Spiderwort – Supernova Seeker

Team Notes: This chapter was written by Spiderwort and betaed by lyn_f.

Disclaimer: The characters and world belong to J.K. Rowling. No copyright infringement is intended.

Learned heads swiveled, sibilating the name like a den of cobras.

Severus Snape... That misanthrope?... Well, yes, he's a solid theoretician, but dull, dull, dull.... What'cha say we clear out and go for tea... Nice little sweets shop down the block...

Wait a bit, wasn't Snape linked with You-Know-who?... And they say he was involved in Dumbledore's death.... Tried for treason, wasn't he? Let's stay a bit...

Hermione bristled at the childish gossip and stared at Umber venomously. He seemed a trifle out of countenance but played to his audience's humor. "Come now, Professor Snape, let's not dillydally."

Severus made his languid way to the podium. He conjured himself a chair and nodded at his captor, who was waving that noxious bulb of serum about like a Probity Probe. Umber administered the required number of drops as the audience leaned forward, so intense that Hermione thought she could hear them count: one... two... three...

She stared at her friend's crinkled brow, murmuring, "That'll be the headache. Oh, my poor dear..." In seconds, she relived her humiliation in Room 208. Severus, for all his seeming aplomb, was to be soundly traduced in front of an auditorium full of his fellow Potioneers, and she could not help him.

Umber demanded his name, profession, and birth information. Severus was voluble. He spoke of his mother as Hermione had of hers. There was a slight catch in his throat as he did so, but he did not mention his father, who Hermione knew had been a Muggle, ashamed of the family "peculiarity."

If Umber caught the wistful note in his victim's voice, he did not pursue it. This audience craved titillation, not empathy. He winked at them, opining, "I believe we've all noticed your choice of company outside program hours, Snape..."

"Company, oh... yes... my friend Masum. I've known him since I visited India... to study..." He launched into a wordy description of two young wizards on holiday, rambling across Southeast Asia in pursuit of the perfect hot beverage. Umber kept trying to stop him with another question, but every time he did, Severus raised his voice and drowned him out.

By the time the travelogue reached a tea shop somewhere near the Black Sea, Umber had become quite red in the face, and he huffed like a boiling samovar. "I don't mean him. I mean... your... former... student... Hermione Granger!"

The audience, which had been yawning over endless recipes for milk tea and the price of pekoe, sat up at this. Hermione Granger? That snippy little prodigy who was always asking tiresome questions? Wasn't she friends with Harry Potter, who, it was known for a fact, Snape loathed? All eyes fixed anew on Umber's captive.

"Hermione... Granger?" Snape murmured.

Hermione started chewing her sleeve. She should have told him everything that happened with Umber instead of slinking off to her room in shame. At least, they could have done some strategic plotting. "I'm such a Gryffindor," she muttered.

In the meantime, Umber was pouncing. "Yes, Hermione Granger, whom you've been devoting all your time to, at least so far as one could see. I mean, one couldn't follow you two up to your room, could one?"

"Your... room?" Snape repeated. "Oh, yes, I remember. You kissed her hand and invited her to visit you in your room this afternoon. She didn't want to go..."

The audience loved that revelation. Kissed her hand, did he?

Umber was unfazed. "I'm sure she told you that in some cozy little rendezvous."

"She was afraid you might make her take the Super Serum. Afraid you'd make her say all sorts of embarrassing things. And you did."

"What? How do you know that? She wouldn't tell you."

Snape sounded, for him, meek. "I saw it all."

"In my room?"

"No, just now, in your mind. I'm an expert at Legilimency, you know." He began regaling the crowd with some of his adventures in the art of mind-probing, including a hair-raising encounter with the Dark Lord. This tickled his listeners, and they perked up, hoping for more, but that irritating fellow Umber interrupted him.

"How can you be reading my mind when you're under the influence of my all-powerful potion?"

"Don't you remember?" asked Snape. "You told Granger that her potion to block mental intrusions was rendered obsolete by your Super Serum. But I believe you got your definitions mixed up. It would appear that the Serum doesn't enhance Occlumency, but Legilimency, for I am now so completely relaxed that my consciousness has oozed right through your paltry mental barriers and read your entire life's history."

"Impossible!"

"And what a story! I had no idea that you are the nephew of the late Hector Dagworth-Granger, who founded the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers, and that about two years ago, you turned up, Knutless, on his doorstep. So he made you a bottle-washer in his laboratory."

Umber bowed as at a tribute. "A humble beginning, I will admit."

"And all of your so-called discoveries have come since he died."

"I am merely carrying on his legacy..."

"That's easily done since you stole his notebooks."

Cackles of unholy glee greeted this revelation.

Umber began to fidget. "He willed them to me..."

"Actually, he didn't. They were to go to MESOP, but you managed to appropriate the most salient items."

"Well, I am a member, and as such..."

"No, you were merely an associate like all members' apprentices. You have to be sponsored to become a full member, and Sir Hector never recommended you. One has to wonder why."

"He was busy..."

"He managed to promote several other persons, including one I taught: Neville Longbottom. One presumes it is because of his Herbological expertise, not his knack for Potions. You know what I think? I think he realized you were a glib, unimaginative jack, good for nothing but scraping flobberworm guts out of flasks and cleaning exploded messes off his ceiling."

Umber turned pillar-box puce and began to splutter. The audience threw things...potions samples, balled-up programs, freebie cauldrons...and hooted him gleefully off the podium. Hermione rushed forward, but by the time she got to the top step, Severus had Disapparated.

****

He didn't appear at breakfast, lunch or any of the morning sessions. The list of topics for the afternoon included one he could scarcely resist: "Why No Amount of Tinkering with the Wolfsbane Potion Will Improve Its Taste or Hypolycanurgic Properties."

He was in a corner seat far from everyone else. Several people attempted to congratulate him on his unmasking of Umber, but he warded them off with his classic, scathing scowl. Eyes lowered, Hermione walked over to him and murmured, "Is this seat taken?"

He shrugged. The gesture hurt her more than if he had refused outright. This was the Snape of old, cold and unapproachable. Was he punishing her for not reporting to him yesterday?

Throughout the presentation, he kept mum even though Hermione knew he must be dying to refute the claims made by the presenter, who was almost as bad as Umber: all blarney and brag. When it was over, he stood up, and she followed. He looked to be heading for his room and allowed her to walk beside him, but he said nothing.

Nearing his door, she blurted, "Professor Snape, I wanted to tell you how brilliant your performance was yesterday."

"Thank you."

"And I wanted to say sorry."

"Whatever for?"

"I should have let you know that the potion worked so we could prepare."

"You didn't need to."

"Why?" She put her hands on her cheeks, which were burning now. "Oh, no, you... you didn't hear what I said to Umber?"

"What?"

"You told him that you knew what happened in his room."

He opened his door. "We'd better discuss this inside."

She entered the spare, neat room and caught a whiff of hydrogen sulfide. Had he been experimenting? How like him. She took a chair, sitting stiffly upright, but tried to keep her eyes low. Somehow the bed, so rigidly made up, disturbed her.

Severus walked to the window. "I didn't look for any of that in his mind. It would have been... hem... intrusive, but the fact that you didn't come to me after your meeting told me something terrible had happened. When I saw you at the demonstration, you looked... disturbed. I knew he had hurt you badly and that he was going to hurt you again. So I did an Imperius on him."

Hermione stood up in shock. "What? You did an Unforgiveable... in front of hundreds of witnesses?"

"Only long enough to get him to say my name instead of yours. He's such a ninny; I think he actually thought it was his idea."

"You didn't need to. He promised me he wouldn't ask me anything bad...Wizard's Oath."

"That's utter tripe. Quod fodder like him knows a hundred ways of circumventing that simple charm."

She started for the door. His criticism and, worse, his knowledge of her stung. He had shown her once again that she didn't know as much as she thought she knew and, what was worse, that he didn't need her for anything.

He called after her. "But you didn't trust him. Your face said as much."

She turned at that. His lips twitched briefly...a quirk of a smile. He sat on the bed. She forced herself to look at him. Yes, he acted like he didn't care for her, but he had risked an Unforgiveable in public and exchanged places with her on that podium, knowing he would be humiliated beyond endurance.

"How did you manage not to answer his questions? Did you find an antidote?"

"I certainly tried. As I told you, there were clues in those journals of his. Also, when he said his invention rendered our own experiments worthless, it made me wonder if Japanese nettle and aconite might be part of his recipe, as they are major components in our own."

Hermione brightened. "I remember Dagworth-Granger's monograph on aconite as an accelerant. And he once ranked the various nettles for their relaxing properties. Urtica thunbergiana was at the top of the list."

"By the way, he isn't..."

"No relation, thank heaven." She made a face. "That would have made me Umber's cousin!"

Severus smiled broadly for the first time in days. "So I reasoned that lecithin could form part of an antidote since it is the only chemical which counteracts the properties of both Urtica and aconite."

"Lecithin... that's in egg yolk."

"Which is why your breakfast tasted so bad the other day. I had to "borrow" every egg in the kitchen to extract a sufficient amount. I put them back together, but of course, they're never the same."

Hermione beamed. "It was worth the sickness because the antidote worked."

"Not entirely, though it did afford me precious seconds to think and manipulate the conversation a bit. And when I realized I could probe his mind, I knew I was... we were home free."

"Why did you run from me afterward?"

"I was still under the influence of the serum. I had to wait twenty-four hours before it was... safe."

"Safe... to talk to me?"

He nodded.

"Why?"

"I think you might guess the answer, but I beg you not to... not yet anyway."

"That's all right," she said softly. "I've had enough of this Super-Serum business. Let the truth come out as it's meant to, one experiment at a time."

End Notes: And there you have it! We truly hope you've enjoyed reading our story. We had so much fun writing it together. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

The prompt words used this week were: Dillydally, Traduce, Blarney, Probity Probe, Quod, Tripe and Pillar box.