Five: Brewing and the Bribe

December 1995

I was at first entirely at a loss to predict or modify Miss Granger's increasingly insupportable behaviour. But I determined that I must devise some solution, for my twice-weekly teetering on the edge of her defiance was causing me more hypertension than any Potions assistance was worth. Sacking her and facing Albus's wrath was starting to seem a less arduous option than her constant trials of my patience.

At last, I stumbled upon an insight. In the magical world, it behoves one to keep a close eye on the lunar phases. By this habitual observation, as well as a few surreptitious scribbles and retrospective calculations, I developed the hypothesis that Miss Granger's naturally volatile temper was amplified by lunar, and presumably menstrual, cycles. I had heard that this could be a source of conflict when working with women, but I'd had little occasion to think much on the matter before, perhaps due to the more advanced age of my female colleagues at Hogwarts, as well as my admitted inexperience in sharing close quarters with young women (or anyone for that matter). A bit of private research into the mysterious female phenomenon convinced me that it would be easy to develop a simple experimental potion to test upon her and perhaps thereby avoid at least the worst of her fiery retorts. But I was wary of raising such a delicate issue to her directly, and her willing participation in a psychotropic experiment seemed unlikely without either good reason or deceptive inducement, so I at first simply filed the knowledge away as a potential future tactic or a last resort.

But on one particularly nasty evening, matters unexpectedly came to a head. Things had progressed reasonably well in the laboratory, but as often occurred, a quarrel arose later on in the office just before Miss Granger was about to leave for the evening. I was in the midst of preparing a report for the Dark Lord, which I kept well away from her oft-roving eyes, and I was in no mood to be interrupted. But at some point she crept up; upon my desk she placed her current assignment, a protocol for a class experiment. A brief scan of this immediately revealed a crucial flaw: she had specified mere scorching, but not complete carbonisation, of the nopales, thus rendering the entire potion (an enhancement to certain forms of divination, and general magical strengthener) ineffective.

"Miss Granger, this is entirely inadequate. I expect better than this from you," I said. Still submerged in my own task, I absentmindedly thrust the parchment back at her.

"But – why? What's wrong with it?" Her voice rose – grating, challenging. Disrupted from my report, I lifted a narrowed eye to her, but she continued unheeding, "I looked everything up carefully; it can't be wrong. Aren't all the ingredients right? Are you sure it's wrong?"

"Are you questioning me?" I said darkly, my anger expanding. I began to suspect a deliberate error, a ploy to provoke me. Had she by chance seen the report on my desk and determined to distract me from it, in a bout of misplaced heroics against me?

"No, I'm just asking you a question –"

"Ten points from Gryffindor for your cheek."

"But –"

"Twenty."

She stewed silently.

"If you are as intelligent as all your admirers seem to think, you will figure it out on your own."

Her eyes sparkled with uncontrolled emotion. "You're not even going to tell me what's wrong with it? I worked really hard on this."

"You will recall our agreement. You shall attempt to discover solutions to problems on your own before bothering me about them –"

Instead of an appropriately measured response, she burst out, arms akimbo, "Well, I'm sorry I'm not perfect! I'm only a fifth year; you can't expect me to know everything!"

"And why ever not? You act as if you know everything. Do you think yourself entitled –"

She cried, "Please just stop, please – My head is hurting, and I've got so much homework, and I just need a break; all right, so I made a mistake somewhere, but – I – I don't think that just because you are a professor you ought to talk to me that way. We don't have to be friendly, I accept that, but please stop insulting me. It's – very hurtful. It hurts."

I stared down at her, a bit taken aback. She examined her feet and rubbed her temples. Was she possibly telling the truth and not simply playing a manipulative game? Her words seemed truthful; perhaps her protocol's error had not been fabricated after all. But I could not fathom such upset over such a minor issue. I considered the evidence: headache; outburst; threatening tears, which, despite my habitual sneering at them, were in fact a bit unsettling – the underlying issue at hand seemed most likely the physical cause I had theorised. I determined that now presented the best opportunity to take matters into my own hands.

"Sit down. Wait here," I said and left the room.

I shut her from my mind and gathered ingredients from their carefully denominated vessels on the shelves, selected the appropriate cauldron, and set to work. The experimental potion I had in mind was nothing fancy, mostly analgesic: rose hips, anti-inflammatory to smooth muscle; a bit of magic-enhanced gooseberry to combat anaemia; witch hazel nut, especially suited to a child so inclined towards learning, to stimulate cognition and simultaneously (for this is the beauty of hazel nut's magic) to regulate the release of serotonin, among other neurotransmitters, in proportional response to stressors, whether they be hormonal or external. Certainly, I had little idea as to the nature of such stressors in the case of Miss Granger and even less interest in discerning them. But the precision of my knowledge, or lack thereof, mattered not at all to the success of the brew. As I have tried to instil in my students, the truly magical element of most potions lies not in the physical combination, but in the potioneer's intent to unite them in common purpose. By his deftness and skill, he coaxes the brew to its sweetest perfection, bends the elements to his will, allowing their magic to mingle and come to fruition. He primes the potion's constituents to move synchronously, in concert with the drinker's own magic and mood. In this case, the resulting potion would swiftly react upon chemical triggers of stress to quell the resulting pains and anxieties before agitation occurred.

It really was but small effort on my part, and after all, what was an assistant for if not to play the lab rat on occasion? The rose hips were not quite the appropriate cultivar, as my Sprout-derived stock was rather limited, and so they required boiling for longer than normal to split the hardened shrivelled shell of the hip and expose the tender magical seed within. The rest was a straightforward decoction. Briefly: As the seed takes water, it swells until a critical threshold of readiness. It is then removed and steeped in water of the appropriate temperature along with the other herbs. The mixture is cooled to 49 °C, at which point a simple charm is employed whilst stirring clockwise to enhance the hazel nut's receptivity to the recipient, and another charms the brew to alter subtly in strength with the phase of the moon.

I worked alone in my laboratory in darkness illumined by wandlight. A sweet vapour rose from my cauldron, thickened round me, condensed into glossy dew along the countertops. As I worked, unravelling the elements, determining the expected outcome of this mixture of causative properties, my own immersion in the art and science of Potions could be complete. It rather soothed my own temper, afforded me the placidity to ruminate on Miss Granger's sudden appropriation of my previously autonomous office. I began to see a new pattern to our discourse, a cycle of its own. Indeed, each rencontre of ours seemed to follow a fairly precise sequence of steps: at the most inopportune moments, invariably when my mood was already particularly splenetic, she evidently felt some unaccountable need to chatter at me, whereupon I, out of sheer frustration, would attempt to discipline her by reprimand or rebuke on the inanity of her drivel. She then never failed to misconstrue my words, paint them in the worst possible light, and use my most innocuous critiques to fuel her unique brand of contrarian eruptions, the nature of which I have already described.

In the precious breath of solitude I now had in the laboratory, my anger dispersed somewhat. I recalled her words of earlier – I had been 'insulting' her, she said. I thought on what she might have meant by the term 'insult' and wondered if perhaps my customary corrective tactics were altogether appropriate in her case, for she seemed to take critique very personally. I allowed that I may have been unnecessarily harsh once or twice in recent weeks, for the closed setting of the office seemed to incline me to snap at her more often than otherwise. I saw that my office had come to be smaller and stifling, in part through fault of my own; I had, quite unnaturally, confined myself there of late for more hours than necessary, solely in order to supervise my teaching assistant. At this insight, several plausible remedies suggested themselves: I need not remain in the office the entire duration of meetings; I need not keep my door ajar for extra hours just in case she had a question. Perhaps I ought to insist on working in the classroom sometimes, if only for the less intimate setting, and for the chance to work a bit more with the potions myself. I realised I had been missing it lately.

The potion was ready. I breathed its aroma, tasted it. The prominent rose hips and hazel nut counterpoised quite pleasantly. I thought it ought to calm her tantrums a bit. And yet, I confessed, it was not so strong as to counteract grief by external wrongs to one's person, and at last I concluded it unlikely to diminish Miss Granger's antipathy without some complicity on my own part – at the least, perhaps, my curtailing of the bitterest 'insults'. A slight chagrin got the better of me, and I resolved to henceforth cultivate a bit of temperance in the office atmosphere. I would bite my tongue and employ silence as the primary disciplinary instrument – if only to ensure that the effects of the potions experiment on Miss Granger were not undone by external factors and to lessen the time I wasted on her theatrics.

When I re-entered, she was still sitting quietly – the calm after the tempest! – re-writing the protocol. She glanced up nervously at me. I set a cup of the bespoke brew upon her desk and considered the best terms in which to couch the offer, the appropriate words to induce her compliance. But I could not think what to say so I simply said, "Drink this."

She sniffed it, eyed me warily, and gave it a sip. I stared at her uneasily. How could it be that this child who refused even a simple instruction to keep quiet would readily drink an unknown potion on command?

"Hazel nut, rose . . . ?" she asked, concentrating. She must have thought this was a test of some sort.

"Gooseberry. Several other dashes here and there. You ought to be more cautious in accepting strange potions, you know. The sense of smell is hardly failsafe."

"Well, you remind me every week how the Headmaster won't even let you sack me; I'm assuming you're not allowed to poison me either . . . What is it anyway?"

"It is for your headache." (Technically, this was perfectly true.) "Here, I will write out the recipe for you."

After a few moments of scribbling, I extended to her the scrap of parchment. She frowned for a while at it, but continued to drink. So far, so good. At last, she raised her eyes to me and said steadily and in clear accusation, "This is a calming draught."

I had to tread carefully. With unaccustomed effort at neutrality of tone, I said, "It is helping your headache, is it not?"

"Actually it is, yes, but I don't need –"

"You will find that the most effective headache remedies involve elements of both relaxation and stimulation. This potion ought to relax the cranial muscles and reduce inflammation, so in that sense it is 'calming', but it is ataractic in nature – that is, it will not sedate you. On the contrary, it is a mental stimulant as well and ought to clear your head a bit, especially if you are in pain or – ah – discomfort."

She looked wary. "Is it better than just taking a Pain-No-More when you've got a headache?" ¹

". . . Yes." (Probably true.) "You see, it is freshly brewed, and – by me."

"Oh. Thanks," she said quietly.

I was struck by an inspiration and continued, "In fact, with a few minor adjustments, perhaps a bit of moonstone or lapis, this brew would provide a good base for a number of potions in a certain class – specifically the Mensanas, those that aid in mental discipline. A Mensana potion is not the sort of thing that you will see your imbecile classmates imbibing before the O.W.L.s in toxic quantities. It will not make you cleverer, certainly not in the space of a night or two of cramming. But as an aid to the practiced cultivation of the mind, it is invaluable, especially for beginners to the field.

"As you may know, mental magic is a branch of learning that I have been studying for quite some time, and I have found it very useful in my . . . other work." I glanced at her; she was listening intently. Good.

"Learning to quiet your mind, to focus and order it, is a skill that is applicable to all fields of study. It is through rigorous training of the mind that one becomes more adaptable, flexible, prepared for all circumstances. Including Defence Against the Dark Arts, in which you apparently have a new interest, and all the subjects on your O.W.L.s. A calming draught can help in preparation, in beginning to learn mental exercises and drills, so that the use of a potion is ultimately not needed. Think of it as an aid to reflection."

She looked as if she were about to burst.

"You have questions, I suppose," I said.

"Yes, sir."

"Here is what to do. Write them down. Save them. I will lend you some books, and if you haven't got time before holiday to read them, you may keep them over the break. You might wish to try a few exercises. Many can be self-taught and practiced. If you have not found the answers to your questions by the end of your holiday, you may ask them then."

I then casually mentioned that she might wish to further experiment with the brew in my lab – contingent upon my supervision, of course, and upon her explicit request for any and all potential ingredients. I added indifferently, "Regarding the protocol – the nopales must be completely carbonised, you see."

"Oh, of course. I should have realised."

"It is an understandable mistake . . . Listen, I am aware that end of term exams are approaching. If you require time off from your assistantship, you may take it."

By this time, her brew was gone and she seemed slightly mollified, if still a bit wary of my motives; I surmised that the potion and lecture had taken effect. She said, "No, no, the work doesn't bother me. I mean, it's a lot of work, but it's not unreasonable."

I hesitated: ". . . Despite what you think, my intention is not to torment you or cause you headaches. Evidently, the details of a teaching assistantship are a . . . bit different than I had expected as well."

"Really? What did you expect? Sir."

I chose to ignore her impertinence: ". . . You see – I have never had a teaching assistant before. I am accustomed to working with students as their Head of house or in the classroom . . . I am unaccustomed to lengthy discussion and commentary from students. But – you are not at fault. Your work is not inadequate. So – if you . . . are willing to continue this arrangement, your assistance next term would indeed be, ah, helpful. Perhaps we ought to work sometimes in the classroom . . . But you may keep a desk in the office if you like."

She was silent a moment, and I thought she was about to refuse. But she said, "Thanks. Thanks very much. I – yes, I would really like to continue. I, erm, I really like Potions and I've learned a lot and I really hope I'm being useful. I'll try not to talk so much; I know you're busy. I'll try not to make so many mistakes . . . ."

Her chastened tone much assuaged my unease. I refrained from speaking until I was certain she had finished her speech. I then gave a small indication of agreement, reminding her as well that in no case would she ever be allowed any informalities or pleasantries outside of these office hours, say in the classroom, if she were tempted to employ them; this was for her own safety, I cautioned, and even one violation would result in the immediate termination of her assistantship. In actuality, her safety was in no danger whatsoever – after all, her assistantship was not really a secret, and as with all matters related to Potter, I kept all details about her safely Occluded – but it would not do to appear too lenient or publicly familiar, lest she try to take advantage, as students frequently do of weaker teachers.

She solemnly promised to abide by these stipulations. I promptly returned to my desk; she left soon after, which was just as well, for I had swallowed more than enough pride for the night.

* * *

I had little time or inclination to conduct further tests on Miss Granger's potion, but she continued to brew it and added a bit of saw palmetto to the mixture, which I thought rather a clever insight on her part. She indicated after several trials that she found the potion "fun to brew" and more effective than commercial headache remedies, but that she had shared some with the Weasley boy and it hadn't helped him as much. (I declined to mention my thoughts on Weasley's surprising lack of menstrual maladies.) I also supplied her with a small R. arvensis from Sprout's lab, a hardy Ayrshire variety grown especially for its magical hips' properties, and more appropriate to her age and physiology than the old supplies from the stockroom. She mistook it as an early Christmas gift (not my intention), and presented me in turn with some trivial thing. (My apologies to her; I do not even remember what it was. But it was hardly a token of her esteem or a sentimental gesture on her part – after all, she gave all the house-elves gifts as well. At best, it was charity.)²

In any case, the potion's subtle effects made quite a remarkable difference in the months that followed, and oddly enough, improved our acquaintance at all lunar phases. In addition, I kept to my resolve and made some effort to render my critiques a bit less caustic; arguably, this may have contributed to her decreasing quarrelsomeness. I also extended some freedoms to her in order to avoid having to always meet her in the office at inconvenient times. I modified the door wards to allow her to enter at specified hours, so that even if I were not in the office, she could nevertheless keep her work in her desk and pick it up between 5 and 8 pm. (Unbeknownst to her, the wards also alerted me to her presence there, in order that I could avoid her if desired or discern any attempts she might make to enter at an unauthorised time, which she never did. In fact, she seldom entered the office at all, except at prearranged times or during my own office hours; perhaps she feared working alone in the dungeon. Needless to say, my wards retained all ability to repel her at any time if I needed to lock her out. But it never seemed necessary.)

I augmented the office's shelves with some texts from my own study, mostly Potions material, but some Defence texts as well, and a few of the more palatable books on the Dark Arts in the scant hope of sparking her interest. I took care never to admonish her for reading in the office, even when it was unrelated to her Potions assignments. (It is unwise indeed to discourage a child from reading, and she frequently took to doing so after completing her work.) Eventually, I simply accepted her inevitable interludes and running commentary on whatever she was reading. Though she still battered me with questions – and more and more, her own thoughts and opinions – she often worked quietly at her desk. It occurred to me that she tended towards chatter and provocation when nervous (Gryffindors!), and with a strange sort of pride, I considered the notion that she had learnt to adjust to my presence. Of course, I was loathe to admit that it was anything other than the reprieve from her chatter that I found to be such an unlikely anodyne. I did not see then that these contemplative moments were the subtle manifestations of her magic wending its way through me.

To be sure, she still provoked my ire often enough. Over the course of Miss Granger's assistantship, I was forcibly fed innumerable titbits of minutia regarding her lifestyle: she was always hungry, preferred simple vanilla ice cream, and without fail uttered an inordinate profusion of gratitude to the house-elves who served her; her right knee bounced a frenetic rhythm whenever she was particularly intent upon some knotty problem; and my poor office came to smell like flowery hand cream, for apparently her skin dried and chapped in the wintertime. (Upon reflection, I wonder if this may have been an underhanded ploy of hers to improve the general office aroma, which tended towards cellar-like.) She was an atrocious cook, a skill I believe she attempted in order to commune with the house-elves and "learn what their lives are like", and there was one sorry incident with custards that managed to be both waterlogged and burnt at the same time. (She was quite put out by my lack of commendation; I believe my specific compliment was: "Is that goblin sweat I taste?") When she brought in dental floss, I mentioned that if I ever were to see it in use, her teeth would irreversibly assume equine proportions. (This comment was not well taken either.) She often suffered from chills, obliging her beholden employer to stoke the fire more often than he otherwise would have bothered. And many more details that, it pains me to say, I have forgotten.

But as you shall see, I grew rather fond of the sound of her footfalls approaching up the corridor for our sessions. Indeed, I quite came to rely on her. I credit her with my having gotten through the year without strangling Neville Longbottom³. Certainly I never altered in any way my exacting treatment of her. Our classroom interactions remained as antagonistic as ever. But in the evenings, we brewed fake Veritaserum for Umbridge to force down students' throats, Felix Felicis for the N.E.W.T. level class, Oblivious Unction, and several mild Mensana potions. She came to serve as my resident decipherer of Runes (a subject I had not much studied since my N.E.W.T.s), and with glee she decoded any notes passed between those students clever enough to encrypt them that I had caught in classes. (Not that they ever said anything useful; the more carefully encrypted the letter, the more likely it was to contain some whiny lament of infatuation.) She took over entirely the correction of homework, excepting of course that of her own class; after all, a teacher ought never to trust even a rule-bound student not to slip in extra points to her boyfriends at times. And though I revealed nothing of my darker duties, she mercifully stepped up to restocking or brewing or rescheduling, without a word, those nights I was Summoned and the Dark Lord took from me my resolve and dexterity.

We never spoke of such matters. In fact, it was in the silent moments, while brewing or reading, that I nearly forgot myself and permitted a sliver of normalcy into my absurd double existence. At times, I even forgot the hour, only to become aware that she had remained past her appointed hours. Who could have imagined that I would find myself in such manner of proximity, so often, to a woman? (No, child, I reminded myself.) I began to harbour a sort of curiosity about her, and so, on such evenings, I pretended to peruse journals while instead I watched her. While adhering staunchly to a book or staring into a candle's flickering flame, ostensibly absorbed in some intellectual matter, I in fact conducted surreptitious surveillance of this curious specimen.

My attentions, at least at first, were emphatically non-sexual. I simply observed this frizzy, frazzled creature, this elfin-eared pupa plebieus of awkward manners and gauche angles, as if a collage of girl-elements had been thrown together in a heap, not quite yet summing to a coherent whole. I convinced myself that I was merely taking empirical measure of her attributes, in the case that I might one day have need of hypotheses regarding the mysterious female of the species. I was confounded by the notion that she would one day emerge from the haphazard moult of adolescence as a woman, with all the worldly accoutrements and mysterious allure of the fairer sex. Who would this malleable fledgling grow into? What identity, out of the infinity of her possible lives, would she assume? Could Miss Granger become a Minerva McGonagall? A Dolores Umbridge? A . . . Lily Potter? (No – a Potter perhaps, but never . . . ) Might her intellect bear a small but distinctly Snapish fingerprint? Would her lithe form come to bear the marks and claims of other men?

When examining the particulars of morphologic structure, it was simplest to start with her hands, which were always in motion: A thin crescent scar lay across the third and fourth knuckles of her left hand, some old childhood injury. The right little finger had a smooth, shiny spot on the edge from where it rested on the table while writing and a corresponding callus on her forefinger, which often bore inkstains. From her hands, outward: She was small of frame and seemed healthy, if often tense and somewhat sleep-deprived in the typical manner of students (and, too often, their teachers). Her complexion was fair, her facial features reasonably symmetrical though fairly unremarkable: narrow face, sharp chin, slight upturn to the smallish nose. Her skin was not overly sebaceous, her mouth slender and, more often than not, set in a tight-lipped frown. She appeared not to wear cosmetics – or if she did, she applied them in unnoticeable quantities. As she read, her lashes and lids moved to and fro over the pages, her expressions in flux as she scowled or arched her brow or pursed her lips, oblivious to my observations. At times, my attention strayed to a cirrusy wisp of hair that had escaped its tied confinement and begged to be brushed from her cheek, or the vein at her translucent temple, or the way she nibbled innocently on her lower lip, nipping like a small sparrow till she drew blood (this, especially before exams). I listened, as well, to the shift of her weight as she drew a knee up onto her chair, a muffled sneeze or cough, or simply the scratch of her quill in the silence. Once in a while, I imagined that her eyes had also lit upon my bowed head or my outstretched fingers, and I did not lift my eyes to verify, but wondered instead if her gaze lingered and what she might be thinking.

What an unnatural pair we two made! I must be getting old to be reminiscing about such banal scenes of domesticity, of which I am certain she has no memory or ever gave a thought about. And I suppose there is no merit to my reflections on the intricacies of her assistantship, except to provide a context for why I have retained several otherwise dull memories of this period in my Pensieve. And to provide a word of caution to you if you are a schoolmaster: Choose your assistants carefully. If it can at all be helped, try not to fall in love with them either.

¹ The most popular commercial headache remedy, patented by Monty Bank's Miracle Cures.

² I do quite clearly remember the following Christmas, 1996: She bestowed on me quite a lovely set of parchment and Scrivenshaft right-winged raven quills, after I had, in an unguarded moment, mentioned to her the possibility of my taking a 'sabbatical' her seventh year. With the gift, she extracted my reluctant promise to write her; I agreed, only to shut her mouth of course, as I had no intention of writing her from the Dark Lord's side after I had left Hogwarts – though Fate had different plans. In return (mere politeness dictated that I could not not return the favour, but propriety steered me clearly away from too personal a gift), I fetched for her a copy of an old Muggle tale I had read as a youngster upon Lily's insistence, Les Misérables. Out of principle I bought her the unabridged copy, but I do hope she skipped that interminable Waterloo scene.

³ Christ, it's a bloody joke. How degrading that I must defend myself in this manner, lest more murders be attributed to me. I would never harm a student – not even Longbottom, though I confess I say this with some reluctance.

Author's Note:

* Thanks to Countrymouse and Hollimel for their very helpful insights and assistance.