Potions Conference

Severus frowned as he surveyed the crowd at the annual International Potions Masters' Guild Conference. Not that he'd be making any other expression anyway, as he would rather be any other place if the Conference wasn't the best (and nearly only) place to learn about the latest potions research, but he had more of a reason to frown this year than in years past.

The Guild had always been more than a little bit of a boys' club, not only because of tradition. The fact of the matter was that the Guildhall was considered a territory of its own, not subject to the laws of any country including the one it was located in. As a potions guild, there was explicitly no limit to what was allowed to be done with potions in the Hall, and pranking was only the least of it. Even the muggles had figured out how to drug a woman to rape her, and the Guild had a tendency to attract the kind of people who had no compunctions about doing that or worse, at least as long as there would be no punishment for it.

Women were targets within the Hall, and every girl who showed much promise in potions knew it. Some few of them braved the Hall to attend the Conference for the three days required to attain their Mastery, but even at his young age Severus had lost track of the number of women who he had seen give up on their dreams and settled for being no-name brewers despite their talent. It didn't matter that he didn't know the woman or that he wasn't a Gryffindor, he'd seen enough people treated as nobody should be in his life. If a warning could save her that, at least he'd be able to do something this time.

She had a drink in her hand already, apparently failing to notice the wide berth that everybody else was giving the provided food and drinks.  Severus hadn't thought that there was anybody who was stupid enough as to not bring their own nourishment—it would still get potioned, but at least it was potioned less that way. She must not have been warned. In a way, that was good; if she wasn't prepared for the dangers, she'd be easier to convince to leave before she got hurt.

As if she'd heard him thinking, or somehow felt him approaching from halfway across the room in the crowd, the woman turned and looked him in the eye. With black, curly hair framing a pretty face that couldn't be older than eighteen, with wide blue eyes, she was in more danger than he'd thought. It would have been bad enough if she'd been hideous, but as it was Severus doubted there'd be more than three people at this conference who wouldn't be targeting her.

"What exactly," he said scathingly, "possessed you to do something so stupid as to come to this conference?"

She widened her eyes in what could almost be passed off as innocence, but Severus had learned the difference between false innocence and the real thing long before he'd begun his teaching career. "What do you mean? I have to attend this conference and present independent research before I can be certified as a Potions Master."

"You know perfectly well what I mean," Severus almost growled, but was careful to keep from showing anything other than his usual demeanor. Even if he could convince the idiot to leave, he'd have to stay, and the best way to make things bad for himself was to piss off the rest of the Potions Masters.

"I-" Before she could finish, a man 'tripped' and spilled the contents of his goblet on her.

Severus winced internally, waiting for the potion to take effect, but the only effects were on the man who tripped. Severus could have sworn he hadn't gotten any of the potion on himself, but he started acting as if he had. A strong confusion and lust potion, obviously, Severus thought, seeing the man writhe on the floor until some opportunist led him off.

"As I was saying," the woman said calmly, dabbing a potion onto where she'd gotten splashed, "I can take care of myself. JJ Sheppard-McKay; call me JJ."

Severus clasped her outstretched hand; it was early to tell, but it seemed at least possible that she would survive the conference, now. "Snape."

Her face lit up. "Severus Snape? Oh, this is so great! I read your paper on aconite interactions, and it sparked off a couple of ideas in my head."

Severus arched an eyebrow; the Potions journals were restricted, with spells that no few people had unsuccessfully tried to break, to being read by Potions Masters only.

Not realizing (or, possibly, not caring) why Severus had raised his brow, the woman continued.  " I think that I'm about a third of the way to figuring out how to allow werewolves to remain in control at the full moon, thanks to your research."

Severus snapped from vague amusement at the woman to sharp interest in what she was saying. "What did you say?"

"I still have no idea how to actually cure them—and that would bring up certain ethical issues that I really don't want to have to deal with, anyway—but I really do think I'm on the right track. And given your research, I think that we could do it faster if we worked together."

Merlin knew that there had been enough half-cracked werewolf cure ideas already, none of which had panned out, but if there was even half a chance that she was right, the faster it was accomplished the better, in his opinion. Much as he hated to give any of Potter's group any credit, even he had to admit that the wolf wouldn't have tried to attack him if he had still been human in there. "Tell me more," he ordered.