"People are interested, Severus. They want to know the mind behind the most important breakthrough in the last decade. Just do a small exposé for the journal—we don't have to do it in your quarters at Hogwarts, if that makes you uncomfortable." Edgar Whitaker said, sounding long-suffering.
"You won't be doing it at all," Severus ejected more force in his tone. Whitaker would keep pressing if he saw further avenue. "If people are interested, let them be interested in the work. That is all that matters. If you'll excuse me, Edgar, I have another appointment." As he said this, his eyes drifted to one Harriet Potter, seated and watching their conversation with not quite well disguised curiosity.
She and Rigel are one in eavesdropping as they are in potions, he thought, amused as he started towards her.
Whitaker spared a curious glance at Potter, but ultimately left him to his meeting.
The Potter girl rose, and Severus said shortly, "I have booked us a lab."
"Lead the way," she said, stepping neatly into his shadow as he made for the stairs.
He walked the way he normally did, but he knew his to be a long stride that unsettled most. She seemed almost used to keeping up to such pace however, and had no trouble keeping up. Severus led her down to the level in the Guild where they kept their labs and classrooms and through the corridors unerringly. The lab he had reserved was small, but serviceable for their needs, with a selection of cauldrons standing ready on one of the workspaces.
Immediately, the girl chose one of her liking and began to inspect it automatically as she said, "Which part of the process specifically are you interested in?"
"The entirety," Severus said, crossing his arms as a part of him noticed yet again how much she reminded him of Rigel with the way she merely looked at the cauldron. There must have been more than a modicum of truth to his songs of her potions love, then.
She nodded, opening her potions kit and taking out what she needed to brew a simple Modified Weightless Draught. He looked on, curious. This was what Rigel had given Draco on his birthday, he remembered. The notes Potter had sent him touched on it briefly, but he would like to see it firsthand.
"Have you managed to replicate the Shaped Imbuing itself?" Potter asked.
"It was not so impenetrable as you seem to believe. I sought a demonstration merely to cement my own understanding of the process," Severus said, sneering at her presumption.
She smiled over her shoulder at him as she continued to prep her station. "I didn't think it would trouble you much—Rigel says you are prodigious at wandless magic." —Severus felt something a little warm that he daren't acknowledge at that— "I only ask because I think you may be the first to successfully duplicate it."
Severus raised his eyebrows at her in patent disbelief. Potter caught it as she glanced back at him again and had to smile. Again. He didn't think anyone smiled so much around him. "I know; it seems incredible to me, but apparently the Unspeakables have had a great deal of trouble mastering the process in any meaningful sense. I suppose they must be approaching it from the wrong angle."
Severus thought they were more likely just sitting around complaining about how impossible the concept was instead of trying, but he didn't comment, and she turned her attention to beginning the base instead.
Then she grimaced and said somewhat sheepishly, "Would you mind lighting the flame?"
Really? Severus barely withheld another sneer. He knew that the law against unsupervised minors using magic was inconsistently obeyed at best, and with families like the Potters and Blacks who could afford anti-trace wards, there were almost no qualms in such violations. Still, he pulled out his wand and flicked it at the base of the cauldron, drawling, "When you brew at home do you require your relatives to light your fires, Miss Potter?"
"Sure," she said, blinking innocently. Severus blinked slowly. Did she know how much she looked like her cousin when she did that?
He turned away from such uncomfortable thoughts by deciding to fish for a reaction from her.
"You must keep them very busy," Severus said idly. She seemed immediately on guard, and he restrained from raising an eyebrow, "How often do you brew at home?"
"Quite often," Potter continued to look at her cutting board as she worked.
"I suppose it must be difficult, keeping up with all those orders," Severus commented.
She didn't seem to catch on, "The DMLE has only ordered two batches of my Protection Potion thus far. I wouldn't call the volume demanding."
He was silent for a moment. "The Ministry wastes little time in finding brutish uses for otherwise academic achievements." He would know.
She seemed to take his word for it.
"In any event, those were not the orders I referred to." He said.
She glanced his way with a confused frown to prompt an explanation.
"Rumour has it you brew for Burke in your free time," Severus said casually, eyes assessing her as she went still in surprise.
"No such rumour exists," she said, sounding so certain that Severus was momentarily amused. Adept at keeping her secrets, was she?
"Do you deny it?" He asked.
"Why should I? You've given me no reason to think this 'rumour' credible enough to deserve refutation," Potter said flatly.
His amusement vanishing, he said, "Aldermaster Hurst relayed this fact. Will you denounce him as a liar?"
The girl pressed her lips together, looking more than a bit annoyed at Hurst at this piece of information. "Aldermaster Hurst was no doubt attempting to convince you of my suitability as a brewer. If you have been convinced of that already, what purpose does digging into it further serve?"
His face twisted in a scowl at that, "Did you put him up to that little speech, then?" So like a Potter to ask for praise.
There was a slight smile on her face as she shook her head, "He would reveal details about my private business for no other reason."
"You admit it, then," Severus pressed.
Potter set down her knife and turned fully to face him. There was something noticeably different about her now: like a lion readying itself to pounce. This, more than anything, differentiated her from Rigel in his mind. For all his foolishness, the boy never showed himself as he prepared. He knew to hide his strength. Then again, Severus still knew to read him. Were they so alike, that reading one translated to another?
"I do," she said, "What import is it to you?"
"How did you convince him to distribute the potions of a child?" He asked. Burke was notorious for only picking potions of the highest quality.
"He likes my Blood-Replenisher," she said finally. "After that one sold well, he began ordering a few others through me as well."
If Severus hadn't known better, he might have been fooled by the surface half-truth. As fortune had it, he had two apprentices who seemed to rather have a habit of hoarding secrets, "You speak as though you have a prolonged business relationship with Burke, and yet he was surprised to learn your last name,"His eyes glittered more to press her than anything.
Potter grimaced, and there was a sharp concern edged with something like fear when she looked at him. "What did you do?"
"You will address me with respect—" She cut him off.
"What did you do, Sir?"
"I merely followed up on a lead," Severus said silkily. "And what a convoluted coil it turned out to be. Horace Burke was adamant that the only brewer named Harry on his staff was a gutter rat who worked primarily for an apothecary in Knockturn Alley. The Serpent's Storeroom, was it?"
There was a flash of frustration and panic in her eyes, before it was replaced with defensive defiance, "It isn’t illegal."
"I didn't say it was."
"What are you saying, Master Snape?" Potter asked. "Why does the brewing I do in my free time interest you so much?"
"I simply wonder how you find the time for such things around your schooling—and why you bother, for that matter," Severus said somewhat defensively. Why did he care so much about it, really? Shoving aside the question for later, he gazed at her with affected disinterest.
The chit favoured him with a look that was equal parts incredulous and questioning of his faculties. "I do it because I like to brew potions." She said it as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
He softened minutely at that, though his expression remained coldly blank as he switched tactics. "I take it your parents aren't aware of your activities? Knockturn Alley can be a dangerous place."
"Maybe for some. I've never found it so," He noticed that she didn't answer his previous question, only further cementing what he had already assumed of that matter.
"Then you are a fool," Severus sneered. Such obliviousness would only land her in trouble.
"You may well think so," she said, turning slowly back to the workspace and dicing her roots with surprising aplomb.
After a few moments of her silent cutting, Severus asked, "Aren't you going to beg me not to apprise your parents of your enterprises?"
"I wasn't aware you spend so much time with my parents that the subject is likely to come up," Potter shot back. After a pause, she regained her temper and added, more evenly, "You don't seem the type to go out of your way to distribute information for free, but if that is not the case, please do keep it to yourself."
He gave an amused snort, grumbling, "You are as impudent as Rigel."
"Didn't he tell you I would be?" Potter too sounded amused at that, and their dynamic changed somewhat, though Severus couldn’t really place what had done it.
A few minutes later she set aside her knife and said, "That's the prep. The brewing isn't any different from the regular Weightless Draught, so don't watch the cauldron. Watch the magic that goes into it."
"You'll be imbuing while you brew?" Severus clarified as he moved closer, only a little surprised.
"It's more efficient," she said, nodding. "I've done this one many times, so brewing it doesn't take away from the concentration I need to Shaped Imbue." She hesitated for a moment, then said, "The last time I demonstrated this, when I first showed Master Thompson last summer, I had him project his magical consciousness to my core so that he could see the magic being shaped. Since then, I've devised a better method, however." She pulled out a rolled-up piece of parchment from her pocket and handed it to him. "These are the instructions for a runic ward that will temporarily make magic used in this room visibly intelligible. Can you cast it?"
Constructing a ward was a great deal more complicated than simply allowing him to view the process from the vantage point of her core.
"Roundabout," Severus commented, nonetheless unrolling the parchment and scanning it.
"Thorough," she disagreed.
He glanced at her sardonically and she pasted on such a familiar guileless smile. "You want to view the process as objectively as possible, right, Professor?"
"You exhaust me, Rigel—" He stopped.
She frowned, confused about what had startled him, then stilled too.
"Professor?" He repeated, pushing down the panic as some thoughts finally made sense—"Professor?"
"That's what Rigel calls you," she said, biting her lip in a show of chagrin that didn't really disguise her panic. "Sorry, Mast—"
He wanted to fall for it. But there was a sickening, dawning horror pooling in his gut.
No.
"What have you done?" Severus tried to take a deep breath, but it was too hard in the face of this— what? What had he learnt, really? He was jumping to conclusions. He must be jumping to conclusions. Even Rigel—Potter— couldn’t do something so foolish—
Oh, he totally could. She totally could.
Hadn’t she basically confessed her reasoning to him the year before, under a different colour of eyes?
"I just want to learn potions. When I came here, yes, I wanted your recognition, because it validated my reasons for pursuing this field. When you told me I was good at potions—I don't think you can understand what it meant to me."
No, no, he must be wrong, he must be wrong, he must be wro—
Severus had never had to force himself to see the reality for something, for he learnt to not flinch away.
But this was Harriet Potter, and somehow she had gotten to him.
She seemed to be breaking all of his lines, didn't she? Just like Rigel had? Was?
" You foolish, stupid, imbecilic girl—" Severus choked out, "What have you done?"
"There might have been some confusion, Master Snape," she said softly, "What do you mean?"
It was then that he noticed she had dropped several, strong privacy charms. Wandlessly.
An almost hysterical bark of laughter left him, and all he managed was, "Drop the act, boy— girl—Potter," another bark of laughter, "I know."
There was undisguised panic in her eyes now, and he could tell Potter was both searching the room and racking her head for possible ways out of this.
He had to let out one last, low laugh. What did she think he would do to her?
He mentally growled at himself. He had been in so much shock at the sheer madness of the truth that he hadn't seen the repercussions immediately.
A halfblood impersonating a pureblood. One as infamous as Rigel Black.
Azkaban.
Or worse, a traitorous part of him whispered.
Severus sobered up. She didn't need his incredulity now, nor his concern. Ri—Pott—Harriet needed reassurance.
That I won't be sending her to Azkaban. The same voice whispered, that's how much mistrust lies here.
Pushing that away for the time being, Severus looked at the pale girl in front of him who's grip had latched tightly onto her knife and had pulled out her wand— Rigel's Holly wand — pointing it at him almost subtly. Her eyes were wet, but she looked every inch the lioness he had first assumed her to be as Harriet Potter; every bit the snake that he had once thought was Rigel Black.
He couldn’t help the dry twist of his lips.
"So?" He said, when she'd hesitated enough he knew she didn’t have it in her to obliviate him. Or perhaps she had left it as the last resort. Severus was happy to comply, "Will a voluntary sealing curse suffice, Harriet Potter?" There was something sharp that he hadn’t quite been able to blunt in his voice, though. Perhaps, in her state, it had seemed sharp enough to slice through magic.
She flinched, and a tear that had built up at the corner of her eyes slowly streamed down.
"I'm sorry," she said.
He had a feeling that neither of them knew what exactly she was sorry for, just that she was.
"Don't be, to me," Severus said after a while, when it seemed he could speak without choking on his words, "Are you sorry to yourself?"
There was the slightest shake of head, before it froze in indecision. His lips tugged upwards ever so slightly. He had thought so.
"If you don’t regret it, don't apologise." Severus said. It was something he had learnt from Rigel, when the headstrong girl had faced him after helping Lupin the night the dominion jewel had driven all the creatures at Hogwarts temporarily insane.
She remembered it too, he thought, but she didn't crack a smile.
"Then what, Mast—Professor Snape?" Green eyes flashed brightly, and her voice sounded just a tad delirious, "Just—how do you intend for this situation to go? I'm not going to Azkaban, mind you, but I don't want to hurt you—" The words seem to hurt her just as much as they did him.
"Shhh." He removed his wand slowly, then kept it aside. Something relaxed in her minutely.
"We'll figure out how it goes from here," Severus promised her, and then traced her tired features, "I swear on my magic to shield you from all I can."
He felt a slight hum under his skin as his magic tested his intentions. Nothing happened. She stared at him, but there was something almost broken in her gaze now.
"I guess I know what I'm sorry to the both of us for," She said hoarsely, "I'm sorry, Professor Snape, for not trusting you. I'm sorry to myself for thinking you'd hate me if you ever saw me for what I really am."
Severus placed his hands around her shoulders, "I saw you truly then, when you first asked me for tutelage. When I taught you for years . A name doesn't change the person I know. It doesn't change you , only that it restricts your freedom." He gave her a real smile, if a tad tremulous, "And that just means the world hasn't seen your true fire."
She didn't seem to have the energy to muster a perfect smile at his attempt to raise her spirits, but her tremulous smile was accepted with the same grace she had accepted his.
How different were they, really?
She reached for him hesitantly, and Severus didn't protest as her arms wrapped themselves around him. After a moment, he reciprocated.
"Sir?" There was something odd about the tone of her voice, and he recognized it later as vulnerability. She took a breath, and then her voice was almost amused, "You aren't going to reprimand me for such a 'bull-headed scheme'?"
Ah. There was the impudence he had missed.
"Would you like me to?" He drawled, "Perhaps I should—"
She pulled away, just a twinkle for her former brightness rekindled.
"How about we finish the demonstration first?"