Mist and Vapors

The middle of December arrived, and most of the students left for the Christmas holidays. Though Severus could have done without the relentless cheerfulness imposed on him by the remaining staff, he relished the quiet interlude the winter break provided. Much of the time he retreated to one of the lower dungeons, which served as his private laboratory - virtually unused during the rest of the school year, when the demands that teaching and house duties made on his time filled up his schedule almost completely. He could easily spend hours in here, in the almost hypnotic combination of gently simmering bubbles, spiraling fumes, and the rhythmic movement of the knife on the cutting board.

A couple of days before Christmas, there was a knock on the door. "Come," he called out while lowering the wards with a quick wave of his wand, only taking his eyes off the cauldron for a microsecond.

"Are you busy?" He recognized Hannah's voice.

"It does appear that way, does it not?" he said shortly.

"Can I watch?"

"If you can keep your mouth closed, and stay out of the way."

She moved close enough to see, but kept a respectful distance from his working area.

Taking a pinch of green powder between thumb and forefinger, he eyed it carefully, and then sprinkled it evenly across the surface. For a second, the powder floated on top, suspended as on an invisible skin, before sinking into the depth of the cauldron. Small bubbles started to rise. Carefully, he stirred three times in a clockwise direction and then laid the long-handled pewter spoon aside. Grasping an unstoppered, bottle-green phial with the other hand, he motionlessly leaned over the cauldron and waited, observing the reaction. The liquid inside slowly changed color - swirls of violet starting to snake through the midnight blue potion, sinuously expanding towards the rim. When the color distribution seemed about even, he added three clear drops from the phial with a practiced flick of the wrist. As soon as the first drop fell, there was a quick flash of light, and a silvery mist started to rise in delicate tendrils. He lightly blew across the surface of the liquid, and the mist dissipated.

He waited for a moment, and then straightened up. "There," he said. He extinguished the fire, and put a lid on the cauldron. "Now it just has to cool."

He looked up to see Hannah staring at him.

"What?"

"That was absolutely beautiful." Her eyes were wide. "Small wonder you like Potions. Thank you for letting me watch."

He snorted softly. "You are too easily impressed." He cleared off the work surface, returning the ingredients to where they had been stored.

"How did you know? When exactly to add the... whatever that is?" She pointed to the phial.

"Essence of Tunicate. And it's just experience." No, he thought, it is really something more than that, something all the best Potion brewers possess. Something like intuition - the innate knowledge when something looks right, smells right, feels right. Much of it was experience, but some of it could not be learned. Nor did he know how to explain it.

"So what are you working on?" she asked, walking over to a shelf and looking at the dozen or so cut-crystal phials filled with potion in varying shades of violet.

"I am trying to improve the properties of the dragon pox cure. The present potion has not been changed since the Middle Ages and has some unfortunate side effect, including double vision and nausea. I'm hypothesizing that using bee venom instead of wasp stings might increase the efficacy while concurrently reducing or even eliminating the occurrence of unwanted consequences induced by the ingestion of the potion."

Hannah looked suitably impressed.

'In small words, I'm trying to make it work better," he continued, one corner of his mouth curling up.

Her eyes narrowed before she broke into a grin. "Severus, you do know you can be a prat sometimes."

"So I have been told on more than one occasion," he said with a smirk. "Now, why exactly are you here?"

She shrugged. "I was just wondering if you would like to come up for tea. There are some fresh scones, too, if you're interested. But I didn't know you were working."

He shrugged with an air of indifference. "The potion has to cool for two hours before it can be bottled."

"I would love the company..."

"I suppose I could spare an hour."

.-.-.-.

When they arrived in her quarters just a few minutes later, the air was scented with the fragrance of pastries fresh out of the oven. A tablecloth embroidered with poinsettias covered the table in front of the blazing fireplace. Small golden stars and delicate paper snowflakes hung from dark-green pine branches stuck into a white vase. A round-bellied tea pot and a plate heaped with apricot scones completed the table setting.

Severus looked at the scene with a scowl - not another Christmas-cheer-spreader. There was no shortage of those in the castle already.

"Have a seat." She walked over to a corner cabinet and took out cups, plates, and saucers.

"Just help yourself...oh, just a second." She removed a couple of small, covered glass bowls from the refrigerator. "I almost forgot. Lemon curd and Devonshire cream." She sat down on the sofa next to him and curled her legs up beneath her. "So that potion of yours - is it working? Did you have a chance to test it yet?"

He took a sip of tea. "Not yet. I will start testing within the next three days."

"What are you using to test it?" The look on her face made him think she wasn't really sure she wanted to hear the answer.

"Crups. - They should not sustain any serious damage," he added, when he noticed her expression.

"But they are so cute," she muttered. "We had one as a pet when I was little."

"They will be exposed to the infectious agent, and then dosed with the cure. If all goes well, they will be just fine." He could see 'but what if things don't go well' written on her face so clearly she didn't have to even say anything. "If it doesn't work, they will be ill for a few days and then recover completely. The disease isn't fatal to crups," he added with an exasperated sigh. Bleeding-heart females...

"I'm glad to hear that. How will you be able to tell if it is working?"

"If it works, they will not get the dragon pox." He was enunciating slowly and clearly, as if addressing a particularly thick child.

Hannah drew her eyebrows together. "Don't talk to me like that, please. That much, I can figure out myself. I was talking about the side effects you are trying to diminish - the nausea and double vision. The creatures can't talk, after all."

"The current cure makes the creatures ataxic due to the disorientation caused by the double vision. It is an easily observed phenomenon. As far as the nausea, again, it isn't hard to tell when the creature starts vomiting up its supper."

"Care for another scone?" she asked dryly, passing him the plate. He took one with a smirk.

"So if all goes well, how soon will you be ready to test on human subjects?"

"Hopefully by next summer."

She leaned back into the corner of the sofa. "You love this, don't you? The research?"

"I find it stimulating, yes."

"Is that your dream? What you really hope to do one day?"

"I don't know what you are talking about." His face took on a closed-off expression.

"You must have some dreams, some idea as to where you would like to be ten years, twenty years from now. "

He shrugged. "I haven't really given much thought to that. I suppose I'll still be here. Teaching."

For a moment, she was silent. "Don't take this the wrong way, Severus - but it doesn't seem like teaching is something you particularly enjoy."

"At least at the NEWTs level, there are some rewards."

"But is that what you want to do for the rest of your life? Don't you have any dreams? Things you wish would happen?"

There was a hard look on his face when he answered. "Wishes and dreams are nonsense - fine and good for little children, but I would think any adult should know better."

Her eyes filled with tears. "I'm so sorry, Severus."

"For what?"

She just shook her head and looked away, blinking rapidly.

Nostrils pinched, he looked out the window. Heavens, she could be vexing. Most of the time, she was easy to read - but sometimes, he didn't have the slightest idea what she was going on about.... He cleared his throat. "Do you have any...plans?"

"I don't know if I want to tell you now," she said, turning to look at him. A smile lurked around the corners of her mouth, even though her eyes were still too bright. "You'll probably laugh at me. Or tell me I should know better."

"I promise not to laugh." With a smirk, he held up one hand as if giving an oath. "Or tell you you should know better."

She sat up, hugging her knees against her chest. "Well then - I want a small house and a garden, somewhere out in the country. I want someone I love living there with me - someone I can grow old with. I want to still teach. And I want to write the first great English-language Wizarding novel. There you have it. Not asking much, am I?" She laughed. For a moment, there was quiet.

"And you really think that might happen?" he asked.

"Yes," she said quietly. "Just call me a cock-eyed optimist." She grinned. "But as a worst-case scenario, I would settle for two out of the four."

"Which two?"

She winked at him. "That, I'm not telling."

Just then, the clock on her fireplace mantle struck four. He put down his tea cup. "I have to go."

She got up with him. "Just a moment - I'll be right back." A minute later, she returned from the bedroom with a package in her hands.

"I'm leaving tonight to go to my aunt's for Christmas. So I thought I would give you your present now." She shoved the package into his hands. "Go ahead, open it."

With an almost angry look on his face, he turned the package over in his hands. He didn't want a present. He hadn't asked for a present. He had nothing to give her in return. And he had enough books. Books, potion ingredients, and serpent-themed knick-knacks made up about 90 percent of the presents ever given to him over the last twenty years.

"Come on, open it."

"I'm not in the habit of giving Christmas gifts."

"But I am. I love giving gifts. So let me, please?" She smiled at him, a soft look in her eyes. "I don't want a present, and if you give me some sort of guilt offering when I come back, I shall positively strangle you. I just want to see if you like what I got you. So would you go ahead and open the present already?" She was lightly bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet.

Severus stifled a sigh. He would just have to fake some enthusiasm so as not to disappoint her, and get this over with as quickly as possible. Hesitantly, he tore open the red wrapper and set the package down on the back of the sofa. Then, with narrowed eyes and a plastered-on smile, he lifted the top off the plain cardboard box.

The first thing he saw was a cloud of something soft. He lifted out a scarf-and-mittens set, Slytherin green, with three narrow bands of silvery-grey across the ends of the scarf and the cuffs of the mittens. He knew that the mittens would never make it onto his hands, but the scarf...

He tentatively rubbed the buttery-soft fabric between his thumb and forefinger.

"It's cashmere," she said, blushing slightly.

"Did you make that?"

She nodded. "You know I like knitting."

For a moment, his eyebrows drew together into a straight line. "It doesn't, um, change colors, does it?"

She laughed out loud. "No. I'm afraid the only thing it does is keep your neck warm." Taking the scarf from his hands, she reached up, and knotted it loosely around his neck. It felt warm and feather-light against his skin. She stepped back with a look of satisfaction. "Yupp, looks good on you. - Now, keep going." She nodded towards the box. His brows furrowed again. There was more?

When he looked inside, he saw a plain wooden box, the top secured to the bottom with a green ribbon. Hesitantly, he took it out, pulling one end of the ribbon to undo the bow.

The box was lined with black velvet. Nestled against the velvet there were seashells - ridged scallops, heart-shaped cockles, small, almost translucently pink tellin shells, a large whelk, the butterfly-shaped shell of a chiton. It was obvious that none of them were especially beautiful or rare. He looked up at her with a look of confusion, and saw that she had blushed again.

"They're from our beach," she said. "In St. Comgan. Just a holiday souvenir."

What a silly, sentimental gift...Yet he felt himself swallowing hard. And then swallow hard again. Whatever the look on his face was, it seemed to satisfy her. She let out a long breath of relief.

"Thank you," he said, inwardly cursing the hoarse tone of his voice. He was glad he could busy himself by re-packaging the gifts. He really did need to get back down to his cauldron.

Just before he left, she pulled him into a quick embrace. "Happy Christmas, Severus."