The Marauders: Year Three | #Wattys2016

The Banesberry Tea

The Banesberry Tea

"What in Merlin's name are you brewing over there? Merlin... It smells like a dirty old jumper that should go through the wash!" Sirius announced, glaring over at the next table, where Severus Snape sat, stirring a cauldron with a wooden spoon, reading the Potions textbook very carefully. "Seriously, it smells like dust and dirty laundry..."

Severus breathed deeply of the smell. It was raspberries and vanilla and buttered popcorn to him. He looked at Sirius Black with narrowed eyes, "You're mad."

"I mean if you're trying to mix up some shampoo, you're going about it all wrong," muttered Sirius.

Cassandra Vablatsky, who was sitting at the front of the room reading a tea box over, cleared her throat. "I best not be hearing the startings of another fight," she said, "Isn't one detention over this horrible incident quite enough?"

Sirius drawled, "Tell you what, take a look in your crystal ball thingy and see if we end up dueling and having to come back agan 'cos we could always save ourselves the trouble of waiting for it to happen and then just reschedule this if you'd like." He grinned, "As you'll see if you check your ball there - I'll be free Wednesday from dinner 'til midnight for Astronomy..."

Professor Vablatsky looked up from her tea box, "If only the inner eye could see such mundane things as that, Mr. Black, I could have stopped you from having the incident in the start of it."

"Bloody pointless inner eye," muttered Sirius. "What good's it doing us?"

Professor Vablatsky struggled to open a packet of tea she'd just taken from the box before her. "The inner eye is always watching, Mr. Black, for danger that could potentially be fatal, for prophecies that the gods of the earth's balance see fit to reveal. The future is murky at best, even for the seer, and the inner-eye must be well trained in order to see even the fleeting glimpses of future events. I have foretold the occurrence of many a major event, my boy, I'll have you know. The inner-eye simply cannot focus in and out between the important and the mundane." She finally descended enough in desperation that she used her teeth to rip open the pack of tea leaves and smiled, breathing in the smell of them - an evergreen and mint scent - and she poured them into the bottom of her teacup, reaching for the hot water to pour over.

Sirius sighed and rolled over onto his stomach, sprawling over two cushions at the table. He looked up. Snape was frantically stirring the potion he was making - counter-clockwise, his lips moving as he counted. Sirius thought fleetingly of purposely shouting random numbers out, just to mess up Severus Snape's count, but he was far too lazy, and so he put his Divination book down across the floor and started working on trying to memorize some of the meanings of dream elements that filled the page.

It didn't take long for the heat of the tower room to make Sirius start to nod off a bit. He snorted as his chin hit the cushion rather hard, and he yanked his neck up to blink and try to refocus on the book before him. He reached for the page and turned it, just incase Professor Vablatsky had seen so she would think he was still reading.

"Do try and stay awake, Mr. Black," said Vablatsky without even looking up from her job of stirring lavender honey into her tea cup. She clinked the side of the glass twice with the little spoon and then glanced at Sirius. "Detentions aren't for napping."

Severus glanced over, "You ought to try and give doing some real homework a try," he muttered. "If you're bored of just laying about like a git, that is... I know it's a full timer for you and all."

"At least I'm not a bleedin' idiot like you," Sirius answered.

Severus rolled his eyes, "Ouch, you really got me with that one."