Venom & Virtue

chapter 44

A few evenings later, I knocked on the door to Snape's office, waiting for a response on the other side of the wood.

"Come in," his nasally voice called back.

I opened the door in trepidation, holding up the parchment I'd received that morning by owl, "you wanted to see me sir?"

He nodded, beckoning me inside, which I quickly obeyed, the door clicking shut behind me.

I walked over to his desk, placing myself in the chair opposite and waiting expectantly.

"You must be confused as to why I've summoned you," he began, eyeing me steadily.

"Yes sir."

I'd been debating all day what might be so important that he'd requested my presence late in the evening.

Adrian had wanted to take bets upon the reasoning, which I'd unenthusiastically refused, too wound up about what I might have done wrong.

"Well, as you're aware, I will be leaving for six weeks."

I nodded, recalling our previous lesson where he'd informed everyone he had to go travelling for a while.

He'd been vague with his reasoning, only stating that some foreign acquaintance needed his assistance with brewing a very complicated potion.

Most students had been relieved, happy that our only assignment for the next few weeks would be to revise for our exams whilst he was gone.

Snape continued, "whilst I'm away, I require some assistance."

"What kind of assistance?" I raised an eyebrow, interested.

He stood up from his desk, striding over to the side of the room filled with potion vials, tucking his hands behind his back.

"Usually, during this time of the year, I organise my office. New, and very important, deliveries of ingredients will be arriving soon, I want you to be responsible for preparing them and putting them into the assigned jars."

"You're asking me to be in charge of organising your personal store?" I blinked in surprise, scanning the hundreds of containers that were significantly low on their contents.

"Yes, packages will arrive every week, but if they're not preserved correctly then plenty of them will expire. Do you understand my predicament?"

"I do, but... why me out of all the students? Surely there must be others who are better suited to the job?"

He paused, seeming to contemplate his answer for a moment before replying.

"I've been impressed by your progress over these last few months, it shows great dedication to this class. And I thought you might like to earn some extra credit towards your final grade," he looked at me for confirmation.

"I mean yes, but-"

"Excellent, then it's settled."

"But sir, I'm unfamiliar with half of these ingredients, I'm not sure where I'd even start," I protested, peering at the unfamiliar names upon a lot of the labels.

"I had expected that to be the case, so I've assigned a partner to your task."

"A partner?"

There was a knock on the door behind us, capturing Snape's attention.

"That must be them now," he muttered, looking towards the door, "come in."

I turned as it creaked open, horrified to see Draco standing in the doorway, his own expression flickering with surprise at my presence.