Forgiving but not Forgetting

Chapter 9: Re-evaluations and Mysteries

As they arrived in the empty classroom, Professor Snape shrugged his outer robe off and started a fire with a silent spell.

"Potter, last time in class, you messed up a simple healing balm. You will do it again. Take the needed ingredients out of the cabinet. Start now!"

"Yessir!", and the raven haired boy hurried to the shelves and began to slice and dice the collected ingredients.

Meanwhile the Potions Professor stalked into another room to finish his own potion. He had altered the wolfsbane and that it wouldn't, literally, 'blow up in his face'. As Harry was left to his own devices, he got carried away in his mindspace...

//After all this time, finally seeing all those people again... I swore that I'd...//

He snapped back to reality, when he heard footsteps coming back into this room. Looking at his cauldron, he suddenly realized, that his finished potion wasn't 'just' a normal healing potion, but an improved version he has developed... It was much more potent and complex... Something a first-year couldn't brew and definetely not develope!!! Altering and developing Potions wasn't even seventh year material!

//No,no,no! He can't know! Nobody can know! Stupid!//

But before he could sabotage his own potion, a voice reverberated directly behind him.

"I see you have finished, Potter. I assume it is just below average or average like usual, or did you fail completely this time?", the mocking tone drawled in his ear. Harry really did want to throw the frog spleen into his cauldron, but it was too late- he was too suspicious as it was.

"So let's see your result,shall we? The colour seems to be a few shades darker, it is more intensive than the usual one... The smell- Ginko? You put Ginko into the balm?"

"Professor, I'm sorry, I just- it was just a coincidence that I made a variation to the healing balm- ", Harry abruptly stopped and groaned mentally at his stupidity. He just told the man directly in the face, that he could do variations and knew that he did one...

"Really? A variation to the healing balm?", Snape made his 'Trademark eyebrow-raise'
//Could he be better than he let on? Did he fooled me, a double-spy for both sides? I must be slipping, or Potter is very, very good in deceiving people//

So Severus took a knife from the workingspace and nicked himself ob his finger. "So let us see, Mr. Potter, how good your variation really is." He was actually really curious about the results, but it sounded more like an insult. A typical bat-of-the-dungeons moment...

So the dark man rubbed a bit of the balm on the cut and felt and saw the instaneous effects. The balm immediately soaked into the wound, soothed the irritaion of the skin and healed the cut completely without leaving any mark. Not indicating to anyone that there has been a cut. Even the small scar that was on his finger was gone! The Potions Master's eyes widened slighty at the balm's very adequate effects.
He turned to the nervous boy:
"It is not only a more potent and faster-acting healing balm, but has also a blood replenishing effect too?"

It was asked as a questions, but it was more a statement.

"Y-yes Professor."

Their eyes met as Harry looked up and Severus stared calculatingly a few more seconds at Lily's son, before he murmured that Harry should bottle his balms, label them and write the potion's instructions down. Harry reluctantly nodded and began to do the assigned work.

After he did all his tasks, Harry looked at the clock. It was already an hour after curfew, so he got up and waited patiently for his professor to look up from his work.

"Yes, Potter?"

"Uhm, Professor, I've finished the tasks...", Harry stammered and got more nervous as his teacher raised his 'snape-brow'

"I want to make a request, sir. Please don't say to anyone that I made this potion. You can have the recipe and the acknowledgement for the balm, sir, or whatever you like to do with it. Please don't say that it was something I did!", Harry begged the man and hoped that he would just accept and wouldn't ask any questions. But he thought wrong...

The next word made him cringe internally in despair.

"Why?"
"Please, sir..."
"Why would I want to do that, Mr. Potter?"

Harry took a deep breath, he has to find a believeable explanation, quickly! So he finally tried to explain and to some degree, talks himself out of this problem he got into.

-x- -x- -x-

Finally, after this tiresome day, Harry laid in his bed, thinking about the recent events. He somehow got Professor Snape to believe, that it really was just a coincidence, albeit one that he actually made secretly in an abandoned classroom. And that's the reason why he didn't want anyone to know. So Harry got himself into 'holiday- detentions' to take lessons and help cleaning dirty cauldrons, every night in the remaining days before school started again. Sighing for the umpteenth time today, Harry closed his eyes and fell into a troubled slumber.

-x- -x- -x- Meanwhile in the dungeons:

Severus sat behind his desk, trying to mark some essays, but failing miserably to do so. Everything about the boy just confused him.

// Did I judge him wrong? He is not pampered, after what I saw at his birthday... Petunia didn't seem to like him, but that didn't surprise me- she hated her own sister, for Merlin's sake! Lily... He is more like her than I thought, the kindness, the eyes... His face is a miniature Potter Sr., but he does not have the man's arrogance... He does not react to my provoking. And there is something...//

The thoughts were threatening to overwhelm him.

//He is hiding something... But what is it? First, he is better in potions than I expected, maybe inherited Lily's talent... He may even be a prodigy in potions... The notebook I saw in his first lesson indicates to that, but I couldn't see enough to say more about him. And why would he not want the acknowledgement for the healing balm? He said that he did it secretly after he messed it up in class. As he made it he couldn't find some asphodel so ...

"...and that's why I tried to use ginko because of it's uses... So it was a mere coincidence... Because it was my second attempt- the first one got kinda goopy... So you see sir, my first variation was just luck..."

On the one side, I think that he is afraid that he made this attempt secretly after curfew, but how could a kid has this low self-esteem that he tries to make it a 'failure'? Come to think of that, I never see him, interacting with other students... Has he ever spoken to others, since he came here, except obviously some teachers? Arg! This brat infuriates me! //

So Severus thought about the mysterious first year for the rest of the night- adamant to solve the puzzle, with the name Harry Potter.

Tbc...

So I'm finally done... Puh...
This particular chap has more thoughts than actual dialogue... I'know, I know... But puleasu like and review!
Special thanks to chicken!
(∩^o^)⊃━☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟso until next time!