CHAPTER 15

As I begin making breakfast—which irritates me slightly because I had been led to believe breakfast would be taken at the manor—part of me wants to be frustrated with my arrangement with Snape despite the fact that it was my idea in the first place (of course, when we struck the deal, there was the implicit understanding that magic would be involved, but it's clear I ruined that for myself), but a greater part of me does not truly care. Without my new position as replacement Wormtail of Spinner's End, I would be locked in the cellar of Malfoy Manor. And no matter what I said to Bellatrix, being here is far preferable than being there, mostly because I hate the thought of being trapped under the same roof as Voldemort—in particular, being trapped and magicless under the same roof as Voldemort.

Snape steps into the kitchen while I make some eggs and prepares what smells like coffee for himself. His voice breaks our silence a few minutes later. "How did you pass the time in the cellar?"

I straighten, not looking over at him. Is that a trick question? Is he actually curious about what I did in the cellar, or is he trying to learn something? "I . . . Narcissa came by a few times. We played card games." I look over my shoulder at him and find him leaning against the counter by the sink, his ankles crossed in a way that instantly takes me back to being trapped in the potions storeroom last Christmas. Heat rises to my face at the memory, but I maintain eye contact when I add, "Bellatrix joined us last night." His eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and I turn away from him to check on the toast, smiling at having shocked him.

"Did you do any reading?"

"I—yes." I divvy up the eggs onto two plates. "There was a potions book in my trunk. Was that yours?"

"You read the four marked potions?"

I carry the empty pan to the sink, but he does move to give me room to put it in the sink, forcing me to reach around him. "Yes, but if that was some riddle on how to escape the dungeon, it didn't help very much."

Snape lets out short, breathy laugh. "It was not a riddle to escape. Those are the four potions you'll be making this week after our nonverbal and Occlumency lessons."

Not wanting to get too excited, I put toast on each of our plates, then turn to look at him. "What do you mean?"

"You've shown interest and potential," he says. "You will be brewing those four potions while I work on some others for the Dark Lord. Why should you miss out on an education due to circumstances entirely outside your control? We'll begin potion lessons this afternoon."

A wide smile cracks across my face, and for a split second, I move forward as if to hug him but manage to stop myself. "Are you serious?"

"Why would I lie?" Feeling almost giddy, I take our plates to the table where the sliced fruit already waits. "I will provide you with the next set of potions once those four have begun brewing." He almost smirks at me. "You can read those in the evening in preparation now that you have no means of escape."

His words do nothing to ruin my mood in this moment. I'll be learning potions despite my lackluster O.W.L. mark!

Over the next few weeks, I fall into a routine. I start breakfast as soon as possible each morning, then clean the kitchen. Nonverbal duels begin once that is finished, and those continue until it's time to make lunch (almost always something easy, like sandwiches), which is immediately followed by Occlumency lessons. Those lessons last until it's time to start dinner (it typically ends up burnt, though surprisingly Snape has yet to complain about a single meal; while I'm not even sure why he allows me to cook after the Occlumency lessons considering what he said before, I'm afraid to ask and upset him). After dinner, I clean the kitchen once more and meet Snape back in the basement for potion-making lessons.

Though he won't actually say it aloud—and it's doubtful he ever will because I will not ask him—I suspect he's teaching me the potions my class learned in their first through fourth years at Hogwarts. He doesn't make me turn in essays or anything, but as we brew potions in his basement, he asks me questions regarding how ingredients interact with one another, specifically the ingredients being used in the potions of the week. Part of me suspects that these questions are often his essay questions for his Hogwarts students. Most of our conversations revolve around things of this nature now.

With his help, I have successfully brewed the Cure for Boils, the Forgetfulness Potion, the Hair-Raising Potion, and the Swelling Solution. The Swelling Solution could have been better, but he said it would've received a passing mark, meaning redoing it was unnecessary. I just need to be less heavy-handed with bat spleens.

While I brew these potions, Snape stands on the other side of the room brewing something he has never explained to me and probably never will, especially if he was telling that truth that this was requested by the Dark Lord. Part of me also believes he's only teaching me potions because it provides time for him to work on something he wants or needs to while not having to worry about me destroying the house or trying to run away again. Whatever his reason for having me brew potions doesn't matter because it's an easygoing way to spend the evenings that quickly becomes one of my favorite times of the day.

I will be starting a Shrinking Solution and Girding Potion soon, followed by learning more about detecting undetectable poisons and creating poison antidotes. Snape warned that these last two would likely be time-consuming, as they are skills not necessarily based on potion-making but rather on problem-solving.

Whenever Snape leaves Spinner's End, he has me clean the house. Well, he has me clean every room except his, which is still kept closed and locked. While it's possible my wand might be locked away in there, there's no way to be sure because that room has been shut tightly since the day I tried telling Voldemort of my refusal to serve him. Whether his excursions are related to Voldemort or to the Order is unclear, and asking him seems a bit risky. At this point, I am uninterested in potentially starting an argument with him and ultimately being thrown back into the cellar as punishment for my defiance.

On top of that, the animosity between us has continued to decrease since my return, and I fear questioning him about something he very clearly wants to keep to himself will only cause that tension to rise again. All of our lessons are more fun, less painful, and more interesting now that we have somehow moved on from our mutual distaste. It doesn't even matter to me that he probably started being kinder only because he pities me now that he knows the lengths to which I tried to go to escape my duty. I'll accept his kindness regardless.

Our steady routine is ruined one night as I am cooking dinner. Due to my having either read the instructions incorrectly or done something incorrectly, the pan of chicken on the stove bursts into flames, and in a panicked, knee-jerk reaction, I grab my glass of water and toss it onto the flames—the fire spreads across the stove, lapping its way up the wall and over to the blinds on the window above the sink. My mind goes blank with panic, only one thought screaming through my head repeatedly: Why is it spreading so quickly? I grab the towel with which I dry the dishes and slap it against the blinds, but rather than snuffing out the flames, the towel catches on fire and spreads it to the sleeve of my robe. Crying out in pain, unable to breathe properly, I stumble away from window, slapping away the flames on my arm. "Prof-Professor!"

I dart out of the kitchen and ram into Snape, who is rushing into the kitchen. His weight and momentum overtake mine, and we both crash to the floor. "You're crushing me!" I struggle to say beneath him.

Snape quickly gets up to his feet and waves his wand at the growing fire, ridding the kitchen of the flames instantly. He turns toward me, an expression of bewilderment on his face. "You set my kitchen on fire."

I push myself to my feet, holding my aching side, my arm trembling, tears pricking my eyes. "Well, you broke my ribs, so I think we're even."

"Are you—you've been burned." I look down at my arm, and acknowledging the injury sends a spike of unbearable pain through my body, pulling a shocked gasp from my lips and dragging the tears down my cheeks. Snape turns on the tap and pulls me over to it, sticking my arm under the cool water. The sleeve up to my elbow vanishes as a potion flies into the room and into his hand, and he turns my arm over to empty the vial onto the bright red skin. I close my eyes in relief as the pain vanishes instantly. "Rub that into your arm."

I obey, and the skin begins to return to its normal pale. "Thank you," I say quietly, then turn my attention to the stove. I walk over to the pan of chicken and lift it up to inspect the completely charred and destroyed chicken, then drop the ruined pan back onto the stove with a loud clatter, my face growing hot with humiliation and more tears threatening. This can't be happening.

"What were you attempting—"

"I don't know, I was just following the instructions! It said to add more oil and—I'm never using the stove again. I'll just bake chicken from now on, and you can have that for every meal. And you can put it on sandwiches if you get tired of just having chicken. I just—I give up on this whole cooking thing, I'm clearly not cut out for it."

Snape begins laughing, begins actually laughing at me and the disgruntled look that's no doubt on my face. "As long as the chicken isn't burnt—"

"Shut up! I've been doing my best—"

"And you've gotten better."

"—but I surrender now! I am no cook!"

"It was one meal. You set the kitchen on fire one time in—"

"Exactly—I set the bloody kitchen on fire! And myself!"

"Your arm is already healed, and the kitchen can easily be fixed. It's not the first time someone has set this kitchen on fire."

"Are you saying you've almost burnt down the house before? Because I don't believe that."

"I'm saying—"

"Perhaps I should come back," a voice says. Snape and I both look over to where Narcissa now stands. I smile broadly at her, which seems to please her. "Has she been your house-elf, Severus?"

"She struck the bargain. I just accepted the terms."

Narcissa doesn't look entirely convinced, but as I don't interject with a comment to negate his claim, she seems to accept his words as truth. Her eyes fall on my missing sleeve and the charred walls behind me. She frowns. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah—yeah, just . . . made a stupid mistake." I hold my sleeveless arm up at her. "Professor Snape healed it."

She watches me closely for a minute as if looking for any signs of distress. "I brought you what you'll need this year at Hogwarts. It's by the steps."

I deflate. "I . . . I can't pay for that."

"You owe us nothing." My brow furrows. "The Lestranges have a fortune locked away in Gringotts"—her eyes fall on Snape for a brief moment before she adds—"and Bellatrix was more than thrilled to assist someone so important to the Dark Lord." Right, Snape isn't supposed to know who I am. A sudden surge of sentimentality courses through me. My mother paid for everything I will need at Hogwarts this year. "Are you well? Aside, of course, from the . . . cooking mishap?"

"Yes," I say, my voice just as light and happy as I currently feel. "I'm learning a lot here, aside from how to cook properly. You can tell the Dark Lord I'm learning nonverbal spells and dueling fairly well." Snape nods his agreement. "And I'm learning some potions!"

Narcissa offers me a slight smile. "Good. Well, I'll leave you to your . . . argument." She Disapparates.

Snape looks back at me, then glances at the ruined dinner. "You can have the rest of today off." He waves his wand and summons food as he used to, and we take our normal seats across from each other at his table.

A thought begins forming in my mind, a desire to ask him to teach me something specific, but I don't know whether I'm allowed to make requests like that. Since my return from the cellar thus far, he has been completely in charge of the curriculum and our lessons, but he has also been fairly nice to me for a couple of weeks now. His black eyes suddenly fall on me, and I almost flinch. "Something is bothering you, Charlotte. Out with it."

"Nothing's . . . bothering me. It's just . . . could—could you teach me—could—"

"Last time I checked, I've been teaching you all summer."

I smile in spite of myself. "That's true. But this time, I was just wondering if—could you teach me the Patronus Charm?"

He grimaces a bit, brows furrowing in confusion. "And you believe you can create one in your current state?"

"My current state? My arm doesn't hurt anymore, Professor, and I . . . think we both knew I'd eventually catch the kitchen on fire, so it's really not as humiliating as you might think." That's a lie.

His silence immediately makes me regret asking. I'm about to withdraw my request when Snape says, "Have you had any experience with creating this charm before?"

"Only non-corporeal."

"So you know that you must think of the happiest memory you can?" Does this mean he'll teach me? "That's good. Most people don't even know that when they first start to learn." I refuse to tell him that Harry tried teaching us last year in Dumbledore's Army and I still failed. "We can work on that briefly before the potions lesson later." My cheeks almost hurt from how wide my smile is, and I find myself wondering how this is possibly the same man I hated so much less than a year ago.

We finish our meal in relative silence before finally making our way down to the basement for lesson. Snape waves his wand, sending all of the potion ingredients elsewhere, though I have no idea where. "Try the spell," he says.

I take a deep breath. "Expecto Patronum!" A little sliver of silver light comes from the end of my wand, but it doesn't even become a non-corporeal Patronus. The failure stings.

"What were you thinking of?"

"When I found out I'm a witch."

"Think of something else. It must be stronger than that."

I exhale slowly, trying to find the proper memory. "Expecto Patronum!" The non-corporeal form of the Patronus Charm bursts from the tip of my wand. This gives me enough confidence to try again before Snape can say anything. "Expecto Patronum!" Again, it is only non-corporeal.

"It's better. Try again. Make it a happier memory."

Because I have such a large selection of those. This was a mistake. "Can you create one?"

He just watches me, and while he looks slightly angry, there's a chance he's not actually irritated because he is just such a hard man to read. Then he says, "Yes."

"What form does it take?"

"Try it again."

"Are Patronus forms supposed to be a secret?"

"Try it again."

Why is he so cagey about his Patronus form? I nod, accepting that he doesn't want to answer that question. I can do this. Voldemort does not have to strip away all my happiness. I can do this. Fred's face flashes through my mind. The two of us are standing outside of the Burrow, our arms wrapped around each other. He cares about me, and he's important to me. My heart lightens. "Expecto Patronum!"

The same silver light as before comes from the tip of my wand, but after a moment, it disappears. Fred cares about a lie. And how can I claim he's important to me when I'm hiding so much from him? I sigh, taking a brief moment to gather my thoughts. Then two things come to mind—sitting by the lake studying for my exams with Zoe and Daphne, and successfully keeping Snape out of mind for the first time, the look of pride on his face. My heart lightens instantly. I can do this. My duty isn't for a while, and I am learning to prepare for it. I can do this. I cast the spell again, thinking about my study sessions at Hogwarts and my practices here, and the silver light springs from my wand. I picture Daphne and Zoe laughing with me at something Daphne said while studying. For a moment, it looks like the light will simply disappear once more, or stop when it reaches the non-corporeal form, and I find myself picturing the impressed expression on Snape's face during my successful Occlumency success.

The silver grows until it forms into a panther that glides across the room. It reaches Snape and bounces away, coming back to me, its teeth bared, its tail flicking back and forth, and stops in front of me. A profound sense of appreciation settles into my chest as a sudden thought crosses my mind: Shepard—only much larger and more vicious and able to protect me. When I reach out to touch it, it disappears, yet my eyes refuse to be pulled away from where the panther had once been to look at Snape.

Delighted: that's the sensation I'm feeling. I—am—delighted. A smile cracks across my face.

When I finally look back at Snape, he doesn't look proud like I had thought he would, had hoped he would. In fact, rather than looking pleased, his cold face is like stone. "Creating a Patronus under calm circumstances is different than when you are being attacked."

Does he have to ruin everything like that? Why does he even bother? "I figured it would be, but I'm just thrilled I could make one at all."

Snape nods, his face finally becoming kinder and less cold. "It's an accomplishment. Creating a Patronus at all is considered advanced magic." He dips his hand into his pocket and pulls out his wand. "Before we begin with our potion lessons, I want you to practice more nonverbal spells."

A change in our routine? I narrow my eyes at him. "Have I . . . not being doing well enough?"

"Protecting yourself was one of the most important lessons the Dark Lord wanted you to learn," he says indifferently.

"Did something happen when you left earlier? Did he say something to you?"

Snape just stares blankly at me. "Who says I saw the Dark Lord?"

"Professor Dumbledore then? Someone in the Order?"

"Rodgers."

I throw my hands up in defeat, accepting that he'll never confide any information like that. "Okay, okay, let's get started then." I bow dramatically to him and raise my and.

"I never said we needed to duel."

"Isn't that more fun though?"

For a split second, he seems to be debating this, then bows back at me. The first thing I do is cast the Shield Charm for protection. It deflects Snape's spell and sends it back toward him, but he easily blocks it.

Despite how much I hated him after the Mrs. Stoico memory thing, I have to agree, begrudgingly of course, that nonverbal spells have been much easier for me to perform.

I drop the shield and cast the Conjunctivitis Curse at him, which Snape easily dodges while Conjuring a steel ball. The ball soars at me, but I reduce its size and jump to the side, smiling as it whacks the stone wall behind me with no more noise than if it had been a marble. I quickly aim my wand back at him and try to expel his wand, and as expected, he stops the spell and returns one of his own. A red line of light zooms straight at me. I throw up the shield and instinctively leap to the side again.

Birds shoot from the end of my wand and fly toward him. When they get close enough, I silently scream, "Expulso!" at each of them, causing each to explode in tiny flames. But when they fade away completely, Snape is still standing, having been guarded by the Shield Charm, looking as if he's not the least bit tired. What a waste. I cast the Stunning Spell at him, but it does no good, again due to his shield. Snape casts a spell at me in the same moment I throw the Knockback Jinx at him. My spell hits him, finally, and rams him into the stone wall behind him, while his Bat-Bogey Hex strikes me and draws out a pained shriek. It takes me a moment to rid myself of them and another moment to stifle down the pain in my nose.

By the time I've returned my focus to the task at hand, Snape is standing again and has cast another spell at me. It throws me into the air, smacks me against the ceiling, and slams me into the floor. I quickly put the shield over myself, another of his attacks hitting it and rebounding into the wall while I pull myself to my feet. I point my wand back at Snape and cast one of his own spells at him: Levicorpus. It pulls him into the air upside down.

I can almost swear he lets out a slight chuckle before hitting me with the Impediment Jinx and freezing me in place for a moment.

He drops himself onto the floor.

I throw the Stinging Hex at him, somehow managing to hit him in the leg. He grunts, and I pause for a moment to delight in his pain, but Snape recovers too quickly and retaliates by expelling my wand from my hand. "Never rejoice in a successful attack," he says softly. "You never know when your victim is simply playing you for a fool, waiting for your moment of pause before finishing you off."

I nod at him, slightly humiliated at my own stupidity, breathing more heavily than I should be for a duel that didn't last very long.

"Had this been a real battle, and had I been someone trying to actually kill you, you would not be standing there now."

He hands me my wand.

"You've been practicing," he says as he waves his wand and replaces all the potion things around the room.

"Every night before I go to sleep—the best I can without a wand."

He nods approvingly but says, "You will not be getting it back aside from during your lessons." As he moves around the room, checking each of my cauldrons, he says over his shoulder, voice threatening, "Never again use one of my spells against me."

I bark out a laugh as he takes a vial of my Shrinking Solution out of my cauldron and holds it up to the light. "I'll keep that in mind."

"This is coming along nicely," he says. "Potion-brewing seems to come more naturally to you than cooking. I don't think you've once blown up a cauldron like you did my stove."

My jaw drops. Is he joking with me? "One of those skills is more interesting to me."

He glances over at me and pours the vial back into the cauldron. "It should be ready to test tomorrow."

"How small with it make me?"

"You will not be drinking it," he says quickly. "We'll test it on a Conjured creature."

"Probably safer that way, in cased I messed it up." I clear my throat and say, "Thank you, Professor. For all you've taught me since I moved in here—even though you didn't really want to. I really do appreciate it."

He glances up at me but, instead of replying to my statement, begins asking me questions about poisons.