Chapter Thirty: Kitchen
As usual when he was home for the summer, Severus took over the kitchen. His potion making was an odd mixture of Muggle technology and magic. The cauldron, which had magical properties, was heated over an ordinary gas flame instead of the one he conjured at Hogwarts. The magical ingredients were prepared using ordinary chopping boards and knives. The weirdly colored concoctions were stirred with ordinary wooden or stainless steel spoons.
Technically, it was as illegal for him to make potions as to do any other kind of magic outside of school until he turned seventeen. Practically, the Ministry of Magic's ordinary magic detection methods didn't work very well with potions. Uncle Severus let his nephew name him as the potion brewer when he sold potions to the apothecary on Diagon Alley. If they were surprised that suddenly the potions that used to come from Eileen Snape were now being made by her brother, no one said anything.
Tobias sat at the kitchen table, sipping his tea while he watched his son move between the counter and the stove top. The tea was a Muggle recipe with ginger, lemon juice and licorice that Jenny, Rafe's daughter, had recommended and Severus had approved. It seemed to help when he was having just a little trouble breathing and it wasn't as harsh as the bronchial dilator.
His son's hair was tied back from his face with a red bandanna and he wore a black t-shirt, flared jeans and trainers. Thanks to the cooling spells on the house, even the kitchen was comfortable, despite this summer being the hottest and driest in years.
"I'll have supper ready in half an hour," said Severus. "That's the migraine potion done. I can leave it to cool now." He poured the contents of the cauldron into an ordinary bowl to cool and set the cauldron in the left basin of the sink, where he filled it with hot water and a few drops of a cleaning potion to soak.
He stirred the canned tomato soup heating up on the stove and then moved over to a chopping board. The lettuce was already torn up and washed and in the salad bowl. He had radishes and carrots and a cucumber to chop up for the salad. Once the vegetables were dumped in the salad bowl, he turned back to the dirty cauldron.
It was a pain to have only one cauldron and to have to wash it by hand. But he wanted to get the asthma remedy started before supper, because it took so long to cure. He filled the cauldron half full with water from the kitchen tap and set it on the flame. Then he carefully measured out some liquids from two different bottles and scraped in some ingredients that he'd prepared earlier from one of the chopping boards.
That done, he turned back to the salad. He mixed oil and vinegar in an old vinegar bottle and added some herbs and salt and pepper. He shook the bottle vigorously, poured it over the lettuce and tossed the salad with two serving spoons. One more stir of the soup, which was simmering now.
"More tea, Dad?" he asked as he poured the soup into two bowls and then set the empty pot in the right basin of the sink where he filled it with hot water and some dish washing liquid to soak.
"Sure," answered Tobias. He loved watching Severus at work. The boy had the same grace and economy of motion as his mother.
Severus grabbed a ginger root and lemon from the magically cooled cupboard. He cut off an inch of the root, peeled it, chopped it and crushed it with the flat of the knife before adding it to a teapot. He did the same with some licorice root from a jar in the cupboard and halved the lemon. Then he poured hot water from the tea kettle into the pot.
He brought the soup over to the table, then turned back to the salad, which he tossed one more time, dished up onto two plates and set on the table as well. The ginger root went back into the cooling cupboard, the chopping boards were scraped into two different trash bins, one for magical ingredients and one for mundane. Then the boards were dumped into the appropriate basin of the sink to soak as well.
A quick wipe down of the counters and then Severus poured Tobias' tea into his cup, squeezing a lemon half into it before returning the lemon to the cooling cupboard as well. Finally, he poured some hot water over the once-used teabag in his own cup and sat down at the table himself.
"It's finally happened," Tobias said, after a few spoonfuls of soup. "They're closing the mill."
Severus sighed. "Good. Now you can finally get away from there without losing your unemployment benefits."
"There's more than that," said his father. "Rafe says I'm due disability as well for the brown lung. I'm going to be a man of leisure and still bring in nearly the same amount of money."
"Ah. I see it now. The brown lung was just part of your clever scheme to retire early and see the world," smirked the son.
"You caught me out, boy," he returned. "So, where should I start? Spain or Greece?"
"Don't be so boring. How about Kenya or Brazil?"
"You can do better than that. After they fix up my lungs at your hospital, you can take me on a tour of all the Wizarding communities..." His voice trailed off at the look on his son's face. "Or just Diagon Alley would be enough, Severus. You don't know how much I miss..." His voice trailed off again, this time from the ache of being cut off from the magical world.
Severus hadn't told him about losing Lucius yet. And apparently, Uncle Rafe hadn't either, leaving it to him to break the news.
"Dad, I'd love to take you on a tour. But you're going to have to hold on a while longer. I've lost my in with Malfoy."
Tobias just stared at his son for a long moment. Then, as if on cue, he started coughing. When the cough didn't die down, he grabbed the inhaler that he kept on a string around his neck. After a couple of puffs, the coughing cleared and he could breathe easily again.
His face was hard and his voice soft and dangerous when he finally spoke. "I assume there is a good reason?"
Severus felt his father's anger like a tangible presence. "I'm still in with Evan Rosier," he answered, avoiding the actual question.
"Can he get me into St. Mungo's?" Tobias asked coolly.
"Not yet," Severus answered. "He's not established yet. He's just in my year."
Tobias saw the blank face and glittering eyes that meant his son was in pain and softened. "What happened, Severus?"
"Avery had me casting Cruciatus," Severus said, quickly adding "Not on people, though," when he saw the look on his father's face. "I thought I could handle it. I couldn't," he added simply. "I lost my temper and fought a pure-blood. Two pure-bloods."
"Bloody hell," whispered Tobias. "Potter and Black?"
Severus nodded.
"But you still have Evan Rosier?"
He nodded again.
"Then I guess I'll just have to wait a while longer," he said with a wry grin, leaning back in his chair. "Give me a chance to brush up on my Portuguese, it will."
"You don't need to learn Portuguese," said Severus in mock exasperation. "Don't you know there's a spell for that?"
"Of course," Tobias answered. "There's a spell for everything. You just made up that bit about underage use of magic to keep from having to make yourself useful around here."
"Sure, Dad," he returned. "I much prefer doing the dishes by hand to bothering with something as exhausting as a Scourgify."
"Ha! I knew it! He admits it," the man said, pointing an accusing finger at his son and raising an eyebrow, drawing a snicker from the teenager.
They sat there quietly for a while, finishing their supper. Then Severus poured his father more of his special tea before moving to the sink to take care of the dishes.
"That curse Avery had you do," Tobias started. "It had something to do with you losing your temper?"
Severus stopped what he was doing for a moment, but kept turned towards the sink, his back to his father. "Yes," he answered in a toneless voice, going back to the dishes. "Apparently there's a ... condition ... associated with casting the spell too often."
"And you're not doing it anymore?" he went on.
Severus shook his head, his back still to his father.
"Good," he said. "I guess there'll be two Snapes in treatment at St. Mungo's then. In the meantime, I'll just have to stop goading you into rages from now on."
Severus sighed and dropped his head. He didn't have the heart to tell his father there was no cure for his "condition." He placed the last dish on the drying rack and turned around. "That's right, Dad," he said, slipping back into his chair at the table. "You've got to stop riling me or I'll ... I'll ... Damn! No hexing until I'm seventeen or I'll bring the Ministry down on me. Guess I'll just have to settle for ... oh ... breaking your legs?"
Tobias smiled. "That'll do, son, that'll do."
"Anything else I need to know about this condition?" the man asked lightly, unable to completely hide the concern in his voice.
"No," Severus answered and he didn't consider it a lie, exactly. There was nothing else his father needed to know.
Posted by Madmaxime at February 6, 2008 05:49 AM