#14 - Perchance to Potion

Sarah gave a small meep when the door swung open, and jumped a too-late step forward to prevent it from banging on the wall. Her intervention wasn’t necessary, as nothing happened. No wood splinters, no bangs, just silence. Which was eerie on its own.

‘Just my luck,’ Sarah thought when she saw Professor Snape’s face. She was sure the feeling was mutual.

“Professor Snape, good afternoon,” she politely addressed the Potions Master and made her way into the office, stopping a few paces before the desk. Sarah put her hands in a hold behind her back, trying to give as neutral stance as possible.

“I wish to further my, admittedly average, knowledge of Potions with some extra studies,” Sarah explained. She took studying seriously, most of the times, so it wasn’t as if that was not the truth. “I think working on my Potions Kit’s a wonderful way to go about it,” she rolled on the balls of her feet. “With your permission, I’d like to start it.”

As she waited for the Professor’s answer or any comments, Sarah took a glance at her surroundings, it wasn’t often that a student was in Professor Snape’s office. ‘At least not for a good reason,’ she thought to herself. Sarah spied quite a curious collection of books on the desk, most interested in one about forbidden magical practices and curses. They sounded nifty.

Sarah started to become more nervous the longer the silence from Professor Snape lasted. It didn’t bode well for the rest of their conversation, but Sarah had yet to hear about a Gryffindor Professor Snape liked. Such a rare flower has to exist, surely?

Luckily for her nerves, Professor Snape spoke and seemed to accept her reasoning and summoned a roll of parchment.

“Thank you Professor Snape,” Sarah smiled as she grabbed the parchment and stuffed it none too gently into her pocket. “I’ll be sure to find the ingredients you requested,” she clarified, nodding diligently to the rest. Sarah kept quiet to see if she would be dismissed with any words, but none came. Although Professor Snape’s demeanor spoke for itself.

“Goodbye Professor Snape,” Sarah nodded after an uncomfortable bout of silence, turned on her heels and exited the office, shutting the door behind her.

“Thank you for your interest, Miss Albright,” Sarah started to mimic when she felt she had been far enough from the office. “It’s been exceptional to see someone from your house finally take an interest. Have a good day.” She wasn’t particularly good, but the snarl on her face (that she thought this particular Professor might sport) made up for the lack of a deep tone.

Sarah looked at the list of ingredients and scurried off to the location where she felt she’d find the most possible.

(OOC: Exit.)

Sarah basically ran the short distance to Professor Snape's office and when she arrived, dared a look back to where Seabrook happened upon her.

There was a minimal amount of time between her rather loud knock and her bursting in like a hurricane, eyes wide as if a spectre was behind her. Which wasn't that far from the truth in her eyes. 'Was that rude?' Sarah questioned herself when searched out Professor Snape's location in his office.

"I've got all ingredients like you wanted, Professor Snape," Sarah started without even a greeting, basically throwing them on the nearest unoccupied surface.

She was shaken, okay?

A small meep once again found its way from Sarah's lips when Professor Snape glared at her, admittedly rude, arrival. She definitely was in some sort of trouble, but Sarah liked her odds better inside the office than outside.

Sarah wondered briefly if telling him the truth that she wondered whether one of his snakes wanted to kill her and Sarah wanted to remove herself from the situation as soon as possible, but she figured that was bad form. So, she settled on something that was not a lie, but not the whole truth either.

"I was just in a hurry to finish the task you sent me," Sarah motioned to the ingredients. She realized that might not really fly as excuses go, seeing she was at best average at Potions. biting the proverbial bullet, Sarah decided that since her pride was already done for, she might as well expand on the story.

"And there was, like, a huge rat in the hallway," Sarah lifted up her hands, holding them around 16 inches apart. She was sure it was smaller, but it looked big to her. Though she could go all in and tried to show the creature's height which would coincide with Seabrook's height. But Sarah kept that to herself just in case Professor Snape could read minds.

Sarah kept quiet while Professor Snape inspected the ingredients while nervously tapping her fingers on her thigh. She wondered whether the man loved to torture students, or at least Gryffindors, with the long silences on purpose, but the girl was afraid she already knew the answer.

She couldn't help herself and gave a sigh of relief when Professor Snape seemed to find the ingredients acceptable and grabbed the vial and the empty jar from the air. He didn't give any other verbal indication, but Sarah figured that was just as well. She'd hate to catch fire from disbelief if the man had to compliment a lion. Not that her housemates would ever believe her.

"Yes, sir," Sarah nodded and followed the professor out of his office and to the nearby classroom. She gave a surreptitious look along the hallway, but Seabrook seemed to be gone. Sarah briefly wondered whether their interaction was a mirage brought on by the cold outside. The terror she felt was real, though. Sarah should work on that, maybe through Quidditch?

Dispelling her thoughts on the Slytherin Queen, Sarah focused back on Professor Snape, who pointed to a pile of what looked like pewter cauldrons who seemed to have gone through hell and back. Twice. She figured out the assignment about the same time as Professor Snape telling her what she would be expected to do.

"Yes, sir, no magic, got it," Sarah deflated under the look. She was rather familiar with it. It wasn't often aimed at her, but it was generally known to all Gryffindors in one way and another. Sarah looked at her hands, sighing softly, but nonetheless, she picked out one of the cauldrons and dragged it a foot or two away. She looked around for cleaning supplies and proceeded to do the same with those.

Sarah sat down on the floor and started cleaning. She knew that Professor Snape would be extra vigilant because she was a Gryffindor, so Sarah tried really hard to get every speck of mud, dirt and who knew what else from the cauldron. She wished she could have gone for one of her spare toothbrushes to really get into the grooves and small spaces. But a rag would just have to do.

She wondered what her family was doing on Christmas Day. Sarah really missed them a lot, but circumstances dictated that it was best she stayed at Hogwarts this year. She didn't mind being in the castle all that much, but all her friends had gone (or at least Sarah didn't see any yet) and while she was opening gifts, a big wave of homesickness hit her. Sarah vowed to write her family more often, even her pain in the butt brother Farron. They had a fight before she left for her fifth year, but it was just one of those siblings fights that should have been resolved in a day.

"I'm done, Professor Snape," Sarah called out to the man after some time had passed. She looked at her hands, weeping red from the exertion. Her skin was broken between her right thumb and index finger, a faint line of red stinging every time she moved it. Sarah didn't even realize when she got it, but it had to have been when she was going over one of the jutting pieces of the cauldron.

Sarah longed to at least use her wand to clean up the muck from her hands, but she was afraid that would meant using magic, even though it would never go near the pewter cauldron. Until Professor Snape gave her the okay, Sarah'd never even think about picking up her wand.

Cracking her back, Sarah stood up and tried to clean her hands by wiping them on her trousers. She winced, but she figured it was nothing a well-placed Tergeo or house elves couldn't fix. Sarah lifted up the cauldron and carefully placed it on one of the nearby tables for inspection.

For now, the Gryffindor folded her arms in a small hint of defiance for a job she knew she did to the best of her abilities, but a question remained. Was it good enough for the Potions Master?

Was this a bad idea?

MJ hovered outside of Professor Snape's office and wished she had a friend to bring along. Safety in numbers and all that. And it wasn't that she found the Potions Master scary, per say but he definitely intimidated her.

"Come on, MJ, get it together." She attempted to give herself a pep talk, bouncing on the balls of her feet before quickly stopping. She had a tin of biscuits in her hands and jostling them wasn't going to win her any brownie points.

Listen, the worst that could happen was he wasn't there or he would tell her to get lost. It was Christmas after all. With a sigh, she rapped on the door with her knuckles. Clear and precise, three times. MJ leaned in a bit, listening. She wasn't sure if she heard someone on the other side or not...

Professor Snape had barely returned to his seat when there was another knock at the door. Three times, precisely. Therefore, it could only be concluded that someone had put out a dare to bother him as much as possible on the one day he thought he had some chance of being left alone.

What kind of children don't want to spend Christmas lazing around? Since when had they cared this much about their education? Yes, something sinister was surely going on.

'Enter,' he said with disdain.

With a swish of his wand, the door suddenly swung open -- yet was magically prevented from banging against the wall. The doorway clear, Snape awaited his company to make an entrance and explain themself. He glanced up just enough to see who it was, then resumed his task at hand. At least he was granted a small mercy of it not being a Gryffindor for once. 

Most notable was a decent stack of leather-bound books on one side of his desk. There were titles such as Unbinding Binding Curses, An Intricate Comparison of Werewolves and Wuffsnouts, The Most Advanced Study of Counter-Poisons, Lost and Forgotten Counter-Curses, and An Ancient Guide to Forbidden Magical Practices.