One Hundred And One Ways To Brew Lust

10. Invisible Spirit Of Wine

***

O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!
- Othello. Act II, Scene 3

***

Snape awoke with a start around three in the morning, naked and snoring on his back. For a moment he was bewildered, and then the headache gripped him as he tried to stand. Lavender Brown’s request echoed in his head as he headed to the small caun inn in his front room to brew the very potion he’d refused to teach her.

The evening’s events came flooding back to his mind as he poured himself a small glass of port from the new bottle he’d stashed away in his desk. Nothing like a last shot of the ruby red before downing a Hangover Potion…

It warmed his stomach with a tingle, and he went over the night in his mind in gruesome detail. He felt a pang of guilt as he recalled how he’s spoken to his beloved Hermione in harsh tones. He’d have to do something to make it up to her. Whistling through the pain of his headache, he mixed the potion ingredients together as he tried to think up a way to ask her to the Yule Ball.

***

Hermione woke up from an X-rated dream to find herself panting. She was grateful that Lavender and Parvati were in the girls’ bathroom and hadn’t witnessed anything incriminating. Once she was dressed, she opened the door to find a piece of fine parchment bearing the green Slytherin seal on it. With a sense of foreboding, she cracked the seal and found Snape’s unmistakable handwriting on it. It contained a poem. She recognised it… It was one of Shakespeare’s love sonnets. It began:

“Who will believe my verse in times to come,
If it were filled with your most high deserts?”

Below the last line of the sonnet, two words were scratched across the page, almost in lieu of a signature: forgive me.

Her first instinct was to rip it to shreds, and toss it with a flourish under his nose into whatever potion he was going to teach them today. Let him deduct points from Gryffindor if it turned her cauldron to mulch! Or perhaps she would fold it into a little paper airplane, and aim it at his head when he was looking the other way. Consequences be damned! No! She’d hex him… Yes, that’s it! She thought. A good Furnunculus hex, perhaps with a repetition charm so it would reappear sporadically and catch him off guard… She was so lost in her various scenarios that she failed to notice Parvati coming in from the bathroom. Too late! Parvati had already glanced over her shoulder before she could snatch the poem away from her prying eyes.

“Who’s sent you a blank piece of parchment?” she enquired. “Weird,” she muttered as she walked away, shaking her head.

Hermione looked back at the poem, wondering how he’d enchanted the paper so it read for her eyes only…

She thought about his behaviour in the last few days. The way he seemed to have slipped into his nasty persona, only to completely befuddle her today with this poem on her doorstep. It reminded her of something. A book she’d read long ago, while she was still at Muggle school. What was it called?

“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or something like that,” she muttered to herself.

“Hmmm?”

“Parvati,” she asked, “Have you ever read ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?’”

“Sure, it was on the reading list at my old school. Why?”

“What sets him off? What makes him turn into the monster?” Hermione asked, trying to jog her own memory.

“A potion, I think. Something like that… Why, are you going to ask Snape to teach us to brew it?” she giggled at her own joke.

Hermione was startled out of her pondering and looked stricken at Parvati’s implication.

“Sheesh! You’re jumpy this morning! I was only kidding. After the way he snapped at Lavender, I really don’t think that would be a good idea,” she finished, getting up to go for breakfast.

“I think you’re right,” she said, following after her.

***

Hermione found it difficult to concentrate that morning at breakfast. She touched the phial in her pocket, more determined than ever to get to the bottom of this mystery. Had Snape given her a lust potion? Had someone else? Had she only ined ned his kindness? Or was that his true nature? Was his recent vileness the ‘real Snape’ coming out, or had it been brought on by a potion? Maybe he was… what was the term? Schizophrenic? What on earth was going on?

She tried desperately to remember the order of recent events, starting with her first glass of port in detention with Snape.

“… and then, Angelina smacked the Bludger straight at him! It was amazing! You should have seen Malfoy’s face. Priceless.” Ron was smiling gleefully.

“What?” Hermione said. “Have I missed our game against the Slytherins?” What was g ong on… “What day is it today?”

“Thursday, ‘Mione’” Ron mumbled between bites of toast.

Harry frowned at her. “Hermione, we were just going over the last match, you haven’t missed anything. The next game isn’t till tomorrow, before the Yule Ball. You haven’t forgotten, have you?”

Ron was now paying close attention. He cleared his throat: “Don’t forget, seven o’clock in the common room!”

Hermione nodded as she got up to sprint down to the Herbology greenhouse.

“See you! I need to ask Madam Sprout a few things before class starts.”

***

At lunchtime, Hermione locked herself in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom with the ingredients she’d collected from a variety of places, including the pumpkin patch in Hagrid’s garden, and the Herbology greenhouse. She didn’t dare go to the Potions dungeons for ingredients, especially now that she knew the measures Snape had gone to in order to safeguard against intruders.

“Oh, it’s you” Myrtle’s voice echoed mournfully. “You don’t come up to visit very often, do you?”

“I’m so sorry Myrtle. It’s just been a terrible time. I’ve had… detention… for nearly three weeks solid now, and I’m at my wits’ end.”

Myrtle brightened considerably at this, pleased that someone else was feeling as miserable as she was. She whizzed back into her toilet’s drainpipe, giggling as she passed through the bend.

Hermione sat down on the floor. She lit a candle, placing a small bunch of sage and lavender in the flame. It turned red. She then sprinkled Pixie Dust on it, watching the flame leap higher as it turned a brilliant blue. She dropped three splashes of Green Pumpkin nectar into it, and read the incantation she’d found in “One Hundred And One Ways To Brew Lust”. This particular spell was found in Appendix B2 – Sourcing Incantations: Twelve ways to trace a Lust Potion back to its origin.

As she chanted the final words, she opened the phial and waited as her precious drops of port trickled out of it.

As the drops hit the flame, there was a flash of light, and she caught the distinct image of someone’s head bobbing up and down in the smoke.

“Dobby!” she cried.

Another second, and the image was gone. The flame had gone out. Gosh, she thought to herself, good thing I didn’t blink!

As she gathered all her paraphernalia, she thought more about the apparition. Dobby was just about the last person she’d expected to see appearing in the smoke. She debated whether there was enough time left to go talk to him now, or whether she should wait till this evening. But there was no time… She had to get to class. Potions. Just great.

***

Hermione wandered in just after the bell rang, taking her seat between Harry and Neville. Any student sweeping in by the skin of her teeth like this would normally have been chewed out by Snape, but he was busy writing on the blackboard, his back turned to the class, and had apparently not noticed her late arrival. Neville ogled her, impressed by her foolish daring. She ignored everyone, removing her notes and spell books from her bag.

“Today we will be preparing the Incandescence Potion,” he explained, still writing on the blackboard. A few Slytherins were giving each other funny looks. Usually, Snape just waved his wand, and the potion preparation procedure appeared on the board instantly. “You will notice that leaving out the Pixie Dust produces the wholly undesirable side effect of turning the consumer a deep purple colour. I therefore strongly urge you not to make this mistake! I’ll be watching you, Longbottom!”

Neville was dumbfounded. This was the first time he’d known Snape to give the class any kind of helpful hint.

Hermione was still rummaging around in her bag, looking for her quill. When she finally found it, she looked up and froze. On the board, in scintillating writing, a message read: “My darling, can you ever forgive me? Come to the Yule Ball with me… I am at your mercy. Severus.”

“Oh God!” she cried out as her hand covered her mouth and she pointed at the board, eyes wide. Neville turned to gawk at her, wondering if she was about to have another confrontation with Snape. Harry looked nervously at her, convinced she was going to receive another detention.

Miraculously, Snape, who was busy helping Malfoy sort out his Pixie Dust, seemed not to have heard her outburst.

Hermione whispered frantically: “Harry! What do you see on the blackboard?”

Harry cast her a worried glance. “Just the potion procedure, Hermione.”

She was still shaken. “Are… are you sure?”

“Of course! Here, you’re not losing your eyesight are you? Better get your eyes checked by Madam Pomfrey… Why don’t you copy from my notes?” Harry dared not whisper any further, as Snape was making his way down the aisle towards them. Hermione cast a nervous glance at his notes. They read:

One: Add five fireflies to two pints of dragon liver bile.
Two: Stir for five minutes until the mixture turns a golden colour.
Three: Sprinkle three thimbles full of Pixie Dust before…

Hermione calmed down a bit, and set about following the procedure. She kept her head down, hoping Snape would stay away from her. What did he mean startling her like that in class? Honestly! She stirred her potion angrily. If he thought that a handwritten poem and a magical declaration – made in class, no less! – were enough to win back her trust… It was rather a romantic thing to do, she thought to herself. Wait a minute! Her other, self-righteous, voice answered back…

Gods! How she wished she could talk to someone else about all this, someone with a bit more experience than her. She pictured herself as a Muggle in the movies: drowning her sorrows in a glass of Butterbeer down at the pub, spilling her guts to the barmaid. Oh wait! She mused to herself: can’t quite do that, can I? Since he’s been fucking the barmaid! Her anger rolled back over her in waves.

She looked down to find that her potion had turned a sickly green. When she looked around her, everyone else, even Neville, had a sort of translucent silvery concoction in their cauldron. Certain that she’d not missed an ingredient, she double-checked that she’d used enough Pixie Dust, and re-read Harry’s notes over his shoulder. Her eyes stopped at step seven:

Seven: Empty your mind of negative thoughts.
Eight: Add two Unicorn Hairs. Stir vigorously for two minutes.
Nine: …

Hermione sighed and looked back down at her useless potion. She recalled something from Hagrid’s Care For Magical Creatures class about Unicorns sensing purity of intention. “I guess even their hairs can do it,” she muttered to herself. Snape had just called for everyone’s flasks. Neville was beaming proudly as he deposited his on Snape’s desk. He’d just turned away, when Malfoy let out an exaggerated “Oups!” A tinkle and crash followed, and Neville turned to see his flask had been shattered as Malfoy ‘accidentally’ caught it on his sleeve while exiting the room. Nle wle was returning to his cauldron to fill another flask, when he heard Snape mutter: “Reparo!” under his breath.

What had come over him today? Not wishing to find out, Neville hot-tailed it out, grateful not to be getting a zero. Hermione was following right behind him, when Snape said: “Miss Granger, what is the meaning of this?” as he lifted her flask of green gunk to the light. A few remaining Slytherins snickered as they filed out. Hermione eyed Snape wearily as she walked back towards his desk. Everyone else had left the classroom. She was about to talk when he raised his wand and uttered: “Confidentius Silencio!” A bubble expanded from his wand to enclose the room.

“We can speak freely now,” he said cautiously.

An awkward moment passed in which neither of them said anything. Hermione couldn’t meet his eyes.

“I don’t know what happened to me these last couple of days,” he said. “I’ve been so angry. I have no explanation for my behaviour.” His voice trailed off as he looked down.

Hermione was about to tell him that she thought she might know what was going on. But something stopped her. Shouldn’t I wait until I’m really sure, speak to Dobby first?

“Do you… do you always get that way when you’ve been drinking?” she asked. Maybe she could find a way to determine if he’d touched the port lately. “I noticed you have a penchant for port…”

He looked sha “I’ “I’ve never been affected that way by alcohol before. Yesterday… I drank too much Firewhiskey, too fast. But it’s never made me… my behaviour was still inexcusable!”

Hermione agreed wholeheartedly with him on that point. “But you drink port on a regular basis, and it doesn’t seem to affect you like that,” she probed.

“But that’s just it! I haven’t really touched the port in the last few days,” he realised miserably. “Though I did finally open a new bottle in the wee hours of this morning,” he added sheepishly.

Hermione’s heart sank. It all made sense to her now. Sne, ne, maybe Dobby, had spiked the port with a Love Potion of some sort. And its effects were responsible for everything between her and Snape. The real Snape, the man she had been with these last two nights, loathed and despised her as he always had. And now… she was dealing with a spiked Snape once more! How could she reveal her suspicions to him now? Surely his first reaction would be to smash up his bottles, and they’d be back to where they had started nearly seven years ago. No, worse, Hermione corrected herself. For his hatred for her seemed to have risen to an entirely new level last night…

“Last night,” he uttered. “I… I don’t know how to make it up to you. Will you allow me to try?”

Hermione looked into his eyes, at a loss. “I need time to think,” she said, looking away.

“And the ball? Will you…”

“I’m going with Ron,” she said hastily.

His lips drew together in a narrow line. “I was simply going to ask whether you would save a dance for me.”

“I thought you said in class that you ‘had no time for such frivolities’, or something like that?”

He smiled weakly, “What better way to cast off suspicion?” At this, he lifted her hand to his and kissed it reverently.

“I will find a way to make this up to you,” he promised with blazing eyes before leaving the dungeons. And in that moment, Hermione believed him.

After dinner, Hermione sought out Dobby in the kitchens, but one of the other elves looked a bit embarrassed, and explained, “Dobby has gone out with Winky, Miss. They come back much later tonight. You try again tomorrow, yes?”

*