The Recipe

The Recipe

I

By the end of September, the daily routines of Hogwarts were settling into a familiar state. The fifth-year Gryffindors and Slytherins were sitting in their Defense Against the Dark Arts class, while the yellowish afternoon sun was pouring through the high windows, making the dusty air in the classroom glow.

Their teacher, Professor Ash, had just finished a rather boring lecture concerning a book, The Truth of the Twisted and the Lies of the Weak - The Rhetoric of Treachery, and was now about to give them homework. Professor Ash was rather young - a colorless creature, who wore thick, dull gray robes, which hung like some enormous elephant-skin around her small, skinny figure. Her fingertips were always stained with ink.

Now she pulled out a tiny black book and put a simple multiplying spell upon it. After that she began handing the copies out. The class was silent whilst everybody was examining the new book. Unlike the books they usually had to carry around, it was pleasantly small and thin, with no other marks on the plain black cover, but the initials, 'S.S.' It seemed to have no title at all, and was written in a peculiar meter.

"This," Professor Ash began with her hoarse, poorly audible voice. "Is one of the most significant works in the area of the Dark Arts - my personal favorite, by the way and should be approached with all due respect. Now, what I want you to do is... Yes, Mr. Malfoy?"
The teacher's eyes rested upon the pale, haughty-looking young wizard, who had just lifted his hand.
"I've already read that," said the boy in a bored voice.
"Is that so? Well, good for you, Mr. Malfoy," she replied, with no trace of a smile on her face. "In that case read it again."
She continued handing out the copies.
"Now, as I was saying," she went on, "I want you to summarize the first chapter by next Monday. That will be all, so far. Class dismissed."

***

"Madness."
Ron slammed the book shut.
"What's the matter? Trouble with homework?" asked Hermione.
"Too right... 'Summarize the first chapter' my bum... How am I supposed to do that? Take a look at this! Eight whole pages and the stuff's horrible... Why can't these fellows write like a normal person?"
"Ron, it's old. Old-fashioned. Besides, it's written by Salazar Slytherin, who wasn't a normal person by any standard. Stop whining, will you? It's not that hard, really..."
Ron gaped at her with his mouth open.
"What, you mean... The Salazar Slytherin?"
"How many are there?" was her blunt reply.
Now Harry, too, had lifted his eyes from his own copy and was staring at Hermione over his slipped down glasses.
"So, that's the 'S.S.' on the cover," he said.
"Yes, and that's why she had to conjure the copies for us. They won't last long, I should imagine... Spells like this are not permanent. It's a very rare book; I think there are only a few real copies of it left in the world."
"Well, that doesn't make it any easier to comprehend," said Ron gloomily. Hermione sighed.

***

In the meantime in the staff room, there was a slight disagreement beginning to surface.
"I shouldn't have given them that? Why?" asked Professor Ash.
"Because in this school Potions are supposed to be my line of expertise," said Snape snappishly.
As always, he was sulking for someone else getting the Dark Arts job instead of him.
"Fine, you teach them the recipe, then. That's quite all right with me."
"And, as you obviously have not yet discovered," Snape continued, "in this school it is also impossible to teach anything more sophisticated than the Quidditch Rules. Tell me, how exactly would you teach one of the most advanced potion recipes to a bunch of idiots, who know nothing of even brewing a simple Sleeping Draught?"
"Says the one who's responsible for how much they know."
"Excuse me?"
There was an ominous tone in the Potions master's voice.
"I was just suggesting, that maybe you should give me more useful advice on how to do my job," said Professor Ash, and an awkward silence fell in the room.

"Snape, have you ever tried it yourself?" asked Professor Ash after a while. She was standing by the great window, watching idly down to the yard.
"You mean the recipe?" Snape said indifferently. "No."
"Would you like to?"
Snape didn't answer, but as she took a glance at him, she noticed that he was only pretending to be reading.
"Well, would you like to?"
No reply. The voices of chattering students began to carry from the corridors.
"Ah, the lunch hour seems to be over..." stated Professor Ash. She paced across the floor to the door.
"Well, think about it," she said and left the room. It was an unnecessary request, because Snape was seemingly already thinking about it - there was a significant gleam in his black eyes.

***

"Amazing..." muttered Ron aloud.
"What's amazing?"
"The first chapter - it's a potion recipe!"
"I already figured that out, you know," said Hermione, but he didn't pay attention to her.
"It seems if I got it right, that this potion gives you the capability to speak and understand all the languages. Imagine that! It's just... I wonder what is it that makes it the Dark Arts? That would be only useful, would it?"
"Didn't you get the point of the last verse?"
She began to recite:

Heal or wound, sell or buy, confess a sin or tell a lie;
Either cause or ease the pain. Just do not use this in vain.

Here, do I speak of magic? Of some potion, some old charm, or spell?
Mere words can either be divine - or be straight from hell.

"There you have it. You may get the literal sense of the words, but to get their meaning, that's different."
"Are you saying that I'm not smart enough to get this mysterious 'meaning', or what?"
"No... What I'm saying, is that I think we shouldn't take the quickest path. Learning a foreign language can't be that easy. Well, to me, that potion certainly smells like the Dark Arts."
"It's a possibility, though."
Harry rolled his eyes. He thought about the Mirror of Erised and Ron's reflection in it, with the addition of the ability to speak fluent French.
"Well, yes," said Hermione slowly.
"And a pretty tempting one, too."
"Ron, cut it out. Like I said -"
"So, you could help to interpret the recipe for us, could you?"
"Yes, but -"
"But what? What if we got the potion done, what then? Harry, back me up. Why are we supposed to do this, if we are not allowed to use the potion? Come on, Hermione, can't you show a little scientific curiosity? Remember the Polyjuice Potion, it was huge!"
"I'm with you on this one, Ron," Harry cut in. "Let's give it a try, Hermione. It could be interesting, you know..." He took a quick glance at Ron. "Besides, you do have a foreign pen-pal, I hear..."
Hermione frowned.
"All right... It is a piece of homework, anyway."

***

Like the boys knew, she needed no further persuasion, when it came to showing scientific curiosity. By the end of the week, the three of them were not far from discovering the secret of the recipe. They even had come by almost all the necessary ingredients.

But Professor Ash had stirred someone else's curiosity as well. Snape, being the Potions teacher, and an ambitious scholar too, had been thinking it over. He already knew the secret of the recipe, of course. But this particular potion was almost the only one he had never managed to try himself, because it took at least two persons - preferably professionally skilled wizards - to brew it. So, by the end of the week, he had somehow overcome both his aversion to ask for help at any circumstances, and his reluctance to allow anyone in his study but himself.