fic for builtofsorrow: Plays Well with Others (Regulus, Severus, PG)
Title: Plays Well with Others
Author: kyfairie
Recipient: builtofsorrow
Rating: PG
Characters: Regulus Black, Severus Snape
Author's Notes: Thank you so much to the wonderful moderators for putting together this fest!!
--
"Do you know why you are here?"
Severus Snape had barely waited until his charge for the evening had placed his bag onto the empty table in the Potion’s lab before he began to question Regulus Black about the reason for the extra tutoring. The boy's every move suggested an air of annoyance and entitlement that reminded Severus far too much of the younger Slytherin’s brother. "Do you know why you are taking extra lessons?"
Regulus gave a bored shrug. "I assume that Professor Slughorn is punishing me for embarrassing Slytherin. He does like to have a reason for being biased, and I did rather mess that up for him last week."
Severus leaned against the Professor's desk, a scowl firmly planted on his face. "Do try not to give such an obvious answer; I would take points from you for that if I could."
Regulus gave a bitter laugh. "Nonsense; you hate the other houses far too much to punish Slytherin for what you see as my insolence."
The scowl disappeared slightly from Severus’s face. Most would have said that he was as biased as Slughorn, but Regulus's answer was vastly more interesting and probably more accurate as well. It was true that he tended to believe that Slytherin was the strongest of the four Hogwarts Houses, but that opinion was mainly based on his animosity toward what he saw as the weaknesses of the other houses.
He gave Regulus a terse nod and said nothing, believing that the younger boy had not yet showed himself worthy of praise - commendations too soon and they would go straight to his head. Severus knew that much about the Black family, at least. However, by the smug look on Regulus's face he had easily read the expressions on Severus’s own countenance, and Snape didn’t like that one bit.
"Did you bring the supplies from the list that were owled to you?" he snapped, probably with more bite than was actually necessary.
Regulus's chin rose and his grey eyes flashed irritably. "I did."
"Good. At least you can listen properly," Severus snarled softly. "Get out your small cauldron and fill it two-thirds of the way full with water. Place that over a fire to boil out any impurities. I will return in a moment with our meals."
He noticed the other boy's eyes light up, apparently pleased that he wouldn't be forced to skip dinned. Severus tried to soften his expression slightly. He knew that the look was not one that suited him. "Don't touch anything else while I'm gone."
His milder tone must not have worked. Regulus was slumped over the table, looking dejected, when Severus shut the door behind him.
********************
The water was boiling gently in the cauldron over the flame, and had been for some time, before Snape returned levitating several full platters of food behind him. Regulus had become quite bored in the interim, and other than occasionally checking the level of the fire to ensure that the water didn’t boil over, he'd mainly been lounging on the tables cursing the fact that he was being forced to endure this humiliation.
However, the sight of the platters, piled high with food, helped lift a large portion of his melancholia, and he smiled at the older boy who was looking at him with a rather dour expression. He even got up to help Severus set the back tables, though he knew that was servants' work, and he really shouldn't be bothered with such menial tasks. He was proud of himself for helping, though, when he noticed that one of the platters was filled with all of his favorite foods. He glanced at the other Slytherin in surprise.
Severus gave a slight laugh. It sounded sort of grim in the empty Potions' Lab. "Black, one of the first lessons that you must learn is to be aware of your surroundings."
"What does that have to do with potions?" Regulus looked at him confused.
Severus's laughter grew stronger. "For starters, it has everything to do with brewing potions, since your water will boil over if you don't bank your flame while we eat. However, I wasn't simply talking about brewing." His laughter tapered off and Severus was left with only a self-satisfied smirk. "I know the favorite foods of almost all of the Slytherins. Call it curiosity; call it a survival mechanism, but knowing such information can help you in many ways."
Regulus didn't even to swallow his food; he simply asked around his bite of bread, "How can it help?"
Severus hesitated with his own fork poised in front of his mouth. "Well," he said, "for instance, Lucius Malfoy doesn't actually enjoy chocolate, but he used to special order it all the time."
Regulus got a confused look on his face. "Why would he order it if he didn't like to eat it?"
"Because your cousin loved it, so he would order the best he could find - I believe it was out of Switzerland. Lucius, though, ate fruit when he was craving something sweet."
Regulus chuckled lightly as he took another bite, and he chewed thoughtfully. "By knowing that small bit about the type of sweets he ate, you also knew one of his weaknesses, didn't you? Lucius and Narcissa might pretend that theirs is a merely a political marriage, but it is actually a love match."
"Precisely." Severus smiled, pleased that Regulus had seen the significance in the details, but also glad to have his suspicions confirmed.
"What else can it show you?" Regulus asked as he continued to eat his food.
"Well, it isn't just food that you need to pay attention to - any sort of small detail can be of use. Knowing the types of books somebody reads can make them feel friendly toward you just as easily as knowing the type of pudding they like."
Regulus got a curious look on his face as he ate. "Is that what you are doing: trying to cultivate my friendship?"
"Is it working?"
"Better than if you were actually tutoring me in potions."
Severus gave a slight snort of disdain. "If you knew your subject better, you would know that I enjoy potions."
"That doesn't mean I enjoy it, and I thought I was your subject for the evening."
Severus gave a slight chuckle. "There is that. Plus there is a certain point where you can't appear to know too much about people."
Once again the younger Slytherin studied his companion. "What do you mean?" he asked.
"Well, it is one thing for me to know your favorite foods," Severus replied. "However, what if I said that I knew that no matter how much you like everything I brought you, you would ignore all of it in the end to make sure that you could finish your apple crumble?"
Regulus pulled his fork from his mouth, and picked up his handkerchief to wipe the smudge of apple crumble from his mouth. "It would seem suspicious."
"Exactly," Severus gave a slight smirk. "So you have to be careful what you mention, because I would hate to appear suspicious. Because, certainly, if I were attempting to cultivate your friendship, I would hate to appear suspicious."
Regulus laughed and took another hearty bite of apple crumble. The combination made him choke slightly, so Severus stood and poured him a glass of water. Regulus drank greedily from it before taking another bite of his dessert. However, he followed that bite with another healthy drink of water.
His eyes widened when Severus had to refill the empty glass of water. Regulus noticed that Snape's obsidian eyes were bright. "Of course, if I had given myself away by mentioning something suspicious, such as knowing your love for apple crumble - and you knew something about me, such as my love of potions - then somebody truly paranoid might think that I would poison you."
Regulus felt the blood drain from his cheeks, and he reached for the glass of water again. "What did you put in my dessert?"
"Nothing dangerous; it is actually a rather simply potion that only dehydrates the drinker slightly so that they thirst for water after ingesting it. You'll be fine after you drink enough."
Regulus sighed, reached for another glass, and drank it quickly. It was only after he had finished drinking the liquid that he noticed the smirk on Snape's face.
"Of course, you should be more worried about the poison that I put in the water."
********************
Snape watched Regulus's grey eyes go wide in both fear and anger, and he had to bite back a smile; tonight was going perfectly according to his plans.
The other boy, still thirsting from the dehydration potion, reached for another glass of water before he obviously thought better of it. His hand hovered in midair, and a look of panic crossed his features. Regulus stood so suddenly that he toppled his chair and ran toward his potion's table. He pulled a glass vial from the bag of supplies he'd brought and thrust it, and his hand, into the still cooling water of the cauldron.
Severus cast a fast cooling charm on the glass of water before Regulus could drink it. He assumed that it was already cool enough to drink, since Regulus hadn't seemed to burn his hands, but he didn't want to risk the chance that the boy would be truly harmed. He admired the ingenuity that Regulus had used in drinking water that he knew to be purified, and he spoke up to commend him on it.
"That was well thought, if a little hasty. You knew that water to be untainted, but you didn't know if it was cool yet. You should be more careful."
"Shut up," Regulus snarled at him, his throat dry from the potion. "Why would you do this to me?"
Severus let a hint of a smile form before he replied. "Now you know that even though somebody is friendly, and seems to have much in common with your likes and dislikes, you still should not accept a gift that is freely given without thought of consequence."
Regulus stared at him dumbfounded for a moment before laughter welled up in his dry throat, coming out in a croak. "This was another lesson! You poisoned me to teach me a bloody lesson!"
"Actually, I poisoned you to teach you several lessons." Severus reached into his pocket and pulled out two vials and sat them on the desk in front of the young Slytherin. "I have poisoned you using one of these two potions. They both work in six hours. That should be plenty of time for you to identify the poison and brew an antidote. I will, of course, help you to ensure that you do not bungle the process as badly as I have been told you are able of doing."
Once again the look of incredulity was the most prominent emotion on Regulus's face. "You poisoned me to teach me potions?!"
"Can you think of any other way that I could have made you realize how important brewing skills can be?" Severus said mildly. He reached into his bag and pulled out a piece of parchment. "These are the tests to see if a person's blood is infected with either Spider's Kiss or Blood of a Manticore. I suggest you get to work. If you wait until the symptoms appear to diagnosis yourself, you will have to rush to get the antidote brewed and, since you have never made it before, I doubt you would be able to do it accurately."
Severus sat back to watch Regulus work on brewing the potions to test his blood for the poisonous infections. His work was not sloppy, per se, but he didn't work in the most efficient manner and he lacked the precision of somebody who truly had a love or understanding of the craft. That was on of the lessons that Severus hoped that he could instill upon his student during their lesson together. However, he would wait until they were actually working on the antidote before he began to correct him on his technique; for now he simply wanted to observe the young man and learn what he could about his working habits and see what that could teach him about the Black heir as an individual.
********************
Regulus decided that it was disconcerting trying to brew with somebody watching your every move, especially when trying to make two potions that were so important. He was pretty certain, though, that he had made both of the poison detection potions accurately. All they needed now was to have his blood added to them, and he would know what toxin was running through his veins.
He ladled a small amount of the potions into glass vials and placed them onto stands to cool. He only had to wait for five minutes because they had both brewed the last several stages without flame. The detection potion for Spider's Kiss only required one drop of his blood, but Blood of the Manticore required six.
Taking a small scalpel his stabbed it into his fingertip, collecting to blood on the blade. He held the blade over the thick, blue potion and watched a single drop fall. It fell as if in slow motion. The amount of liquid was so small it didn't even ripple the thick potion, merely blended itself smoothly across the viscous, blue fluid.
Regulus only watched it for a second before he turned to the other potion. Squeezing his finger, he counted out the drops as they fell. Quickly, he turned his hand upwards and pulled it away after the sixth drop fell.
He needed to stir both of them, and quickly, and he wasn’t certain how to manage that feat, but his indecision was taken from him as Severus stepped forward, picked up a glass rod, and smoothly began to stir the Manticore potion in a widdershin direction. Regulus grabbed his own rod and began stirring the Spider potion sunwise.
The blue fluid of the Spider potion quickly turned a deep crimson red. He knew from reading the text that Severus had given him that the reaction indicated a positive result of the poison in the blood. He stopped stirring and turned to look at the potion that Severus was stirring. It was a clear, yellow. If it stayed that way for more than a hundred rotations then he was not infected with that toxin as well.
He let out a sigh of relief when Severus pulled the glass rod out of the yellow potion. He had not enjoyed brewing two potions at once, and the antidote for Blood of the Manticore appeared to be a much harder potion to brew than the antidote for Spider's Kiss. However…
"Should I trust that you stirred the appropriate number of times?" he inquired with a grimace.
"Of course. You might not believe this, but I don't actually want anything to happen to you, Regulus," Severus said, with slightly downcast eyes.
Regulus gave a small snort of derision. "Right. Which is why you poisoned me." He rolled his eyes, even though his mother had yelled at him all his life that the expression was not one of his most endearing. "I somehow don't see the logic behind that."
"I hope you do eventually." Severus began cleaning off the potion's table and carrying everything over to the sink for cleaning. "You might want to begin working on the antidote. I'll be help you after I clean these."
Regulus opened the massive tome to the marked page and went into the unlocked supply cupboard to get the ingredients. The entire time he was trying to fathom what exactly Severus Snape was trying to teach him with these "lessons" of his. So far he had learned that he could make 'friends' by being observant and using just the tiniest pieces of information, but that he shouldn't trust any of these friends too closely. He had also learned that he could think quickly when under pressure, but that he needed to be careful about being rash. He chuckled to himself lightly, deciding that he must have gotten that particular quality from Sirius.
However, Regulus didn't know what use any of these lessons were. He exited the supply cupboard, arms full of ingredients, and hesitated next to the older Slytherin. Quietly he asked, "What are you planning on doing after you graduate, Snape?"
"I imagine I'm going to be doing the same thing as you."
The answer confused Regulus, and he paused before responding. "I don't have any plans for after graduation. So how do you know that?"
Snape turned to him, and the smirk on his face seemed to know something that Regulus didn't. "Really? You have no plans? I tended to think that we would be working for the same person."
Realization reached Regulus slowly. Severus was talking about the Dark Lord. He gave the other boy a slow nod. "I guess you are correct; we will be working together. I don't know if I will enjoy working with you or not."
Severus gave a snort of amusement. "I'm trying to ensure that I will enjoy working with you, but I won't be working with you at all if you fall over dead from poison, so why are you standing here instead of starting that antidote."
Regulus let out a laugh before he could stop himself and carried his supplies over to the table. The classroom was quiet for quite some time as he started brewing. Even when Severus joined him they worked without talking. Surprisingly, it was a companionable silence that filled the air.
********************
"No!" Severus's sharp command caused Regulus to jump, and he almost cut himself with the sharp scalpel that he was using to slice the tarantula on the cutting board. He turned to look at the older Slytherin to see why he had stopped him so suddenly, and out of the blue, and he saw that Snape had a deep frown on his face.
"You are doing that completely wrong," Severus said, his voice harsh, but not unkind.
Severus turned, walked to the storage cupboard, and he came back with his own dead tarantula in his hand. He carefully pinned it to a cutting board and quickly and efficiently severed the legs from the body before lifting the body from the board and setting it aside. Then, just as proficiently, he began to cut the legs in neat slices. Each incision was equidistant from the previous one. He worked quickly, but it was obvious that there was no wasted motion, and soon four of the eight legs were cut into a tidy pile of almost identical slivers.
"Do you see the difference?" he asked.
Regulus looked at his chopping board; the messy pile of pieces lay in the center of the wooden board. "Mine looked to be chopped, or diced, instead of sliced."
"Is that what the instructions called for?"
"No."
"Do you think you can finish cutting the rest of this one properly?"
Regulus nodded and moved in front of the new board. He didn't work fast - in fact he sliced rather slowly compared to Severus - but he made sure that each cut was in place and was clean through the spider's leg.
"Sometimes," Severus said, "you have to sacrifice time in order to allow for precision." Regulus paused in his work to look at the older boy. He nodded slightly to let Snape know that he was listening before he continued in his work.
"It doesn't matter if you achieve what you are trying to do quickly," Severus continued, "if you are not precise in the details of the task. You already showed earlier that you think very well under pressure, but you need to learn how to think, and act, clearly under pressure as well. You need to figure out how to pay attention to even the smallest of details, no matter how stressed you are. Those tiny details can make sure that a potion turns out properly, for instance."
"I'm sure making potions isn't the only thing this lesson is good for."
"Of course not."
Regulus looked up in time to see Severus smile at him, just slightly.
********************
The potion simply had to cool for another twenty minutes before Regulus could drink it. Until then, the two of them of them were sitting across the table, looking at each other, while Regulus was obviously searching for the questions he wanted to ask.
Severus was pleased to note that the antidote was the correct color and consistency. He wouldn't have to use the vial of it stored in his bag after all. Part of him wondered if he should tell Regulus that he had the antidote to the poison with him all along, and that his life was never at risk, but he decided that he rather liked the slight bit of misgiving he saw in the young boy's eyes when he looked at him.
"You want to know what all this was about, don't you?" Severus asked.
"I believe that I have been asking you that all night," Regulus answered with a hint of annoyance in his voice.
"What are you planning to do after graduation?"
Regulus chuckled slightly, the annoyance gone. "I think we covered that, too. I'm planning on doing the same sort of magic as you."
"What skills qualify you for that sort of work?"
Regulus looked confused. "What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I asked: what sorts of skills qualify you for that sort of work? I'll be doing it because of my skills in the Dark Arts, Defense, and Potions. What about you?"
Regulus frowned. "I was raised to do so. As a pureblood…" he trailed off, realizing who he was talking to. Though nobody in Slytherin ever mentioned that Severus was a Half-Blood, it was well-known in the house that his status was less than what was usually acceptably by Salazar's standards.
Severus merely smiled, though. "So you are merely allowing your name and family status to determine your fate."
Regulus continued to frown, not liking where this conversation had gone. "Yes," he said. His voice was rough with his realization that he had not actually accomplished anything by his own merit.
"Your brother does the same thing, you know; Sirius is always depending on his infamy as the white sheep of the Black family to get him what he wants, and he hangs on the robes of Potter - doing as he says, following his orders. Is that what you want to be? Is that who you want to be?"
'No,' Regulus wanted to exclaim, but instead he kept that answer to himself. Instead he just whispered, "I'm not like him."
"You are, if you just allow others to do everything for you, if you don't work to do for yourself. Think for yourself, Regulus, and you can be different."
"That is why you poisoned me?! To show me that I could be different than Sirius?!" Regulus let out several deep breaths. His anger that some one would dare say he was like his brother passed and he realized that he wasn't actually angry at Severus. Snape didn't want him to be like Sirius; in fact, it was just the opposite. However, there was one question that still really bothered him: "Why… why did you care?" he asked quietly.
Severus hesitated before answering. "Partially because most people would have simply said that I was biased toward Slytherin, but you saw more than that." Regulus looked at him curiously. "You're smart, Regulus, you're talented, and you're observant. I hated to see that go to waste because you had been taught that you didn’t need to use your intelligence just because you were born a Black."
"That isn't the whole reason, though, is it?"
Severus smirked. "No. Truthfully, I figured it would make your brother see red if you were my friend."
"So you poisoned me?"
"Would you have trusted my intentions if I had bought you a butterbeer instead?"
A bubble of laughter burst from Regulus's throat at the absurdity of the comment. "I think you need to work on your people skills a bit, Severus." Regulus grinned. "I help you with that if you'll help me with my Potions again."
"I don't think you need much help with Potions, if you actually apply yourself." Severus slid the glass of perfectly brewed antidote across the table to Regulus. "However, I fear I might be a lost cause."
Regulus raised his glass in a salute before drinking the antidote with a grimace. He wiped his mouth across the back of his hand. "I don't mind trying. After all, neither of us plays well with others."
Severus bowed his head in acknowledgement, but also to hide his smile.
Author: kyfairie
Recipient: builtofsorrow
Rating: PG
Characters: Regulus Black, Severus Snape
Author's Notes: Thank you so much to the wonderful moderators for putting together this fest!!
--
"Do you know why you are here?"
Severus Snape had barely waited until his charge for the evening had placed his bag onto the empty table in the Potion’s lab before he began to question Regulus Black about the reason for the extra tutoring. The boy's every move suggested an air of annoyance and entitlement that reminded Severus far too much of the younger Slytherin’s brother. "Do you know why you are taking extra lessons?"
Regulus gave a bored shrug. "I assume that Professor Slughorn is punishing me for embarrassing Slytherin. He does like to have a reason for being biased, and I did rather mess that up for him last week."
Severus leaned against the Professor's desk, a scowl firmly planted on his face. "Do try not to give such an obvious answer; I would take points from you for that if I could."
Regulus gave a bitter laugh. "Nonsense; you hate the other houses far too much to punish Slytherin for what you see as my insolence."
The scowl disappeared slightly from Severus’s face. Most would have said that he was as biased as Slughorn, but Regulus's answer was vastly more interesting and probably more accurate as well. It was true that he tended to believe that Slytherin was the strongest of the four Hogwarts Houses, but that opinion was mainly based on his animosity toward what he saw as the weaknesses of the other houses.
He gave Regulus a terse nod and said nothing, believing that the younger boy had not yet showed himself worthy of praise - commendations too soon and they would go straight to his head. Severus knew that much about the Black family, at least. However, by the smug look on Regulus's face he had easily read the expressions on Severus’s own countenance, and Snape didn’t like that one bit.
"Did you bring the supplies from the list that were owled to you?" he snapped, probably with more bite than was actually necessary.
Regulus's chin rose and his grey eyes flashed irritably. "I did."
"Good. At least you can listen properly," Severus snarled softly. "Get out your small cauldron and fill it two-thirds of the way full with water. Place that over a fire to boil out any impurities. I will return in a moment with our meals."
He noticed the other boy's eyes light up, apparently pleased that he wouldn't be forced to skip dinned. Severus tried to soften his expression slightly. He knew that the look was not one that suited him. "Don't touch anything else while I'm gone."
His milder tone must not have worked. Regulus was slumped over the table, looking dejected, when Severus shut the door behind him.
********************
The water was boiling gently in the cauldron over the flame, and had been for some time, before Snape returned levitating several full platters of food behind him. Regulus had become quite bored in the interim, and other than occasionally checking the level of the fire to ensure that the water didn’t boil over, he'd mainly been lounging on the tables cursing the fact that he was being forced to endure this humiliation.
However, the sight of the platters, piled high with food, helped lift a large portion of his melancholia, and he smiled at the older boy who was looking at him with a rather dour expression. He even got up to help Severus set the back tables, though he knew that was servants' work, and he really shouldn't be bothered with such menial tasks. He was proud of himself for helping, though, when he noticed that one of the platters was filled with all of his favorite foods. He glanced at the other Slytherin in surprise.
Severus gave a slight laugh. It sounded sort of grim in the empty Potions' Lab. "Black, one of the first lessons that you must learn is to be aware of your surroundings."
"What does that have to do with potions?" Regulus looked at him confused.
Severus's laughter grew stronger. "For starters, it has everything to do with brewing potions, since your water will boil over if you don't bank your flame while we eat. However, I wasn't simply talking about brewing." His laughter tapered off and Severus was left with only a self-satisfied smirk. "I know the favorite foods of almost all of the Slytherins. Call it curiosity; call it a survival mechanism, but knowing such information can help you in many ways."
Regulus didn't even to swallow his food; he simply asked around his bite of bread, "How can it help?"
Severus hesitated with his own fork poised in front of his mouth. "Well," he said, "for instance, Lucius Malfoy doesn't actually enjoy chocolate, but he used to special order it all the time."
Regulus got a confused look on his face. "Why would he order it if he didn't like to eat it?"
"Because your cousin loved it, so he would order the best he could find - I believe it was out of Switzerland. Lucius, though, ate fruit when he was craving something sweet."
Regulus chuckled lightly as he took another bite, and he chewed thoughtfully. "By knowing that small bit about the type of sweets he ate, you also knew one of his weaknesses, didn't you? Lucius and Narcissa might pretend that theirs is a merely a political marriage, but it is actually a love match."
"Precisely." Severus smiled, pleased that Regulus had seen the significance in the details, but also glad to have his suspicions confirmed.
"What else can it show you?" Regulus asked as he continued to eat his food.
"Well, it isn't just food that you need to pay attention to - any sort of small detail can be of use. Knowing the types of books somebody reads can make them feel friendly toward you just as easily as knowing the type of pudding they like."
Regulus got a curious look on his face as he ate. "Is that what you are doing: trying to cultivate my friendship?"
"Is it working?"
"Better than if you were actually tutoring me in potions."
Severus gave a slight snort of disdain. "If you knew your subject better, you would know that I enjoy potions."
"That doesn't mean I enjoy it, and I thought I was your subject for the evening."
Severus gave a slight chuckle. "There is that. Plus there is a certain point where you can't appear to know too much about people."
Once again the younger Slytherin studied his companion. "What do you mean?" he asked.
"Well, it is one thing for me to know your favorite foods," Severus replied. "However, what if I said that I knew that no matter how much you like everything I brought you, you would ignore all of it in the end to make sure that you could finish your apple crumble?"
Regulus pulled his fork from his mouth, and picked up his handkerchief to wipe the smudge of apple crumble from his mouth. "It would seem suspicious."
"Exactly," Severus gave a slight smirk. "So you have to be careful what you mention, because I would hate to appear suspicious. Because, certainly, if I were attempting to cultivate your friendship, I would hate to appear suspicious."
Regulus laughed and took another hearty bite of apple crumble. The combination made him choke slightly, so Severus stood and poured him a glass of water. Regulus drank greedily from it before taking another bite of his dessert. However, he followed that bite with another healthy drink of water.
His eyes widened when Severus had to refill the empty glass of water. Regulus noticed that Snape's obsidian eyes were bright. "Of course, if I had given myself away by mentioning something suspicious, such as knowing your love for apple crumble - and you knew something about me, such as my love of potions - then somebody truly paranoid might think that I would poison you."
Regulus felt the blood drain from his cheeks, and he reached for the glass of water again. "What did you put in my dessert?"
"Nothing dangerous; it is actually a rather simply potion that only dehydrates the drinker slightly so that they thirst for water after ingesting it. You'll be fine after you drink enough."
Regulus sighed, reached for another glass, and drank it quickly. It was only after he had finished drinking the liquid that he noticed the smirk on Snape's face.
"Of course, you should be more worried about the poison that I put in the water."
********************
Snape watched Regulus's grey eyes go wide in both fear and anger, and he had to bite back a smile; tonight was going perfectly according to his plans.
The other boy, still thirsting from the dehydration potion, reached for another glass of water before he obviously thought better of it. His hand hovered in midair, and a look of panic crossed his features. Regulus stood so suddenly that he toppled his chair and ran toward his potion's table. He pulled a glass vial from the bag of supplies he'd brought and thrust it, and his hand, into the still cooling water of the cauldron.
Severus cast a fast cooling charm on the glass of water before Regulus could drink it. He assumed that it was already cool enough to drink, since Regulus hadn't seemed to burn his hands, but he didn't want to risk the chance that the boy would be truly harmed. He admired the ingenuity that Regulus had used in drinking water that he knew to be purified, and he spoke up to commend him on it.
"That was well thought, if a little hasty. You knew that water to be untainted, but you didn't know if it was cool yet. You should be more careful."
"Shut up," Regulus snarled at him, his throat dry from the potion. "Why would you do this to me?"
Severus let a hint of a smile form before he replied. "Now you know that even though somebody is friendly, and seems to have much in common with your likes and dislikes, you still should not accept a gift that is freely given without thought of consequence."
Regulus stared at him dumbfounded for a moment before laughter welled up in his dry throat, coming out in a croak. "This was another lesson! You poisoned me to teach me a bloody lesson!"
"Actually, I poisoned you to teach you several lessons." Severus reached into his pocket and pulled out two vials and sat them on the desk in front of the young Slytherin. "I have poisoned you using one of these two potions. They both work in six hours. That should be plenty of time for you to identify the poison and brew an antidote. I will, of course, help you to ensure that you do not bungle the process as badly as I have been told you are able of doing."
Once again the look of incredulity was the most prominent emotion on Regulus's face. "You poisoned me to teach me potions?!"
"Can you think of any other way that I could have made you realize how important brewing skills can be?" Severus said mildly. He reached into his bag and pulled out a piece of parchment. "These are the tests to see if a person's blood is infected with either Spider's Kiss or Blood of a Manticore. I suggest you get to work. If you wait until the symptoms appear to diagnosis yourself, you will have to rush to get the antidote brewed and, since you have never made it before, I doubt you would be able to do it accurately."
Severus sat back to watch Regulus work on brewing the potions to test his blood for the poisonous infections. His work was not sloppy, per se, but he didn't work in the most efficient manner and he lacked the precision of somebody who truly had a love or understanding of the craft. That was on of the lessons that Severus hoped that he could instill upon his student during their lesson together. However, he would wait until they were actually working on the antidote before he began to correct him on his technique; for now he simply wanted to observe the young man and learn what he could about his working habits and see what that could teach him about the Black heir as an individual.
********************
Regulus decided that it was disconcerting trying to brew with somebody watching your every move, especially when trying to make two potions that were so important. He was pretty certain, though, that he had made both of the poison detection potions accurately. All they needed now was to have his blood added to them, and he would know what toxin was running through his veins.
He ladled a small amount of the potions into glass vials and placed them onto stands to cool. He only had to wait for five minutes because they had both brewed the last several stages without flame. The detection potion for Spider's Kiss only required one drop of his blood, but Blood of the Manticore required six.
Taking a small scalpel his stabbed it into his fingertip, collecting to blood on the blade. He held the blade over the thick, blue potion and watched a single drop fall. It fell as if in slow motion. The amount of liquid was so small it didn't even ripple the thick potion, merely blended itself smoothly across the viscous, blue fluid.
Regulus only watched it for a second before he turned to the other potion. Squeezing his finger, he counted out the drops as they fell. Quickly, he turned his hand upwards and pulled it away after the sixth drop fell.
He needed to stir both of them, and quickly, and he wasn’t certain how to manage that feat, but his indecision was taken from him as Severus stepped forward, picked up a glass rod, and smoothly began to stir the Manticore potion in a widdershin direction. Regulus grabbed his own rod and began stirring the Spider potion sunwise.
The blue fluid of the Spider potion quickly turned a deep crimson red. He knew from reading the text that Severus had given him that the reaction indicated a positive result of the poison in the blood. He stopped stirring and turned to look at the potion that Severus was stirring. It was a clear, yellow. If it stayed that way for more than a hundred rotations then he was not infected with that toxin as well.
He let out a sigh of relief when Severus pulled the glass rod out of the yellow potion. He had not enjoyed brewing two potions at once, and the antidote for Blood of the Manticore appeared to be a much harder potion to brew than the antidote for Spider's Kiss. However…
"Should I trust that you stirred the appropriate number of times?" he inquired with a grimace.
"Of course. You might not believe this, but I don't actually want anything to happen to you, Regulus," Severus said, with slightly downcast eyes.
Regulus gave a small snort of derision. "Right. Which is why you poisoned me." He rolled his eyes, even though his mother had yelled at him all his life that the expression was not one of his most endearing. "I somehow don't see the logic behind that."
"I hope you do eventually." Severus began cleaning off the potion's table and carrying everything over to the sink for cleaning. "You might want to begin working on the antidote. I'll be help you after I clean these."
Regulus opened the massive tome to the marked page and went into the unlocked supply cupboard to get the ingredients. The entire time he was trying to fathom what exactly Severus Snape was trying to teach him with these "lessons" of his. So far he had learned that he could make 'friends' by being observant and using just the tiniest pieces of information, but that he shouldn't trust any of these friends too closely. He had also learned that he could think quickly when under pressure, but that he needed to be careful about being rash. He chuckled to himself lightly, deciding that he must have gotten that particular quality from Sirius.
However, Regulus didn't know what use any of these lessons were. He exited the supply cupboard, arms full of ingredients, and hesitated next to the older Slytherin. Quietly he asked, "What are you planning on doing after you graduate, Snape?"
"I imagine I'm going to be doing the same thing as you."
The answer confused Regulus, and he paused before responding. "I don't have any plans for after graduation. So how do you know that?"
Snape turned to him, and the smirk on his face seemed to know something that Regulus didn't. "Really? You have no plans? I tended to think that we would be working for the same person."
Realization reached Regulus slowly. Severus was talking about the Dark Lord. He gave the other boy a slow nod. "I guess you are correct; we will be working together. I don't know if I will enjoy working with you or not."
Severus gave a snort of amusement. "I'm trying to ensure that I will enjoy working with you, but I won't be working with you at all if you fall over dead from poison, so why are you standing here instead of starting that antidote."
Regulus let out a laugh before he could stop himself and carried his supplies over to the table. The classroom was quiet for quite some time as he started brewing. Even when Severus joined him they worked without talking. Surprisingly, it was a companionable silence that filled the air.
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"No!" Severus's sharp command caused Regulus to jump, and he almost cut himself with the sharp scalpel that he was using to slice the tarantula on the cutting board. He turned to look at the older Slytherin to see why he had stopped him so suddenly, and out of the blue, and he saw that Snape had a deep frown on his face.
"You are doing that completely wrong," Severus said, his voice harsh, but not unkind.
Severus turned, walked to the storage cupboard, and he came back with his own dead tarantula in his hand. He carefully pinned it to a cutting board and quickly and efficiently severed the legs from the body before lifting the body from the board and setting it aside. Then, just as proficiently, he began to cut the legs in neat slices. Each incision was equidistant from the previous one. He worked quickly, but it was obvious that there was no wasted motion, and soon four of the eight legs were cut into a tidy pile of almost identical slivers.
"Do you see the difference?" he asked.
Regulus looked at his chopping board; the messy pile of pieces lay in the center of the wooden board. "Mine looked to be chopped, or diced, instead of sliced."
"Is that what the instructions called for?"
"No."
"Do you think you can finish cutting the rest of this one properly?"
Regulus nodded and moved in front of the new board. He didn't work fast - in fact he sliced rather slowly compared to Severus - but he made sure that each cut was in place and was clean through the spider's leg.
"Sometimes," Severus said, "you have to sacrifice time in order to allow for precision." Regulus paused in his work to look at the older boy. He nodded slightly to let Snape know that he was listening before he continued in his work.
"It doesn't matter if you achieve what you are trying to do quickly," Severus continued, "if you are not precise in the details of the task. You already showed earlier that you think very well under pressure, but you need to learn how to think, and act, clearly under pressure as well. You need to figure out how to pay attention to even the smallest of details, no matter how stressed you are. Those tiny details can make sure that a potion turns out properly, for instance."
"I'm sure making potions isn't the only thing this lesson is good for."
"Of course not."
Regulus looked up in time to see Severus smile at him, just slightly.
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The potion simply had to cool for another twenty minutes before Regulus could drink it. Until then, the two of them of them were sitting across the table, looking at each other, while Regulus was obviously searching for the questions he wanted to ask.
Severus was pleased to note that the antidote was the correct color and consistency. He wouldn't have to use the vial of it stored in his bag after all. Part of him wondered if he should tell Regulus that he had the antidote to the poison with him all along, and that his life was never at risk, but he decided that he rather liked the slight bit of misgiving he saw in the young boy's eyes when he looked at him.
"You want to know what all this was about, don't you?" Severus asked.
"I believe that I have been asking you that all night," Regulus answered with a hint of annoyance in his voice.
"What are you planning to do after graduation?"
Regulus chuckled slightly, the annoyance gone. "I think we covered that, too. I'm planning on doing the same sort of magic as you."
"What skills qualify you for that sort of work?"
Regulus looked confused. "What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I asked: what sorts of skills qualify you for that sort of work? I'll be doing it because of my skills in the Dark Arts, Defense, and Potions. What about you?"
Regulus frowned. "I was raised to do so. As a pureblood…" he trailed off, realizing who he was talking to. Though nobody in Slytherin ever mentioned that Severus was a Half-Blood, it was well-known in the house that his status was less than what was usually acceptably by Salazar's standards.
Severus merely smiled, though. "So you are merely allowing your name and family status to determine your fate."
Regulus continued to frown, not liking where this conversation had gone. "Yes," he said. His voice was rough with his realization that he had not actually accomplished anything by his own merit.
"Your brother does the same thing, you know; Sirius is always depending on his infamy as the white sheep of the Black family to get him what he wants, and he hangs on the robes of Potter - doing as he says, following his orders. Is that what you want to be? Is that who you want to be?"
'No,' Regulus wanted to exclaim, but instead he kept that answer to himself. Instead he just whispered, "I'm not like him."
"You are, if you just allow others to do everything for you, if you don't work to do for yourself. Think for yourself, Regulus, and you can be different."
"That is why you poisoned me?! To show me that I could be different than Sirius?!" Regulus let out several deep breaths. His anger that some one would dare say he was like his brother passed and he realized that he wasn't actually angry at Severus. Snape didn't want him to be like Sirius; in fact, it was just the opposite. However, there was one question that still really bothered him: "Why… why did you care?" he asked quietly.
Severus hesitated before answering. "Partially because most people would have simply said that I was biased toward Slytherin, but you saw more than that." Regulus looked at him curiously. "You're smart, Regulus, you're talented, and you're observant. I hated to see that go to waste because you had been taught that you didn’t need to use your intelligence just because you were born a Black."
"That isn't the whole reason, though, is it?"
Severus smirked. "No. Truthfully, I figured it would make your brother see red if you were my friend."
"So you poisoned me?"
"Would you have trusted my intentions if I had bought you a butterbeer instead?"
A bubble of laughter burst from Regulus's throat at the absurdity of the comment. "I think you need to work on your people skills a bit, Severus." Regulus grinned. "I help you with that if you'll help me with my Potions again."
"I don't think you need much help with Potions, if you actually apply yourself." Severus slid the glass of perfectly brewed antidote across the table to Regulus. "However, I fear I might be a lost cause."
Regulus raised his glass in a salute before drinking the antidote with a grimace. He wiped his mouth across the back of his hand. "I don't mind trying. After all, neither of us plays well with others."
Severus bowed his head in acknowledgement, but also to hide his smile.