Surprise!

[sightlesswolf]

Date: Sunday, January 7, 2001
Time: Early afternoon
Location: The Woods' cottage
Characters: June Connors, Oliver Wood, Wini Wood (NPC), Severus Snape
Rating: G - there's a child present! (Well, now that Snape's involved, I should probably push that to at least PG...)

Comments

[subtle_simmer]

Her exuberance was quite amusing to watch, even if it was a little alarming - he'd had to pull his head back suddenly to be avoid being clocked in the nose with the instruction book.

"Of course I will help you. First, you have to set up your cauldron so it won't spill, like this. Caul-dron," he repeated the word, enunciating it slowly and deliberately as he set it flat on the table and scooted the other items a safe distance away. The cauldron would not get hot, but it would warm, and the point of this gift was to stimulate her interest in the subject. It was never too early to learn basic potions safety.

"Now. The lolly needs the pink ingredients, see? Like it shows on the page. Help me find all the pink things."

With a little nudging if she faltered, he helped her settle several little pink pots, a very skinny pink stirring-rod which would become the stick of the lolly, and three color-coded measuring cups next to the cauldron. He then showed her the case for storing and keeping her 'kit' neatly together. Upon looking about the sitting-room, this was a necessary object, lest the pieces be lost and scattered, making the toy useless.

"Before we start, we must put the things we're not using away."

At seeing her look of displeasure at the idea of tidying up, he admonished her with gentle earnestness.

"It's very important, Winifred, when you are making potions. You have to keep your work-space clean and neat so nothing gets burnt up."

So he helped her sort all the yellow pieces into the yellow cloth bag with the over-sized zipper. All the blue, green, red, orange, and violet soon followed, likewise. Each colour-coded bag fit very neatly into a multi-coloured plastic storage case designed to look like a Potions Masters valise.

Severus was newly smug at his choice of gift, and newly impressed with the cleverness of the invention. If the Weasley twins could come up with things like this, he would fell less hesitant to work with them on other projects.

"There. Now we can make your lolly."

Showing her how each measuring spoon matched the precise colour of the lid of the jar containing the ingredient it was designed to measure. Sliding over on the sofa so he was directly behind her, he opened the lids for her and helped guide little hands to hold the measuring cup over the cauldron before carefully pouring the ingredient into the measuring device, and then letting her pour the contents into the cauldron.

"Well done, Winifred," he said warmly when all the ingredients were in the little pot. It was still quite cool to touch, but would begin to heat when she began to stir. He handed her the stirring rod and cupped his hand over hers as he had done once in his lab, to help her get the feel of the rhythm of stirring.

"Slow and gentle, now," he said softly. "If we stir too fast, it won't work. See? We make circles in the potion."

They stirred gentle circles in the concoction, the cauldron slowly warming and the ingredients within making colourful spiral shapes of various shades of pink. When they were done, the lolly would look like a pin-wheel.

The chemical reaction began from the barely-warm-cauldron and the magic of cauldron and stirring rod. The liquid rapidly reduced and became thick and heavy.

"Now, Winifred - put the stirring rod in the very middle, and watch...."

This, too, he helped her do, because he was afraid she'd be over-eager and remove the rod too quickly.

"Now we wait for ten seconds - can you count to ten? One... two... three..."

He counted slowly with her, then released his hand from hers when they reached the magic number.

"There, Winifred - take out the stick - and your lolly will be on the end of it," he said with pleased anticipation.

The sweet would be much larger than the normal 'lolly', perhaps a full six centimetres in diameter, and was a swirl of many shades of pink. It already smelt cloyingly sweet, an excess of fruity-fragrance of the sort which children generally enjoyed.

[mroliverwood]

Wini watched him and did her best to do as much as she possibly could. Snape was a good teacher, and gentle even if he was firm with the way that he directed her. She did her best to garble out the names of the colours she knew, mixing up blue with yellow and green with red, but her vocabulary had certainly improved since Snape had last been with her.

The smell of the potion had made her more excited and she proclaimed, "izbee!" a few times, reminded of her favorite treat 'fizzing whizbees.' She grabbed at the stick eagerly when Snape told her that she could and her mouth latched onto one end of it, her free hand gripping at his leg and she awkwardly climbed up and sat herself down in his lap.

"Mine wolly," she told Snape, though she did offer him the chance to take a quick lick if he so desired.

[subtle_simmer]

Severus was, obviously, quite fond of this infant, for whatever reason. It had happened quite by accident, honestly, but happened it had, so there you are.

Said fondness, however, did NOT extend to wishing to 'share' toddler-saliva, no matter how sweetly the 'offer' was made!

He did a tolerable job of concealing his grimace of disgust though, and the sweet, being quite large, was enough to conceal the truth as he pantomimed 'tasting' the treat.

"Mmmm, very tasty - well done, Winifred. You made your first potion."

Of course, nothing which ever came out of his cauldrons bore any resemblance to sweets, but the point of this exercise was to interest her in the art. She had many years to slowly learn the true beauty of the intricacies of potions.

He settled her on his lap for a few minutes while she rapturously became a sticky, gooey mess - the lollipop's being far too big to fit entirely into her mouth did not prevent her making repeated efforts at doing so, which meant in very short order her entire face was covered in sticky, pink toddler-spit.

Which naturally meant that this was a perfect time for Severus to leave and allow June her pleasant visit with the Woods' without his presence. Whatever they could have been discussing outside the door all this time was beyond him, but he didn't mind. The quarter of an hour or so had been well-spent.

Glancing toward the door as if now afraid of being 'caught', he squeezed his arms slightly around the child where she sat on his lap. NOT a HUG, of course! Surely not! He then gently deposited her on her feet.

"I must go home now, Winifred. Your 'Da' will help you make another potion later, I'm sure."

If she begged him as persistently as she seemed to do everything else! The kit was so simple, not even Longbottom could screw up the directions, so he had no fear that there would be many more sweets-making episodes now.

"I will see you at Hogwarts now and then, I'm sure. Do you remember my name? Snape."

'Severus' was much too hard for a child to pronounce, and as he wasn't (yet) her 'Professor', he wouldn't expect her to be able to say that yet, either.