South-African Spiderslugs

South-African Spiderslugs

Professor Ash had now been at Hogwarts for three months. On Monday evenings she usually stayed late at work marking homework, and she was already used to Professor Snape's occasional visits. They still were not at all enjoyable, but she had too much to do and just enough tolerance to not let an annoying colleague get on her nerves.

One Monday evening in December, when her colleague did not show up, she caught herself wondering why. She had been so immersed in her new job and the school itself, that she had not had the time for a quiet self-reflection in ages. So she put her quill down and stopped to think. As she did this, she gradually developed the unpleasant feeling of having been a total fool. It dawned on her - quicker than she thought was appropriate - that all her thoughts were following a familiar pattern. An old, worn, wrecked, infamous pattern. She knew it all.
And it all came back now, like a stubborn spot of eczema. The early symptoms were too significant to be ignored, and she knew what was following. She let out a heavy sigh. Staring blankly at the parchment she had been marking, she went quickly through the exhausting line of thoughts, which always followed in an almost militant order.

Fine, if nothing has changed since I fell in love for the first time at the age of six, handling it should be a piece of cake by now. What is there to fuss about, then?
Only I have already seen this show, thank you very much, I don't like it. It has its moments though, but it gets boring long before its end, which is sordid.
This case is not an exception, that's for sure. Why does it always have to be someone, who I can concisely say is an impossible person?
What should I do next? Nothing, I suppose, that's always a good start. Start for what? To end this before it gets started, that's what I should do. But how? Resign? Run away? Move to Siberia? Antidote? -

'Antidote'? Now, that was a new one. How come she had never thought of that before? And come to think of it, what if there really was an antidote? If there were love potions, why not potions that had the opposite effect? That would end the misery before it even started. That would solve the matter. Why not get it at once?
She put the stopper into the ink bottle, cleansed the quill tip and gathered the essay parchments in a pile. After that she left her office and made her way down towards the dungeons.

***

For the first time in those three months, Professor Ash came to realize the size of the castle. Or maybe it was the changing corridors, who knows. All the same, the way to the dungeons had never felt this long before. She managed to reach the Slytherin corridor with naught but one, short distraction.
"Excuse me, Professor, I was on my way to your office to see you."
"Yes, Miss Jones, what is it?"
"I needed to ask you about the essay -"
"Oh, well, I am in a hurry at the moment. Call into my office tomorrow, will you? I will be there from noon till three between lessons."

***

"Yes," was the response to her hasty knock on Snape's door. She peered in.
The Potions master was bent over his desk with his sleeves rolled up, his robes covered by blood stained overalls and wearing protuberant goggles.
"Yes?" he repeated, now inquiringly.
"Evening, Snape ... sorry to disturb you. I need some information on potions."
"I'm afraid I'm busy. Is it urgent?"

It flickered through her mind that perhaps this was not the best hour for a visit. Snape looked busy all right, his hands were dirty up to his elbows. A sickening smell was hovering in the air, and there was an untidy mixture of some spiky legs, pieces of guts and miscellaneous pointed instruments sprawled all over his desk.
On a side table she spotted a large, slimy pile of insect-like beasts. They resembled horned slugs, except that they had no horns, but two rows of jointed limbs sticking out from their sides. To cap it all off, the pile was squirming nastily, indicating that the things were alive.

"No, it's not. I will come around some other time," she said and was about to close the door, when she heard a soft, foreshadowing 'ouch!' followed closely by a mumbled curse.
"Wait a moment, Ash. In fact, now that you've dropped by, I could use a hand here, if you don't mind gutting South-African Spiderslugs. I just got a fresh delivery today... Zeller and Foggs were here earlier doing their detentions, but they had no stomach for it. They started to feel sick, so I was bound to send them away."
"Really? Well, I can't blame them," she said, cautiously eyeing the hideous pile.
"You may not, but I can. I tend not to willingly send students away in the middle of a detention, but I do have my limits, too. Bless me, if there is anything as ghastly as vomiting first-years," muttered Snape under his breath.
Professor Ash suppressed a smile.
"Very well, I suppose I could give you a hand, if you were so kind as to demonstrate the job for me." She walked to the messy desk, rolling her sleeves up as she went.
"Just give me some basic safety guidelines first. For instance, are they poisonous? Do they sting?"
"Yes, their bile is poisonous, if it gets in your eyes you may lose your sight. You shall have to wear these." He shoved her a pair of goggles. "Occasionally they sting, but it merely itches for a while, it's not hazardous. The trick is to be quick, so they don't have time to react."
"I see."
Without a warning Snape picked one from the pile, slammed it on the desk and split it open adeptly with one swift stroke of the scalpel. The creature's legs jerked horribly for a moment, and a quivering mass of guts poured out from the gap. Then it lay still. He emptied the carcass, neatly detached all the legs and dropped the remaining torso into a bowl. Then he gathered the spare entrails and threw them into a waste bucket.
"Got it?" he asked, thrusting aside the goggles again.
"Yes, I think so," she replied, and prepared herself to follow his lead.

She placed the goggles on and picked another beast from the pile. Then she lifted the scalpel in position and poked the thing with it. There was a soft popping noise, and Snape let out a disapproving hiss.
As she took a closer look at the creature's stomach, she spotted a deformed group of glistening bulges, which looked remotely like eyes. One of them had burst, and a smelly fluid was draining from the wound.
She swirled around and clutched her mouth, swallowing several times in a row.
"Merlin's beard, Snape. I usually don't mind cutting up animals. But choosing between these things and vomiting first-years, I would pick the first-years."
"Matter of taste," said Snape. "Unless you are implying that you would rather be cutting up first-years. In that case I am afraid I shall have to report you to the Headmaster."
Ash pulled herself together for a second try and succeeded in cutting the thing in half.

Soon they were both absorbed in the messy job.
"So what was it that you needed to come here for?" asked Snape, collecting the legs into a jar using tweezers.
Ash kept her voice blank.
"I needed to ask you, that if there are love potions, is there by any chance a potion that has the opposite effect? In other words, one that prevents a person from falling in love?"
"Of course not."

"Right, well, excuse me for a speculative question, but I'd prefer a more exhaustive answer. Would it be possible to invent one, if in need? I would imagine that in fact it would be possible, am I right?"
Snape frowned.
"No. Is that exhaustive enough?"
"Yes, thank you. And why not?" she continued, as though putting pressure on a thickheaded student in a class. She was digging the entrails out of a particularly fat spiderslug at the moment.
Snape removed his goggles and turned to her, slinging the tweezers onto the desk.
"Ash, I am a potions teacher, not an encyclopedia. You shall find a thorough view on the matter in the Preface of Advanced Potion Making. To sum it up, the essential value of all potions is their use. Why would anybody in their right mind bother to invent such a potion?"

She stared back at him with the goggles on, so her eyes were ten times magnified.
"Well. It just occurred to me recently that it could be useful, in some cases, to cure a person from falling in love. Which usually means a lot of disturbing factors, like, firstly - decreased work capacity, diminished powers of observation, obsessive behaviour ... then, after that, lack of appetite, insomnia, excessive sentimentality, hypochondria, irresponsibility... and lots of other nuisances. In brief - trouble. The potion would solve all of them."

She picked up the last spiderslug and cut it open with a vigorous gesture. Snape went to the sink in the corner and began to scrub the sticky slime from his hands and arms.
"Perhaps it would, now that you mention it. But then again, as for any love potion - or related - their effects are temporary. To produce a permanent effect, one would have to use them constantly. Use your brain, Ash. Being a slave to a potion is a greater nuisance, in spite of the benefits, no matter how prominent ... tea?"
This was just marvelous, she thought angrily.
"If you are making some. Thank you."

Snape prodded a filthy teapot on the mantelpiece with his wand. Ash cleansed the last spiderslug carefully, cast it into the bowl and collected the guts into the waste bucket. Then she shook one of her sleeves back down and wiped her forehead with it. She wiped her hands haphazardly on a ragged towel before taking the offered teacup from her colleague's hand.
After a couple of sips however, she turned up her nose and glared into the cup.
"You call this tea?"
There were some large, faint blue herb blossoms floating on bitter tasting grayish water.

It took a moment for her to realize what it was. When distilled and matured, the liquid would make Veritaserum. She blinked, and swirled around to face her colleague, who was leaning against the empty fireplace, surveying her keenly.
"Now, Ash, as much as I hate repeating the questions I ask - what was it that you needed to come here for?"

Professor Ash put the teacup down and smiled serenely.
"I hate repeating the questions I ask, too. You call this tea?" She was determined to keep her voice as pleasant as possible.
"No, that is not tea," declared Snape with his classroom voice. "That's an experiment I am performing on truth serums. Not that I would think you need them."
He fetched two teacups from a cupboard and poured some tea in them from another teapot, which looked more adequate than the one on the mantelpiece.
"The question you put forward was quite interesting, in fact. But it doesn't figure. Being that ignorant is not like you at all, Ash. I therefore got the impression, that you were not telling the whole story. So I decided to test the liquid on you. I assumed that you wouldn't mind... here, this one is tea."
He handed her a cup and settled down in an armchair, vaguely waving his hand towards the other armchair at the opposite side of the fireplace. She sat down, feeling glum.

"Thank you - a nasty job," Snape said absently, sipping his tea and gazing at the empty fireplace.
"You're most welcome," she muttered. "I shall alert the staff first thing tomorrow, that you have picked up a habit of poisoning your colleagues with serum experiments."
If Snape was to think that she could be split open like a spiderslug with a scalpel, he was wrong, she thought. She was glad, though, that she had been approximately sticking to the truth in the first place, which was generally the best resistance to any truth serum.
"Besides, I did tell you the whole story. I needed to know if you could brew me a potion I need."
Snape's eyes fell back on to her.
"You need? You forgot to mention that."

Ash blinked.
"So I did. Look, I know that their effects are temporary. But in a serious case, and handled carefully, I am pretty sure that a course of treatment would do no harm. In my case, for example, I am a teacher who wants to put her mind to the job. It would be an utter nuisance to fall in love with a c...student."
Snape glared at her with undisguised disdain.
"To fall in love with a student. That's the most absurd thing I have ever heard."
"Isn't it," admitted Ash readily. "You may not suffer from such irritating ailments, but some people do, and I have recognized the symptoms all too well. The decreased work capacity, for instance, and the obsessive behavior. I can tell you they are extremely uncomfortable. So, to get rid of them as soon as possible, I really must ask you for help. I'm sorry to bother you with such a tedious matter."
"Get a grip, Ash!" snarled Snape. "Gutting spiderslugs is not a job for the over sensitive, and you can take that as a commendation from a colleague, if you like. You can do without a potion."

"I forgot to mention that, too. Over sensitiveness," responded Ash, after a pause. "Another one of the early symptoms."
"Ah. Well, I see. So who is the student?"
"That's none of your business," she snapped.
Snape smirked.
"Yes, I suppose not," he said.
Both went back to staring at the empty fireplace, which was currently the best thing to do.

Maybe it was being so cozy and relaxed in the huge armchair, or listening to the humming silence of the dungeons, but she abruptly got an idea.
"Oh, well, Snape. It's ridiculous, of course... but maybe not so serious after all. I think it is not inappropriate to just call it a work accident. Like Shakespeare said - if you excuse me for a quote -"
"All right, that's enough!" cried Snape irritably.
Ash smiled at her colleague's disgusted expression.
"I can see that you really are in need of such a potion. That is already a rather alarming symptom you have - starting to quote Shakespeare..." said Snape, looking slightly nauseous.
He rose from the armchair and went to a cupboard in the corner.
"It may take a while," he said, pulling out an armful of small bottles and jars. "My apologies for the delay. I shall see what I can do."
He started a fire under the cauldron, which was on a stand by his desk.
"Thank you," said Ash, sincerely relieved. "I knew I could trust you."