Chapter 247

The potion laboratory at Number 19 Spinner's End was submerged in deep green shadows. The sparks kicked up by Snape's serpent-bone wand branded the mold-spotted wallpaper with the coiled totem of a pit viper. Moonstone powder emitted a crisp, bone-crushing sound inside the brass mortar, and the boiling Boomslang venom in the cauldron cast distorted ripples across the wall, closely mimicking the undercurrents stirred by merpeople swimming at the bottom of the Black Lake. "Snap!" As the third drop of fang-extract plummeted into the dragon-blood crystal sand, Snape's pupils suddenly constricted to needle points. The scent of sweet-cicely pierced through the fog of absinthe, disturbing the flow rate of the twelve hourglasses on the desk. He deliberately pressed the back of his left hand against the scalding rim of the cauldron, the smell of scorching flesh bursting forth amidst a sizzling sound—this effectively dispelled the memories that always visited at midnight: the absurd scene where someone blew up half a classroom in a Potions lesson, then used fingers stained with hellebore juice to draw little snakes in the margins of his lesson plan.