The Last Potion

For the first time since August 21st, Snape has his dinner in the Great
Hall with the other professors


Justin Penny
Normal
Justin Penny
2
413
2003-04-24T04:32:00Z
2003-04-24T04:32:00Z
3
814
4641
38
9
5699
9.2720







Late
For Dinner

 

I’d nearly forgotten about Professor Snape after I’d
climbed back up the eerie staircase for the tim time. I didn’t realize I had
tears swelling in the corners of my eyes until I blinked and set them free. Why
was I crying?

I certainly didn’t feel upset… or sad… or
heartbroken as I had the last time I’d spoken to him. My feelings for him have
changed over the years. No… they haven’t changed… they’ve vanished completely!

I quickly wiped my face dry and hurried back
to the Great Hall tooy toy the Farewell Feast with my fellow graduates. There’s
no use dwelling over him. He means nothing to me anymore. Nothing at all.

Within the Great Hall the long tables had
been rearranged from what I remember. In their place there were several smaller
tables, which were quite fitting for our small gathering. We were no longer
divided by our Houses but rather mixed and mingled all together. Gryffindors
and Slytherins shared tables, as did former Quidditch rivals.

There were three others at my table this
evening. To my left was my best friend Aribeth McKenzie who was now married
with two daughters, and to my right was Rodney Shore, a Beater for the Welsh
Wonders. Across from me was the very man I used to despise dearly when I
was a student. His name was Morton Davis. Slytherin. He always used to steal my
homework and peek over my shoulder during exams. I grew tired of his habit near
the end of our sixth year and finally decided to put a stop to it all. During
our Arithmancy final I put a spell on my parchment to display all of the wrong
answers, and then after he’d stolen my answers, I’d changed them to all of the
correct answers. It wasn’t until this weekend that he’d forgiven me.

“Honestly, I don’t think I’ve had a better
meal since the last time I was here,” Rodney told us before he’d taken an
unusually big bite from his drumstick. I watched him chew his chicken and
giggled at him.

“Perhaps if you’d found time to marry after
all these years you’d have a lovely wife to cook you such prestigious meals,”
Aribeth said. She was leisurely working on dipping her mashed potatoes into her
gravy, coating it perfectly before lifting her fork to her mouth.

Out of the four of us, Rodney was the only
one who’d not wed in the past ten years. I didn’t say it out loud, but I couldn’t
help but think how lucky he was. Marrying Devon Sullivan was the biggest
mistake of my life and apparently Morton’s luck hadn’t turned out in his best
interest either. However, I’m certain his wife was a dear in comparison to
Devon. He was one of them. Everyone knew it, too. Everyone here had
heard of the notorious Sullivan’s and that’s why no one had bothered to ask me
anything about him. It was a subject best left alone. Nobody wanted to ruin a
perfectly enjoyable conversation by bringing up Death Eaters.

“I’m sure going to miss this place,” Aribeth
said after dotting her lips with a napkin. “I’m so glad my mum was able to look
after the girls this weekend. She lives in Stockholm now.”

I was in the middle of sipping my pumpkin
juice when Morton raised his fork to his mouth and stopped frozen just before
the potatoes touched his lips. He looked right behind me and stared curiously.

“Well, I don’t believe it,” he said in a
soft whisper.

“What?” I asked and set my pumpkin juice
down before picking up my fork.

“Snape,” he said. My fork slipped out of my
hand and clattered as if fell against my plate. “That old bat’s still here.”

I cranked my neck around to see for myself.
Sure enough, Professor Snape had made his first appearance at the Head table.
He pulled a chair out next to Professor McGonagall.

Before sitting down he looked my way. I
could feel his eyes right on me. His head nodded in acknowledgement and then he
pulled his chair in and then glanced over at Minerva McGonagall as she began to
speak to him. He had very little to say in comparison to Professor McGonagall.
His mouth open barely enough to punctuate the words spilling out of her mouth.
He never was much of a conversationalist. When he did have something to say, it
was usually in a calm, eerie whisper. However, there have been times – plenty
of times where I’ve heard him raise his voice.

He never looked back at me again. Instead,
he casually picked up his glass and began swirling the orange liquid around in
small circles. He nodded once at the Transfigurations professor before touching
the glass to his lips and gently tipping it up.

I could see his throat flex as he swallowed.
Then he set his glass down and muttered something short to McGonagall. His hand
was still encircling the clear, slender glass. His fingers massaged gently
along the outside and his thumb slipped up and began churning softly over the
mouth.

My mouth and lips felt dry. I could feel my
body beginning to sweat. The summer sun beat through the glass windows of the
Great Hall just behind the Head Table.

I can’t imagine how Professor Snape finds
such dark, heavy clothing so comfortable this time of year and I don’t believe
he’d stand a chance of losing his dignity should he bare a touch more skin.
Merlin knows he’s sweating like a pig underneath that hideous costume.

“Are you all right, Lizzie?” I heard Aribeth
ask me after a moment.

I turned my head back around and smiled
nervously at her. “Yes, of course,” I assured and swiftly reached for my own
glass. “Why?”

“No reason,” she said and began stabbing her
spoon into her peach cobbler. “I was
just curious as to why you’ve been staring at the Head table for the last two
minutes.”

“I wasn’t staring,” I assured.

“Then what were you doing?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”