The Boy Who Lived A Bit [Snarry]

Chapter Seventeen

'So what is it that you've been working on all night?' Harry licked a smear of melted butter off his left thumb and continued munching on his toasted muffin.

Snape put down his mug of coffee and glanced briefly at Lupin who was tucking into poached eggs on toast at the other end of the table. Snape's black eyes fell back to Harry and he cleared his throat before continuing. 'Enhancement potions.'

'To enhance what?'

'Spells.'

'Okay. Anything useful?'

Snape picked up his coffee again and cradled it between his pale hands. 'I believe so.' His eyes flickered toward Lupin again, then back to Harry. 'Remember the spell I showed you recently, the one that made your Lumos so much brighter and more powerful than it normally is?'

Harry hid his slight blush behind his muffin. 'Y-yes. I remember... that.'

Snape pursed his lips at the comment briefly, then went on. 'So you will remember that the extra power waned after barely a half hour or so?'

'Yeah.'

'Well. I think I might have found a potion that may prolong that increased power by up to twenty-four hours after the initial spell is cast.'

'That's brilliant!' And even more brilliant than that, thought Harry, was the fact that this would mean another Culmen Densus fuck, coming right up! He shifted in his chair a little and grinned at Snape. 'You're brilliant!' he told the older man.

'It was all in the books, Potter, I merely had to read them.' He cast a warning look in Harry's direction, as if to say "Kindly remember that the werewolf is listening to all this and stop your gushing!".

Harry coaxed his grin away and drank some coffee. 'So I'll have, um, double my own powers when I go up against Voldemort?'

'That is the theory, yes.'

'Is the potion a difficult one? I mean, does it take a long time to brew or anything?' Harry just couldn't help thinking about some of the more powerful potions he'd encountered before – the Polyjuice potion, for instance, that had taken a whole MONTH to make!

'Not an especially long time, no. An afternoon with no interruptions should do it. Some of the ingredients are rather rare, I suppose, but I'm confident my private stores at Hogwarts are not lacking for any of them. That is, provided no marauding students have taken it upon themselves to break in and rob me, of course.'

Lupin looked up at the word "marauding". Harry looked down at the mention of stealing from Snape's private stores. Snape smirked, satisfied, and poured himself another cup of black coffee.

* * *

Snape made a frustrated noise over his cauldron. 'If you are bored, Mister Potter, you could perhaps remember that you don't need to be here and do something about it?'