Snape's wand completed its journey back into his robes.
"My favorite student," Snape repeated, his voice clearly carrying immense contempt.
"Tell me, Potter, which particular delusion are you suffering from today? Or is this a new chronic condition I should document for Madam Pomfrey?"
"I prefer to think of it as optimism, Professor," Alister replied pleasantly, dropping his hands and strolling into the classroom
"Which is clearly something of a rare affliction in this dungeon, I know."
Astra, completely immune to the invisible lightning crackling between the two of them, grabbed Alister's sleeve and tugged him toward the workstationAstra, completely immune to the invisible lightning crackling between the two of them, grabbed Alister's sleeve and tugged him toward the workstation.
"Look, look," she pointed proudly at the cauldron. The liquid inside was a smooth, translucent amber, simmering with quiet, well-behaved little bubbles.
"That's a potion I personally brewed."
Alister peered into the cauldron raising an eyebrow as it was, genuinely, very good work for a first-year.
"It's really a fine work," he admitted, ruffling her hair until she batted his hand away. "Its making me wonder where my sister who set her own eyebrows on fire during holidays is?"
"Th..That was an isolated incident,"
Astra had her cheeks heating up in shame, but she was clearly trying to hold on to her dignity.
"Twice."
"The second time doesn't count."
"It absolutely does counts."
Snape, who had drifted back toward the workstation was forced to make a sound as both siblings continued to argue.
"If the Potter family reunion is quite finished," he said, picking up a phial of lacewing flies and examining it against the light.
"Miss Potter you still have three more stages before this Draught is complete."
"Oh, I forgot," Astra clearly flustered hurried back to her workstation.
Meanwhile, Alister shamelessly pulled up a stool with his foot and sat down without being invited, which earned him a look full of malice from Snape.
"Don't mind me, just treat me as air. I'll just observe."
"This is potion brewing not a spectator sport, Potter. Get out of my classroom before I decide to test the effects of this Valerian extraction by drowning you in it."
"I know Professor, but you have to admit the acoustics down here are excellent. Very soothing, i really like the atmosphere here."
Astra, standing between them, looked back and forth, entirely missing the lethal undertones of the conversation. She just looked pleased that her brother had joined them.
"Oh?" Snape asked, his voice deadly quiet. "So, can I know what the reason is for your sudden appreciation of my dungeon's 'acoustics'?"
"The reason, you say?" Alister tapped his chin thinking hard.
"Ah, yes. I really like the smell of pickled herbs and simmering potions down here."
"And hmm, look at that dripping ceiling. Simply exquisite stonework. I really like it. It adds a certain… damp, gothic charm to the place. You really just don't get this kind of premium ambiance anywhere else in Hogwarts."
Astra looked up at the ceiling, her brow furrowing as she squinted at the dark, wet stone.
"Really? I think it just makes the floor slippery," she noted helpfully, completely missing the heavy, sarcastic warfare happening right above her head.
Snape closed his eyes. He took a long, incredibly slow breath through his nose.
When he opened his eyes, Snape simply set down the phial completly ignoring alister's existence though his movements communicated different varieties of irritation.
"The next ingredient," he said, turning to Astra and very deliberately addressing only her. "is the knotgrass. You will find it in the third jar on the left. Do not confuse it with the fluxweed beside it. The difference should be apparent if you have read the textbook."
Astra scurried off toward the supply shelves, squinting at the labels.
"The fluxweed is the one that smells faintly of copper," Alister commented from the side, propping his chin on his hand.
"I am aware of what fluxweed smells like," Snape said coldly.
"I know you are. That was for Astra's benefit. Though it's good to know your olfactory senses are still functioning, Professor. Given the environment."
"I see that your summer produced no discernible improvement in your personality,"
"On the contrary," Alister said pleasantly, "I spent a considerable portion of it on self-improvement. I'm told I am very charming and dependable."
"By whom?"
"People with questionable taste." Alister answered, thing of his recent chat with Gellert.
"At last," Snape murmured, returning his attention to the phials in front of him, "something truthful."
Astra returned, holding up two small bundles of dried herbs. "Is this the right one?"
Snape examined them without turning his head. "The right hand. Put the other one back.""
"You know," Alister said conversationally, watching Astra measure out the knotgrass with a small brass scale, "I was explaining to a friend earlier today about how certain things operate as filters."
"Fascinating," Snape said flatly.
"She seemed to have trouble understanding the concept." Alister tilted his head. "Something about a gap between facade and reality."
Snape was quiet for a moment as he unstoppered a small bottle of salamander blood and added precisely four drops to a separate preparation dish.
"Gaps between them," he said eventually, his voice carefully neutral, "are typically the result of insufficient observation skills on the part of the one faking it."
"Or," Alister said, just as carefully, "the one faking it, has had an extended period of consistent evidence, and then encounters a single, rather conspicuous exception."
Snape's hand stilled over the dish for a moment.
"Those exceptions," Snape said, "won't invalidate patterns. They simply indicate the observer has failed to account for all the relevant variables."
"That's really a remarkably generous interpretation," Alister said. "Most people would just call it surprising."
"Most people," Snape replied, "simply aren't worth accounting for."
Astra looked up from the knotgrass, her brow furrowed. She glanced between Alister and Snape, trying to locate the thread of the conversation.
"What are you two talking about?" she asked.
"Potions theory," Alister said.
"Research methodology," Snape said, at exactly the same time.
Astra stared at them both for a long moment with suspicious expression on her face.
Just when atmosphere was getting awkward. "Right," she said slowly, and went back to her scale.
"Add the knotgrass now," Snape said to Astra. "Pinch at a time. Watch the color. When it shifts from amber to gold, stop immediately."
Astra bent over the cauldron with intense concentration, tongue slightly between her teeth.
The two of them settled into a temporary, oddly functional silence, watching her work. Alister leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Snape stood with his arms folded, his dark eyes tracking every small motion.
"A pinch more," Alister said quietly.
"Half a pinch more," Snape said.
Astra simply split the difference, silencing both alister and snape.
Soon, the draught turned gold.
"Stop," Snape said.
Astra yanked her hand back, scattering the remaining knotgrass across the workbench. She looked up. The cauldron glowed a clean, steady gold.
"Oh," Astra breathed. "that's pretty."
"It looks functional," Snape said, which was apparently his version of 'yes, well done.'
Alister straightened up, stretching his neck. "Right," he said. "Astra, I need you to do something for me."
Astra turned around, still flushed with pride. "What?"
Alister reached into his bag pulling out a neatly sealed letter and held it out to her.
"I need you to hand it over to Artoria."
Astra took the letter, frowning slightly. "Can't you just give it to her yourself?"
"Come on, you have afternoon class with slytherin and you are heading to class now anyway. don't you?"
"I mean.." Astra looked at the cauldron, then at the letter, then back at the cauldron, visibly thinking. "But the Draught isn't fully…"
"It needs to rest undisturbed for the next two hours before the final stabilization phase," Snape said, smoothly and without any inflection at all. "There is nothing useful you can accomplish by standing here and watching it sit."
Alister looked at him as he had not expected backup from that direction.
"Right," she said, a little uncertainly. She untied her borrowed apron, folded it with care and picked up her bag. "I'll be back tomorrow morning to finish the final stage?"
"Seven o'clock sharp," Snape said. "Not seven-oh-five."
"Seven o'clock," Astra agreed seriously. She headed for the door, then paused, turning back with a bright smile. "Thank you, Professor! And you too, brother."
"I'm never late," Astra said, which was a spectacular lie, and then she was gone.
The heavy oak door clicked shut behind her.
The silence stretched between them until Snape turned from the workstation.
"Your detention ended a long time ago," Snape said.
"It did," he agreed.
"And yet you have continued to appear at this door. I am not running a private tutoring enterprise, Potter."
"Whatever impression I may have inadvertently given you during your detention, I want to be exceptionally clear that I did not extend a standing invitation."
Alister was quiet for a moment.
Then he stood up, straightened his robes, and faced Snape properly.
He gave a slight bow.
"Before anything else," Alister said, "I want to say thank you."
Snape said nothing but he didn't cut him off either.
"The basics you taught me during detention," Alister continued, "weren't things I would have found in any textbook. The precision work, the instinct calibration, the way you explained the theories."
"You didn't have to do any of that. You could have had me scrubbing out lacewing residue for two months and called it a day."
Snape's dark eyes were unreadable. He held the silence for a long momentSnape's dark eyes were unreadable. He held the silence for a long moment.
"Gratitude," he said finally, "expressed to a professor by a student is customary and requires no particular acknowledgment."
"I'm not doing it because it's customary," Alister said. "I'm doing it because I mean it."
Snape turned away to the workstation and began cataloguing the used ingredients back into their containers.
"You're welcome," Snape said quietly to a jar of salamander blood.
Alister accepted that for what it was.
"Now, I do have another reason for being here."
"Naturally," Snape said, capping the jar.
"It's about Astra."
Snape's hands paused for the second time that evening.
"Miss Potter is a first-year student. She is under my supervision, as all first-years are, for the duration of the Potions curriculum. There is nothing further to address."
"That's interesting," Alister said, tilting his head. "Because what I saw when I came to the door wasn't curriculum supervision."
"You simply saw a student receiving instruction in potion preparation," Snape said flatly.
"Severus Snape, the one with worst reputation in Hogwarts," Alister said, and he said it carefully, "giving patient, gentle, personal instruction to a first-year. It a sight that can only be admired in dreams"
END OF CHAPTER)
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