Chapter 18: Scientific Conclusions

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 the lovely DHLane for all of her help beta-ing this chapter.

--

One of our pleasures was to enter our workshop at night; then, all around us we would see the luminous silhouettes of the beakers and capsules that contained our products – Marie Curie.

--

Greenwich, Ipswich: 28th March, 2010

The fire crackling in the fireplace sent a warm, orange glow in the otherwise dark sitting room. Hermione had only returned home from the Institute in London two hours beforehand and had been busy going over the calculations for the werewolf potion once more. She and Severus had begun the early stages of brewing once they had returned from their honeymoon a week before, and she was just going over their final calculations once more to ensure that their ingredients would not have any sort of negative reactions to one another.

Snape was downstairs in the lab as she read, working out a method and the increases and stirring patterns they would have to implement along the way. It would most likely take them a few trials, but they were dedicated to getting it perfected as soon as they were able.

Stirring from her seat, she waved her wand at the lamps on the walls and lit the room properly. She walked down the hallway to the kitchen and switched on the lights before heading over to the fridge and rummaging around to find the fixings for dinner. She found a bag of mushrooms and garlic, some eggs and cream. After digging around in the cupboard for some dried pasta, she put a big pot of water onto the stove to boil, and went out to the back garden and collected some garlic chives from the vegetable garden.

She went back to the kitchen and began chopping all of the ingredients, summoning a frying pan from the cupboard and putting it on the stove to heat up. She placed the pasta into the boiling pot of water and placed a small blob of butter into the other pan to melt. Once it was melted, she tossed in the minced garlic and mushrooms, and added the chives shorty afterwards. With a touch of salt and pepper, she poured some white wine into the pan and let it simmer for a while before adding the cream and a couple of egg yolks.

Using a teaspoon, she tasted the sauce and was pleased with the flavour. She checked the pasta and drained it once it was cooked before putting the pasta into the sauce and tossing it through.

She plated the food and put some shaved Parmesan over the top and placed them on the table with their cutlery and cast a stasis charm over it.

She walked back down the hallway and down into the lab where she found Snape labouring over a bubbling cauldron. She stepped up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, snuggling up against him. He jumped a little as if he had been surprised.

'Dinner is ready,' she said, slipping around to stand beside him.

He turned his head to look down at her and offered her a small smile. 'I'm almost done here,' he said, stirring the potion counterclockwise three times. 'Alright, let's go up.'

Snape put a stasis on the potion before they walked up to the kitchen together. Hermione removed the stasis charm from both of their meals, and they sat down to eat. Snape flipped idly through the Daily Prophet as he picked at his food, and Hermione watched him, feeling a little worried about her husband. He had been very quiet all day, almost to the point of ridiculous, and she had every intention of finding out what was wrong with him.

'So, how is the potion coming along today?' she asked, interrupting him from his reading and thoughts.

He looked up and twisted the pasta around on his fork while he appeared to be thinking of the answer to her question. 'It appears to be going well for the time being. We may have to begin the testing again because I don't think that this batch is going to work out. I think we might have to tweak the quantities again one last time, and hopefully the next lot of tests will go well.'

'I was thinking the same thing myself this afternoon,' she said with a smile. 'I started going over the figures again when I got home from teaching, but I got hungry, and thought I'd wait for you to come up before I continued with it.'

Snape nodded. 'I think it might be best if we leave it until tomorrow to start finalizing the theoretical side of the potion,' he said, rubbing a hand over his eyes wearily. 'I am finished for the day.'

'I'll come down to the lab and help you tidy up after dinner,' she said, twisting some pasta around her fork and taking a mouthful.

Snape nodded with a slight smile and waved a hand over the newspaper so that it found its way into the bin. They finished up their dinner quickly and did the dishes together before heading down to the lab. Snape immediately put the potion on stasis and stored it away on the shelf near the back of the room while Hermione went about the task of scrubbing the knives and stirring rods.

After the lab was cleaned, Hermione led the way up to their bathroom and turned the taps on in the bath to fill the large claw-footed tub. Snape was in the bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed slowly removing his boots when she walked in, and she went over to sit with him, waving her wand at the faucet so that it would switch off when the bath was full enough.

'You seem a little quiet today,' she said softly, reaching up to brush his hair back from his face. 'What is bothering you?'

'This potion is going very... slowly,' he said, looking down at his hands, back slightly hunched and head bowed forward. 'I am feeling a little discouraged by our lack of progress over the past few months. I had hoped that this potion would be much like the brain regeneration potion.'

'I had been rather hopeful about this myself,' she admitted, rubbing his back lightly. 'I know you're feeling demotivated, but we are so much closer than anyone has been before. We are going to figure it out. We just have a few things we need to tweak, and then brewing will be coming along much better.'

'You're rather a lot more optimistic than I am,' he said, looking at her with fondness in his eyes.

'I usually am,' she replied, leaning in to steal a kiss. 'Now, let's go take a bath and go to bed. I'm tired, and if we're going to get started on refining our theoretical work, we're going to need to get plenty of sleep tonight.'

He agreed and led the way, both of them pulling their clothing off before sliding into the hot water. After their bath, they put on pyjamas and clambered into bed, falling asleep to the sound of the grandfather clock in the hallway outside, ticking time away.

--

Diagon Alley, London: 29th March, 2010

Snape walked along the cobblestone street, his pace brisk as he made his way to the apothecary. He was going there to pick up a special order and also buy more of the ingredients they had in stock for their current project. They had finally recalculated the potion and figured out all of the small kinks in their theoretical quantities and methods, and discovered that they had overcalculated how much unicorn blood would be required to make the potion, and therefore, also how much time it would take to brew a complete potion.

From their last calculations, it appeared that the potion would take approximately two weeks to brew in the cauldron both with and without supervision, and it would require to rest in the containers that the potion was transferred into for about a week afterwards to mature. From what they could tell, the potion would only have a shelf life of approximately one month after the one week of maturation to be used before it was rendered useless.

They anticipated this being a problem. The potion required only one dosage and would need to be administered at a very particular time of the month for the werewolves in question. And as the potion in question was already in high demand, both he and Hermione did not think they would ever have much excess potion to dispose of.

He was brought out of his silent musings when he arrived outside the door to the apothecary. He entered, the doorbell ringing loudly as he did so, and saw that the front desk was unattended. He collected a shopping basket from beside the front door and began to walk along the shelves, picking up ingredients they would need and inspecting them thoroughly to ensure he was taking only the freshest ingredients that were there.

When he returned to the front counter, the shopkeeper had returned once more and immediately nodded at Snape. He watched as the man ducked below the counter and started to rummage under it for potions ingredients. He brought up a parcel and placed it on the bench. Assuming that it was his special order of monkshood, Snape put through the rest of his purchases and paid the man, all without actually saying anything, and left the shop.

He carried the paper bag with him back along the street towards the Apparation point, and from there, Apparated to St. Mungo's.

--

St. Mungo's, London: 29th May, 2010

Snape walked straight to the lift and caught it to the floor that the Longbottoms would be on. He had yet to visit his friends since Hermione and he had returned from their honeymoon, and so he felt as though he had to make an appearance at some point. He vaguely recalled a time when making social calls on people was not something that he did regularly. He sometimes missed those uncomplicated days when he was free to be as antisocial as he liked. These days, that kind of reclusive behaviour would reflect badly on Hermione as well, and he could not do that to his new wife.

He knocked briefly on the doorframe before entering the Longbottoms' room and walking immediately to his usual seat between the two of them.

'Good afternoon,' he said, greeting both of them.

'It's good to see you, Severus,' Alice said, reaching over and giving his arm a squeeze. 'How was the honeymoon? And how is that lovely wife of yours?'

Frank took off his glasses and put down his book. 'Yes, tell us all about it,' he said, turning his attention on Snape.

'The honeymoon was more or less what anyone might have expected it to be. It was relaxing and peaceful. We enjoyed spending time together,' he answered, looking down at his hands. 'Hermione led me to believe she enjoyed her time there.'

'Where did you end up going?' Alice asked.

'I took her to Spain. We went to Granada, in the Andalucía province,' he replied. 'It was very pretty there.'

'Oh! What a beautiful idea!' Alice exclaimed excitedly. 'I'll bet Hermione loved it. I hear it is such a beautiful, culturally and historically rich country. I hope one day Frank and I will be able to go there.'

'Maybe when you are both finally released from here, the two of you could stay in our holiday home over there? Hermione and I would be glad to let you stay there for as long as you would like,' Snape offered.

'Your holiday home?' Frank asked. 'I didn't know you owned property over there. When did you come by it?'

'Albus gave it to me shortly before the first fall of the Dark Lord,' he replied. 'He thought it would be a nice retreat for me when I found myself under a great deal of pressure. It was ideal for many years. It gave me the opportunity to leave London whenever I felt like it.'

'A very generous gift, indeed,' Frank said with a nod. 'We would love to visit your home some time, when we are finally allowed out of here. Unfortunately, our physiotherapy, even with magical stimulation, is still a slow process after so many years dormant.'

'Hermione mentioned a project that the two of you were working on the last time she visited before the wedding,' Alice said, changing the subject quickly. It was obvious she was still uncomfortable talking about the number of years they had been inactive. 'How is your progress going with that?'

Snape frowned immediately at the mention of their slow-going project. 'It is, as you can imagine, very slow going. We had hoped that things would have progressed a lot further than this; however, we are still persisting. I might as well tell you now, as I am certain Hermione would not mind you knowing, we are working on a cure for Lycanthropy.'

Alice looked surprised. 'I wasn't aware that it was something so serious and important as that,' she said, looking apologetic. 'I would have asked sooner if I'd known.'

Snape waved her off. 'The two of you have plenty enough to worry about without having to concern yourselves with our potions,' he replied.

'This is a very serious endeavour the two of you are undertaking,' Frank said, looking at Snape seriously. 'Which reminds me, have you had many other success stories from the potion you used to heal Alice and me?'

Snape smirked at that. 'Actually, there have been quite a few reported cases of recovery from Berlin and from the US. We are still brewing more of the potion to make deliveries to the next lot of affected populations. In fact, along with working on our Lycanthropy project, Hermione is going to be starting a brew this afternoon to send off to Hong Kong.'

'That's very exciting!' Alice exclaimed with a bright smile. 'And it's simply amazing that there are two Potions experts in one family. You both work together so well, and we're very happy for you.'

'I thank you, Alice,' Snape said inclining his head courteously.

The three of them sat there chatting idly for a few more minutes until Neville arrived, and Snape noticed that it was getting quite late in the afternoon. He excused himself politely and went down to the lobby before Apparating back to Diagon Alley. There was something he wanted to get for his wife.

--

Greenwich, Ipswich: 29th March, 2010

The steam coming off the potion she was working on was causing the small curly hairs at the back of Hermione's neck to frizz horribly. The rest of her hair was pulled back and piled atop her head in a loose bun, thankfully undisturbed by the heat in the lab. She had been working on the brain regeneration potion from the moment Snape had left to collect some of their pre-ordered potions ingredients from the Apothecary a few hours before.

She had begun to wonder what had happened to him after the first two hours, but soon gave up and had to focus her attention on her base. After giving her brew a few sharp stirs anti-clockwise, she went to the sink to thoroughly clean the stirring rod before returning to sit on one of the stools so she could supervise her potion as it simmered.

Though they had come to a bit of a standstill as far as the attempts at recreating their theory work on the Lycanthropy cure in potion form went, Hermione felt they were not necessarily behind on their progress. No one else in the Potions world had even attempted, much less succeeded, in coming up with an original potion that would theoretically cure the mutated Lycanthropic gene. They were already as close as anyone had ever gotten, and that was an achievement in itself.

But she knew as well as anyone else that Severus Snape would not settle for anything less than perfect and completed.

Come to think of it, neither would she. They had finally come to something of a consensus that morning on the changes they would need to make to the procedure in order to recreate a more completed potion, and when Snape finally got home, they were going to begin brewing again. And if that attempt failed, they would simply go back to their notes and try yet again until they finally got it right.

Hermione was brought out of her musings by the crack of Apparation just upstairs in the front hall. She smiled and jumped off her stool, taking the stairs two at a time so that she could greet her husband and unburden him of the potion ingredients he went out to purchase.

She was greeted by the sight of her husband looking slightly irate, with one arm fully occupied with holding onto the large brown paper bag that contained their potions ingredients, and much to her surprise, a pet carrier in his other hand. She took the paper bag from him and placed it on the floor in the hallway, and crossed her arms over her chest and looked at him curiously.

He bent down and put the cage on the floor before kneeling beside it and unlatching he cage door. 'I know you lost your half-Kneazle shortly after you lost your parents,' he said, looking up at her with apology in his eyes. 'I don't want to remind you of things you'd rather not think about, but I thought that this little one could be a new companion for you.'

And, as if knowing it was being talked about, a tiny Kneazle kitten all fluffy and black crept out of the carrier and hesitantly slunk out of hiding. He had white socks on his front paws, and one of his ears perked up while the other remained flattened out, and had large inquisitive green eyes. Hermione smiled brightly at Snape and kneeled down, putting a hand out towards the kitten to let it smell her. It slowly walked towards her and sniffed at her fingers, and deciding that it liked her smell, immediately jumped at Hermione. She hastily caught and hugged the kitten to her chest.

'I think he likes you,' Snape said with a small smile. 'What will you name him?'

Hermione paused to think for a moment, and smiled when she thought of the perfect name for her new pet. 'He looks like a Markl to me,' she said, leaning towards her husband and giving him a kiss.

--

To be continued.