Chapter Text
16th May 1996
Y/N had begrudgingly come to accept that the heels of her loafers only clicked when they were rushing down a staircase. Typical. Unfortunately, running down staircases often only one of two things: she was late for class, or she was running away from some form of trouble. Life would be far easier if today it was the former.
In truth, Y/N had no idea why Harry had chosen to revise for Potions outside of the Gryffindor Common Room. It felt like an inevitable way of attracting the wrong kind of attention—namely Filch’s. Or Merlin forbid Snape’s. What a waste that would be. She had spent aeons trying to get into his good books!
Her feet made a scuttling motion as she spiralled down the turret that was the girls’ dormitory. The Common Room was predictably hushed now that the Weasley twins had quit. A twang in her chest ached for the days spent giving them haphazard Potions guidance as they thunk up their next prank, or evenings spent scurrying between houses with home-brewed butter-beer. Alas, they were finally off to greater things.
Not giving it a second thought, the seventh year hurried through the Fat Lady’s portrait and down through the candlelight corridors until she found the alcove Potter had mentioned. It was huddled not so far from another set of stairs, but had been sunken deep enough in the wall to conceal any accidental movements inside.
At least from the average Squib, that is.
“Y/N!” Harry whispered, ushering her over.
“Oh my stars,” she murmured back, “how have I not found this place before!”
“I suppose it’s more designed for private moments”. Harry’s hair was as dishevelled as ever; OWL season had done a visible number on him. The fifth year grabbed his wand from his hoodie pocket and placed it next to his makeshift workbench.
“How have you been since…”. Y/N almost didn’t want to say it aloud.
“…since finishing Occlumency?”
“That’s one way to put it,” she leaned in, “that man practically had steam coming out of his ears for a week! Our NEWT classes practically transformed into a military camp.”
Y/N sighed.
“Please tell me you’re at least talking to someone”. Harry shook his head.
“It was all very...unexpected. But it made sense. And made him make more sense to me. His harsh demeanour, his characteristic paranoia, why he hates the sight of my face…”
“The sight of your face?”
“Yeah,” he chuckled to himself, ironically, “My Dad bullied him quite…badly. It’s a shame, actually. I’d only ever heard great things about that man. But it’s good to know.”
“Oh, Harry…” He shook his head once more.
“I think it did more to upset him than it did to upset me. As much as I’d like to apologise, I think it might just make things worse. Right now, at least”.
“Tell me about it. There used to be distractions to hide behind. Now it’s all just, ‘Educational Decree’ this, ‘Illicit Activities’ that…”
“There’s always the swamp”. They both grinned wildly, cherishing the horrified look on the Headmistress’ face when the twins filled the hall with reeds and lily pads.
“I’ll be sure to disguise myself as a bog monster the next time I get into trouble” she quipped, “Now, these Potions exams of yours are tomorrow, aren't they?”
“And I am phenomenally screwed”
“So I’ve heard.” Harry paused for thought.
“Now that I think about it, I don’t find him so bad. As a teacher, that is. I think understanding him has made the whole verbal abuse thing seem…insignificant”. Y/N pressed her lips together and raised a brow.
“Where is the real Harry Potter and what have you done with him?”
“No! No! I’m being serious, Y/N!” they both chuckled, “He’s just a very grumpy teenager who didn’t have an outlet as-“
“-I’ve always felt so terrible for thinking that!” she muttered excitedly, interrupting his sentence, “If only you could see him when he’s not in Teacher mode. Organising his stores for him has given me this…fascinating look into his modus operandi when away from children. Did you know he hums to himself to fill the quiet?”
“I’ve seen him tap his fingers a few times, but I always thought it was more angry than musical…”
“He has this wonderful collection of Muggle vinyl records hidden in his office. And the instruments recorded on them are all so moving. Almost romantically so. I could’ve sworn I saw him the other day practising the kind of footwork we had to for the Yule Ball. I think he’s just…”
“Lonely?”
“Lonely. Yeah”.
“Yeah,” nodded Harry, smiling, “Well I’m glad it’s not Stockholm Syndrome!”
“Quite! Right, then. Back to the cauldron,” she clapped, “Let’s focus on the basics. I want you to walk me through how you would approach the Antidote to Common Poisons.”. Harry rustled in his bag for a textbook and flipped it open to the right page.
“Okay,” he paused, getting his bearings, “so I’d crush up a bezoar.”
“Yep”
“Add four spoons of it into the cauldron. Two of some common herbs. And simmer on medium for 40 minutes with some honeywater.”
“So you can understand part of a recipe at least”
“Yes. It’s more straightforward than Wiggenweld, thank goodness”. Y/N tried her best to stifle an eye roll.
“Then let me see you do it in practice.” Harry lifted a small box of ingredients from his bag alongside a pestle and mortar set Hermione had enchanted to be as heavy as a feather. Y/N’s eyes watched closely on as he popped a gnarly bezoar into the bowl.
“Well, okay, first, the better the ingredient quality, the better the outcome.”
“That explains Hermione’s recent fixation on foraging”. Harry haphazardly crushed the morsel into a rough powder. Peering over, Y/L/N encouraged him to keep going until it no longer felt grainy when rubbed between the fingers.
“The bezoar will dissolve more evenly this way,” she muttered, “unlike with Wiggenweld, it’s the physical ingredient - the bezoar - that does most of the heavy lifting with this brew. To wildly generalise, it’s the ‘antidote’ part of the potion. The herbs are a thickener. The honeywater is the conduit with which the magic is delivered to the patient.”
“Right…”. She sighed.
“I find the most helpful thing you can do before you start a brew is to suss out what all the different components are doing. The textbooks can be really vague with the instructions, so it helps when it comes to correctly interpreting why the author wants you to do a certain action. Often, you can come up with better ways of doing things just by using common sense. At the end of the day, these ingredients are concepts that are being bubbled together into a new thing.”
“Like Maths. - the subject I was definitely great at in Primary School,” he smirked, raising his brows. She snorted back.
“I feel you there. But as an example,” she began, shuffling deeper into the alcove, “if you didn’t grind up the main ingredient so finely just then, it wouldn’t have dissolved into the mixture as equally as it needs to for it to be effective. You would’ve made a slightly sweetened, grainy stew. And sure, it would probably still save someone from death, but their stomach was still hurt.”
“Similarly, with our thickening agent, if you are slopping with the quantities, you may end up irking out whoever tries your…slop with an unpleasant texture. Such as an examiner.”
“I thought examiners would have more of a fleshy texture”. Y/N lightly hit her fists against her knees and scrunch her face in mock fury. They both sniggered. A little too loud, perhaps…
“Okay, okay,” she muttered, “do you understand what I’m getting at, at least? Potion-making is not just a big imposing list of ingredients and instructions, it’s about bringing ingredients together intentionally to create a useful concoction.”
“Got it”
“And listen, whilst I can’t redo the last five years' worth of ingredients lore in one night, I can certainly help you think more intentionally about what you’re doing so you’re not completely thrown by the exams tomorrow. Besides, I really owe you one for helping me cast a Patronus”
⋈
The scowling Professor approached with caution, lit wand held aloof by his side. One of the portraits had tipped him off about students breaking curfew. He hoped the meaning of it all was innocent enough. He had grown rather fed up with the number of private audiences he had been dragged into this year.
Straightening his robes, he stepped out into a small corridor connected to Gryffindor Tower. The blue and white linoleum beneath his feet felt sorely out of place with the rest of the castle. He wondered if the castle had kept it intentionally, as a reminder of an age gone by. Strutting to the end of the corridor now, he promptly stopped, his ears pricked for any sign of student life.
A quiet moment went by.
Snape silently edged forward towards the staircase balcony. A chuckle could be heard from beneath him.
He edged forward and surreptitiously leaned over the balcony, a violently straightened lock of hair brushing against his face.
“I’ve always felt so terrible for thinking that!” he could faintly make out, “If only you could see him when he’s not in Teacher mode.” Snape blinked in surprise. He was fairly certain he could identify the whisper by how excitedly it was talking, but he needed to be sure…
“Organising his stores for him has given me this…fascinating look into his modus operandi when away from children”. The next sentence was too hushed to make out exactly, but it was her, and this confirmed it. And she was really gushing about…him?
“I’ve seen him tap his fingers a few times”
“Potter…” Snape muttered internally, cringing at his voice like a bad taste had entered his mouth.
“But I always thought it was more angry than musical…”.
“Typical child,” he scowled, grumbling to himself, “and just like his Father. Facetious. Arrogant.”
“I think he’s just…” trailed Y/N.
“Lonely?”
“Lonely. Yeah”. Snape shot his torso up from the stairwell and froze in place. Any other day, he would have been anywhere between vaguely bemused and outraged that a student dared guess at the man beneath the robes. But this warmth he could feel enveloping his chest like a warm bath - could it be appreciation? Was he really finally appreciating the benefit of the doubt being given to him, or had he just misinterpreted a loosely veiled insult for affection?
“Well I’m glad it’s not Stockholm Syndrome!”
“Quite!” The continuing conversation faded into unintelligible mutters.
Snape quietly retreated into the corridor. The student he hated the most, and the one whom he adored above everyone else, had just bonded over being able to see the humanity behind the mask. In having witnessed him at his most vulnerable, neither had ended up resenting him, but had felt like they were going mad for finding themselves sympathising.
The man clutched at his chest, heart racing as he steadied his dizzying thoughts against the window frames. The tops of his neck tinged pink for a moment. He had chosen his so-called enemies well, yes. But he had really lucked out when picking his favourites.
⋈
“I have to say, Harry, I’ve never sat this long in one spot after curfew without being caught.” His potion was bubbling along quite nicely now. So nicely that Y/N had had to cast a silencing charm around the alcove.
“Alright, so the Unicorn Horn functions much like the Bezoar. It’s an antidote already, so just make sure what you’re sprinkling in has been crushed finely-“
“-so as to dissolve better into the mixture-“
“-which makes it more effective.”
“Brilliant. I sprinkle, I stir it twice clockwise. Then the Mistletoe Berries…”
“Ironically, they have small concentrations of a poisonous substance in the juices themselves. But that’s what we want in there to get the other ingredients active,” she instructed, “so, when the textbook says place them directly into the cauldron, I want you to do that and then squeeze them against the bottom to really get those juices…”. He had done exactly as told and the contents turned a glistening teal, not too dissimilar to a mermaid’s tail.
“Fantastic work, Harry”. He chuckled to himself, genuinely proud to have finally created a concoction that resembled the picture in the textbook. After two anticlockwise stirs, he promptly turned off the heat and allowed the rippling mixture to cool.
“Well,” he muttered, gawking at the potion in disbelief, “I couldn’t have done it without you”.
The warm, orange flickers of light in the corridors grew brighter as the night sky deepened. Shadows stretched achingly across the stone. The odd star could be seen twinkling above them as Harry excitedly packed his kit away.
“Best of luck for tomorrow, Harry,” Y/N nodded, eyes still half-examining the skies above, “Don’t let those Slytherins get you down.”
Harry sniggered, slinging a bag over his shoulder.
“Most of them will end up marrying their relatives anyway,” she winked.
The two of them managed to conceal themselves rather effectively in the shadows on the way back to the Common Room. The swing of the door didn’t even awake the Fat Lady for once.
Y/N waved Potter upstairs to back as she slowly lingered towards the girl’s dormitories.
An old voice coughed for her attention.
Skirt twisting gracefully in the air, she turned to face a very disgruntled portrait of a medieval peasant. He seemed to have what looked like seven stress-related age lines.
“Don’t think he didn’t hear you…” the peasant grumbled.
“Hear me?”
“The Professor you spoke of…”
“What, Snape?! That’s not possible!” she spluttered, stepping a little closer, “He would’ve made a song and dance out of it.” The portrait grunted and folded his arms defensively.
“Whatever you spoke of…it made him run back whence he came”. She tutted, stepping away.
“Be careful, my fair lady! For the good of his health!” But Y/N was already but a shadow moving from curtain to curtain, ascending the winding stairs back up to her tower, ready to dive deeply into another well-earned night of sleep.
“Typical men,” she thought, still brooding on the portrait’s version of events, “some of them really never left the dark ages”.