Draco got to his feet and padded over to the refrigerator. It looked like an ordinary enough fridge from the outside, but upon opening it he found that it was stocked with dozens of clear glass canisters, each one neatly labeled in Snape's crabbed, articulate handwriting;
'Bat's blood', 'salamander eyes', 'dried mundwinkel', 'lizard ears' and 'tapioca pudding.' The tapioca pudding looked a lot like the dried lizard ears. Draco shut the door hastily. 'I didn't really want milk,' he said, half to himself, and went back to the table.
Snape glared at him. 'I thought you were getting milk.'
'I decided I didn't want any.'
'Well, I want some.'
Draco, who was feeling dizzy and didn't really want to get up again, glared right back at him, and raised his left arm. The fridge door slammed open, the glass canister of milk flying out. It spun towards Draco and smacked into his hand. He banged it down on the table and raised his eyes to see Snape glaring at him more than ever.
'Do not show off,' the Potions master said coldly.
Draco opened his eyes wide. 'Why not?'
Bang!
Snape brought his hand down on the table with a force that made the silverware rattle. 'You think you get all that power for free?' he snarled. 'Nothing is free. Every time you use it, you lose a little piece of your own soul.'
Draco shrank back against the back of his chair. He felt…scolded, in a way he had never really felt scolded before, not even by Sirius. It broke through a little of the hazy fog surrounding his brain, and he blinked at Snape in astonishment. 'But I-'
'Shut up,' said Snape briskly, and got to his feet, pushing his chair back. 'Sit here,' he said. 'Don't move. If you use any magic at all while I'm gone, even to lift the tea-strainer, I'll force-feed you a potion that'll turn you into a gerbil.'
'First a ferret, now a gerbil,' said Draco irritably. 'Why does everyone look at me and think 'rodent?''
'Do you really want an answer to the question?'
'No. Where are you going?' Draco realized he sounded plaintive, and didn't care. He didn't want to be left alone, he'd been alone all day and it was enough, especially with his brain feeling as if it was about to shake itself into pieces like an old car driven too fast.
'To my workroom,' said Snape. 'I need to get something.'
'Let me come with you.'
'You haven't eaten anything. I don't want you fainting all over the place. I have a lot of very fragile and valuable equipment in that room.'
Draco grabbed up a the remains of his scone and shoved it into his mouth, barely bothering to chew. 'Mmpph,' he said, making a broad and expansive gesture with his arms that indicated he was done eating.
Snape looked at him, and Draco could have sworn he saw a brief flicker of amusement tug at the corner of his sour mouth. 'All right.
Come along.'
Snape's workroom turned out to be far more of a laboratory than a workroom. Draco suspected that he probably just called it a workroom because he didn't want to sound like a mad scientist.
Nevertheless, the room would have done a mad scientist proud: it was high-ceilinged and dimly-lit, and everywhere there were cauldrons bubbling over low fires, tall glass beakers filled with substances that glowed, steamed and sizzled, labeled bags and packets filled with crushed herbs, beetle shells, shredded boomslang skin and other substances Draco couldn't have named. He walked from one table to another while Snape busied himself at a desk in the corner of the room, staring at the vials, flasks and clear philtres full of multicolored liquids.
'What does that one do?' asked Draco, gazing at a beaker full of a bubbling lime-green liquid.
'Gets rid of chest hair,' said Snape.
'And that one?'
'Makes you grow chest hair all over your body.'
'Ugh.'
'Some people want strange things.'
'Do you sell this stuff?'
'Sometimes,' replied Snape. 'You think anyone could live on the salary they pay us at Hogwarts? Most of us do outside consulting work. Now sit down on that stool over there and shut up for a minute.'
Draco obediently sat down on the stool, which was next to a long low desk piled with various bits and pieces of discarded junk. Rolls of twine, small jars of newts' eyes past their expiry date, snapped quills, a piece of broken mirror. It had been rather a long time since he'd even looked at his own reflection, Draco thought, reaching down to pick up the bit of broken mirror. That in itself was cause for alarm concerning his mental state.
He held the bit of broken glass up and looked at his own reflected image in a state bordering on dismay. I look horrible. His summer tan seemed to have disappeared, and his skin looked as white and semi-translucent as paper. He must have lost weight, too, he could see the sharp blades of his collarbones sticking up above the loose collar of Charlie's too-large shirt. In his white face, his eyes, always pale silvery-gray, looked nearly black, the irises thinned to slender bands of silver around his enlarged pupils. No wonder the light in the kitchen had hurt his eyes. The shadows under his eyes were bruise-blue, and his hair-
Draco suddenly yelled and dropped the mirror.
Snape, who had been investigating the contents of a desk drawer, straightened up and hurried over to Draco, careful not to spill the contents of the flask he was holding. He looked alarmed, or at last as alarmed as he ever looked. 'What is it? What's going on?'
