CHAPTER 26
After the feast, the older students filtered out of the Great Hall almost immediately, glad to have the evening back. The prefects stayed on to walk the new students to their common rooms and explain the basics of navigating a castle whose staircases had opinions.
Severus left with the others but didn't go toward his room. He went the other way, in the direction of Slughorn's office. The Marauder's Map made finding people straightforward: he only had to think of someone on the grounds, and Pettigrew's rat-form locator would surface in his mind with an exact position.
"Professor Slughorn is thirty metres ahead of you, currently descending into the dungeons."
Severus gave Nagini's head a brief stroke. "Stay out of sight."
She slipped under his shirt, and a moment later Slughorn himself appeared at the far end of the corridor, already spotting Severus as he came.
"Mr. Snape, it's good to see you." But as he drew closer, his eyes moved over Severus's changed build and he stopped for a second, recalibrating visibly before the smile reasserted itself. "I take it you decided to address the physical side of things over the summer? I approve, I approve, though let's not let it come at the expense of our studies."
"I'm glad to see you too, Professor. But it's not quite that: it was an unexpected side effect from one of the potions."
"A side effect? Have you been to St. Mungo's?"
"Of course. Everything's fine."
"I'm relieved to hear it." Slughorn nodded slowly, still studying him, and produced his wand. "May I?"
"Please."
Slughorn pressed the wand tip to Severus's sternum. A beam of light pushed inward.
"This is extraordinary." He looked up with something close to shock. "Mr. Snape, which potion exactly were you attempting to brew?"
"A strengthening potion. My neighbours interrupted me at a critical point, and I may have added an extra ingredient, or perhaps not added one I should have. I'm not entirely certain."
"All right, don't insult my intelligence." Slughorn sighed and waved a hand, reading Severus's expression correctly. "If you don't want to say, don't say. Some discoveries are better kept quiet. The important thing is that you're well."
"Thank you, Professor."
"So then, what brings you here at this hour?"
"A couple of things. There are some ingredients I haven't been able to find any reference to, and—" Severus paused, allowing himself a quiet moment of satisfaction. "I managed to do it. What we discussed before the holidays."
"The Delusion Mushroom?" Slughorn's eyebrows went up. "You solved the poison problem?" He glanced down the empty corridor, embarrassed by his own volume. "Come to my office. Come."
Thirty minutes later, Slughorn sat listening with the expression of a man trying to hold back an emotion slightly too large for the moment.
"I went back to an approach that was abandoned several centuries ago: white silkworm grass, combined with the Mushroom, using the grass to neutralise the poison."
"I tried something similar once, but—"
"The poison stays, but something is missing," Severus said, with the faint smile of someone who had found the missing piece. He reached into his wallet and brought out a small jar of silver herb. "I added this at the very beginning of the process. Silver asmi's primary property is to amplify whatever it's combined with. Added to the poison—"
"It strengthens it first, but the white silkworm grass is already in the mix, so it—" Slughorn stopped. His eyes widened. "That's it. That is it. How did I not see that? It was right there. And if you're adding the asmi, then there are no residual effects after the potion wears off either." He pushed himself out of his chair. "Mr. Snape, you have just solved one of the oldest outstanding problems in Potions. We are going to the Ministry on Saturday and you are patenting this."
"You have classes on Saturday."
"Classes can wait!"
The professor's delight was entirely unperformed, and it caught Severus genuinely off-guard. He hadn't expected that.
"At least make it the weekend."
"Fine. Fine." Slughorn sat back down, still shaking his head. "And I really cannot believe it was that simple."
"It's not that simple. I went through a great deal of ingredients before it worked."
"I'd have been astonished if it had worked on the first attempt."
He decided not to mention that it had.
"You said you had questions about some ingredients. Let me see." Severus produced a short list and handed it over.
Slughorn read it. With each line, his expression became more careful, and by the time he put the sheet down and looked up, something had changed in his face.
"Tell me, Severus. What potion are you planning to brew?" His voice had gone quiet in a way it very rarely did.
"Is something wrong?"
"Of these fifteen ingredients, I know twelve. But nearly half of them are restricted. Possession of several is enough to send someone to Azkaban." He stopped, and for a moment looked not at Severus but somewhere past him, at something that wasn't in the room. "Severus. You're not going to—" He didn't finish the sentence.
"Professor?"
Slughorn looked back at him, and handed the list back. "I can't help you with this. I'm sorry."
"I understand." Severus held his gaze a moment longer, then rose. "I'll come by tomorrow. Good night, Professor."
"And to you, Tom." Slughorn said it absently, already somewhere else in his mind, the word out before he'd heard it himself.
Severus didn't point out the mistake. He stood there for a few seconds more, looking at the older man's face, then left and pulled the door shut behind him.
Returning to his room, Severus took off his robe. Nagini came out from his sleeve and settled on the pillow.
Tom Marvolo Riddle. Who is that? He'd been careful about Slughorn's surface thoughts, but even so he'd caught it: the name, and an image of a dark-haired young man with striking features. He glanced at Nagini. "Do you know that name?"
"How would I? I've never been here before in my life." She sounded mildly offended.
"Fair point. Sorry." He looked at her a moment longer, and behind his mild expression something sharpened. This is moving faster than I expected. I need to pick up the pace on the potion.
"What are you thinking about?"
"Just turning something over. Don't worry." He reached into the wallet and set food on the table. "Eat. You haven't had anything all day."
"Thank you," she hissed, and moved toward it.
Severus lay back on the bed and closed his eyes.
Slughorn's reaction told him enough: whoever Tom had been, he'd been close to him, and he'd gone somewhere dark. The professor remembered him at exactly the moment he'd begun to doubt Severus. That wasn't a coincidence. He'll probably be more careful around me tomorrow, but no one hides from a rat locator.
"Why are you smiling like that?" Nagini asked, watching him from the table with a piece of chicken halfway to her mouth.
"Just thinking." He stretched. "Time to go hunting, I suppose." She looked at him blankly. "The basilisk. Don't look at me like that. And how, by the way, do you manage to convey that much expression with a snake's face? It's genuinely impressive." She snorted and went back to her food. "All right, I'll stop."
Severus's next morning began with Potions.
Compared to the previous evening, Slughorn appeared considerably more himself, the tension mostly hidden, though it was there if you knew where to look. Almost no one did.
"That's all for today. I'll expect you back in two days. Mr. Snape, if you wouldn't mind staying on."
At those words, most of the Slytherin students turned to stare at Severus as though they'd just remembered he existed. The surprise was genuine.
"Of course, Professor."
Slughorn smiled pleasantly at the remaining students. "I appreciate that forty-five minutes wasn't quite enough for some of you, but I would like a few minutes before the next lesson."
That was sufficient. They filed out quickly, throwing curious looks at Severus as they went, and the office was left to three people.
"Professor. About last night—"
"I was going to raise that myself, and I want to apologise," Slughorn said, rising and moving to his bookshelf. His voice had gone quiet again, but differently this time. "I jumped to the worst conclusion before you'd said more than a few words. There are legitimate potions that require exactly those kinds of ingredients, and I should have asked rather than assumed. I'm sorry."
"The fault's mine. If I'd known they were restricted, I would have explained what I needed them for first."
"I should have listened regardless." He shook his head, turning back. "Let's start again. Show me what you're actually trying to brew."
At that moment Nagini's head emerged from under Severus's shirt. Slughorn stepped back into his chair, which took the weight of him with a dull thud. One look at her was enough to tell him she was extremely venomous.
"This is Nagini. She was human once, before an unknown curse changed her. I've been looking for a way to reverse it, and somewhere along the way I came across a potion recipe that supposedly removes any curse. I'm not entirely confident it'll work, but it seemed worth pursuing."
"I see." Slughorn exhaled slowly and stood back up, though he kept a respectful distance from Nagini, who found his caution mildly entertaining. "May I see the recipe?"
"Of course. I'll write it out now."
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