Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Story Notes:

DISCLAIMERS: I do not own anything "Harry Potter" or "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" (from which I have quoted certain pieces of dialogue). No copyright infringement is intended.  

NOTE: Yep - My story title arose when my mind garbled together "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" with "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" - this story contains 17 quotes from the Sheriff of Nottingham. Can you spot them all?  

Rated T for minor language and blood-letting.

Harry Potter and the Blood of Thieves

Halloween detention.

That's how low Snape could go, thought Harry Potter as he left the Sixth Year boys' dorm and began his long trek to the dungeons. Instead of enjoying the Halloween Feast tonight, he'd be spending hours upon hours performing some odious punishment chores for the dungeon bat.

"Bad luck, mate," Ron had told him, but he'd added, "Hang in there – we'll save you some stuff from the Feast."

Harry sighed, shaking his head at the memory. He'd be too exhausted to eat after one of Snape's detentions, much less enjoy what he was eating.

He stepped off the final marble stair into the entry of Hogwarts castle, cut right, and began descending the dusty granite steps leading to the dungeon levels. All too soon, he found himself outside the Potions classroom, and he groaned aloud when he saw cauldrons literally piled to the vaulted ceiling ... waiting for him.

"Enough of the sound effects, Potter. Get in here." Snape appeared from around a stack of dirty cauldrons. "You've plenty to keep yourself occupied this evening, while I go up and help supervise the Halloween Feast." He dragged out the final syllables with pleasure, rubbing in the fact that Harry himself would not partake in said Feast.

Still, knowing that this detention was based on a serious misunderstanding, Harry tried once more to clear up the matter at hand. "Professor, I honestly did not steal anything from your private cupboard."

"Then how do you explain three missing flasks of liquid Bloodmoon?"

Harry shook his head. "I can't explain it, sir, because I didn't take them." He stared at the ominous piles of cauldrons. "You can't ... keep me a prisoner here, cleaning ALL those cauldrons! It would take forever!"

Severus Snape smiled, and the sight wasn't pretty. "You misunderstand my intentions. You've been brought here for your own protection."

"Protection?"

"Indeed. It seems you've been consorting with outlaws. Liars, thieves, pranksters – Gryffindors all. You're here to learn a lesson – before it's too late for you.

"What lesson? I haven't done anything!"

Snape's lips pinched together in irritation. "Thieves can be cast into Azkaban, Potter, if the offense is deemed egregious enough. And stealing extremely rare liquid Bloodmoon from my personal stores would certainly qualify … if I choose to press charges against you."

"But I didn't take anything from you!" Harry protested, his emerald eyes widening as the beginning of panic flitted around the edges of his mind. Snape had harassed him for more than five years already, but he'd only ever threatened to expel him, not send him to Azkaban!

Snape smirked, the movement flowing down the full length of his trailing teaching robes. "I intend to give you the opportunity to prove your innocence, Potter, if you are, indeed, innocent. However... " he glared at the boy, "if you fail, I shall personally remove your lying tongue."

Harry shrugged off the threat, but frowned in consternation anyway. "How am I supposed to prove I didn't do something? I've told you – shouldn't that be enough?"

"From a Hufflepuff, perhaps. But you hardly qualify as trustworthy, Potter. You've spent the past five years proving yourself to be anything but." Snape smirked again, waving an expansive gesture toward the piles of cauldrons. "You will perform a small task to prove your innocence."

"Small? Compared to what?"

"To the size of the castle as a whole, if you must know."

Harry sighed. "Right. So what must I do?"

"You will clean each and every cauldron until it is completely pristine. If the slightest spot or stain remains in a single cauldron when I return, that cauldron itself shall proclaim your guilt. Only someone who is truly innocent of stealing liquid Bloodmoon could possibly accomplish such a task."

"Brilliant," Harry muttered. "Isn't there some other way to prove my innocence?"

Snape snorted. "I presume you are referring to a less arduous method?"

Harry nodded silently.

"Well, I can think of only one, which is – of course – a potion."

"Of course. So, can you brew it, then?" asked Harry. "After the Feast, if you don't have time now?"

"I am certainly capable of brewing it," Snape declared with the superior air of a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher who had earned a Mastery in Potions. "However – as has often been the case since you first darkened the front doors of Hogwarts – I am missing several crucial ingredients. Three, to be precise."

"I didn't take them!" shouted Harry. "I didn't take anything! Why is it that every time I turn around, you're accusing me of stealing from you?"

"Hmphh." Snape spun on his heel and walked toward the front of the gloomy classroom, beckoning Harry to follow, while the dark man lovingly trailed his fingertips along cauldron after cauldron as he passed. "I did not accuse you of stealing these ingredients, Potter. However, if you wish to take the easier way out – as opposed to scrubbing cauldrons – you must OBTAIN these ingredients to brew the potion."

Harry shrugged uncertainly. "So ... what are they?"

Snape waved his wand and words slowly appeared on the chalkboard: "BLOOD OF 3 WORSE THIEVES than Harry Potter – 1 WIZARD, 1 MUGGLE, and 1 MAGICAL CREATURE." Another wave of his wand produced three corked, empty vials on the teacher's desk.

Harry's eyes bugged out. "I'd ... you mean I'd need to get blood samples from three individuals before you could brew this potion?"

"Isn't it worth it to you to stay out of Azkaban?" sneered Snape, stowing his wand in his robes.

"But – that's impossible!" Harry protested. "There's no way I could accomplish a task like that. Not here at Hogwarts... "

"That leaves the cauldrons, Potter. You have six hours. I shall return at midnight." Without further ado, Snape took his leave, his robes trailing between the piles of dirty cauldrons as he headed for the door to the dungeon corridor. Suddenly, Snape paused, and without turning around raised his hand. "Accio Harry Potter's wand!"

The holly wand zipped out of Harry's robe pocket and arrowed across the classroom to land in Snape's outstretched hand. "Six hours, Potter."

Harry listened to the solid thud of the oak door echoing around the room, and then all was silence.

Sighing, he reached for the nearest cauldron.

-:- -:- -:-

At 7:30pm, Harry took a break, staring despondently at the cauldrons remaining to be cleaned. He wasn't going to make it. It wouldn't even be close. And where the hell had Snape gotten the idea he'd stolen some fiendishly rare liquid Bloodmoon in the first place? The condensed, refracted beams had to be captured and distilled during a total lunar eclipse – that much he'd heard Hermione rhapsodizing about during one of her extra credit ventures – but in more than five years at Hogwarts, he'd never read any potions recipes calling for liquid Bloodmoon.

Groaning in despair, he slumped down on one of the stools. At least Snape hadn't forbidden him to use dragonhide gloves while cleaning, as he often did, and Harry had found a pair that fit him in the utility cupboard. Even so, his hands ached from gripping the scrub brush for well over an hour. And now he was starting to get a migraine. Terrific.

He put his head down on the lab table. Just five minutes, he promised himself. That's all. Just let him rest his head for five minutes in a dungeon silent as a tomb, while his friends reveled in the Great Hall floors above. Harry imagined the chilled bowls of thick ice cream in chocolate, vanilla and pumpkin. He could envision the floating jack-o-lanterns and the hanging black-and-orange banners. Towers of fudge cake... Treacle cookies cut into the shape of arch-backed cats... Caramel sauce oozing over everything piled the length of the four House tables...

Next thing he knew, Harry was in Hogsmeade, Snape at his side, as they watched innocent witches and wizards happily strolling from store to store. Innocent, all but one. If only they could pick him out from the crowd.

"There," Harry whispered, pointing. "See? He's left a trail."

Sure enough, a widely-scattered line of heavily-tarnished silver objects lined the side of one small street, disappearing around the far corner into an alley.

"Go get him," Snape whispered back, although surely he could not have been heard over the chattering crowd. "We can't allow an outlaw to make fools of us."

Nodding, Harry ran as quietly as possible along the cobbled street, then paused before peeking into the alley. "He's there!" he said excitedly, pulling back so his voice wouldn't carry down the alley. "He seems to be counting his loot."

"Is it a blind alley?" Snape murmured.

Harry shook his head, worried now. "He could run out the far end."

"I'll Apparate to the far end to block him in."

"What if he Disapparates out?" Harry asked. "He did once before."

Quickly, Snape's arm whipped around the corner of the building, casting an anti-Apparition ward toward Mundungous Fletcher. "That should hold him. Now GO!" And Snape turned on the spot and disappeared.

Amazing that the man should help him, Harry thought bemusedly, but it showed that despite everything, Snape really didn't want him to be sentenced to Azkaban. The man knew there was no way Harry could finish scrubbing all those cauldrons, so he'd decided to help him get the thieves' blood instead, starting with Mundungous.

Harry stepped around the corner. "Hello, Dung. Surprised to see me?"

"You!" Mundungous grabbed Sirius' goblets and flung them into his battered case.

"Still got those, have you?" Harry inquired rather nastily. "I'd have thought you'd sell them to get rid of the evidence of your crimes."

Dung glowered. "Nobody'll buy 'em," he grumbled. "Black spelled them to be unsellable, if they were stolen."

"So, you admit that you're a thief?"

"Of course, I'm a thief! Gotta scrape a living somehow."

"Incarcerous!" Ropes flew from Harry's wand, winding themselves around Mundungous' scruffy form.

"Fat lot of good that'll do you," sneered Dung. "I'll just Dis – " But his squirming failed to move him an inch. "Why, you – "

"Hurry, Potter!" called Snape from the far end of the alley. "We still have two thieves to do!"

"DO?!" squeaked Mundungous. "What does he mean, 'do'?"

"This!" Harry hissed, grabbing Dung's wrist and yanking his forearm free of the ropes. He held up a shiny-bladed silver dagger with his other hand, allowing a strong sunbeam to brighten the knife's terror before Dung's bulging eyes.

"NO!" howled Dung. "Not that! It's too thin! It'll bend! It'll HURT!"

Snape's snort carried the length of the alley. "Spanish steel. Much stronger than our native blades! It will not bend, even in your foul flesh."

Harry stared at the dagger. It was supposed to be sterling silver, as per his Potions requirements, but then he realized that Snape was pulling something over on Mundungous – anything to quiet the thief, so that Harry could get his blood. Spanish steel indeed!

Much to Dung's relief, the shining blade held its form without bending as Harry neatly sliced a gash above Mundungous' wrist. Harry was eerily reminded of Wormtail capturing Harry's own blood to resurrect Voldemort during the Third Task, but he shoved that memory aside to focus on Dung as the thief's dark blood – almost brown, it was – slid into the first vial. When it had filled, Harry corked the vial and carefully buttoned it into a cushioned pocket inside his jacket.

"I assume you know a healing spell," Harry said lightly, "because I'm pants at those."

Mundungous merely glared at him, holding his sleeve clamped over his bloody arm.

Harry stood up, calling, "I've got it, sir. One down, two to go!"

"Then let's be off," Snape urged, and as Harry ran to meet him, Snape grabbed his arm, ready to Apparate.

But –

"Professor Snape, sir!"

A pale blond teen was waving a frantic arm, trying to get Snape's attention before it was too late. "Professor Snape!"

"Yes, what is it, Draco?"

"Professor, the Hogwarts Express isn't running. I have to get to London for my parents' Halloween Ball. You signed my permission form, remember?"

"Yes, yes," Snape said impatiently. "I can't do anything about the train, so you'll have to hitch-hike."

"Hitch-hike? Sir?" Draco looked absolutely puzzled.

"Catch a ride with someone, like Muggles do," Harry said helpfully, pleased to see Draco's pale face contort in disgust at the idea of doing something – anything! – the way Muggles would do. "You know. Ride along in someone's private carriage, or maybe double up on a passing Hippogriff."

"Merlin burn you, Potter!" snarled Draco, pulling out his wand with the obvious idea of assisting Merlin's efforts.

Snape waved away the Slytherin's wand. "Just start walking, Draco. Someone will undoubtedly come along. Take the Flammarion Byway."

"Is that the fastest road to London, sir?"

"It's the only road to London, you little ferret!" growled Snape.

Harry burst out laughing.

"And that's enough out of you, Potter! Let's go!"

And Snape whisked him away to Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

Harry stared at the aged front door in dismay. Sirius...

"What are you waiting for? Get on with it!" ordered Snape.

"On with what?"

"The blood of a magical creature, of course."

"You don't mean Kreature! Besides, Dumbledore sent him to the Hogwarts kitchens."

"As a matter of fact, YOU sent him to the Hogwarts kitchens, but that's neither here nor there, for Kreature is here now."

"Why?"

"It's a dream, Potter. Don't question it. Just get the blood."

"Right."

Boy and man entered the gloomy mansion and shivered at the cold, damp atmosphere.

"But, sir... "

"What now, Potter?"

"If this is a dream, shouldn't I really be scrubbing cauldrons?"

"Do you really wish to wake up?"

"No, sir."

"Well, then."

A small form crossed the thin line of light at the far end of the long hallway.

"Kreature!" called Harry. "Come here!"

With a pop, Kreature materialized directly in front of them. "Nasty Master! Kreature wants Miss Bellatrix!"

"So sorry to disappoint you, Kreature, but I need you to give me some of your blood."

"WON'T!" screeched Kreature. "Won't, won't, won't, WON'T!"

"Warn him, Potter – if he fails to produce the blood sample, no more merciful beheadings!"

Kreature fell abruptly silent, turning his bat-eared head to stare at the row of long-deceased house-elves' heads mounted upon the wall.

Harry played along with Snape. "What would you do with him instead?"

Kreature's bloodshot eyes nearly burst from their sockets as he awaited Snape's reply.

"I'm going to hang him from the walls by his own entrails!"

Kreature glared silently at the two wizards. Then he held out his scrawny arm. "Kreature hates Nasty Master, but Kreature will give his blood. Kreature must have place of honor upon Mistress' wall with all of Mistress' honored elves."

Harry used his shining dagger to nick Kreature's arm, just below the elbow where there was more stringy flesh upon his bones, and the house elf's pale chartreuse blood dribbled slowly into the second vial. "Thank you, Kreature," Harry said as Snape flicked his wand to heal the small cut.

"Nasty Master is a hypocrite, he is," muttered Kreature, scurrying away.

"And you're a thief, Kreature," Harry called after him. "Don't think everyone doesn't know that you made off with Black heirlooms that were supposed to be binned. Now go back to Hogwarts!" he ordered.

Kreature popped away before he could reach the end of the long passage.

"That's two down, sir," said Harry, corking the vial. He tilted it back and forth, watching the clear chartreuse liquid flow to and fro. "This is different."

"Blood of a magical creature," reiterated Snape. "Now, for the Muggle."

"Whom do you have in mind, sir?" Harry asked, tucking the second vial into his pocket alongside the first. "Or do we just Apparate into a Muggle prison?"

Snape gave him an old-fashioned look. "Surely you must be acquainted with at least one Muggle thief."

"Well, there's always Dudley. My cousin, you know. He's always stolen from the neighborhood kids, and he shoplifts every time he goes into a store."

"Give me your arm."

"But I don't know how to get to Smeltings."

Snape stared at him. "Smeltings?"

"Yeah. Dudley's school."

"Nonsense," Snape stated firmly. "Your cousin is at home on Halloween."

Harry shook his head. "I really don't think so, sir. He's not allowed to leave school before the end of term."

"This is still a dream, Potter. Everything is possible in a dream."

"It just seems too convenient, sir."

"Scrubbing all those cauldrons would seem to be far more inconvenient, don't you agree?"

Harry hesitated. What if Dudley was still at Smeltings and they couldn't get his blood, after all?

"Maybe I really should get on with scrubbing, sir. Midnight will be here before you know it. The Feast will be over and Ron said he'd save me some stuff, and I know they won't let me eat cauldron cakes and treacle cats in Azkaban."

Tired of the delay, Snape grabbed Harry's arm and spun them away to Privet Drive, landing in front of Number 7. The Potions Master started up the walk toward the porch steps.

"Psssst! Sir!"

"What?" Snape half-turned in annoyance.

"That's the wrong house!"

"How in blazes can you tell them apart?"

"Years of experience. C'mon – Number 4 is this way."

Snape followed Harry down the street to the Dursleys' abode.

Harry paused on the curb. "We'd better go around back and peek through the windows from the garden. You know – get an idea of where everybody is. I hope Uncle Vernon is at work where he's supposed to be."

"In the middle of the night?"

"But you said this is a dream, and the sun is shining, so maybe he'll be at work."

"This is your show, Potter."

As they crept around the side of the house, Harry and Snape could hear voices.

Groaning, Harry rolled his eyes before whispering, "It's Dudley and Piers and the rest of Dudley's gang."

"Gang?"

"Well, he calls them his friends, but he bribes them to chase me down and beat me up. They call it 'Harry-Hunting', you see."

"Hired thugs! Brilliant!" Snape's dark eyes gleamed at the thought.

Harry glared at him. Okay, so it WAS Snape, but still!

"Right. Dudley's blood. And there are six of them... "

"Get me prisoners!" hissed Snape.

"What?" Harry goggled at him. The man was seriously going round the twist!

"Just getting into the spirit of things." Snape strode boldly into the back garden. "Dudley Dursley – come here."

Dudley turned slowly around at hearing the strange voice and carefully looked the man in black up and down. "Who the hell are YOU?"

"Your worst nightmare."

Harry snickered at Snape's proclamation. Then he laughed aloud at the belligerent albeit dubious expression that crawled across Dudley's broad face.

"Hey, Big D!" he called.

Dudley stared. "You're supposed to be in that freak school."

"You're supposed to be at Smeltings."

"No way. Mum called me home for Halloween. She's decorated and everything, and she has mountains of sweets, but you can't have any. Not a single one."

Harry grinned. "I don't want sweets, Dudley."

"That's good."

"I just need some of your blood."

"Why?"

"Because my friend here is a vampire – couldn't you tell?"

Dudley took another look at Snape's pale face and his trailing robes. "He … can't be," Dudley said uncertainly. "No such thing as vampires."

"Are you sure, Dudley? Like there's no such thing as magic?"

Now Dudley looked scared. The blood drained from his face and he began to sweat. "But vampires couldn't be real. Not really."

"Actually, they are, but I was just teasing. Professor Snape isn't a vampire. He's just a wizard."

Dudley clamped his hands over his bottom. "MUM!"

"Here we go," muttered Snape, who had watched the interaction between Harry and his cousin with undisguised interest.

Petunia came to the kitchen door. "What is it, Diddykins?"

Dudley pointed at the ominous stranger. "Harry brought one of their lot from that freak school of his!"

Petunia stared at the dark man in shock. "Snape! What are you doing here?" Her designer shoes crossed the garden grass with quick, furious steps.

"Lovely to see you, too, Tuney."

Harry gaped. "Uh... You two know each other? How?"

"He's that awful boy who told me about Azkaban," Petunia sneered, glaring at Snape from close range.

Harry shrugged. "Well, at the moment, I'm trying to stay out of Azkaban."

"Prison is no more than you deserve, you ungrateful wretch," the woman said, looking at her nephew with obvious disgust and contempt. "We gave you the food from our table – "

"You could always cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, Petunia," Snape said sarcastically, "but right now, Potter needs Dudley's blood."

"BLOOD! WHY?"

"Because Dud's a thief, Aunt Petunia! And only a thief's blood will do."

"My Diddy is NOT a THIEF! How dare you suggest such a thing, you insolent boy!" Petunia's thin face contorted in outrage.

Harry sighed. "He's been stealing for years. One of these days, you'll find out the hard way … when he gets arrested."

"About that blood," inserted Snape. "Midnight approaches. It's now or never."

"Midnight?" scoffed Dudley, waving his hands toward the sunny sky. "It's broad daylight!"

"It's a dream, Big D, and anything can happen in a dream. It's just like magic. Want another pig's tail?"

Dudley frantically reclamped his bottom.

Piers finally stepped forward, leaving the rest of the aggressive gang shuffling their trainers nervously in the face of this unfamiliar situation. "What the bloody hell are you lot on about? Vampires and kitchen scraps and pigs' tails ... And why do you keep grabbing your arse?"

"Shut up, Piers!" shouted Dudley. "It's – it's... "

"A family matter," Snape said firmly. "Obliviate!"

Dudley's gang went from looking confrontational to looking a bit dazed, then said they'd see Dudley later, as his family had other guests at the moment, and they exited the garden without looking back.

"Now, for the blood," said Harry, withdrawing his silver dagger.

"Oh, NO!" squealed Dudley. "It's too sharp! It'll hurt, Harry. Don't use it! You can have all my sweets. It's too sharp!"

"It's dull, you twit," said Snape, sounding bored.

"My poor Dudley," whimpered Petunia, rushing forward to hold his hands in her own. "Oh, do be careful, Harry. Dear Harry! And yes, you may have all of Diddy's sweets. Take them all to that school of yours and share them with your frea – friends."

Overcome with emotion, Petunia clutched at Harry just as he nicked Dudley's arm. The unexpected jostling caused him to rip a long gash in the pudgy flesh, and bright red blood gushed out. Harry urgently held the vial to the bleeding wound, and it filled in a trice, Harry then corking it firmly as Dudley thrashed and moaned.

Snape conjured a surgical needle and thread, and he handed it to Harry, saying, "Now sew! And keep the stitches small!"

"I told you it was sharp," whined Dudley. "Mummy, Harry's made such a mess of my arm!"

"At least I didn't use a spoon," muttered Harry, jabbing the needle into his cousin's quivering skin.

"That's MY line," warned Snape.

"Why?" asked Harry, staring curiously at the Potions Master.

"It just is."

"Whatever." Harry put the last few stitches in place, easier now that Dudley had fainted. "What time is it, sir?"

Snape cast a Tempus. "Thirteen minutes until midnight. You'll need something faster than a Firebolt to get back to the dungeons in time. Here... " He whipped out Harry's invisibility cloak. "Recognize this? It belonged to your father. Appropriate, don't you think, that I now use it to send you to meet him?"

"But ... how is that faster than a Firebolt?"

"Ha!" laughed Snape, gloating in satisfaction. "That twinkling old fool didn't tell you everything about this cloak, after all."

"I know it makes me invisible. And how did you get it anyway?"

"Confiscated it from the Weasley twins. And it's just as well they never knew it can double as a flying carpet."

"What!"

"You should have seen your arrogant father gadding about the Hogwarts grounds and even flying across the Black Lake with your mother sitting beside him on the cloak!"

"Really?" Harry gaped in wonder, noting that now even Petunia was looking rather faint. "And aren't I supposed to be getting back to the dungeons? What did you mean by saying you were sending me to meet my father?"

"It's Halloween," Snape said in an overly-patient voice. "Take a side trip to Godric's Hollow and visit your parents' graves before going on to the dungeons. It's the anniversary of their deaths, after all. But don't linger. If I arrive in the Potions dungeon before you get back, you'll wish you'd scrubbed all of those cauldrons, after all. Take Dudley's blood and that of the other two thieves and GO!"

Harry leapt atop the invisibility cloak, which Snape had laid out on the garden grass, and shouted, "Godric's Hollow!"

-:- -:- -:-

He awoke with a start, his wrist knocking the scrub brush from the table to the stone floor.

Frantically, he cast a Tempus. Seven minutes until midnight. Knowing it was useless, he patted his pockets, but no telltale lumps indicating vials of blood were there. With a sinking heart, he peered toward the front of the classroom. The empty vials lay mockingly upon the teacher's desk.

And piles of dirty cauldrons still surrounded him.

DAMN!

All those times he thought he should have been scrubbing cauldrons, he should have woken up – FORCED himself to wake up! – and scrubbed...

And, of course, it was too much to expect to have scrubbed them in his sleep, like sleepwalking. It's not like he could do something actually useful in his sleep, after all.

And – here came Snape.

Harry could hear heavy footfalls in the dungeon corridor, even through the closed, massive door. A feeling of frantic fear unlike any he'd ever known bloomed through Harry, to the extent that his vision whitened out momentarily.

The door opened.

A moment of dread-filled silence. Then –

"POTTER!"

Snape entered the dungeon classroom, his expression one of utter disbelief as he stared at the untouched piles of cauldrons.

Harry didn't need Legilimency to read Snape's thoughts: Of course there were too many cauldrons to clean, but the worthless brat could have made an effort!

Minerva McGonagall stepped into the classroom behind Snape.

Wonderful. Now his Head of House would witness Snape vivisecting him.

"Explain yourself, Potter," commanded Snape.

Harry tried to clear his throat. "There were just so MANY of them... " His voice trailed off helplessly.

"There certainly were," said McGonagall. "Really, Severus – ALL of these cauldrons? That's completely unreasonable!"

"It's not unreasonable to expect him to take his detention seriously," countered Snape. "But this?" He gestured at the few cauldrons whose interiors gleamed from the neat row at the back of the room. "It would appear that your dear Mr. Potter didn't even put in two full hours' worth of work after I left for the Halloween Feast."

McGonagall reached for a cauldron from a random pile, then frowned. "But this one is also clean. And this one. And this... " She stared at Harry, whose mouth had dropped open. "How many of these cauldrons DID you clean, Potter?"

Helplessly, Harry pointed at the short row at the back wall. "Just those, Professor. Honest. Then, I put my head down for five minutes, but I went to sleep and only just woke up. I don't understand it."

Snape, meanwhile, had been using his wand to sort through pile after pile of cauldrons, all of them gleaming beneath his frowning gaze, while Harry watched mutely.

After examining the final cauldron, Snape inhaled deeply, then reached into his robes and took out Harry's wand, handing it to him handle first. "I wouldn't have believed it," Snape murmured. "But the liquid Bloodmoon has declared you innocent. I'd thought it was a mere folktale... "

He sagged into his chair behind the desk. "I wouldn't have believed... "

"Professor?" Harry asked the question of McGonagall. "What's going on?"

Minerva McGonagall sighed. "You were accused of stealing liquid Bloodmoon, Potter. That's an extremely serious charge, and only the Bloodmoon's magic could clear you of that charge, which it apparently has done, by purifying all of these cauldrons. I've only ever heard of two other individuals whose innocence was proven by Bloodmoon magic, and those were so long ago that – like Severus – I'd considered them folktales."

Harry stared at his teachers, back and forth, speechless.

Snape blew out a long-held breath, then opened the bottom drawer of his desk.

"Merlin's hangnails!" he whispered, reaching carefully into the deep drawer. "They're here! And they weren't before. I'd swear it!" He withdrew three flasks of deep, glowing red.

McGonagall gasped.

Harry gaped.

All three stared at the liquid Bloodmoon for the longest time, enthralled by the sheer beauty of the undulating crimson distillation of the moon's eclipse.

Finally, Snape spoke, so quietly Harry could barely hear him. "I'd never thought to see these flasks again. All the tales ... when someone has been falsely accused ... the Bloodmoon deserts the accuser... "

"Perhaps in those tales, the accuser knew the accused to be innocent?" suggested McGonagall.

Snape could only shrug, before saying reverently, "For once in my life, I will have something pure. And I shall do all within my power to deserve this." His fingertips lightly grazed each flask in turn.

McGonagall glanced at Harry before asking, "I assume Potter's detention is finished?"

Snape nodded silently.

"Then we shall go. Come along, Potter." She led the way to the door. "Oh, by the way, Severus? Is there anything we might do to avoid any future holiday detentions?"

"Obviously." Snape smirked. "Call off Christmas!"

-:- -:- -:-

The End.

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