Chapter 7: Pure Science

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author.

Many thanks to my beautiful beta, VIVAvivacious, for all of her help with this story.

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Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

– Marie Curie.

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Hogwarts, Rural Scotland: 8th August, 2000

The sound of the clock ticking away above the mantelpiece was both a comfort and a distraction to the occupants of the room.

For one, it signified that, despite the occurrences over the past two decades, time would continue on. For the other, it distracted them from the conversation at hand. For both, it set a slow and steady beat in the room. Minerva McGonagall looked up over the rim of her small, rectangular glasses, staring at the dark-haired man in the armchair adjacent to her own in front of the fireplace. It was the main source of light and warmth in the office that unseasonably chilly summer evening.

She sighed heavily as she took in the appearance of the man. As if he weren't already pale and gaunt enough during his tenure at Hogwarts as a teacher, it seemed Severus Snape had managed to find himself even sparer of weight and colour than he had before. The war had been difficult for him. He was thought to be on the side of darkness and was doubted so often by those he was truly working with. She was not so certain she could have been so resilient in the face of having everyone with whom you were friends or colleagues hate you.

Minerva felt a pang of guilt. She had been one of those friends who had doubted him, from the night of Albus Dumbledore's death to the end of the final battle. If only the two wizards had been more forthcoming with her over the years, she might have been able to spare Snape a lot of trouble with the other professors while he had been stationed as Headmaster. She wished that times had not been so secretive. She wanted to turn back time and question all those things she had ignored due to prejudice and anger when she should have been supportive.

If only she had done a better job of not just accepting everything at face value.

'Why did you ask me to come here, Minerva?' Snape asked, snapping her out of her musings. His once smooth voice was now quiet and harsh from the injuries caused to his throat by Nagini.

'I want you to come back to teach at Hogwarts at the beginning of next month when the school term begins,' Minerva answered simply. 'You can teach Defence or Potions – whichever position you want, it's yours.'

Snape looked across at her as though she had spoken Voldemort's name out loud. 'You know as well as I that there is nothing left at this school for me but bad memories of the poor choices I have made throughout my life,' he said quietly, trying to conserve what little voice he had left.

Minerva would not be discouraged – that was how Snape responded to most things those days.

'I need you, Severus,' she said, adding a note of pleading to her tone.

'Come now, Minerva,' Snape chided despite the harsh rasp to his voice. 'Begging is beneath you. I can make a few recommendations for a decent Potions professor, and I am certain you could manage to find yourself a Defence teacher quite easily these days.'

'I remember a time when you would have jumped at the chance to teach the students Defence Against the Dark Arts,' she said with a smirk, trying to keep her humour even in a time when she was likely to lose him. 'Something about you has changed, Severus. Just what happened in the Shrieking Shack?'

'Exactly what all of the reports said,' he murmured, turning his eyes to stare at the fire. 'I arrived to meet the Dark Lord there, he set his great big bloody pet snake on me, and it tore out my throat with its nasty fangs. I didn't die, and it turns out that I was not the master of the Elder Wand.'

'You already knew that you were not the master, didn't you?'

He nodded and closed his eyes, rubbing his temples. 'I knew it, but I was bound to go along with whatever it was that Dumbledore had planned for me,' he answered. 'You know as well as I that the entire thing was a set up.'

'Are you angry with Albus?' Minerva prompted.

'Incredibly... I am not,' he said, looking up at her. 'Rather, I am saddened that the course he chose was not the only option available – simply the one he chose.'

'You believe Albus wanted to die?'

'Minerva, you and I both know Albus was an old man,' Snape said simply. 'He was tired, and he felt it was his time, so he offered himself as a sacrifice.'

'Old fool,' Minerva whispered. 'I have missed him a lot in the past couple of months. Since the war, there has been little else to occupy my mind.'

'He was a fool,' Snape agreed. 'But I will admit, I do miss having someone to talk to when things become... too much for me.'

'Hogwarts will not be the same without you, Severus,' Minerva said quietly, looking down at her hands clasped in her lap before her.

'It will be better, Minerva,' he replied, standing from his armchair and walking over to stand beside her, grasping her shoulder with a shaky hand. 'I have to be off, now – I have a strict medical regimen.'

Minerva watched as he walked away, limping slightly on the same side that Nagini had torn his throat. She hoped he would make a full recovery from all his injuries. He would give up on life if his ability to brew potions and make a living were beyond his grasp due to the extent of his injuries. The magic in the castle shifted a little, and Minerva knew that it meant Snape had already left the building. Standing from her chair, she moved to the window that overlooked the long road that led down from the castle to the front gates.

From her vantage point, she could just make out Snape's black-clad figure as he slowly limped away from Hogwarts.

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Greenwich, Ipswich: 28th July, 2009

Snape looked over at the cauldron bubbling across the bench from him and stood up from his seat, grabbed his glass stirring rod, and lowered the heat of the flame as he stirred exactly five times anti-clockwise.

He felt Granger's arm brush against his own as she moved to stand beside him and observe as he paid attention to their potion. It turned out that her ideas about using various types of blood had been one of merit when he had finally taken it into consideration. He was a man of tradition, and unconventional ingredients, such as Raven's blood in potions, were a concept as foreign to him as wearing a cheerful colour, like orange. He found he hadn't even minded when she had walked down the street with a spring in her step and a smarmy smile plastered to her face.

When they walked through the village to the Apothecary, he knew what people were thinking when they saw the two of them together. He could see it in the judgment in their eyes. He was an old man, and she was far too young for the likes of him. And they were right – he was just shy of fifty, and she was only thirty years of age. Even though there was nothing between them other than their work, he still felt like working with her was tarnishing her reputation in one way or another.

'You'll need to add the dittany in a few minutes,' she murmured from beside him, snapping him back out of his thoughts.

He looked at her from the corner of his eye and saw a small bead of sweat slide from the top of her hairline, down her cheek and neck, to stop just at her collarbone. His fingers itched to reach out and brush it away, but his common sense reined him in and prevented him from doing something potentially stupid. Pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket, he pressed it into her hand and removed the stirring rod from the potion.

'It's warm in here,' he muttered at her questioning look. 'Bodily fluids will contaminate the potion. I will open some of the windows and adjust the wards shortly. I am beginning to feel a tad uncomfortable myself.'

Hermione nodded in understanding. 'I didn't want to say anything while the potion was at such a delicate stage,' she said, dabbing at her forehead and neck with the handkerchief. 'I would be grateful if you could crack a window, actually.'

Snape nodded and proceeded to walk around the laboratory, opening a few windows and waving his wand to prevent contaminants from coming in through them. He allowed his focus to stray momentarily, and he glanced at Granger once more. She was sitting atop a stool, her head bent low as she was reading and scribbling notes down at the speed of light. Her hair was piled atop her head, and she had both her wand and a long quill stuck in the mass of curls to hold it there. He could see the graceful, unblemished line of her throat and the back of her neck, her skin slightly shiny with perspiration.

He watched as her tongue darted out to lick her bottom lip and was horrified that he wished he had been the one to perform the task. Blinking and shaking his head, he turned away. Thoughts like those were dangerous ones. Finishing the task at hand quickly, he returned to look at the potion and saw that the prepared dittany was sitting in a small pile on the chopping board beside the cauldron. Hermione nodded at him, and he carefully sprinkled it over the top, allowing the minced leaves to slowly dissolve.

Stirring anti-clockwise precisely five times, he lowered the heat so the potion would simmer. Five minutes later, he cast a stasis spell over it, and they began cleaning up the laboratory. If their calculations were correct, the potion would be completed in exactly two weeks from that day. The day before as they had been discussing the work through their lunch break, Granger had struck gold, suggesting outsourcing ingredients from other countries.

And so, during their research that afternoon, they discovered that Brahmi root, and the essence that was produced by crushing it, was an essential ingredient in a lot of North Indian herbal and organic medicines. In a medical journal that Hermione translated for the two of them, they found that Brahmi was useful in treating a variety of conditions that involved impaired mental capacity, including Alzheimer's disease, attention deficit disorder, memory problems, and Parkinson's disease. It also mentioned the herb improved intellectual function primarily by balancing the chemicals gamma-aminobutyric acid and glutamate in the brain. That afternoon they calculated the outcome of the formula with the herb included.

It was the missing ingredient; he only hoped that their Potions theory and the final product proved to be one and the same.

'On Monday, if we add the final ingredient, the potion will then only need approximately two weeks to mature,' Snape said aloud, even though he knew Granger was already aware of the fact.

'I look forward to Monday, then,' she replied with a bright smile. 'If I had been left on my own, I'd have never come so far in just a couple of months.'

'Although I hate to admit it, I feel much the same,' Snape said, an uncomfortable feeling settling in the pit of his stomach at his admission.

He was surprised when she did not having something scathing to say in return. 'We do work well together, don't we?'

Snape had to hold back a smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth. 'That we do, Miss Granger,' he replied, pulling the journal towards him to finish jotting down their calculations.

They spent the next ten minutes tidying the benches in the room and putting away all the ingredients they no longer required. After that, Snape set himself a timer and left it on the bench before leading the way up to the study. He went about the room opening the windows as Granger arranged the two armchairs in front of the coffee table so they would be able to sit and discuss the potion further. He placed their recording journal on the coffee table between them and looked over to see that she was gazing pensively out the window at the oak growing beside the house.

'This potion will be completed much sooner than you or I could have anticipated,' he said, snapping her out of her musings.

Her eyes drifted to his face, and he couldn't help but to feel nervous under her gaze. He was lucky that his feelings did not often reveal themselves in his expression, for surely then she might have discovered his regard for her. She wandlessly Summoned a quill and pot of ink to them and placed them on the coffee table beside the journal.

'Well, for a start, when this is complete, we will have to patent the rights to the potion and the formula,' she said, waving her hand over the journal.

The book opened to the next clean page.

Snape nodded in agreement. 'And we will also need to discuss what is to be done with the royalties made from the sale of this potion. I imagine this will have to be distributed globally,' he added, waving his hand over the ink and quill.

The quill stood to attention and dipped itself into the inkpot, beginning to write as they spoke.

'I think we will have to make the recipe and method exclusive,' Granger said with a smile. 'This recipe in the wrong hands could be dangerous indeed.'

'Of that, I have no doubt,' Snape replied. 'No, we shall not make the potion recipe available to anyone else. The exclusive distribution rights must remain ours...'

'Ours?' Granger's expression was one of surprise.

Snape chuckled dryly. 'Well, of course the potion will be patented in both of our names. We did this together, Miss Granger,' he said seriously. 'Any idea what we will name this potion of ours?'

The smile she gifted him with was enchanting. 'Well, I have a few suggestions, but I think that is perhaps the least important issue at hand. What we do need to decide is what to do with any royalties we receive,' she said, her pragmatic mind kicking in and forcing its way to the forefront of the conversation once more.

Snape stroked his chin thoughtfully. 'I have an idea I would like to put forth as far as that is concerned. I think a significant portion of the money should go towards a charity of sorts I was of a mind to begin,' he said thoughtfully.

'Well, by all means, sir, continue,' she said with a grin.

Snape had to compose himself briefly. All of this time he was spending with her – the smiles she would throw his way – he didn't deserve any of them, and yet, here was this amazing woman, smiling at him of all people. He was a damned fool. Cursing inwardly, he tried to put it out of his mind and focus on their work once more. Realising he had paused for a moment too long, he cleared his throat and looked back up at her.

'I am aware it has been many years since the war. However, this does not mean there are not still young people who were orphaned during the Dark Lord's reign who have no families or money left to them,' he said, turning his eye to where the quill was scribbling furiously on the page. 'I want to begin this charity and fund it with seventy percent of the royalties made from the potion. This money should be sufficient to give many young people an opportunity to afford clothes and books and decent things in their lives while they are completing their magical education.'

'That sounds like just the sort of thing we should be using the money for,' she said, smiling at him. 'It's perfect, really. Only ten per cent of the money will be needed to reimburse us for the expense of the potion, and the other twenty per cent we could split between us for the time we invested into the making of it.'

'I thought you would like that,' Snape said, looking at her fondly.

'Professor?' she asked, looking down at her hands.

'Yes, Miss Granger?'

'Do you think, perhaps, we could call each other by our first names now?' she asked, looking back up at him shyly.

'I didn't think you would be comfortable with calling me by my first name,' he admitted, waving his hand and ceasing the movement of the quill.

'I would be honoured to be granted the privilege of such familiarity with you,' she said, her cheeks heating and turning pink. 'I've never really heard anyone say your name, save for Minerva. I always thought that to be allowed to call you by name would mean I have gained your respect.'

'You have had my respect for longer than I care to admit,' Snape said, feeling a little uncomfortable after her small confession.

They sat in silence for a few moments longer before Granger finally stood from her chair and brushed out imaginary wrinkles in her clothing.

'Well, I must be off for the day,' she said quickly. 'You'll let me know if anything happens with the potion?'

Snape nodded and walked her to the front door.

'Goodbye, Severus,' she said, testing out his name.

'Goodbye, Hermione,' he said as he watched her walk down the front path and onto the street.

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To be continued.