The Potions Master's New Glasses - Severus Snape (COMPLETE)

Quandaries

Severus Snape was not the kind of man to get stuck on a problem or moan about it to someone else. He liked to move on, preferably after solving whatever issue he had run into. But his problems could not be solved very easily. And becoming blind was one of them.

*

Summer reading had never been so difficult. He had always been fairly short-sighted, or maybe he just preferred to look very closely at his books; however he had always been one to have his nose right to a book. But when, in the gloomy sitting room of Spinners End, he couldn't read the Daily Prophet from ten centimetres away, he began to worry about the upcoming school year.

*

It was made very obvious, inconveniently as it would have it, to him in one of his classes. He always enchanted the chalk to write the directions of the board in large handwriting so that wasn't a problem but then, turning to his own instructions, he realised he couldn't make out the words from where he stood, barely a metre away. Even worse than that, the potion in question was a Draught of Living Death, one of the most complex of potions. And, this class was of sixth-years, none of whom, despite all getting Outstandings in their OWL, had any particular skill or ability for potions.

"Sir," whined a bespectacled, plump boy in the back row, "what does the third line say?"

Severus looked at the board himself. What did it say? He turned back to the front.

"Macmillan!" He snapped. "Help Cresswell with the instructions. Next time, move to the front, the both of you."

"Yes, Sir," came the disgruntled replies.

Another voice reached his ears.

"Professor, please can you help? My potion's turning blue!"

Severus swept over to the stricken girl. "What line were you just following?" He asked.

"The sixth," she replied nervously.

Knowing now that he wouldn't be able to see it, he bent over the cauldron and said, "Read out the instructions."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the girl, Madeline Corner, a Ravenclaw, give him a strange look. "Erm, stir counter-clockwise until the potion turns as clear as water."

With the deftness of one who has been brewing for their entire life, Severus stirred the potion very clearly, stirring seven times counter-clockwise.

"Sir?" The girl was concerned about her potion.

He added a clockwise stir and the potion transformed at once, becoming palest pink.

"Thank you, Sir," the girl gulped, when he eventually looked up and gave her a cold look for doubting him. Torn between concern for her imminent health and curiosity for all things academic, Corner burst out, "But why did you add a clockwise stir? Sir?" She added hurriedly.

Severus wandered back to the front. "When a student myself, I realised that Libatius Borage's seven anti-clockwise stirs didn't quite get the right colour the textbook was asking for. I tweaked the recipe, and then contacted Borage. He refuses to believe me, even now."

Corner was distracted from his strange personality change by her excitement of knowing that he had met the author of their textbook. The things children found interesting these days. Borage wasn't that much of a celebrity. Severus begrudgingly realised he would have to start relying on his hearing even more. And learn the few potions he was slightly weaker on by heart.

*****

A.N. Most of the information here is from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Obviously, I don't own Harry Potter, only J. K. Rowling can claim that.