Eye of Newt

Disclaimer: All characters you recognize are based on J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter Book Series. I have written this as a parallel to the last four books of the series. Because of the parallel there are times when I recreate J. K. Rowling's dialog word for word, in order to conform to her canon. This story was written strictly for fun; no profit has been made in the writing or sharing of this story.

I'd like to extend my deepest thanks to JenGeorge for her diligent proof reading and suggestions. She really helped to improve my story.

Chapter 2

"Eye of Newt, Claw of Raven,

Passion Flower Pistol and Stamen"

After the first Potions Class in January, Miss Kaolin lingered, gathering up her books, as the rest of the students cleared out of the room. As Severus sat behind his desk busying himself with paperwork, he didn't even notice her standing there. She approached the desk, leaving her books in a stack on her worktable, but he continued to ignore her. "So, did you have a good Christmas?" she asked hopefully.

"What are you still doing here?" he looked up, obviously annoyed.

"Don't you remember what we discussed right before the break? I'm to be your assistant Tuesdays and Thursdays after class for an hour."

"Oh," he replied very unenthusiastically, "right." He had decided over the break that he really didn't want an assistant, no matter what Dumbledore said, especially not a home-schooled teenage girl. So he leaned back in his chair and looked around, trying to decide what truly nasty task he could give her so she would never want to come back. Then it came to him, a perfectly disgusting task. He got up and strolled over to the storage room, feeling rather pleased with himself. He aimed his wand up on a high shelf and down floated a five-gallon lidded bucket that came to rest on a nearby table. Then he turned to Miss Kaolin with a gloating smile. "This is full of newts – whole newts. I will need them each to be dissected and their various parts sorted into jars. You will find all the clean, empty jars you will need on the second shelf to the right in here," he said as his arm swept towards the storage closet. Then he turned to the chalk board and waved his wand. "There you will find the name of each part that needs to be sorted and kept. All the leftovers are to be put back in the bucket and taken to Hagrid. He always has something he can feed my leftovers to."

Miss Kaolin gingerly opened the lid to the bucket. An odor reminiscent of a three-day-old carcass in the summer sun wafted up, and she took a step back, waving her hand in front of her face. Severus' lip curled. "Too much for you?"

She turned her face towards him with a determined look. "No," she said defiantly, "but I've never dissected a newt before. Is there a book I can reference to see where all the parts are located and what they look like?"

Severus glanced towards his book case and flicked his wand. An old book escaped the confines of the tightly packed shelf and floated into his hands. He turned to a page with a diagram of a dissected newt, properly labeled, and laid the book down on her work table.

"Will I need any special tools?"

Severus was a bit disappointed in her determination to complete the task. He didn't hesitate to let it show on his face. "In this drawer you should find everything you need. Just be sure to return them clean and in good working order."

"Yes, sir." She looked hard at the chalk board and took a mental inventory of what she would need. Then she walked to the storage closet to retrieve the empty jars. She set them all out on the work table in a nice neat row, then turned to the drawer with the tools.

Severus watched from his desk chair until he was satisfied that she was at least going to give it a sincere try. Then he went back to his paperwork. The minutes ticked slowly by as Miss Kaolin worked silently. Still, it was a bit disconcerting to feel her presence in the room. She couldn't possibly want to continue after this. He felt sure he would be rid of her soon.

The hour came to an end, and Severus rose from his chair to check on her progress. He was nothing short of amazed to see that she only had two newts left to do from that entire bucket. The neat row of jars was full of tiny body parts, but still a scowl spread across his face. "I'm disappointed," he lied. "You've had an entire hour, yet still you haven't been able to accomplish your task." He clucked his tongue. "I guess I'll have to finish it for you and take the leftovers to Hagrid myself." He tried to muster as much disappointment into that last sentence as possible. He hoped she would get the impression that nothing she did would ever be good enough, that she could never please him. Then surely he would be rid of her.

"Please, sir, could I stay and finish?" Her eyes were wide with sincerity. "I only have two left and it'll just take a couple of minutes. Then I can take the leftovers to Hagrid, and you'll have some time to yourself before dinner."

Yes, Severus thought silently, a little time alone before being subjected to all of those other people would be refreshing. He knew Hagrid was a talker. It would be hard to pull away from him until it was time to go eat. He considered her offer thoughtfully for a moment. "Oh, alright, but hurry up about it." He felt irritated as he realized that she was not going to be so easy to get rid of.

A few minutes later she had placed all the little jars in their proper spots on the shelves, cleaned her tools and returned them to their drawer, and cleaned up her work space. She gathered up her books in one hand and the bucket handle in the other. "See you at dinner, then?"

"What?" Severus looked up as if he had not been paying attention, although he had observed her every move out of the corner of his eye. "Oh, yes, dinner." He nodded his head in acknowledgement. She turned and left the room. He heaved a big sigh of relief. She had actually done a great job for him, but he still wasn't sure he could get used to having her around. There was something very unsettling about her. He couldn't quite put his finger on it

*****

Severus suffered through the first month with Miss Kaolin as his assistant. He gave her toads, poisonous dart frogs, electric eels... He sent her to the greenhouses for the rare dragon dung beetles that turned Professor Sprout's dragon dung into better fertilizer. He sent her into the forbidden forest with Hagrid to harvest the roots, bark and flowers from various trees and plants, most of them carnivorous or poisonous.

Much to his dismay, she found every task fascinating. She would return from the greenhouses stinking to high heaven and grinning from ear to ear with enthusiasm over the number of beetles she managed to fish out of the dung heap. And no matter how nasty or how difficult the chore, she always did an exemplary job. These were the types of things he gave most students for detention. For her, they were fun! Her enthusiasm was so great at times, he almost felt sick. There must be some way to get rid of her...

He finally decided to change his strategy. Perhaps he could bore her into leaving... Something that she would feel was beneath her... Cleaning – that was the answer! He knew he had plenty of house-elves at his disposal, but he was becoming desperate. Her positive attitude and enthusiasm simply rubbed him the wrong way. He was comfortable in his lonely misery and felt her nearness made him increasingly uneasy. True, he had a lot more spare time now, thanks to all her hard work and dedication. He had just about caught up on reading his healing journals. But she was simply too happy, and he found it almost more than he could tolerate. He knew Dumbledore would never allow him to simply fire her. No, it had to be her idea. She had to want to leave. So he gave her cleaning jobs – the tools, the shelves and all their contents, dusting his book case, rearranging his books from alphabetical according to author to alphabetical according to subject... Surely she would soon tire of this. But he was wrong.

By the first week of February, he realized that he had run out of things for her to clean in the classroom as she approached his desk after class as usual. Severus looked into her pale gray eyes. She was one of the few people he couldn't always read. Her expression was calm, almost serene. There must be an ulterior motive, but what was it?

"What's up for today, Professor?"

"Not much left in here to do. I guess it's time I let you have a go at cleaning my office." Severus searched her face hopefully for a groan or rolling eyes, but saw no change in her expression. He pursed his lips and stood up, gathering an armload of essays. "I'll grade these while you clean."

He led the way out the door and down the hall. When they got to his office, he gave her a list of mundane cleaning chores. "This should keep you busy for a few days." He continued to search her face for signs of exasperation, but was sorely disappointed.

*****

The Thursday before the second Triwizard Tournament task they found themselves back in Severus' very clean office. He had, once again, run out of ideas to get rid of her, but he was finally starting to think that maybe he could get used to her after all. He wasn't sure why he had finally changed his mind. Perhaps she wasn't quite as perky when she cleaned as she was when she did the more interesting chores. But she had calmed down considerably, which made her presence much easier to bear. So it was with a bit of trepidation that he told her, "It's back to dissecting, I'm afraid." He hoped against hope that she would keep her calmer attitude. He had, after all, begun to depend on her help, and at this point it would be difficult to go back to the way things were before she became his assistant.

He pushed a few things around on the shelves in his private store closet. "Here." He handed her a gallon jar. It contained a mass of tentacles from a Devil's Snare plant, but they were suspended in a stupificus solution so they wouldn't crawl out and attack the instant the jar was opened. "I need these to be cut into more manageable sized pieces," Severus explained. "I shouldn't need more than ten cm for any potion. Here's a ruler," he reached into the top middle drawer of his desk and handed her a precision metal ruler. "If you have any trouble..." Severus searched his mind for just the right barb... "Don't come crying to me."

"Don't worry, Professor. I think I can handle it." And with a smile, she pulled out her silver potions knife. Before she opened the jar she began to hum a tune softly. Severus could barely hear it. His first thought was to request that she work in silence as usual, but the song had a very calming effect on him. He noticed, as she reached in and pulled out the first meter long Devil's Snare tentacle, that it had the same effect on the plant. Very impressive.

Just then, a knock came at the door. "Come in," said Severus, looking at the door with irritation.

"A message for you, sir," said a nervous third year, handing Severus the note. Miss Kaolin barely glanced in their direction and then continued with her dissecting.

"You may go, Creevey." Severus quickly read the note and stood abruptly. "My presence is requested in the office of the Headmaster." He thought for a moment. Someone had broken into his office during the previous night, but he had no way to prove how or who did it. He felt almost certain that it must have been Potter. After all, Filch had found Potter's Golden Egg from the first task on the staircase, and Moody had Accioed that old piece of parchment he found on the stairs close by, right out of his hand. It had to be Potter.

Could he trust this Gryffindor student in his office alone? His eyes narrowed. "This shouldn't take long. If anyone knocks, don't answer. I'll put a locking charm on the door. No one except me will be able to open it from the outside. You will be able to leave if you finish with the Devil's Snare before I return. Just close the door behind you and the locking charm will reset itself." She nodded in acknowledgement.

Severus turned on his heels and left the room, his cloak swirling around him.

When he returned over an hour later, Miss Kaolin was gone and the Devil's Snare was neatly cut into small pieces in its jar and back on the shelf in the closet. The place looked as if she had never been there. Good job as usual, he thought.

*****

The second task of the Triwizard Tournament came and went. Harry Potter managed an admirable performance in the Black Lake with the use of gillyweed, not a common plant. Where could Potter have acquired it? Severus asked himself suspiciously. Perhaps it was time for another search of his office stores. Severus marched down into the dungeon, went straight to his office and opened his store closet. Sure enough, some of his gillyweed was missing. But when could Potter have snuck into his office? Then a gut wrenching idea came to him. Kaolin, a fellow Gryffindor, had the perfect opportunity to help him because she was there alone on Thursday afternoon. If Potter had knocked, she could have let him in to help himself, and then let him back out again before she left. The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. And he was also disappointed, not so much in her, but in himself for trusting her in the first place. What a fool he had been.

He sat down to his desk, pulled out a quill and a piece of parchment, and scrawled out a note in his uptight small handwriting. He folded the note into nice neat quarters, then went out to the hall to search for a Gryffindor student to deliver the message. It was Saturday afternoon, and the school in general was celebrating the conclusion of the second task and the fact that Potter and Cedric Diggory were tied for first place. Kaolin would probably be in the Gryffindor common room with the others. Good, this will ruin her weekend. Serves her right. Did she think he wouldn't put two and two together? Did she think he was stupid?

Severus waited in his office with the door open. By the time Kaolin appeared, he was fuming with resentment. As she stepped over the threshold, he flicked his wand at the door and it slammed shut, almost hitting her in the process. She jumped in alarm and glared at him.

"What was that for?" she demanded, scowling.

Severus ignored her question. "Are you aware that Potter used gillyweed to succeed in the second task?"

"Yes." Kaolin continued to glare at him.

"I happen to know that the gillyweed he used was stolen from that store closet" Severus pointed savagely towards the closet door.

"No!" Her anger dissipated and her eyes grew wide with concern.

Severus stared straight into her pale blue eyes. Legilimens, he said silently, trying to search her memories, but nothing useful was forthcoming. In fact, nothing at all was forthcoming. Was Dumbledore teaching her Occlumency? He would have to ask him later.

"The locking spell I used could only be broken with advanced magic, way beyond Potter's fourth-year abilities, I'm afraid, which leads me to only one possible conclusion."

Understanding began to dawn on Kaolin's face as she opened her mouth, no doubt to defend herself. But Severus cut her off. "He had help. And the only person who was in any position to help him late last week was you." His eyes narrowed as they bore into her, filled with resentment.

"But, Professor, I swear--"

"You let him in when I was called away." Severus' voice lowered almost to a whisper. He was trying to control his anger, as his nostrils flared. Daggers shot from his eyes to hers while he paused for a moment. "I trusted you," he said, almost painfully. It hurt. This was personal.

Kaolin pulled herself up as straight and tall as her petite frame would allow. Her eyes bore into him as hard as his were boring into her. "And I would never betray your trust."

She seemed to have nothing to hide. This made Severus a little less sure of himself. But there was no other explanation, so he stubbornly stuck to his theory. Her lower lip started to quiver. Was that water welling up in her eyes? Oh well, it wasn't the first time he had driven a student to tears. So what--she deserved it.

"You're wrong about me. I just hope that when you realize it, you won't let your pride stand in the way of asking me back." She swallowed hard and blinked. Sure enough, one lone tear found a meandering path down the side of her face.

"Get out," Severus said, through gritted teeth. He looked down at the top of his desk and started to shuffle papers. He didn't look up as he heard the door slam.

*****

March came and went. Kaolin appeared in his afternoon class, worked silently and continued to hand in perfect potions. But try as he would to catch her eye, she never seemed to look at him. She would gather her books and leave with the rest of the class, never the last one out.

The beginning of April came. Severus had miles of parchment to grade, but he had just gotten a fresh batch of ravens' feet in and had to remove the claws. It was a tedious task, and one that he definitely wasn't looking forward to, but if not done when the feet were fresh, neither the claws nor the feet were nearly as potent. He also needed to take some leftovers to Hagrid, but he knew that would probably mean writing off the rest of the afternoon. He also needed to get more herbal ingredients from the greenhouses. He was beginning to run low on several essentials... And the dust in this place was starting to build up again. He could ask the house-elves for help, but they just didn't do as good a job.

What he really needed was Miss Kaolin.

As he lay in bed late one night, Severus heaved a heavy sigh. Someone had broken into his private stores again just the night before, because he noticed more Polyjuice Potion ingredients missing. He couldn't blame it on Miss Kaolin this time. Perhaps the person who had done this had also helped Potter get the gillyweed. Perhaps he was wrong about her after all.

He began to drift off to sleep when he heard a familiar voice.

"I like Sienna, Severus."

"Do you?"

"She reminds me of myself."

"Yes, she does, doesn't she?" Severus became thoughtful.

"She's smart," commented Lily. "And I know why the hat finally chose to put her in Gryffindor."

"Oh? Pray enlighten me, because the way I see it, she should have been placed in Ravenclaw. Although," he added, somewhat amused at himself, "she would look more attractive in Slytherin colors!"

Lily ignored his comment. "She's brave."

"How do you figure that?"

"She feels no fear. From day one, she wasn't even afraid of you!"

Severus chuckled. "Well, usually I get to strike fear into their little hearts at the tender age of eleven. It's far more difficult to intimidate a seventeen year old."

"True, but it's not just you. She fears nothing, not even death."

"How do you know?"

"I see her from a spiritual point of view. I can see into her soul. If you would open your heart to her, you could see into it, too." Lily gazed into the infinite depths of his coal black eyes. "She's earned your trust, Sev. Don't you think it's time you gave it to her?"

He eyed her suspiciously. "What are you playing at?" Severus knew Lily always had his best interests at heart. But this was the first time she had ever encouraged him to get to know another person, to let someone in. She usually left those decisions up to him.

Lily just smiled at him with her sparkling emerald green eyes.

"I'm not sure I'm ready for that," he admitted when she didn't answer him. He turned away, looking down at his shoes.

Lily walked up behind him and placed a kindly hand on his shoulder. "You better get ready then, Sev. You'll need her strength, her friendship, and sooner than you think."

Severus reached up to touch her hand, but Lily had vanished. His movement pulled him up out of his light sleep. He rolled over and stared up at the ceiling and wondered if Miss Kaolin... Sienna missed their time together. Would she even want to come back after the way he had behaved? Probably not. Maybe that was her plan, to get him to come crawling back, then refuse to help him. That would be too humiliating. There had to be a way to get her back, but still save face in the process. Perhaps he could make it an order instead of a request. Yes, that was it. He would simply inform her that she needed to stay after class one day to help him with something. He would not give her any choice in the matter. That way she couldn't say no, and he wouldn't have to apologize either. It would have to be an interesting task this time, though, something that would make her want to come back for more. She could assist him in brewing a complex potion. They could put their heads together on how to tweak it for subtle improvements. Yes, that would pique her interest... That would bring her back.

*****

At the end of the following class, Severus walked up to Sienna and stood silently, but she didn't look up. "I require your assistance for a while after class today, if you don't mind," he said, trying to sound authoritative.

"Why don't you ask one of your trustworthy Slytherins?" she replied sarcastically, still not bothering to look him in the eye.

"Because it requires your... unique talents," he admitted softly, trying not to sound too anxious, just in case she refused to cooperate.

Finally, her eyes met his. They were sparkling again, like moonlight on water. She seemed to know that this was as close to an apology as he would ever give her. "Are you sure?" she asked, her expression full of hope.

"Yes," he said softly, nodding.

They stood staring at each other. He wondered what she was thinking, if she would hold a grudge or treat him differently now, but he needn't have worried. When the last student walked out the door, Sienna flung her arms around Severus' chest. This time he was relieved instead of offended, and he lightly patted her back.

"I always knew you'd see the light eventually." She beamed at him as she pulled away.

*****

For the rest of the term Sienna continued as Severus' assistant. Most of the time he still had her cleaning, sorting and dissecting, but every now and then they would work on something very interesting together. Severus would never let her know, but he was becoming more and more impressed with her instinctive way of preparing ingredients and stirring the smoldering liquids to make improvements. He began toying with the idea of re-writing the textbook. Perhaps next year, if he was still stuck in this job, she could help him with that project... something to think about over the summer.