The Wolfsbane Potion

The Wolfsbane Potion

Snape woke to the familiar sound of the morning bell. It had been a late night, so he lay in bed for a moment longer, gathering his thoughts before getting up to face breakfast with a Great Hall full of excited students: it was the year's first Hogsmeade weekend.

October thirty-first today, he recalled. All Hallows' Eve. How he hated this day. He would never forget those long months twelve years ago. The nerve-wracking efforts to glean some hint of the next attack. The secret messages to Dumbledore. Then the waiting, for the good news of yet another narrow escape, or the Dark Lord's vengeance, if he were discovered. At least then, the waiting would have been over. But worst of all, the end. When finally the Potters should have been completely safe, it ended in their deaths. Damn the murdering soul of Sirius Black to hell...

Shuddering, Snape got up and started to ready himself. If he had to deal with students in this frame of mind, he would frighten more than just Neville Longbottom. As he took a quick shower, he ran through his plans. The older students would be gone after breakfast. Not his concern today, though, for he had another obligation to fulfill. It would be a full moon shortly, and he had a potion to finish.

A part of Snape resented Dumbledore for imposing this task on him. He had made his disapproval of the Headmaster's choice of Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor abundantly clear. On the other hand, if Lupin was going to be at the school at all, Snape did not want to trust the brewing of the Wolfsbane Potion to anyone else. At least this way, he would know that it was done right.

After breakfast, Snape strode to his dungeon laboratory to continue his work on the potion, begun last evening. In his first couple of attempts earlier in the school year, he had followed Belby's paper to the letter. The potion comprised a very creative combination of ingredients, which needed to be prepared according to unusual and rather finicky steps. Further, it was not a forgiving potion. The main ingredient, wolfsbane, was a deadly poison, and the potion could easily be too if the proper steps were not followed. Even a small deviation from the instructions would make the potion ineffective, leaving a fully transformed and unmedicated werewolf on the loose...

Snape cut off this train of thought and walked over to where two cauldrons were slowly simmering as he had left them the night before. He would soon see if the little addition that has suggested itself to him bore fruit. The two potions were the correct lemon-yellow color preliminary to the final steps of the preparation. Good, as he had suspected, his addition to the cauldron on the left was not interfering with the overnight coalescence of the potion.

Bent over his table, he meticulously rinsed and sorted the fresh wolfsbane plants he had picked the night before in the greenhouses, separating the leaves from the stems, and carefully discarding any buds or yellow flowers. Soon he was deeply involved in the work of stripping the stems of their outer coating and finely chopping the leaves.

Much later, he straightened, rubbing the small of his back and flexing his shoulders. Four neat little piles of the potion ingredients now replaced the mess of leaves and stems. He set three of the cleaned stems on the surface of the potion on the right, and three in the left, and watched. A ghost of a smile crossed his lips as the stems on the left began to sink and release swirls of green into the potion. The ones on the right were still on the surface, and only the slightest hint of green leaked into the potion. As the stems sank completely below the surface, Snape added three more to the cauldrons. He continued until the pile of stems on the left was exhausted. The pile on the right, which had been the same size, was still half there.

Snape gave the cauldron on the left a quick stir. As it achieved the uniform dark green color of the penultimate stage in the process, he flipped the nearby hourglass, and tossed in the chopped leaves, beginning the meticulous pattern of stirring called for by Belby. He paused occasionally to add stems to the cauldron on the right. As he stirred, the potion started to show flecks of silver-grey, and a silver mist began to form on its surface. It was working, but then he had known it would. However, with this potion, it paid to make sure. As the last sands ran out of the hourglass, the potion on the left turned a pearly silver grey and began to smoke. It was finished.

Before turning his full attention to the potion on the right, Snape jotted a few notes into the notebook lying nearby for future reference. He placed the final three stems into the cauldron and waited for them to sink in. In a few minutes, they had sunk below the surface. As he had done with the first cauldron, he gave it a quick stir and turned the hourglass before adding the chopped leaves. Again, he repeated the meticulous final stirring process, needing to turn the hourglass three more times before the second potion was finally finished. Then he turned down the second flame.

Next, Snape ladled some of each potion into two waiting goblets. It was the moment of truth. He took his wand and passed it over both goblets several times, muttering to himself as he noted the reactions of both potions to the battery of revealing spells. Yes! They had identical magical properties. Satisfied, he sat down to make a more detailed record of the experiment. Finally, he straightened out his work area.

Grabbing the goblet on the left, Snape went out into the hallway. On his way to Lupin's office, he considered the implications of his success. He would not need to dedicate the better part of a day to the finishing of this potion at the next full moon, of course. And, he thought, it seemed for the first time possible that he might at some point cut that monster of a recipe down to something he might hope to teach his most advanced NEWT students. With this thought, Snape reached Lupin's office. The door was closed, but Snape could hear voices indistinctly through the heavy oak, so he knocked.

"Come in," called Lupin.

Snape stepped in and then halted, as he saw that Lupin's visitor was Harry Potter. What did the werewolf want with the boy, he wondered, his eyes narrowing suspiciously as he looked from one to the other. Sirius Black was believed to be after the Potter boy, and now, Lupin was showing an interest. Coincidence, Dumbledore would have said, or a natural interest in the son of his old friend. Snape was not so sure.

"Ah, Severus," said Lupin, smiling. "Thanks very much. Could you leave it here on the desk for me?"

Snape walked over to the desk and set the goblet down.

"I was just showing Harry my grindylow," said Lupin pleasantly, pointing at the tank.

"Fascinating," said Snape in a bored tone. "You should drink that directly, Lupin."

"Yes, yes, I will," said Lupin.

Snape did not like Lupin's casual approach one bit. Surely, he would not neglect to drink the potion.

"I made an entire cauldronful, if you need more," Snape reminded him.

"I should probably take some again tomorrow. Thanks very much, Severus."

"Not at all," responded Snape, hiding his irritation. Lupin knew quite well that unless the potion was taken daily in the week prior to the full moon, he might as well not bother taking it at all.

As he backed out of the room, Snape admitted to himself that he would be much happier if had seen Lupin drink the potion. He had a bad feeling about Lupin's attitude that he could not quite shake. Lupin would never neglect to drink the potion...surely; it was just his Halloween gloom, returning after the distractions of his experiment, which gave him this sinking feeling.