A Maid in the Devil's Manor

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to JKR. All situations are mine. No $$$ is being made from this fanfic.
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Chapter 33 ~ Severus Comes Home for the Summer


Neville and his crew of students finished the Ecolab by Tuesday night, much quicker than they thought, due to the enthusiasm that drove the young wizards. Hermione was ecstatic as she walked through the humid lab. The temperature had to be kept between eighteen and twenty-nine degrees celsius, and the plants were irrigated with magically distilled water. The soil consisted of a mixture of live Sphagnum moss, medium orchid bark and charcoal and was kept extremely wet. The boots Eli provided Hermione came in very handy.

The plants required a great amount of sunlight, and Hermione wore magically adjusting goggles to protect her eyes when she harvested. She had decided to focus on the Yellow Pitcher plant. It had shown the greatest resistance and the plants themselves grew to a height of three feet, which made them easier to experiment with.

Neville was a wiz at setting up the seasonal changes. The plants required a winter season of dormancy, and the wizard had set up two opposing seasonal areas, so there were always plants in varying stages of growth for Hermione to choose from. In the winter season, the temperature dropped between four to seven degrees celsius, and they utilized a time turner to allow the plants to move through the winter months quicker if need be, the three month period could be adjusted to just under four days if necessary. House elves came in every other day to check for dead leaves to carefully cut back during the dormant season.

There were a variety of bugs in the Ecolab, and some had a taste for wizard flesh. Hermione would utilize a spell that repelled the bloodthirsty little critters, and the pitcher plants took care of them eventually. There were also frogs, salamanders and other small creatures to help control the bug population. All in all the lab was a great success.

From Monday afternoon on, a small power struggle was occurring in the labs between Eli and Hermione, with the Elf showing up at the hours of eight, twelve, four and sometimes eight again, to make sure Hermione ate. Unfortunately, she was usually involved in some experiment she couldn’t just drop, and so the battles began. Eli found that the little Miss was quite a handful, with a terrible temper and quite fast with a wand. She had petrified him three times in as many days, as well as stunned him several times, and even hit him with an expelliamus twice. He did manage to get her to eat, but she still looked tired and overworked, refusing to go to bed until after midnight, and waking up as early as six in the morning, running directly back to the lab, and staying there till midnight again. He’d had to scourgify her more than once…and her hair was a mass of tangles. The Master was not going to be pleased if he couldn’t get her to take care of herself better. But she knew nothing but the work.

All day long she was bent over a dissecting tray, or had her eye to several microscopes at once, or stood staring at the distillation stills as if she could make the drips flow faster by will alone. She managed to distill, separate and identify several enzymes in the plants, protease, esterase, acid phosphatase, and amylase and worked with these in varying combinations to see if they were the source of the plants curse-fighting abilities. She collected numerous samples of the slippery wax coating on the inside of the Pitcher's tube and found that it contained protective properties when on Thursday afternoon she applied the curse to a small melted portion of the waxy substance and a fly that escaped from the Ecolab fell into the dish as she applied the spell. The fly died, but not for several hours. A breakthrough!

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Severus returned to the Manor at about nine in the evening. Hogwarts was officially closed for the summer months, and he apparated to the lower rooms immediately to check on Hermione. He appeared at the head of the hallway and froze as he heard Hermione’s voice. She was cursing and yelling. He ran to the lab door to see the witch, wand extended, shooting spells at a ducking, dodging Eli, who had a plate with a sandwich clutched in his little hands, squeaking at her that she had to eat as he dipped behind counters and boxes. Hermione was firing stunners at him, so as not to destroy any equipment.

“Leave me the fuck alone, Eli!” she was yelling, “I told you I’ll eat before I go to bed! I’m working! Get out of here!”

Eli peeped from behind a box, holding up the sandwich.

“Miss must eats now!” the elf cried, before dipping back just in time. A stunner hit where he had been standing.

Hermione cursed at missing the elf. Eli popped up from behind another box several feet away, still offering the sandwich. He must have been using his magic to avoid her blasts. She took aim again.

“What is going on here!” Severus bellowed, striding into the room.

Both Eli and Hermione froze, and looked at the Potion Master as he walked into the room and snatched Hermione’s wand out of her hand.

“What in the world are you doing?” he asked the wild-eyed witch.

“Trying to work!” she spat back angrily, “And this little sandwich nazi won’t leave me alone. I am at a particularly sensitive part of an experiment and he’s interfering with its completion!”

Eli stood by the box, his ears flattened, holding the plated sandwich before him as if asking for alms.

“Eli tried to make the Miss eat, Master, but she will not listen. She tries to stun Eli, sir,” the elf said, looking at Severus with worried eyes.

“You’re damn right I did,” Hermione growled. “I want you out my lab! Now!”

She lunged for the wand in Severus’ hand. The Potions Master raised it high over his head so she couldn’t reach it.

“Calm down, Hermione!” he said as the witch jumped up, trying to get her wand, looking a bit like a tiny basketball player trying to take the ball from a larger adversary.

“Give me my wand, Severus!” she panted up at him.

The Potions Master looked at her state. Typical Granger. Her hair looked like it hadn’t been combed for weeks, her skin was pale and looked unwashed, and there were circles under her eyes, which were glazed over with exhaustion and aggravation. He sighed.

“Eli, leave the sandwich and go. I will handle the Miss,” he said to the elf.

Eli’s ears flattened as he set the plate on the island in the center of the lab. He had failed his Master.

“Yes sir, Eli will go,” he said sadly, and winked out.

Severus turned back to speak to Hermione, but she wasn’t there. He looked across the room to see her bent over a microscope, adjusting it as she peered into the eyepiece. She stood there a moment, then grunted, removed the slide and carried it over to a small, square pan containing a thick liquid. She immersed the slide into the liquid carefully, picked up the pan and carried it to an incubator, opened the door and slid the pan inside.

She then turned and walked to another section of the lab where a large dissection pan sat, dissected pitcher plants carefully splayed open and pinned down. She pulled up a stool and picked up a sharp scalpel, and carefully began to scrape away the waxy substance that coated the plant, lifting the small rolled pieces carefully with the blade and depositing them into another pan. She was completely focused, seemingly unaware of what was going on around her.

Severus walked over to her, and just watched the witch work like a woman possessed.

“How long have you been at this today?” he asked her softly.

Hermione didn’t answer him. He repeated the question a little louder. He didn’t want to upset her…she had a scalpel in her hand after all.

“I came to the lab about seven this morning,” she said, depositing another small roll of pitcher wax into the pan.

“You’ve been here too long, Hermione. It’s time to retire,” he said gently.

“No! I had a breakthrough today, Severus. I think I’ve identified the part of the pitcher plant that resists the curse! I have to go on,” she said desperately.

Severus’ heart thumped in his chest. She’d identified it? Already?

“How do you know?” he asked her, trying to remain calm.

“Like most great discoveries, it was an accident. A fly fell into a culture I was working with as I cast the curse, and the fly didn’t die for several hours, when it should have died instantly,” she said, still scraping the waxy substance from the plant.

“I need to collect as much of this substance from the plants as possible and it has to be done by hand. It can’t be stripped by magic because the flesh of the plant contaminates it, and magic always takes a little of the plant flesh,” she said, moving a little more to the pan. She had about an eighth of a cup of the waxy shavings.

“I need at least ten pounds of this to work with. It freezes well, and I have about a pound and a half so far,” she said, still bent over the pan.

Severus looked at the waxy shavings. That could be the answer. He was finding it hard to breathe he was so overcome with the enormity of what the young witch had done in just a couple of days.

“Hermione, this is amazing. You are amazing,” he breathed.

She stopped scraping and looked up at him, her amber eyes shining in her exhausted face, the tangles of her hair framing her head like a knotted lion’s mane.

“We’re going to find it, Severus. I just know it. The answer is right here in this pan,” she breathed. She turned back to the pan and continued to scrape again.

Severus set her wand down on the counter next to her.

“Do you have any more plants ready to scrape?” he asked her, unbuttoning his robes.

She gestured toward a freezer.

“I just put one in there. Scalpels are in the top drawer next to the freezer,” she said.

Severus removed his robe and draped it over a stool. He unbuttoned his cuffs as he walked over to the freezer, rolling up his sleeves. He opened the freezer. There were several dissected and pinned plants, most were frozen. The one closest to the front was simply cold. He pulled it out. He then opened the top drawer and took out a scalpel that had a cardboard sleeve over its sharp blade.

“Sterilized pans are in the bio-cabinet on the other side of the freezer,” Hermione called to him, “use one to put the shavings in. Be careful not to touch the plant with your hands. There are gloves on the counter if you want to use them.”

Severus retrieved one of the sterilized pans and carried everything over to the empty space next to Hermione and set them up. He didn’t need gloves. He had been doing this for years. He removed the sleeve from the scalpel and went to work.

They didn’t leave the lab until well after three am.

Hermione collapsed in her bed fully dressed. Severus slept on the sofa in her study.

Eli winked in, a light blanket in his hand, and gently drew it over his Master. He looked back toward the bedroom where Hermione slept, smiled and winked out.

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A/N: Hermione is in her element. So is Severus. And Eli, despite his rows with Hermione seems pretty pleased. Please review.