The First Days
(A piece of frayed parchment, the writing is messy with spots of ink where the writer didn’t know how to continue.)
Oi ‘mione,
You had to go to a Slytherin house party? And you really couldn’t poison them? Let me know when you go again, I’ll send you a supply of special Wheezes free of charge.
Also, how come that git Snape’s being so hard on you???
Harry showed me your last letter to him (& how come you write different stuff to Harry than to me?) and I was ready to Apparate to Hogwarts so I could challenge the Great Git to a proper duel. Only Harry reminded me that you can’t Apparate straight to Hogwarts and then he shouted at me how Snape is one of ‘us’ and how I just don’t understand and well, I guess I would have lost that duel anyway.
I guess Harry’s right. I don’t really understand. I mean, I know what you’ve told me, but you havedamn I lov
I do miss you, you know?
Sometimes I almost wish it could be the way it was before, only of course who would want that. This is not what I imagined things would be like. Accountancy is even worse than Binns. But someone needs to do it, I guess.
George & Lee say hi.
Talk to you soon,
Ron
oooOooo
‘You’re brewing WHAT in my classroom?’
‘A uhm… a bubbly bathing potion. Uh… based on Muggle herbal remedies. Uh… Soothing, you know. But…I …’ She knew she wouldn’t be able to conceal her motivation in attempting the kind of experiments she was currently engaged in.
‘I have trouble sleeping,’ she explained. ‘And I hate proper sleeping potions. They—they mess with my mind. And I know I have to learn how to experiment if I want to make it as a potions apprentice, so I figured I might just as well try coming up with something that would help me.’
Snape’s fingers strayed to the bridge of his nose. Hermione winced at the sure-fire sign for a seriously irritated the Potions Master.
‘The recipe,’ he demanded wearily.
Hermione gulped, but handed it over without hesitation. She knew it by heart in any case: 2 cups of milk, powdered, 1/2 cup of Epsom salt, coarse, 1/2 cup baking soda, 5 drops of rose oil, and jasmine oil, 4 of musk oil and 3 of ylang-ylang.
‘Tell me what you’ve done so far.’
‘I’ve been trying to substitute magical substances for the ordinary ones,’ Hermione mumbled.
‘You’ve been doing WHAT?’
Hermione flinched.
‘It wouldn’t work the way I wanted,’ she mumbled.
‘Merlin’s bollocks, of course not, a herbal bath is…’ He shook his head. ‘A herbal bath is a herbal bath. You can’t just randomly substitute ingredients. Successful experiments require a stringent test methodology.
‘To start with—every single one of the ingredients in your recipe already has its own unique magical powers.’
She blinked at him. Professor Snape looked ready to pull out his hair at the roots and strangle her with it. He sighed deeply.
‘Tell me about the magical properties of unicorn horn.’
‘Uh… ever since Ctesias wrote his ground-breaking treatise on the use of unicorn-horn around 479 before Christ, its medicinal use has remained unchallenged. It’s a powerful purifying agent, highly effective against most common poisons. It offers protection against convulsions and epilepsy. Since the Middle Ages it has also been used to combat plague, to cure fevers and the bites of snakes or dogs with rabies. 1678 William Salmon wrote a lengthy essay that advertised using it undiluted—at ten grains per dosage—against plague, pestilence and poison, but also against measles and small pox, which didn’t work out well, causing rather phenomenal side effects. At the end of the 17th century Nicholas Culpeper investigated the use of unicorn horn to aid magical births. And in the 18th century Pierre Pomet revolutionized the distillation of unicorn horn, using the most highly diluted potency to the greatest possible effect.’
‘Yes, yes, yes—that is quite sufficient. Now…what can you tell me about the magical properties of nutmeg?’
‘NUTMEG?!’
oooOooo
At long last Hermione closed her books. Or rather, not her books. One was a cookbook her mother had…well, left her, she supposed. The other was a copy of Culpeper’s famous herbal. And surprise, surprise, he’d had a lot to say about simple, down-to-earth nutmeg.
She felt so stupid. So utterly, utterly stupid.
How could she have spent six years in Snape’s potions class and learned…next to nothing? How could she have walked away with outstanding NEWTs and have developed such a pro-magical bias she’d become blind? And her knowledge of proper test methodology—well, deficient didn’t even begin to cover it.
And her damn hands.
One clumsy flick with her wand, one moment of flinching…and her cauldron had not only exploded, but also caused her and Snape to spout ylang-ylang scented bubbles from their ears. She moaned into her pillow. How should the formidable Potions Master ever come to respect her, if his bed ended up soaked by bath bubbles due to her incompetence? And she’d been so sure that her idea was a good one. A creative one.
She inhaled deeply, another groan on her lips, when her nostrils flared.
Nutmeg.
Suddenly she realised it was another component of her master’s personal scent. Vetyver, bergamot, cypress. And homely, not at all harmless nutmeg.
oooOooo
‘Sorry I couldn’t invite you so far,’ Hermione said. ‘But what with the Slytherin house party and Professor Snape discovering my experiments it just didn’t work out.’
‘That’s okay,’ Luna reassured her, while examining the Slytherin snakes curled around the fireplace in Hermione’s room. ‘School’s keeping us busy, too.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Neville glumly. ‘They really meant what they said with that ‘accelerated’ programme.’
‘Oh my gosh,’ exclaimed Ginny. ‘You’ve got an underwater window in your bathroom? How cool is that?!’
‘It gets better,’ Hermione said sourly. ‘There’s one in the toilet, too. And when you forget to draw the curtains you can just bet that a merman swims along to look in on you.’
“Carefully he laid their wands on the table and reached for her. Clasping her gently around the wrists, he pulled her hands towards him.” awww, bow-chicka-bow-bow
I hope that means you liked this part of the series! 😀
indeed!
Prue Halleywell!! Will Phoebe, Paige and Piper turn up?
*grins* No…I just thought it was more fun to use interesting names for the original minor characters… 😀
Hello! Wonderful story – I first started reading it when you were in the process of writing; however, I never finished so I hope to do so now. Unfortunately the link to chapters 41-50 doesn’t work…I also cannot find a different path/link to those chapters (any kind of overview) so it would be great if you could take a look whenever you have time. Thank you 🙂
The link should work now. There was a character missing in the url of the next chapter.
Unfortunately the chapter overview in the sidebar is broken, and I’ve been trying in vain to get the plugin creator to take a look at what’s wrong. *sigh*
Just a heads-up: the Magicarena link is no longer valid. Other than that, good story.
lanie
Thanks for letting me know. I’m happy you enjoy the story so far!
First off, I love this story. The pacing is wonderful and your grasp of the characters is awesome, they are all recognizable from their canon but still have an original voice.
I was just curious though, you haven’t had anyone remark on there being a Muggleborn in Slytherin; something that I had figured would be noteworthy. So, I was wondering if this had happened before or if her father was actually a wizard or perhaps there was a squib somewhere back in her family tree?
I just had to tell you that you having the Slytherins play Settlers of Cataan was truly inspired…if ever there was a game that was made for them, that is the one! I swear I’ve played it with a few of them, promising one thing in trade and actually handing over something else (buggers).
Thank you for reading and for your kind comment! I’m glad you like the story so far. I remember well how much fun I had introducing the kids to Settlers in my story. 🙂
I love how Hermione messes with Snape’s running of the Slytherin house. On top of having a muggle born not only as apprentice, but also as a student in his house, it must be trying for him. Hermione does not follow the time-treasured Slytherin rules. For the Slytherins that so far prided themselves mostly for purebloodedness (at least as far as the viewpoint in the books allowed), that must be something. I like it that the Slytherin’s show some redeeming qualities in this story.
I really like how you bring the worlds closer together in proving that not all muggles are stupid even if they don’t have magical abilities.
So, the cruciatus curse has some long term side-effects. Very realistic. No Reset button for the war-veterans and some interesting possibilities for h/c scenes 🙂 .
Slytherin: I think Slytherin must have some very nasty dark secrets (which will surface unexpectedly later on 😉 ), but they are not automatically Evil (or misunderstood saints, as some fans would have it …).
Muggle vs. magic world: “Apprentice” was in every way an experiment, and I simply explored all facets of the story that seemed interesting to me at the time. I just let my imagination run wild. And the Muggle/wizard dynamics were just waaay too tempting. 🙂
h/c: Guilty as charged. *grins* I like me some nice h/c, what can I say …