The Trail of the Black Star

Palanqa Research Camp

26 June, 11:37PM

Severus' intended revenge for the llama ears was soon forgotten in his pleasure at finding his luggage stacked neatly by the bed upon their return and a set of his own clothes laid out on the bed. There was also a chatty note from Vidalia inviting him to tea a before he left that was discarded without a second thought. He was most anxious to be wearing his own clothes again.

Hermione announced that she needed to wash off the smell of llama, and shooed Severus into her lab to begin purifying the orchid essence. Tino had been right. The place was a complete mess. Tangled and filthy quipu hung from shelves, there was glassware on the floor, and books and papers were piled perilously high on every horizontal plane.

He briefly entertained the notion of taking the orchid and making a break for Vidalia's.

After unceremoniously shoving all of the unnecessary equipment, papers, and a few dirty shirts into a large cauldron in the corner, he began setting up the bench as close to his own laboratory set-up as possible, since he would be working in near-darkness.

He was surprised to note that in spite of the chaos, her equipment was all clean and in excellent repair. When he had arranged things to his satisfaction, he extinguished the candles, turned the burner to low, and removed the black star orchid from the bag.

The stem held about five blossoms, each with five delicately pointed petals. They were velvety black, but the glowing purple liquid that flowed through the vascular system shone through the waxy cuticle, causing the petals to shimmer softly in the darkness. The central cup, which was shaped like a doll's slipper, had luminous patches that swirled around the curves like blown glass. Severus could certainly understand how the Inca believed the blossom was a gift from the moon goddess. Crushing them into paste with his pestle was decidedly satisfying.

He nearly jumped when he saw her move in his peripheral vision. He was in the middle of aliquotting his distillation into small tubes, and was trying to stay focused on his distribution spell. When he had finished, he turned to face her.

Her hair lay in damp waves about her shoulders, and she was dressed in a heavy velvety-looking robe. He could tell it was crimson, even in the dim light. Typical.

"You work quickly," she remarked, gesturing to the meticulously prepared mixture in front of her. "I'd still be trying to crush the petals to uniform consistency."

He brushed aside the compliment with a wave of his hand and began finely chopping the orchid stem. "Any reasonably competent potions brewer could have done so."

A half-smile quirked her lips. "Modesty does not become you, Professor. I liked it much better when you called me a dunderhead outright."

He gave a humph. "And I liked it better when I was able to cow you into relative silence, but it seems that your stubbornness is a force to be reckoned with. As long as you're determined to create this potion I'll be forced tolerate your company for the duration."

"Why Professor, if that isn't the sweetest thing I've ever heard." Her bored drawl was worthy of Draco Malfoy at his best. Brat.

When he had finished chopping the stem, she scooped it into a small dish and covered it with a dark cloth. When the distillation had been similarly covered, she lit the candles with a murmur.

"I put the corn on to simmer before we left, so it should be nearly tender enough to prepare by now. Now, I know you didn't get all the way through my notes, so I'll just brief you on my findings." She began to rattle off the things she'd tried previously, but Severus interrupted.

"Miss Granger, nowhere in my source does it mention anything about using corn as a base for the potion. As a matter of fact, it claims the main ingredient is leopard teeth."

Her eyebrows shot up. "Leopard teeth?"

"Then Chuqui-llantu plucked the teeth

From the mottled cat that stalks the fields

When daylight grows and night-time wanes

Then by Acoya-napa kneels."

Severus was rewarded for his recitation by a moment of silent thought. It was over entirely too soon.

"Whoever did the second translation of that poem did a really horrible job," she announced, and promptly left the lab. When she returned, she had a pot of greyish mush and a notebook. She tossed the latter to him and began picking the large lumps out of the former. "Look up the word michi khiru That's m-i-c-h-i-."

He cut her off with an impatient wave of his hand. The notebook was an impossibly neat handwritten glossary of plant names in English, Spanish, and Quechua. This from the girl who left dirty clothes draped over her lab bench?

Michi khiru: an immature ear of maize, lit. 'cat tooth.' Higher in niacin than mature corn.

Was the mottled cat's tooth immature varicoloured maize? Possible, assuming Granger's translation was accurate.

"Now that your things have arrived, I'd like to have a look at your poem. Fascinating how it's survived, even in translation. Still, the Inca had about fifty different words for corn and dozens more referring to specifically prepared corn dishes, so I'll be on the lookout for bad corn metaphors." She was pouring the boiled corn into another container. Severus had come up behind her, watching her progress.

"What do you think you're doing?" he snapped. "If you've been using maize this poorly prepared in all your attempts, its no wonder you've failed miserably so far."

"For your information, Professor, I've already had three articles on maize-based potions published in peer-reviewed periodicals, not to mention my analysis of kernel parts in various states of maturity that appeared in The Journal of Horticultural Alchemy-"

"If this," he gestured at the mess on the table, "is what you wrote about, your paper and your parts are pure crap."

He snatched the cauldron from her and dumped the rest of the corn back in, before she had a chance to protest. He strained the liquid into a clean beaker, which he placed over the burner, then transferred all the solids, including the lumps she'd picked out, into a small bowl, which he handed to her.

"The entire kernel is always used unless otherwise noted," he explained impatiently. "Otherwise, the intrinsic chemical proportions for which the ingredient is selected are thrown out of balance. Crush the solids- uniformly this time, if you're capable- then stir them in when the liquid boils. I trust you still have the necessary skill to do that."

To his dismay, her hands went to her hips. Argument posture if he ever saw it.

"I was not aware that you had studied the potions of the Inca in detail, Professor."

"Of course I haven't, silly girl. However, the fact that I am a Potions Master seems to have escaped you. I know how to prepare and utilize nearly every known ingredient to its maximum effectiveness."

"I know you do, Professor, but do you think the Inca did?"

What? He raised his eyebrows, but she continued without pausing.

"Did it ever occur to you that you can't always use a modern approach to potions brewing when working with historical potions? They didn't have depth of scholarship on the subject; they had a few brilliant potions-makers who passed the majority of their recipes down orally. If we are attempting to use a remnant of that oral tradition as instructions, we'd better be doing things as the Inca did, or at least as close as we can get."

Did she think she was calling the shots? The sooner she was disabused of that notion the better.

"I was under the impression that your previous attempts at this potion were unsuccessful at best. I was also under the impression that we were not attempting to re-create the potion, but rather taking advantage of my far greater expertise on the subject to create a modern and less hazardous variant. If this is not the case, then by all means, don't bother eliminating unknown variables and reducing the possibility of experimental error. The best way to do that is to use inconsistent and shoddily prepared components."

She looked furious, but she held her tongue.

"Very good, Miss Granger. Now get to work."

He took the opportunity to retrieve the book of poetry from his trunk. By the time he returned, Hermione had finished adding the hull paste and recovered her dignity somewhat.

"It's amazing how much things change, how little they don't," Hermione mused. "Boil and crush, the very first things I ever had to do in Potions. Though it was porcupine quills and snake fangs, do you remember?"

Severus set the book down and began idly stripping cuna feathers. "As if I could forget the syllabus I've taught for the last twenty years. And still most students go through seven years without realizing the importance of proper preparation."

"Perhaps there's a lesson there," Hermione suggested mildly, removing the corn mush from the burner.

"Miss Granger, as I'm sure you've gathered, I have no patience for people who will not apply themselves in my classroom, nor do I feel the least bit responsible for those who, in all of their seven years, never learned to brew so much as a satisfactory batch of pumpkin juice. I will admit to having taught a handful of students who possessed the inclination to succeed, but the fact is that most students have about as much patience for potions as I have for their inattention. As you can see, the poisonous toadstool has neither the inclination nor the ability to change his spots."

She hadn't been listening. She was staring at the open book with an odd look on her face.

He cleared his throat loudly. No response. "Miss Granger!"

Her head shot up at his sharp tone. He was taken slightly aback by the hungry look in her eye until he realized that it was not directed at him.

"Century plant."

"Pardon?"

"The Spanish called it isabela. I knew I was missing an ingredient to make it last in storage, because a section of the quipu disintegrated completely. But it all makes sense now."

She was pacing and running her hands through her wet hair, oblivious to his presence. "I never realized that the soqos was just for stability. It's the century plant that sends the magic into hibernation. When it was needed, they added jimson weed to activate the other ingredients. I can't believe I didn't think of it before!"

His sarcastic clapping snapped her attention back to him.

"Well done, Miss Granger. You now may or may not have the complete list of ingredients to a potent hallucinogenic compound that will likely cause liver damage, severe constipation, and violent psychosis. This is only the first step."

Her defence was automatic but half-hearted. "The extra niacin may lower cholesterol levels."

"A fact I'm sure the warriors would have appreciated had they not destroyed themselves so sportingly."

She ignored him and went back to reading the poem. "I've never come across this legend before. All of the references to this potion I've come across were somewhat apocryphal, as you can probably tell from my experiment notes. Even my quipu has only a fraction of what this has. This tells the process, and in rhyming couplets, no less. And it illustrates my point."

He made an impatient noise. "Wait until you get to the end before deciding whose point the story better illustrates. If I recall correctly, Acoya-Napa, the daughter of the sun, created the potion to save her mortal lover after a dragon bit him. The lover recovered, but only because he felt no pain. The downside is that the potion prompted him to attack the lightning god in a fit of hubris, and was struck down immediately. It is a parable for caution and the double-edged nature of gifts from the gods. Something that you would do well to remember the next time you decide to resurrect long-forgotten magic."

She sighed impatiently. "I meant, it proves that experiments using ingredients prepared as the Inca did might shed some light on the more subtle workings of the potion. See? Here, the poem refers to dicing the innards of the spiny desert fish, which makes absolutely no sense, except that the native word tuna is a kind of cactus fruit. I have quipu instructions for preparing tuna in the Stayaway Solution, and it involves stirring for ten minutes and removing all that's not liquefied, like I was doing with the corn. With a little bit of luck, we'll have this potion together in no time!"

Her enthusiasm was contagious, and he was thoroughly disgusted with himself. He was in for a long night.

"Granger, put the book down. We have hours, if not days of theoretical discussion before we can even start turning these ingredients into something that won't cause the drinker to have a psychotic episode, especially if the rest of the translation is as dubious as the section about the leopard teeth."

She grinned. "If you're not careful, Professor, you may end up set for life from half the royalties."

He sighed theatrically and massaged his eyelids with the fingertips of one hand. "Only if I wish to go down in history as the man who caused more cases of cardiac arrest than the Paris premiere of The Rite of Spring. Now, if you would be so kind as to fetch the latest edition of Index Infusia, some blank parchment, a pot of strong coffee, and large wooden mallet, we can get started."

"Why the large wooden mallet?"

"So I can club myself into oblivion before starting this hare-brained enterprise."

There was no trace of guile or seduction in the brief squeeze of his shoulder.

"Thank you, Prof- I mean, Severus. I couldn't do this without you."

The corner of his mouth rose in spite of himself. "I know."

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