Charlie Weasley and the Vampire-Vanquishing Solution

Charlie Weasley and the Vampire-Vanquishing Solution

Potions had never been Charlie Weasley's strong suit.

He had intended to drop the subject after his fifth year, but then, just a week before O.W.L.s, Professor Snape had announced that he planned to begin his N.E.W.T.-level class with a special study of potions used to subdue dangerous creatures. Charlie, whose lifelong dream was working with dragons, knew he didn't want to miss this. With a week of intensive tutoring from his lab partner - who was a genius at Potions, at least at the theoretical aspects - and a few incredible strokes of luck on the exam itself, he'd just managed to scrape into the sixth-year class.

He was already regretting it. The first day, he'd blown up a whole cauldron of Nundu Tranquilizer. ("Congratulations, Mr. Weasley, if there had been a real Nundu in this classroom we would all have perished in agony," said Snape.) Then he had put them to work on some fiendishly complicated stuff called Wolfsbane. ("Honestly," said Charlie's lab partner, "when are any of us going to have anything to do with werewolves? I think he just does this to be sadistic.") But at least she had managed to produce a decent cauldronful of the stuff; Charlie was still struggling to master it by the time the rest of the class moved on to the Vampire-Vanquishing Solution.

"As yesterday was a Quidditch practice, and your priorities appear to be sadly misplaced," said the Potions Master, "I don't suppose you actually bothered to read up on the properties of the Vampire-Vanquishing Solution, Mr. Weasley?"

Charlie looked down a the floor in a brief moment of panic. To his relief, his lab partner had already opened the book to the relevant page under the table.

"Yes, sir. The active ingredients in a Vampire-Vanquishing Solution are garlic, scarab wings, and sawdust from an ordinary wooden stake. The Solution is harmless to ordinary human beings, but if drunk by a vampire, it will cause the vampire to silently crumble into a smoldering pile of ashes. The difficulty, first of all, lies in actually brewing the potion, as it is a peculiarly complicated and delicate process, and secondly, in inducing the vampire to drink it. In order to render it more appealing to its intended victim, the Solution is colored with beetroot juice to resemble blood and thickened with powdered Acromantula web. However, since most vampires are somewhat paranoid and disinclined to drink from random goblets of blood they find lying around, it is also necessary to add the basic ingredients of a Brain-Befuddling Draught..."

"Well, perhaps Mr. Weasley has not yet sustained as much brain damage from being hit by Bludgers as I thought," Snape said grudgingly. "If the rest of you were not too thickheaded to follow his explanation, we shall commence brewing the potion."

Charlie extracted the juice from thirteen garlic cloves while his partner grated beets.

"Oh, damn!" she said after a moment.

"What's the matter?" Charlie asked.

"Well, it's hard to tell because everything's red, but I think I just shredded my thumb instead of a beet. I'm going to have to go to the hospital wing again."

Charlie groaned. He was going to have to finish the potion by himself again, and he was lost without his partner's directions. He wondered, not for the first time, how somebody who was otherwise so intelligent could manage to injure herself nearly every class period.

He began reducing the Acromantula webs to powder, but it was slow work with only one person. He had just begun to add the ingredients to the cauldron when the first pair of Slytherins approached Professor Snape's desk with their completed potion.

"Ah, good work, Miss Nott and Mr. Worthing. A magnificent color. Pity we haven't got an actual vampire to test it on, but by all appearances, this should be worth ten House points to -"

He was interrupted by a soft knock on the door.

"Come in," called Snape, and a tall, thin, black-cloaked figure glided into the room. Its face was dead white, except for a blood-red mouth with a pair of protruding fangs.

The students sitting nearest the door retreated to the back of the classroom, knocking over chairs in their haste to get away. One girl screamed.

The vampire had lanky black hair, black eyes, and a long hooked nose. As terrified as he was, Charlie couldn't help noticing it bore an extraordinary resemblance to the Potions Master himself. It was not until the figure spoke that he realized it was a female.

"Ah, Severus, my vayvard cousin, vee meet again," murmured the vampire.

Snape's cousin?!? There was dead silence in the classroom for a long moment, and then Charlie screwed up the vaunted Gryffindor courage. "Excuse me, madam ... who are you?"

"I am zee Comtessa Altissima Sinistrissima Serpentina Snapé," (she pronounced it snah-PAY) "but if zat is too much of a mouthful for you backvard Eengleesh dunderheads, you may call me Al."

Al? Charlie bit his lip and suppressed a sudden urge to laugh.

The vampire turned to Snape, who was staring at her as if he'd seen a ghost. "Still teaching zee pea-brained children of peasants, I see, still too covardly to return to your own country and carry on zee ancient tradition of our family. Like yourfather before you, you haff made your home in Eengland rather than submit yourself to be bitten. Zee ozzers haff erased your name from zee family Bible and forgotten, but I do not forget. As deesgraceful as your behavior has been, you still belong to the noble house of Snapé, and I haff come to make you into a vampire, as is your birthright."

"I think not," said Snape, his voice as quiet as her own. "It so happens that this classroom contains more than a dozen cauldrons full of Vampire-Vanquishing Solution. If you do not depart at once, my students have the power to make your stay very ... unpleasant for you."

"Let your students do their vorst," said the vampire. "I do not believe any of zem has zee ability to brew zis potion correctly. Shall I make a trial of your teaching skills?" She reached for Worthing and Nott's potion and downed itin a single gulp.

"Ah. Zees is not bad-tasting, but a shot or two of vodka vould eemprove it. And as you can see, I remain unharmed. As I haff alvays suspected, you do not seem to be much of a teacher, Severus. Feefteen points from ... from votever House zee incompetents who brewed zees Bloody Mary mix belong to."

The family resemblance was unmistakable. Involuntarily, Charlie snorted.

"Well, my fair cousin," said Snape, "this has been a most entertaining diversion, but it has gone far enough. Nobody takes away House points in my classroom except me."

"Oh?" said the vampire, raising an eyebrow, "And vot are you going to do about it? Kill me and put me in a coffin?"

Without a word, Snape reached under his robes and pulled out a crucifix on a silver chain.

The vampire's eyes widened in horror. Slowly, she backed away from the crucifix. She walked straight into one of the chairs whose former occupants were huddled at the far end of the classroom, fell over backward, and sprawled upside down, her long black cloak falling over her head.

Professor Snape's thin lips were set in a twisted smile. "I thought as much. Miss Tonks, your childish penchant for amateur theatricals has just cost Gryffindor three hundred points. In addition, you will serve detention every night for the rest of this month."

* * *

"Well," said Charlie's lab partner with a grin when she returned to the common room after her first night's detention, "who knew Snape would turn out to be a nice Catholic boy, deep down? You learn something new every day."

"That's not all we've learned, I think," said Charlie, leaning forward and speaking almost in a whisper. "Did you catch the look on his face when you first came in? I think he actually believed you were his cousin. Which means..."

"He really does come from that sort of family," said Tonks, comprehension slowly dawning on her face.

"And that means we've got some juicy blackmail material on him." Charlie smirked. "Tell me what he's got you doing for detention, and me and the boys on the Quidditch team will find some way to help. That was incredible. We'll have the three hundred points back in less than a week." He savored the memory of the scene in the classroom. "Did you see his face when you told him he wasn't much of a teacher?"

"And when I took points from Slytherin! I thought he was going to have a heart attack."

"You're an amazing actress ... Al," said Charlie. "Really. Anybody would have thought you came from a family of Dark wizards yourself."

"Mmm," said Tonks softly. She turned her face away and watched the flickering fire for a moment. "Charlie? I don't think we blackmail Snape. I lost those three hundred points fair and square."

Charlie shrugged. "Suit yourself. But the Gryffindors who weren't in that class aren't going to take this well."

"Oh well," she said, grinning once again. "It was worth three hundred points. You know it and I know it, and that's what matters."

But she had gone oddly quiet, and when he went to bed half an hour later, she was still staring into the embers of the dying fire with a strange, distant look in her dark eyes.