His robe was dusted in a fine sprinkle of kneazle fur. The strands had the delicate effect of highlighting the claw marks his new kitten had so kindly bestowed the cloth. The destruction of his clothes was not the only thing that had changed in Severus’s life since getting the animal.
Cat biscuits for the silky-soft pest were scattered all around them, while the kitten cried out for more food. The animal’s bowl was empty, and so he believed himself out of food. Severus had long ago given up trying to find the logic in that.
“I fed you not even 10 minutes ago,” Severus chided the beast, picking it up nonetheless to bring it into his person and comfort it. Severus waved his wand and the kitten-dispersed food flew back into the bowl.
Yet more of the kitten’s grey–white fur spread across his black robes as he held the fluff bundle close. Severus would have to remember to charm it away before heading to his next class, to remove the possibility that his peers, or worse, Professor Evans might notice it.
Severus pressed a kiss to the kitten's head, trying to pretend that this was the reason his heart fluttered and not the merest thought of his teacher.
What the student population of Hogwarts knew for certain was that Professor Evans had joined the school out of nowhere at the start of the year, taking over from Slughorn teaching Potions. He was a curious gentleman, to say the least. No one seemed able to find out anything about him, not even the wiliest of the students. It had led to a rumour that Evans was not even the man’s real name, as that was the only conclusion they could agree upon.
His arrival had been the cause of much chatter at the start of term, and even now, three months on, the students were no closer to solving the mystery of their new professor. The topic of most discussion was about the new professor’s scars. For he had not just one, but two distinctive scars that strongly resembled lightning bolts.
One scar sat vividly on his forehead, behind a fringe of dark hair, while the other scar was only partially visible on the side of his neck. The top of his neck scar resembled the forehead scar, but the rest was lost under the professor’s clothes. Severus often imagined the lightning bolt finished up on his teacher’s clavicle. The scars somehow made the new teacher… cool, that was the only way Severus could think to describe the emotion when he saw them.
As intriguing as they were though, it wasn’t the scars that had sparked Severus’s interest in Evans, it was the surprise the professor had given Severus at the end of their first Potions class at the beginning of the year.
Back in September, Severus assumed himself to be in trouble when he was held back at the start of their first Potions class of the year. He had bristled up and been prepared to argue whatever it was he thought he’d have to argue. Maybe the man had assumed Severus had cheated. Maybe the new teacher was jealous. Whatever it might have been, nothing had prepared him for being presented with not an argument but a wicker basket with the tiniest little kneazle Severus had ever seen fast asleep on a bed of emerald velvet.
“I hear you’re a person of considerable care, and after seeing this for myself in today’s lesson, I’d appreciate your help looking after this little one,” Professor Evans had told him. “He hasn’t enjoyed being in my rooms with all the wards on it – he’s unable to wander. I wondered if you might take care of him for me this year? Anything he requires can be sent to your dormitory, ready for you – if you’re agreeable to the situation, that is?”
Severus hadn’t known what to say and simply nodded as Professor Evans talked about how to keep the kneazle safe. What was there even to say? The tiny kitten owned his heart so quickly, it even hadn't crossed his mind to say no.
Having something to love had changed Severus in ways he didn't have the words to express. He found himself feeling more confident, and somehow loved, all for the trust put in him to take care of Professor Evans’s kneazle.
The little fuzzball ruined his clothes, upset all his housemates, required almost constant attention and care, but, and most importantly, Severus had never had in his possession something he felt such tenderness for. Already he feared for the holidays and beyond when he’d have to give up his custody of the kneazle.
The other boys in his dormitory had started to ignore him lately, leaving him out of their secret talks, deciding all Severus cared anymore for was his pet kneazle. They were wrong – Severus also had a healthy obsession for his Potions Professor – but he wasn't planning to correct them on that aspersion any time soon.
Back in the present, and knowing he had to be in class soon, Severus put the kitten down and spelled his clothes clean. He picked up his books and headed out to his class early. He wanted to be there first so he could sit at the front of the room, nearest to Professor Evans’s desk.
“How is our little Disaster?” Professor Evans greeted Severus merrily, not even slightly surprised at seeing Severus in class already.
“A pain,” Severus replied calmly, though the ‘our’ echoed in his thoughts. “But the fur removal charm you mentioned has worked like a, well, charm.”
Professor Evans smiled, but he appeared almost sad at that. “Someone I care for very much taught that charm to me. It’s a useful one to have to hand. Especially if you’re a fan of cats. They shed far worse than any kneazle I have ever met.”
Despite the similarities in the two creatures, there was quite a lot to separate cats and kneazles beyond just the fur shedding. Severus had been researching every one of those differences since Disaster fell into his lap, in a mad dash to learn all he could about his temporary pet.
The most important difference, as far as Severus was concerned, was that he was allergic to kneazles, but not to cats. Severus hadn’t even realised he was allergic to kneazles until he’d had the kneazle in his bed the first night. It had been a shock to wake up in the middle of the night with his lips swollen and breathing laboured. He’d just about made it to the Hospital Wing in time to get help from the nurse.
Professor Evans had soon had that fixed for Severus though, as thanks for giving Disaster a temporary home. Rather than just hand the kitten to another pupil, he’d personally brewed Severus a series of immunology potions that helped Severus first become less allergic, and eventually fully immune to the kneazle.
Whatever else they might have talked about before class began was disrupted when his second favourite Evans came in, just ahead of the rest of their classmates. Lily slid into the seat next to him and started to unpack her equipment.
“I didn’t see you at lunch,” she said as she balanced her cauldron on their joint desk. “I hope everything is okay?”
“I ate something early on, but I had to go and feed Disaster. He’s started getting annoyed if he doesn’t have three meals a day, and then he claws my pillow.” It was easy to fix the pillow, but that didn’t mean Severus didn’t feel beholden to Disaster.
When everyone else started to arrive, Professor Evans stood in front of the board to begin their first lesson of the week.
“We’ll be continuing our work on antivenoms for the rest of this month. If you could all turn to page 394, today we’re looking at the properties of mushrooms when picked under different phases of the moon. We’ll be preparing three tonics with our mushrooms, and testing to see how the moon phase changes the consistency.”
Professor Evan’s curriculum seemed oddly weighted in favour of antidotes and blood-replenishing potions, but Severus had just taken to assuming it was a speciality of his. Either way, he was learning, and from someone clearly more well-versed than even Slughorn had been, so Severus didn’t have much to complain about.
“Do you think he’s mad or brilliant?” Lily whispered under her breath when their teacher had finally finished the lecture part of the class and instructed them all to gather their ingredients.
“Brilliant,” Severus said without hesitation. In truth, there were probably bits of all of it involved.
Lily didn’t look quite convinced, but busied away at her potion regardless.
“Professor,” Lupin asked mid-way into the lesson, his hand high in the air.
“Yes?”
Severus kept an ear out for their conversation, keen not to let Lupin gain some advantage he might miss.
“What if we don’t have access to equipment to brew all these things, in an emergency situation? How quickly should they be administered?”
Severus kept his scoff quiet. These weren’t the sort of potions you prepared in an emergency; they were the sort of potions you pre-brewed in case of an emergency. That was why it was important the shelf life was decent enough and the potion stable enough.
“It’s important these are shelf-stable potions for this reason,” Professor Evans replied. “You can’t just expect to whip up antidotes at the drop of a hat.”
Severus liked him even more with every class.
“Is there anything that works on a werewolf bite?” said Peter.
“Werewolf bites are not venomous,” Professor Evans answered calmly. “The bite itself doesn’t aim to kill: it transforms. The werewolf may incidentally kill, but the bite itself is not a weapon of murder – or otherwise, there’d never be new werewolves.”
Severus couldn’t help but look to Lupin, who was now looking at his desk rather than scowling at Pettigrew like Potter and Black were.
“But Professor,” Lily interjected, “if someone was bitten by a… say, Acromantula, there must be some alternative? To keep a person stable until you can administer the antivenom?”
“Excellent question, Lily. Don’t forget to stir your potion, Mary,” Professor Evans called over his shoulder as he returned to the chalkboard at the front of the room. He picked up his wand and pointed it at the board. “As Hogwarts doesn’t have a class on medicinal medicine, and I suppose this is the closest you might get, let us have a quick theoretical lesson on this situation.” He paused and turned to face the class, before continuing, “And I must stress the theoretical part of this. If I find out any of you have been treating your own bites or wounds, there will be words.”
His bright green eyes shone bright in the light of the candles around the room. Lily swore up and down Professor Evans was no relative of hers that she knew of, but Severus always had to wonder. It was in the eyes, something with the eyes.
“The ideal situation would be to not get bitten in the first place, but if that’s not an option, your next best choice would be to use the right antivenom potion on the wound, as you say. Antivenoms are a specific sub-family of the antidote class of potions, and as such require specific handling.
“However, if you fail to have an antivenom to hand, and I cannot impress this upon you sternly enough: do not try to suck the venom out. It won’t work, and will likely just cause harm to both parties involved.”
Do not suck scrolled itself on the chalkboard with the charmed chalk, the text underlining itself three times as the professor talked. Even Severus found himself joining in the classroom titter at that.
“Your best and safest course of action is to slow the travel of any poison in the body. A tourniquet can be useful if there’s a limb involved, or you can try to slow the heartbeat of the person until you can get access to help, to slow how quickly the poison will spread.”
“But that’s all?” Lily said. She sounded upset, like she felt let down by magic. “There’s no charm to help? Nothing to extract it with?”
Professor Evans tapped his wand on his palm, his eyes gazing around the room, lost in thought.
“There’s a few things, certainly,” he agreed eventually. “Nothing I’d suggest any student here try without specialist training.”
“Such as? Please, Professor, just to appease my curiosity.” Lily put it across so innocently. Severus was instantly suspicious. What was she getting up to? He’d have to ask her later when there weren't so many people around. He suspected it had to be about Hagrid, the Keeper of the Keys. It wouldn’t be the first time Lily had come to his aid.
Professor Evans pointed his wand at the board once more, and the piece of chalk scrawled across the board one word: Transfiguration.
“It’s mostly a theory, but transfiguration may – very hypothetically speaking – be an option. When you transfigure one living entity into another, you also change their cells to the point where a poison, or venom, or whatever else that has infected the person wouldn’t be there any longer.”
“Giving you time to create the solution,” Severus spoke aloud. He’d never considered that before, the blending of the magics in such a way. As Professor Evans said it though, suddenly it made stark, clear sense to him.
“Precisely, Severus. So as long as you have the viable antidote available for when you change the person back, you’ve possibly just saved a life.” He bestowed Severus with such a sweet smile that the teenager felt his heart quicken once more.
Slughorn had always ladled out compliments too to his favourites, but rarely to Severus. And not a single one of his warmed Severus’s soul like Professor Evans’s did. The smiles, the trust that Severus could take care of the kneazle kitten, coupled with just how awfully smart Professor Evans was, it all set Severus aflutter.
He liked his Potions professor. He liked him a lot.
“What if you hate mushrooms? There’s mushrooms in so many of these potions, but I hate mushrooms,” said Pettigrew, who had stopped bothering to brew. Pettigrew’s potion was long ruined, Severus could see the colour from his own desk.
“Tough luck.” Professor Evans never had smiles for Pettigrew, Severus noticed. “However, it is possible there could be an allergy to one or more of the ingredients. Sometimes there is no saving a person, sadly. Not unless you can find someone to formulate a brand new, world-changing potion without that ingredient or ingredients.”
Lily had long been speculating that Professor Evans must have been an Auror previously. She was the one who noted how so much of what they were taught related back to guides on field medicine she’d found. It would even go as far as to explain why they couldn’t find him in any of the yearbooks if he’d had his name changed for security reasons. They knew he had been a student at the school, as Professor Dumbledore had introduced Professor Evans as a returning graduate of Hogwarts, one of their own, at the start of term feast.
Severus still had further questions on his mind. Ideally, he’d have preferred a private tutoring session to ask all he was now wondering, but he’d have to settle for finding out in front of everyone.
“How long does the transfiguration hold out to allow you time to create this brand-new branch in Potions research?”
Professor Evans’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m not quite sure, no one is. It’s never been fully tested in a controlled environment for ethical reasons. So, we all better hope we study well enough so that should the day come and this happens to one of our loved ones, someone will have the alternative, allergen-free-antidote already.” The mood was suddenly sombre in the classroom, with all eyes on their teacher. Professor Evans suddenly clapped his hands together and went back to walking between the desks, helping anyone who needed help with their potion, as if nothing had happened.
Nothing too exciting happened for the rest of the class. Severus hung around after everyone else started leaving for Herbology. He knew he might be late, but he figured it was worth it. There was one last intense question on his mind. Unlike Slughorn, Evans would quench Severus’s thirst for knowledge.
“If someone does have an allergy to the ingredients in a life-saving potion, why can’t you just put them on the same course of immunology potions you put me on for my kneazle allergy? Cure the allergy, and then give them the antidote they require.”
Professor Evans rubbed his eyes. He looked tired all of a sudden. “Yes, ideally that’d be… ideal. The immunology potions are not… common. I’ve done a lot of work myself into developing the one you took. The base issue is that once someone is dying, you have two choices: am I putting them into stasis to keep them alive – such as a living coma or transfiguration – or am I going to attempt to cure their allergy to the life-saving potion, and then use that potion. But in the meantime, they’ve possibly died. You also have to be very certain you know what the allergy is, which again is going to be difficult to decipher while they’re in stasis. Almost impossible to decipher, potentially.”
Severus thought the conundrum through. “It can’t be done, then? Curing the allergy and the poison in such eventualities.”
“Not as yet, no, not with any known, proven method. If the poisonous substance you’re dealing with is going to kill faster than the immunology potions can cure the allergy, it can’t currently be done.” More gently, sounding almost defeated, Professor Evans added, “The chances of these things coming together are incredibly rare unfortunately, so little work has been done on it. It is a niche I have invested much time in, though. I feel I am close to a workable solution, even if it is convoluted.”
Severus nodded and made his way to the door, aware the next class were lined up outside already. As he reached the threshold, something came to him from a previous lesson, one of the first classes Severus had ever had with Professor Evans.
“Thank you, by the way,” Severus called back sincerely.
Professor Evans gave him a quizzical look.
“For brewing the course of immunology potions for me. Now if by some matter of fortuity I should ever get attacked by a manticore –”
“You should really try to avoid manticores. If I can impress on you one thing for your future life, Severus, it is how much I think you should avoid manticores.”
Why would he ever come across a manticore, of all things? He’d only picked the creature because of the associated antivenom potion. Severus brushed the thought aside. “I’ll try, Professor. But should I fail, at least I can now have the antidote. All that kneazle gut in the potion might have done me harm before, given my reaction to just the kneazle fur. Now the most annoying thing about kneazle fur to me is Disaster’s getting everywhere.”
There was that smile again. That beautiful, soulful, smile. “It was no trouble to me at all to brew for you. Thank you for looking after my beautiful Disaster, Severus. I know he’s enjoying his time with you. Now hurry on, or you’ll be late for Herbology. A good potioneer knows more than they ought to when it comes to plants. It’s the fastest way to not get scammed at the market.”
“Bye, Sir.” Severus stood at the door, watching his teacher, waiting to see if he’d look up at him again.
Professor Evans gave him a nod and looked back to the papers on his desk.
Severus arrived at the greenhouses a few minutes late, with a smile on his face. Professor Sprout took one house point for his tardiness, but Severus thought it worth the loss of points.
It was something in the way Professor Evans spoke to him that made Severus feel so content. Not like a student being spoken to by a teacher, almost like a colleague or even – if Severus dared even think it – a friend. Severus had gone into the year finding Potions tolerable, but now it was easily his favourite class.
Severus took to the task of repotting his plant for the class, his mind awash with happiness, and thoughts only for Professor Evans.