Great Hall.
Severus ate his breakfast without hurrying, slipping a piece of bacon to Nagini at intervals, all while a dark-haired girl stared at him with the focused displeasure of someone who had been sitting with the same argument for several days.
"Join the team."
"Not interested."
"How many times do I have to explain that nothing is going to happen to—" She did not finish, but the faint colour that came into her cheeks made the rest unnecessary.
"The chance those charms fail is one hundredth of a percent."
"Exactly. That is essentially impossible. And even if it did happen, it is not some curse or magical attack. It is just physical damage. It is not difficult to fix."
"And you think I want to experience that?" He looked at her with the expression he reserved for people who had said something genuinely puzzling, and slipped another piece of bacon to Nagini. "Leave me alone, Miss Talkalot."
Regulus, sitting nearby, had been watching the whole exchange with the detached curiosity of someone watching a sport he did not particularly understand. The first time Talkalot had appeared at their table, he had been genuinely startled. He was on the team himself, technically, as a reserve, and by sixth year he fully intended to be a starting player. Which was why it struck him as strange that Talkalot, who was widely known for being demanding to the point of cruelty with her own team, driving them into the ground at every practice, had apparently decided to personally recruit someone, and to keep doing it day after day.
I am almost starting to feel jealous.
"That is enough. I will not join. I am not interested." Severus stood, dropped a friendly hand on Regulus's shoulder as he passed. "Good luck on the test today."
"Uh. Thanks." Regulus nodded, slightly thrown. An action like that from Severus was not normal. Usually it was a nod at most. "You too."
Watching Severus leave, Regulus glanced at Lucinda, and immediately wished he had not. She was staring directly at him, with purpose.
"Regulus, we should talk." She moved into the chair across from him, folded her hands on the table in a businesslike way, and smiled.
You absolute bastard.
Meanwhile, Severus was already walking the second-floor corridor toward the hospital wing without particular hurry. He had finished Madam Pomfrey's book a good while ago, but he had not gone back yet. He wanted a solid grasp of the material in practice before he walked in and said so.
"Well, you are a piece of work. You just left poor Regulus alone with her," Nagini said, with a tone that suggested she disapproved but found it quite funny. She had peeked out from under his collar to watch him go. "Though I am still wondering why she is so desperate to get you on that team."
"Honestly, so am I. Perhaps it is about money: she wants me to invest in better brooms, something like that. I doubt she actually knows what I can do. Either way, forget her." They reached the hospital wing and he knocked.
"Come in." The moment he stepped through the door, Madam Pomfrey looked up from her desk with an expression of clear surprise. She had not expected him back this quickly. "You have already read it?"
"Yes." He set the book on the desk in front of her. "I learned a great deal. Particularly from your notes."
"You noticed those?"
"They were hidden with charms. I am reasonably good at removing them. And is that not part of what you were testing?" Seeing genuine surprise on Pomfrey's face, Severus let a note of careful innocence into his voice. "Being able to remove charms is an important skill in Healing, is it not?"
Pomfrey did not have an immediate answer. The fact that a student, a sixth-year student, had not only detected but lifted charms she had placed herself was surprising in a way that sat awkwardly with her professional pride. She pulled herself together, and what she produced was a smile, fairly stiff. "You are correct. That skill is no less important than any other. Very well. Let us begin." Severus nodded and sat down across from her. "First question. Name a potion commonly used for burns."
"Burn-healing paste is the standard. If that is unavailable, star-anise extract can serve in the interim, but the burn itself should be cooled for ten to fifteen minutes and cleaned first, plain soap is sufficient, and only then should the paste be applied. I would add an antiseptic ointment before the paste, or mix them together if the components are compatible, which in this case they are. With other ointments it is better not to combine them, as the interaction can worsen the injury."
"And if you have nothing at all, and you have just been caught by Incendio in Diagon Alley?"
"It depends on the degree. For first- and second-degree burns, cool the area under running water for fifteen minutes, apply a bandage, and go to St. Mungo's. Third-degree, bandage immediately and go without delay. Fourth-degree, go directly without touching the burn site at all, though pain-relief charms are appropriate." Pomfrey nodded thoughtfully.
"I am glad you did not limit yourself to wizarding literature only," she added, and the warmth in her voice was genuine now. One of the reasons she had reacted so coolly to Severus's request at the outset was his house: Slytherin had a well-established blind spot toward Muggle medical knowledge, which had advanced considerably further than wizarding practice in several areas. "Next question. Patient diagnosis. Tell me about that."
"Diagnosis begins with information gathering, primarily by questioning the patient: the nature of the problem, when it started, what preceded it. From that you can then examine the patient directly, and with a diagnostic spell, and the two methods together give a more accurate result than either alone. The questioning needs to be thorough, because spells are easy to confuse with one another, and minor differences in symptom presentation matter. Once you have a full picture you can make a diagnosis and begin treatment. If the cause cannot be determined because an artefact or ritual is involved, symptomatic treatment is possible, but there is no certainty it will resolve the underlying problem."
"Good. You have covered this chapter carefully. Let us continue."
"Of course."
The next two hours passed quickly. Every question came from the book, and Severus answered without difficulty or hesitation, not once. Pomfrey found herself genuinely surprised, not by the fact that he had read the book, but by the way he answered: he did not stay within it. He reached into material from other texts she recognised, including Muggle ones she would not have expected a Slytherin student to have ever seen.
After the last question, Madam Pomfrey sat back and studied him, and he looked back at her with the steady patience of someone who already knew what she was going to say.
"You have surprised me. I thought this was a passing interest. It is not." She stood, went to the shelves, pulled down several books, and set them in front of him. "I agree to teach you. Lessons on weekends, so they do not interfere with your regular studies."
"Madam Pomfrey, I am not here on weekends. Could we move to Tuesdays and Thursdays?" Pomfrey raised an eyebrow. "I am completely free on those days until eight."
"Tuesday and Thursday mornings, then," she said. "Consider each session both lesson and practical. I will not let you near a patient yet, but you can observe my work, and once you have sufficient experience I will allow you to conduct examinations. That would be seventh year at the earliest." She bent down, opened the lower cabinet, and set two more books on the desk. "These must be finished by the end of term." She patted them with a warm smile.
Severus looked at the two stacks in front of him. Twenty books in total, and not one of them thin.
"Is this revenge for the extra work?"
"Revenge? On a student? I would never do such a thing," Pomfrey said with complete conviction and in a tone that made it absolutely clear she was lying.
Severus chose not to press it.
"I understand. Thank you." He slipped the books into his wallet, nodded, and stood. "I will see you tomorrow, Madam Pomfrey."
"And a good day to you, Mr. Snape." She waved with a smile.
Sweet as treacle on the outside, Severus thought as he stepped into the corridor. Complete sadist underneath.
He spent the entire following day in the hospital wing. Mostly reading and watching Pomfrey work. He found, despite himself, that she was excellent at it. She needed only the briefest examination to understand what was wrong with a patient. His most difficult questions did not slow her down, and her knowledge of potions was thorough: recipes, properties, interactions, all of it across an enormous range. She was below him in that particular area, a copper master's badge against his higher rank, and when she found that out she went very quiet for a moment. She had heard about the recently emerged talent in potion-making, but had not paid close attention: that field only touched Healing at its edges, and it had not seemed relevant to her.
After this, she respected him, though she thought his decision to pursue both disciplines simultaneously was misguided.
Potion-making and Healing were both complex enough to demand everything a person had. Reaching mastery in both at the same time was, in her professional opinion, simply not possible. She did not say so. People learned their lessons most reliably from their own mistakes, and while she was quite certain this would end badly for him, she was also genuinely curious whether she was right.
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