Severus stood a few paces before her. His eyes were on the ruined cauldron.
"Tell me," his voice shook, and tears formed in his eyes, "why do you wear flowers in your hair?"
He kept looking to his cauldron.
"I don't understand."
"How does such a sim...
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The cauldron lay hollow, save for a lone stone. Ragged and sedimented of hairs and the indigested materials, the bezoar caught no eye. No ordinary experimenter, anyways. But the black-clad potioneer knew better, for he had taught the first years about bezoars himself. All this time, he thought he knew everything there is to know about potions.
Not tonight.
Head bent low over the cauldron, his raven-like hair framing his face, he extended an arm outward.
"Fawkes."
With a melodic cry, the phoenix swooped to a perch upon his index finger. Carefully, he hovered the bird above the cauldron. No heat, no ingredients, no incantations. Just a cold iron vessel beholding a bezoar, and a phoenix. Fawkes fluttered his sanguine feathers, then watered his large, beady eyes.
A drop splashed upon the bezoar.
Severus peered down. The stone absorbed the tear, returning to its dry state again.
Then a rhythmic trickle of tears tapped upon the stone, until it broke to rain. Fawkes lifted his head and a shriek escaped his beak, to which Severus drew a vial from his robes. He stilled the phoenix with his palm to the throat, then tipped the contents down the bird's beak.
After a moment, Fawkes fluttered his wings again, briefly nuzzling the Potions Master's thumb. Severus released him as Fawkes swooped from the lab, energy renewed.
Back to the cauldron, no longer did a bezoar or brine exist. Replacing them now rested a silvery, illuminating liquid. Against all experimental standards---against basic safety, the professor scooped a hand into the new substance.
A Potions Master's intuition, perhaps.
The silvery matter behaved like water with an almost gaseous density. It rolled off his callouses in a spiralizing motion. For an elixir thin as such, the potion brushed into every vein and muscle into his hand. An intense cooling effect pacified his nerves, like mint. A mist manifesting into tangible relaxation itself, caressing and massaging each scar, each old cut, no matter the severity or size.
The scentless liquid explored other results as well. Every numbed scar and ache wiped from from his subconscious. As if Tobias Snape, with all his abuse and neglect, obliviated blissfully forever.
Candlelight's dancing auras entranced him. The aroma of parchment, the shine of the glass obsidian ink jar upon his desk---the softened, fine quill bristles: all of its sensory appeal heightened. All the fears, obligations, and memories . . . vanished.
No masters to serve: freed from Dumbledore's lifelong quest; freed from the Dark Mark.
Blissful nothingness cleansed his body, and soul. To become one with the fine wisps, one with Hogwarts. Just here, and now. Childlike awareness as if newly brought into this world. Before the rules, before the mind connects and judges what seeds are planted.
