That night, Tori couldn’t concentrate on the book she was reading. Parts of her conversation with the Gryffindor-girls kept surfacing in her mind. It really was hilarious and part of her still thought they had just been making fun of her. She badly needed to focus on something else, after all, she had to face him again tomorrow and he would not appreciate it if she kept giggling the whole time. Concluding she was not going to get any more work done, she went to bed. When she finally fell asleep, it was with a large grin on her face.

She somehow managed to restrain herself from laughing when she saw Snape at breakfast the next morning. After that first moment, it was easy to get back to business.

Snape seemed a bit preoccupied, throughout the whole morning. It was like something was worrying him deeply. Tori was wondering whether she should say something about it, when he brought it up himself.

“Last night I received some disturbing news from Harry.” He said softly, like it was some casual remark about the weather.

It immediately caught her attention.

“Is he alright?” Tori felt her heart miss a beat.

“Oh, Harry? Yes of course, HE is. It’s just that Alastor has found out that young Malfoy has disappeared. Apparently the Malfoy’s have no idea of his whereabouts. Seems rather strange, when he was about to be initiated as a Death Eater. Harry thinks he might be heading for Hogwarts.”

Still taking in the news of Draco’s disappearance, Tori looked puzzled. “Why would he come here? Can he? With all the security, I mean. Do you think he might have second thoughts about joining the Death Eaters?”

She thought out loud and was a bit surprised when she heard Snape laughing. A very strange sound coming from him, but not unpleasant.

“My, my, all those questions, I admit that I’ve been thinking about it a lot since I heard the news. One question I can answer with certainty: if he isn’t a Death Eater yet, there is no way we can keep him from entering the school grounds. Of course, he’d have to get passed the inspection rounds Black has organized, but I wouldn’t think that should be too much trouble.”

Ignoring his lack of confidence in Sirius’ security measures, Tori focused on the other questions. “Could he somehow know what we are working on and come here to sabotage it?”

“No, I don’t think it has anything to do with our work. The only thing I can think of is that he might want to impress the other Death Eaters and give them a ‘present’ in honor of his initiation. That present would be me, of course.”

He had said it without any emotion showing on his face, but Tori suddenly felt fear for him since she now also believed it could very well be the reason for Draco’s disappearance act. “Oh well, it’s best we just continue our work and not let ourselves be distracted, but I just thought that you’d want to know about it.” He was already heading back to his cauldron.

“Yes, I appreciate it, thank you.” Tori needed some more time to recover from the news. She spent the rest of the morning double checking her notes on the Imperius Potion. She could not understand why it didn’t work. Soon she was so indulged in her work, that all thoughts of Snape, Harry and Draco Malfoy had been banned from her mind.

Late in the afternoon, they were ready for another experiment on Crookshanks. The sample only needed his usual chocolate flavor to be added. The box containing the cocoa powder was empty.

“We’ve run out of cocoa powder.” Tori remarked.

“There’s some more on the shelf.” Snape answered without looking up from the sample he was stirring.

Since he remained at his seat, Tori got up and went to get it herself. A lot of potions ingredients were standing there, none of them looking like cocoa powder. Then she saw a box on the top shelf, looking a lot like the empty one that was on the table. She reached out with her right arm and stood on her toes, but was unable to grab it.

Suddenly she heard Snape standing up from his chair. In a split second he was behind her. He leaned towards her, crushing her between the shelf and him. Her arm was still reaching for the cocoa powder and his brushed against hers when he took it from the shelf with ease.

The warmth of his body seemed to create a warm cocoon and everywhere her body touched his, little sparks were emerging. She felt like she’d just jumped up into the air and was now falling down very slowly into a pile of soft, warm cushions. Barely recovered from those overwhelming sensations she snapped out of it as he backed away, placed the box in her hand and said with a hoarse voice:

“Next time, try using the ladder.” Then he went back to the sample to complete it.

She couldn’t help but feel a prickling sensation, starting at her feet, running up her spine, coming down her shoulders and ending in her stomach, making it twitch (as if there were thousands of butterflies fluttering around inside of her). Damn those Gryffindor girls! With all that babbling about their attraction to Snape and his captivating persona, she let herself get carried away by their girlie-magazine nonsense.

She always thought she stood above that ridiculous behavior. OK, maybe she had a crush on Gilderoy Lockhart, but that was in her second year and she had tried extremely hard to forget about it, but he had been handsome! Convincing herself that she wouldn’t fall back into a Snape-trance, as she would call it academically, she returned back to her work.

Miraculously, the potion worked this time. Whatever they tried to make him do, Crookshanks just sat there looking at them in amusement.

“It seems we have a winner here. Fine work Tori.”

His eyes met hers and she blushed at such praise. They cleaned up for the evening and would resume their interrupted work the next day.

Tori left the dungeon, walking on clouds. She couldn’t believe her job was going so well, and today Snape paid HER a compliment!

Smiling and completely engulfed in her own world, seeing herself as a Nobel Prize winner – if they had any in the wizarding world – she headed back to her room, not noticing the shadow that followed her.