed out after that, with Hermione pausing in the doorway.
"Please do a pregnancy detection spell on Daphne's mum before you give her anything," she said finally. "She's already on Clomid for fertility, and I don't know how this potion would interact."
Snape's eyes widened, before they narrowed sharply.
"Clomid?" His voice was curt.
"A muggle fertility medicine, sir," Hermione explained, apologetic. "It helps stimulate ovulation."
Snape pinched the bridge of his nose very tightly. He breathed in through his nose and out slowly through his mouth.
"Thank you, Miss Granger, for telling me," he said. He sounded aggrieved, but his eyes glittered with amusement. "I shudder to think what might have happened if Evelyn Greengrass was given them both."