Heat, Light and the Properties of Plants

Chapter 11 Lost: One Potions Master

At first Harry wasn\'t too worried; Snape often got up early when he was feeling restless. But when he got downstairs to find only an uncharacteristically gloomy Tonks in the kitchen, he felt his heart sink.

\"Er, where\'s Professor Snape?\" he asked her.

\"Um, I\'m not really sure, Harry,\" Tonks said, looking at him with concern. \"He packed up and left, early this morning. Wouldn\'t say where he was going.\"

Harry stared at her, seized by an agonising sense of loss.

\"Remus has gone to try and find him,\" Tonks added. \"I shouldn\'t worry, Harry, I expect they\'ll both be back soon.\" But she didn\'t look at all convinced.

\"I wonder if he took his stuff from the cellar?\" said Harry, struck by a sudden thought. He ran down the cellar steps and stared round. All the equipment and stock of potions ingredients still seemed to be there. Then Harry noticed a new piece of parchment lying on the table beside the cauldron. Perhaps Snape had left him a note explaining where he\'d gone? Harry snatched up the parchment and read it quickly.
But all it contained were detailed instructions for modifying the Wolfbane Potion and a recommendation for Remus to begin taking the new version a fortnight, instead of a week, before each full moon. Nothing else.

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When Remus got back later that day one look at his face told Harry that his search for Snape had been unsuccessful.

\"I tried going to Hogwarts,\" Remus said. \"After all, term starts next week, so I thought he might at least have been in touch with them. But they haven\'t seen him or heard from him. Professor McGonagall is getting worried about next term\'s potions classes.\"

Harry snorted unhappily. That was the least of his worries.

\"Oh, and by the way Harry, while I was there I picked up the stuff you left behind back in March,\" and he nodded at Harry\'s trunk in the corner. \"Oh, thanks,\" Harry said. \"Er...Hedwig...?\"

\"Ach!\" exclaimed Remus, hitting himself on the forehead. \"I\'m sorry, Harry, I completely forgot. She\'ll still be in the Hogwarts owlery with the post owls.\"

\"Never mind,\" Harry said dully. \"There\'s nobody I want to send an owl to anyway.\"

\"Er, do you have any idea why he went off like that?\" Remus asked Harry. He looked uncomfortable. \"I don\'t want to pry, but were things...um...okay between you?\"

\"Yeah, in fact last night....\" Harry smiled, remembering the unexpected tenderness between them, and then stopped as a new idea struck him. Could Snape possibly have disappeared because he was afraid he was getting too fond of Harry?

\"Last night?\" queried Remus, looking at Harry in concern.

\"Um, now I think about it,\" said Harry slowly, thinking back over the last few weeks, \"apart from last night, he\'s only been - well - affectionate - our very first night together. Oh, and maybe that night with the eros herbs. Usually he just wants sex.\"

Remus sighed. \"You must give him time, Harry. He\'s had to repress his emotions for so long, it\'s not surprising - \"

\"Time!\" exclaimed Harry bitterly. \"I think that just ran out. He\'s gone, Remus, without any explanation, without... oh I dunno.\" He shut his eyes. \"I\'ve a very bad feeling about this,\" he muttered.

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Up in his room that night, Harry paced up and down, worrying over why Snape had left without a word to him. And about how he himself now felt. Barely a month ago his feelings for Snape had been extremely mixed; he\'d thought he still hated him, but now realised that there had always been that undercurrent of desire. Then after their first night together, he\'d felt - what? Vulnerable? Shaken? Hopelessly hooked on sex with Severus Snape... Harry smiled as he remembered that night in Snape\'s rooms at Hogwarts - his first real experience of adult sex.

Although now he thought about it, he wasn\'t really sure how he\'d ended up in Snape\'s bed at all - true, that scene in the Pensieve with Snape\'s cruelty to the wizard rent boy had knocked him off balance (mind you, from some of Snape\'s heated murmurings, that wasn\'t the worst thing he\'d done by any means). And then in the face of Snape\'s obvious need, he\'d melted, literally swept off his feet...

In the few weeks since then, he\'d been so busy - first with the Wolfbane potion, then Defence Against the Dark Arts training - that he\'d barely given a thought to their relationship. But as he\'d realised when talking to Remus, there had been something lacking. Snape had been elusive in many ways, even when they were at their closest.

The Sanguis, lacrima cum sperma Essences potion was supposed to ratify a lifelong connection of - er, what was it again - brotherhood, emotions, sexuality. Well, their relationship so far had included a lot of sex, but what about the other two aspects? In particular, Snape\'s emotions remained a complete mystery to him. Apart from that brief glimpse Snape had allowed him that night in the garden at Hogwarts, and what he\'d revealed on the night of the full moon, he\'d been as unreadable as ever.

The Essences potion had brought their buried sexual feelings for each other to the surface quickly enough, why not emotions too? Actually, his own sexual feelings can\'t have been that deeply buried, thought Harry, blushing as he recalled quite how the potion had been made in the first place.

And as for Snape - Harry now remembered certain brooding looks his potions master used to give him; dislike, certainly, but mixed with something he\'d been too inexperienced to recognise at the time but now realised had been sexual hunger...

Harry slumped down on his bed and buried his head in his hands, lost in gloomy introspection. He\'d been so concerned about getting his own life back to normal after finally defeating Voldemort; but what about Snape? Had he ever had a chance? Now things were over people could go about picking up the pieces, but few gave a thought to what Severus Snape had been going through.

Of course, his firmly entrenched habit of hiding his feelings didn\'t help. Harry remembered Snape telling him that people who wore their hearts on their sleeves were weak. But he was beginning to recognise that Snape himself had deep emotional needs, even if he was refusing to acknowledge them, and it was now his, Harry\'s, responsibility to satisfy them. But was he too late? Had Snape given up on their relationship? If only he\'d left some kind of message...

\"I\'ve let him down,\" Harry muttered unhappily. \"I knew he was emotionally damaged, I should have tried to help. But what did I do? I broke his nose!\"

Suddenly Harry heard a loud tapping on the windowpane. He walked over and opened the window. With a low hoot a big white owl flew into his room. \"Hedwig!\" exclaimed Harry. \"Who sent you?\" The owl hooted again and held out her leg so that Harry could remove a thin roll of parchment. Harry quickly untied it from her leg: he had a sudden wild hope that Snape had returned to Hogwarts after all, and was sending him a message. A hope which died when he recognised Ron\'s sprawling handwriting on the parchment:

Dear Harry, we haven\'t heard from you for a while, hope you are okay. Let us know whether everything\'s all right,
Cheers, mate
Ron and Hermione.

\"No, everything\'s all wrong,\" sighed Harry. \"Still, looks like Ron\'s started speaking to me again.\" He dragged his old trunk out from under the bed and rummaged around in it, eventually pulling out a rather battered packet of owl treats. He shook a few out and fed them to his owl, gently stroking her neck feathers. \"Wait here, Hedwig,\" he said. \"I\'ll want you to take a reply back in a minute.\" He went back to the trunk and unearthed his old quill and ink bottle. He couldn\'t find any parchment so turned the message over, smoothed it out on the table and wrote on the back:

\'Dear Ron and Hermione, thanks for your note. I am very unhappy\' - he crossed this last sentence out - \'Things aren\'t very good at the moment. There are rumours Fenrir Greyback has been seen, and now Professor Snape has disappeared. We\'ve lost touch with him completely, and I\'m worried. Hope all is well with you both. Love, Harry.\'

There, that should do he thought to himself, rolling up the parchment again. He picked Hedwig up and cuddled her against his chest for a moment before carefully attaching the parchment to her leg. \"Take it back to Ron and Hermione,\" he told her, launching her out of the window and watching her ghosting off into the dusk.

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Many miles away, a dark cloaked and hooded figure was walking along a stony cart track in an hidden valley, towards a dilapidated pub surrounded by trees. It was difficult to see how the pub could expect much custom in this isolated location. A weathered inn sign creaked in the breeze, proclaiming the pub the Silent Witch.

A large crow, perched on top of the sign, watched inquisitively as the stranger entered the pub.
The figure walked up to the bar and ordered a glass of dark rum. The barman passed him his drink and looked at him curiously.

\"Don\'t get many strangers in here, sir. Have you come far?\"
The stranger didn\'t reply, but pushed back the hood which had been shadowing his face. The barman gasped. \"Severus Snape!\"

\"No names,\" Snape said menacingly, throwing a sickle down on to the bar counter and picking up his drink.

\"I\'m not surprised!\" the barman said. \"Do you know how many people are after your blood? You\'ve got a nerve coming in here, after helping that Potter brat to destroy our Dark Lord!\"

Snape took a gulp of neat rum, then put his glass down. He leaned across the bar, hauling the barman towards him by his shirt and breathing rum fumes into his face. \"Have you ever considered,\" he hissed \"that the people who\'ve been spreading that... scurrilous story ... are our enemies? I\'m the only Death Eater left who can give the true version of events. All the others who were there that night are either dead or in Azkaban.\"

He let go of the barman\'s shirt, pushed him away violently and emptied his glass. \"Same again,\" he said curtly, slamming the empty glass down on the bar.

The barman picked up the rum bottle and splashed more into Snape\'s glass. His hand was shaking badly and some of the rum spilled on to the bar top. \"On the house,\" he muttered, pushing the glass across to Snape.

\"Anyway,\" Snape scowled, taking another swig of rum, \"I didn\'t come here for my health, I\'m after some... information.\"

The barman busied himself mopping up the spilled drink. He didn\'t look at Snape. \"What information?\"
Snape caught the barman\'s wrist in a cruel grip. \"Fenrir Greyback,\" he whispered. \"I hear he\'s looking for Harry Potter.\" The barman nodded. \"Well I can deliver him - for the right price.\" He tightened his grip on the man\'s wrist.

\"Sssoooo,\" Snape hissed \"Where can I find Fenrir Greyback?\"

The barman shook his head. \"I don\'t know.\"

Snape let go of his wrist and reached for his wand. \"- but I know someone who does,\" the barman added quickly. \"Come back in a couple of days, I\'ll introduce you to him.\"

Snape gave a curt nod, knocked back the rest of his rum, and swept out. The barman breathed a deep sigh of relief. Thoughtfully, he took out parchment, quill and ink bottle from behind the bar and sat down at one of the tables to write a letter. This seemed to cost him some effort, but at last it was finished. Then he walked out into the pub\'s overgrown garden and looked up at the crow, still perched on the sign.

The barman gave a raucous \"Caw!\" and the crow flapped down onto his shoulder. He held the piece of parchment up to the bird. \"Take this to your master, at once.\" The crow cawed lazily, seized the parchment in its beak and flapped away.

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The next morning Harry woke up to the sound of loud voices in the kitchen below. He hurriedly dressed, and started down the stairs. Surely that was Ron\'s voice he could hear?

\"We all know Snape played for both teams for years - I reckon he\'s gone back to the dark side.\" Harry smiled, that was typical Ron, with his Quidditch metaphors. Then his smile faded as he heard Hermione say earnestly \"oh I don\'t know Ron, Professor McGonagall told me she thought when Snape took the hit from Voldemort\'s curse it was as much because he was trying to die as to save Harry.\"

Harry couldn\'t bear this, he burst into the kitchen just as Ron was beginning \"You\'re saying he has some kind of a death wish? C\'mon, he\'s just an evil -\" then he saw Harry and went quiet.

\"I heard what you said,\" Harry told them. \"But I think you\'re both wrong.\" He laughed unhappily. \"I think he\'s just rejected me. I failed him somehow.\"

Remus patted Harry on the shoulder. \"It might not be like that. He might be trying to protect you.\"

\"I doubt it.\" Harry looked at Tonks. \"What do you think, Tonks, which of us is right?\"

\"Could be all of you,\" she said. The others looked at her, puzzled. \"You know Severus Snape,\" she went on. \"Motives as mixed as one of his own potions. The only trouble is, you\'re never sure which ingredient\'s going to come out on top!\"

TBC >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>