"Out!" he abruptly shouted. "Everyone, out!"
Students dropped stirring rods and ladles and rushed for the doors, just as the edge of the oozing potion reached the end of the desk and began to form a drop that hung for a moment, lengthening as it struggled to separate itself from the potion above.
In that moment, Harry's panic snapped through his exhaustion and he knew what to do. He lifted his wand to put an end to this, wanded magic to undo wanded magic, that was it; he'd been too tired before to think straight but there was no way a wandless spell could hope to undo the wanded magic previously applied--
"Harry, out!" Snape yelled, grabbing him by the arm and flinging him towards the door, the Potions Master stepping between his son and imminent disaster. "Evanesco!" Snape yelled again, this time pointing his wand at the ingredients scattered on the floor, instead of at the mass of potion.
Ginger and carrot and anise vanished just as a single drop of potion hit the floor and sizzled strangely.
Then a huge glop fell and the floor started to smoke, granite dissolving beneath the onslaught of magic woven through the Potion, the room quaking slightly as a crater appeared where before there had been solid stone.
Snape raised an eyebrow and backed up a step, then appeared to come to some sort of conclusion. His wand flashing left and right, he began incanting spells to coat the remaining floor with marble. When the potion oozed onto that, it finally halted its slow march forward and became nothing but a blackish blob. Hard to imagine it had caused such havoc.
Harry was hovering near the door, biting his lip, when Snape stomped his way. Stepping past him, the Potions Master announced to the students in the hallway, "Class dismissed." But then he turned to Harry, his brows drawn together in a furious line. "You, however, are decidedly not. Come with me!"
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Coming Soon in A Year Like None Other
Chapter Eighty-One: Hostilian
Comments very welcome,
Aspen
Chapter 81: Hostilian
http://archive.skyehawke.com/story.php?no=5036&chapter=81
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A Year Like None Other
by Aspen in the Sunlight
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Chapter Eighty-One: Hostilian
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Snape pulled Harry inside the classroom and immediately warded the doors. "When I say everyone out, I mean you as well!"
Harry took a step back, more than a little unnerved. "Yes, sir."
"I had to specifically repeat Harry, out, and that must never happen!" Snape raged on. "Never, Harry! What if the situation had been more dire? When I think of what might have happened!"
"But Professor, I had just realised how to stop anything else from happening, that's all."
Snape stared at him, then took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his own nose as he shook his head. "Yes," he gruffly acknowledged. "I see that. Still, Harry..." With a sigh, then, he walked to the gaping crater in the classroom floor. Harry followed along behind. "As you seem to be the only one who can rid us of this awful potion..."
A little wary in case something else went wrong, Harry's whole body tensed as he incanted a Parseltongue, "Get out of here." It all went fine, though, perhaps because he'd been extra careful to hold his wand just as he had when the accident had happened.
Snape's dark eyes narrowed. "Perhaps you'd care to explain why you're utilizing wanded spells during class?"
His tone sounded measurably calmer than before, but instead of reassuring Harry, it made him even more nervous. "I didn't mean to, honest. I was having trouble making the charm work, that's all, and I tried a couple of different things and then I got distracted and held my wand wrong. But just by a little bit, I mean, hardly any magic went through it, I could tell--"
Snape took several more deep breaths as though deliberately calming himself down, then moved a hand to Harry's shoulder and patted it several times without stopping. "All right, Harry. It sounds as though you need to work more on your wandless control, but nothing so very terrible has occurred."
Nothing so terrible? He'd only humiliated himself in front of the father he'd been trying so hard to impress.
Swallowing back the rest of his panic, Harry ventured. "You aren't angry any longer, sir?"
"No. Though I would hope that I could be angry without causing you to hyperventilate, Harry." Letting go of his son's shoulder, Snape took a step back. "However, I would not describe my state of mind as one of anger. Concern, perhaps."
It suddenly got much easier to breathe. "Oh, good. Because when you told me to get back in here you sounded livid."
"I wasn't pleased," Snape said in a dark tone as he waved a contemptuous hand towards the congealed potion all over the workbench and floor. "But I'd already deduced that you alone could remedy this. I could hardly tell the class that, could I?"
So Snape had been angry all right, but he'd played it up a bit so the class would think Harry was staying behind because he was in trouble? Pretty Slytherin, Harry thought. "All right," he slowly said, feeling his heartbeat return to something normal. "But won't the other students figure out that something funny was going on? They all did see your spells fail, after all. Um... sorry about that, sir."
Snape's lips curled upward slightly. "Oh, they'll just assume it was like the time Mr. Crabbe fouled his potion. It couldn't be banished, either, if you'll recall, not until the brew was brought out of magical flux. Charmed potions are even more notoriously temperamental."
"But you checked my potion--"
"Ah, but not your charm. You could have incanted anything, yes? Your classmates must be well aware by now how difficult it is for you to get your spells right. This incident will merely increase rumours of your ineptitude."
"Oh, great." Harry crossed his arms. Being the centre of attention for having messed up magic wasn't turning out to be any more fun than being stared at for winning that horrible tournament. But there was nothing to be done about that, so Harry tried to forget about it. There was no forgetting about the tight feeling in his chest, however. He just wanted to crawl into bed, pull the covers over his head, and pretend he'd messed up in some other class instead of right there in front of his father. Bed sounded good in any case. "Well, if we're done here, I'll head off..."
Snape practically glowered at him. "You don't think we have things to discuss?"
"Huh? Oh, you mean my punishment?" Harry sort of slumped. "I guess I'd better go tell my friends to go ahead, then."
Snape raised an eyebrow. "Oh, indeed..." Striding to the door, he yanked it open to reveal Ron and Hermione hovering in the corridor. "You needed something, Miss Granger? Mr. Weasley?"
"We were just waiting for Harry," Ron explained.
"Ah. Well as it happens he will be quite some time with me. I will see to it that he arrives safely at your common room. So, off with you." He made a shooing motion with his hand.
"But we were going to walk him to dinner--"
"Really, Miss Granger, I'm quite cognizant of the fact that my son needs to eat each evening," said Snape with a lilt of challenge in his voice. "Have you any further objection to him spending time with his father?"
"I wasn't objecting to that, sir--"