Hiding the Ills by DesertPlanet

Defense Against the Dark Arts was a class many of the students had been looking forward to taking. The idea of learning to fight and learning about the war which had ended shortly after their births was almost as exciting as learning to fly. The older students told tales of learning hexes and curses while the third years were excited to be learning about dark creatures and how to defend themselves.

Entering the class for the first time on Thursday, Julian was immediately struck by two things: the fear of being behind in the class and the overwhelming urge to immediately leave the room to vomit. The smell of garlic which emanated from every nook and cranny of the room was causing his eyes to burn and his stomach to roll.

Sitting as close to a window as he could, Julian tried in vain to pay attention to the class. Professor Quirrell had to have known he was a vampire. All of the professors knew; Severus had told them as much during the staff meeting the first day of school. So why was Quirrell’s room so horribly garlic-filled? Was he really so afraid of the one vampire he had met in Romania?

Whatever the case may be, the class hadn’t gone as well for Julian as he had hoped. Even with slipping himself an ondansetron, he was still fighting off the waves of nausea for the rest of the class as well as an ever building headache which seemed to center right under his scar.

He was rather proud of himself, however. Despite all of these challenges, and despite the disgusting smell of rot whenever Professor Quirrell got too close, he managed to make it all the way through the class before his stomach finally gave up the fight and he was forced to leave the room, nicking a rubbish bin on his way out.

“Are you ok, Julian?” Draco asked as he waited for the smaller boy to stop retching.

Julian nodded slightly before pushing himself up and staggering slightly towards the hospital wing, bin still in hand in case he needed it. He really hoped that he didn’t, but the smell of Quirrell’s turban was ingrained in his nostrils and was continuing to send waves of nausea through him. He just wanted to smell something, anything, other than the scent of garlic and rot.

There was one thing he could think of that would certainly get those scents out of his nose, but he was fairly certain he would get in trouble for even thinking about it.

“Do you want me to walk with you?” Draco said, offering to hold his bag.

“No!” Julian snapped more forcefully than he meant, tearing his eyes from Draco’s neck and wincing as Draco took a step back involuntarily. “No, I’m sorry. It would be better if ... I’ll make it there fine.”

“Ok,” Draco said, wondering if he had said something wrong. “Will you be at dinner tonight?”

Julian shrugged before gagging once more, hugging the bin to his chest. He had managed to make it to one dinner since the start of term and, while it hadn’t gone spectacularly well, he had been rather pleased with the fact he had managed to remain sitting with the Slytherins for the entire meal. He had only retched once while at the table, much to his classmates' amusement, though he wasn’t the only one. Apparently Crabbe and Goyle’s ‘see-food’ competition was enough to make even the most stoic of the Slytherins queasy.

It wasn’t easy to make it to dinner, however, as that often involved lugging his tube feeding pump and a nearly full bag of albumin along with him. By the end of the day, it was a lot of additional weight to cart around. And on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, it was especially exhausting as Madam Pomfrey had begun insisting he begin doing more strenuous physical therapy.

Gone were the days of simply walking up and down the Hospital Wing, they were now trying to build endurance and muscle.

“Ok then,” Draco said, looking around for the other Slytherins who were beginning their trek to the greenhouses. “If you need help…”

“I have a pendant to call the Hospital Wing,” Julian interrupted with a sigh. “Have fun in Herbology, Draco.”

Draco nodded and turned back to the other Slytherins who were now waving him over. “See you tomorrow in Potions!”

Julian waved weakly at his classmates before sitting on the pedestal of one of the knights to catch his breath as another wave of nausea passed over him. Why was it so hard to get this stench out of his nose? And what was rotten under the layers of fabric around Professor Quirrell’s head?

He had been around garlic before but had never ended up with a headache like this. He would get lightheaded and occasionally he would get a headache when he was too anaemic, but he hadn’t felt like that in a while. He hadn’t been feeling overly tired or short of breath, and, after years of being critically anaemic, he was rather certain he would know what it felt like when his anaemia got too bad.

In short, something was going on and it behooved him to get to the Hospital Wing as soon as possible.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Julian,” Poppy said, waving her wand over the boy once more and sighing in exasperation. “Other than a small drop in the amount of magic in your magical reserves, you’re no worse off than what you were when you came in yesterday. In fact, many of the diagnostics are saying you are doing better.”

“Then why did my head hurt so much?” Julian moaned, rubbing his forehead with one hand. “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong with me? Are you sure I wasn’t having an allergic reaction to garlic?”

“Julian…”

“I was sitting by the window, am I not allowed to do that? Was there too much sun?”

“Julian, stop,” Poppy said, sitting in front of the boy who was beginning to wring the sheets in his hands. “It looks like it was just a headache right now. If it happens again, we’ll look more into it and see if there is something more sinister going on. For right now, you need to relax and try to get some rest.”

Julian shakily took a deep breath and flopped backwards onto the pillow behind him. Was he really ok? The severity of that headache scared him, as did the fact he seemed to be the only one who could smell something rotten under Professor Quirrell’s turban. He hadn’t read anything about vampires having hallucinations during the day, but nothing else seemed to be going right for him, so he wouldn’t be surprised if he was going to go insane as well.

It was strange to him, however, how little Poppy seemed to worry about the headache. Over the past several years, he had become so used to the doctors jumping on every little symptom and running a gambit of tests on him to see if they could find what was wrong with him that he was quite surprised when Poppy didn’t. What if something was wrong? How accurate were her spells?

Sighing, he crossed his arms over his chest in annoyance and closed his eyes. It was strange not being seen as sick with a mysterious illness anymore. Headaches were no longer seen as a potential symptom of something else. Feeling sore was now a good thing because it meant he was no longer wasting away. Even stomach cramps were seen as a good thing as it meant things were trying to move.

Everything he thought he knew felt backwards and it was frustrating trying to sort through what was right and what wasn’t.

Though she said he was in good health, Madam Pomfrey decided it was in his best interests to stay in the hospital wing for the remainder of the afternoon so she could monitor him for any additional issues. Though his headache was long gone, she routinely checked on him to make sure it hadn’t decided to come back. By the time mid afternoon had rolled around, both she and Julian had come to the conclusion the headache was related to the scent of garlic.

“I’ll have a word with Quirinus,” she said with a sigh as she finally shooed him towards the door. “He ought to know better!”

“Are you excited for class today?” Draco said between bites of egg. “It’s our first potions class!”

“Yeah,” Julian smiled as he rolled the lolly he had brought with him to breakfast around in his mouth. “Dad’s been grumbling about it all morning.”

Draco let out a laugh before pulling out his schedule and groaning. “Pity it’s with the Gryffindors though.”

“How come?” Julian asked curiously. Having not been in many classes, he always felt as though he was missing out on a part of the experiences his housemates were having.

“They’re awful, mate!” Crabbe said as he shoveled his breakfast into his mouth in a way that caused Julian to grimace.

“They love breaking the rules,” Nott chimed in from the other side of the table. “Not that the rules really matter to them!”

“They just skate by as though everything will be handed to them and everything will work out fine,” Zabini growled. “I’ve heard Professor Snape is the only one who doesn’t let them get away with their nonsense. All of the other professors just award them points and call it a day.”

“If any of us tried the things the Gryffs get away with, we’d be in detention on the spot!” Draco grumbled, violently stabbing a piece of potato. “I heard some of them actually won points in charms last year for spelling the door to the classroom so all the Slytherins who walked through would lose their hair!”

“I heard some of them snuck a werewolf onto school grounds on the full moon and didn’t get expelled!” One of the upper years added.

“They never get fouled in Quidditch but we do all the time!” Marcus Flint growled as he opened the newspaper.

“And they’re always sneaking around at night!” one of the older prefects said. “But they’re always calling us the snakes!”

Julian frowned but nodded. He hadn’t noticed the Gryffindors being particularly mean to the Slytherins, but he had also only had one class with them thus far. Outside of that one class, his only other interactions with them had been meeting the Weasley twins at the end of last school year.

He knew Severus wasn’t fond of their house and was always grumbling about how poorly they performed in his class, but Severus was always grumbling about something or someone under his breath. Julian could only hope that the Gryffindors wouldn’t cause too many problems in potions. Potions were too volatile to mess about with.

“Come on Julian!” Draco said, breaking the small boy from his reverie. “We need to go back to the dorms to get our books, do you want to come?”

Julian quickly whipped out his pocket watch and frowned at the time. Though he was getting faster at navigating the stairs, it would still be pushing it for him to make it all the way to the dorms and back to the potions classroom even though they were both in the dungeons.

“I’ll meet you guys there,” Julian said, swinging his legs over the bench as the rest of his classmates started to rise as well.

“Ok, save me a seat?” Draco said with a smirk.

“I’ll try!” Julian smirked back, knowing full well the other boys might actually beat him to the classroom anyways.

Potions class was by far and away the class he was most looking forward to, and not just because Severus was the one teaching it. After having spent the last few years in and out of the hospital and now using a mixture of muggle medications and magical potions to survive, he was quite interested in learning more about how this combination worked. He had spent most of the summer working on reading through Severus’s vast personal library on the subject; now he had the chance to put that knowledge to work.

He just hoped he could stomach the ingredients.

Making his way into the dungeons, Julian couldn’t help but smile. The rest of the castle was beautiful in its own right, but the dungeons were home. Their darkness enveloped him and held him in a way that made him feel more welcome than he had felt anywhere else. The simple fact that he was going to be having a class down in their depths filled him with a joy he couldn’t describe even if he tried.

In spite of his efforts to beat the rest of the students to the classroom, he was rather dismayed to find he was one of the last students to make his way into the room. Few seats were left and of those seats all of them were partnered with a Gryffindor.

“Sorry,” Draco mouthed from the far side of the room where he was paired with Blaise. “I tried.”

Julian shrugged his shoulders and sat at one of the last open seats near the middle of the room next to the red-headed Gryffindor who he suddenly remembered had the strange smelling rat. He could tell the boy didn’t have the animal on him at the time, but he knew there was a potential of being able to ask the boy questions during class.

He hadn’t thought much about the rat since classes had started, but now that he was sitting next to the rat’s owner, his curiosity had bloomed once again.

“Hi,” Julian said quietly as he pulled his potion’s book from his bag and blushing as he realized how tattered his books were compared to many of his classmates. While his father had bought him many new textbooks for this year, certain tomes he had decided to loan the boy instead. Julian hadn’t argued as he knew his father knew which books needed to be purchased new, but he couldn’t help but notice the strange looks several of his classmates gave him when he pulled a book out of his bag which appeared so worn the cover was nearly coming off.

“‘Lo,” the red-head responded gruffly, pulling an almost equally tattered book from his bag.

“I’m Julian,” Julian said as he quickly flipped to the potion he remembered his father saying they would be working on for the day.

“I know who you are, Snape,” the red-head grumbled, rolling his eyes before sighing. “I’m Ron Weasley.”

“I met your brothers last year,” Julian said with a nod and a smile. “Hey, I was wondering…”

Suddenly, the door to the classroom slammed shut and all conversation ceased as Severus strode into the room, robes flapping wildly behind him.

“Put your wands away,” he said by way of an introduction before pulling out a class roster and quickly going through the names, notably skipping over Julian’s name though he did look up briefly to make sure his son was in attendance.

Julian had to stifle a giggle when Severus got to Weasley’s name on the roster and looked rather like he had sucked on a lemon. Over the summer, Severus had made many mentions of how he loathed having any Weasleys in his class as they all seemed to grate on his nerves. Be it goofing off or brown-nosing, none of the Weasleys seemed to want to take his class seriously. And now Julian was sitting next to yet another one.

Severus could only hope neither boy would get injured.

“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making,” Severus said in a voice so low Julian believed he may be the only one to hear the man speaking. Thankfully, the other students seemed to be hanging on his every word, staying remarkably silent. “As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins-” he briefly locked eyes with Julian who raised an eyebrow and resisted the urge to smirk “-bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses … I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death- if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”

Julian couldn’t help but cover a snort of laughter with a cough. He had caught his father mumbling this exact speech several times over the last few weeks as he prepared for the first days of class. He had thought the speech to be a bit over the top, but apparently it was enthralling to his fellow students. Julian, however, found it rather amusing that the man had been practicing this same speech while doing house chores.

“Julian!” his father snapped, shaking him back to alertness. “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood.”

Julian frowned for a moment as he thought back over the various potions manuals he had read over the course of the summer and tried to remember what interactions the various ingredients would have. “A heavy sedative, sir.”

Severus nodded to him in approval before turning to one of the other students. “Finnegan! Where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?”

A sandy haired Gryffindor looked around wide-eyed for a moment before he shakily admitted to not knowing though he did point out one of the other Gryffindors who seemed to be over-enthusiastically waving her hand in desperation to be acknowledged, an answer which caused the potions master’s lips to curl into a sneer as a few of the other students laughed.

“Such a pity,” Severus drawled in a way that made the Weasley he was sitting with squirm. “I had high hopes that this year my students would come with some sort of base knowledge.”

The Gryffindor girl continued to wave her hand desperately, even going so far as to rise partially out of her seat in her enthusiasm for answering the question. Julian sighed at the sight and waited for his father’s inevitable explosion. One of the first things his father had complained about was how some of the students thought the way to get good grades in his class was to force their way to the forefront and answer all of the questions. Knowing the answers to the questions was fine, but not allowing others the chance to answer was not.

Particularly when he was quite obviously choosing individuals to answer his questions rather than offering open-ended questions.

“Sit down,” Severus snapped at the bushy-haired girl, glowering at her until she was well and truly sat in her chair. “Longbottom. What is the difference between wolfsbane and monkshood?”

The boy who had lost his toad on the train whimpered slightly as Severus’s ire was directed at him. “Th-they’re the s-s-same p-p-plant, s-sir?”

Severus raised an eyebrow at the intonation of the answer, but didn’t press farther as it was correct. When the professor’s attention was no longer on him, the round-faced boy collapsed backwards onto his stool as though he were going to pass out if any more attention were placed on him.

“As surprising as it may be, Mr. Longbottom is correct: wolfsbane and monkshood are the same plant and are also known as aconite. Mr. Snape was also correct in his assessment of the addition of powdered asphodel root to an infusion of wormwood, though its official name is ‘Draught of Living Death,” Professor Snape said, turning to the blackboard at the front of the classroom and flicking his wand, sending the chalk skittering across the board as it wrote the directions for the boil cure they would be working on that day. “A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and can save you from most poisons, a fact you all should be writing down as not every potion we will be making in this class will be as benign as the one we are working on today.”

There was a sudden flurry of movement as all of the students in the class quickly pulled pieces of parchment and inkwells from their bags and frantically began scribbling notes down.

Severus lectured the class on the importance of lab safety, particularly on preventing accidental cutting of one’s own finger as blood was an easy cross contaminate, for the next half hour before dividing the class into pairs and having them begin to brew the potion he had written on the board.

“Julian, a word,” Severus said softly enough to not be heard by the other students over the din of the classroom as the other students scrambled to get ingredients out of the cupboard but knowing his son would hear him clear as day.

Julian sighed as he put down the mortar and pestle he had just brought to his and Weasley’s station and turned to look at his father who was sitting calmly yet impatiently behind his desk. As much as he wanted to get started on the potion, he knew there had to be a reason his father was pulling him aside.

“Yes, sir?” Julian said quietly as he approached his father’s desk.

“You are not to go into the ingredient cupboard,” Severus said bluntly. “I apologize for not informing you of this sooner, but I did not think of what all ingredients I had in the school supply until this morning.”

Julian took a deep breath and sighed exasperatedly as he looked back at his station where Weasley was viciously hacking away at a pile of snake fangs with a knife. “There’s blood in the cupboard, isn’t there.”

“Yes,” Severus said, refusing to be indirect about the topic so as to avoid any potential for miscommunication. “Not human blood, mind you, but there is some various bodily fluids of different creatures in there.”

“I understand,” Julian grimaced at the thought though his mouth did water slightly at the thought of a vial of blood sitting on a shelf. A vial of beautiful, crimson liquid sitting unguarded save a single wooden door.

“-lian?” Severus was saying, snapping his fingers in front of the young vampire’s face. “Julian, this is exactly why you aren’t allowed to go in there.”

Julian swallowed heavily and nodded. No, he wouldn’t drink the blood from the cupboard. Not when there was so much … No. He wouldn’t drink that blood either. That would certainly get him expelled. “I understand.”

“Now, go work on attempting to salvage whatever it is that Mr. Weasley is doing to your ingredients,” Severus said with a groan as he looked at the carnage which had befallen his son’s workstation.

Julian turned around and sighed at the sight. He really wished he had been able to be partnered up with Draco for the class, but if he had been there was no way he would have been able to even chance asking the boy about his pet rat. He would just have to put up with whatever nonsense the young Weasley boy would throw at him.

“The professor giving you pointers?” Ron grumbled as Julian returned to his stool and resolutely started attempting to correct for the utter butchering of the ingredients that Weasley had managed while he was speaking with his father.

Julian frowned for a moment before beginning to stew their horned slugs in the potion’s base which his father had kindly prepared for them before class had begun. It wasn’t that that was necessarily a difficult part of potions making, just a boring and tedious one which was not conducive to a lesson on the first day. “No, he needed to speak with me about… something.”

“Like what? How he’s going to give you a passing grade no matter how poorly you do on a potion?” Ron grumbled as he continued to violently grind the snake fangs they were provided into a fine powder.

“No,” Julian said shortly, stirring the cauldron slowly as described in the book. “He just needed to discuss some … rules with me.”

Ron snorted. “Of course, special rules for his special child. Must be nice to live with one of the professors and still not have to take a full schedule.”

Julian sighed and hung his head slightly. What had he done to attract the ire of the other boy? Did Ron hate him because he was a Slytherin or because of who his father was? The twins didn’t seem to mind either, so what was their brother’s problem?

“Ha ha ha, real funny,” Julian finally said darkly. “More like ‘don’t touch this ingredient Julian,’ ‘don’t touch that ingredient Julian,’ ‘don’t go into the ingredients cupboard Julian.’ Most of my life is what I can’t do. I can’t even have a pet.”

“How come?” Ron asked, his eyes wide as he looked at the smaller boy. “You sick or something?”

“Yeah,” Julian grumbled, looking briefly at the cupboard door. “Your brothers met me in the hospital wing last year.”

“That was you?! They said you were just a skeleton under a pile of blankets,” Ron said, dumping the powdered fangs into the cauldron in a haphazard way that made Julian flinch when it began bubbling violently for a moment. “Have you ever had a pet?”

“No,” Julian said as he vigorously stirred the cauldron in an effort to counteract the amount of snake fang that had just been added, his thoughts whirring as he tried to think of a way to ask about the rat. “You?”

“Yeah, my family has a few pets,” Ron said as he turned his attention to a pile of dried nettles and started throwing them onto a scale to weigh out the right amount. “We have a family owl named Errol. He’s a right mess and about as old as I am. Then there’s Percy’s owl, Hermes. He just got him this year when he became a prefect. Then there’s Scabbers, my rat. He’s my rat now at least. He was Charlie’s, then Bill’s, then Percy’s, but now he’s mine.”

“How long has your family had him then?” Julian asked in what he hoped was a casual tone.

“I’d say about nine or ten years?” Ron said with a shrug before handing the now measured nettles over to be slowly added to the cauldron. “I dunno. Still as healthy as can be though, even though he is so old.”

“How long do rats live?” Julian asked curiously as he slowly dropped the nettles in and turned off the flame under the cauldron before grabbing the porcupine quills.

“Dunno. I’d say probably around fifteen years if Scabbers is anything to go by,” Ron said as Julian added the quills and began the final few steps in the brewing process. Their potion wasn’t going to be perfect, but it certainly wasn’t the worst in the room.

That title certainly had to belong to two of the Gryffindors who were in the back corner of the room. Their cauldron had been bubbling ominously as Professor Snape wandered around the room making remarks on those potions he deemed worthy of his time before one side of it suddenly melted and great clouds of green smoke began pouring off of the potion itself as it splashed onto the ground and began eating its way through the shoes of anyone nearby.

“Idiot boy!” Professor Snape roared as he quickly cleared the fumes from the room and vanished the spilled potion with a wave of his wand. “I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?”

Neville whimpered as boils began to pop up all over his nose.

“Take him to the hospital wing,” Professor Snape spat at Seamus. “Anyone else who was injured by this potion, follow them.”

Once Neville was removed from the class and a few other students who had the bottoms of their shoes eaten away had limped their way out of the class, Professor Snape rounded on the rest of them, lecturing them thoroughly on the importance of safety in the lab and how accidents such as that were completely preventable should the lab partners be paying attention to the potion at hand and not talking. He said the last part while staring directly at Julian and Ron’s table before continuing on with his lecture for several more minutes before allowing them to finish their potions.

When the class finally was dismissed nearly an hour after Neville melted the cauldron, all of the students were hot, sweaty, rather dismayed with how their first potions lesson turned out, and all had the same question on their mind.

Why had Professor Snape kept his wand out for so long after cleaning up Neville’s mess, and why did it seem to be vaguely pointed in his son’s direction?