62Chapter 1: Snape's Nutrition Potion for Growing Children
He wakes up to the sound of a very distinct knocking coming from the window by his bed. He recognizes it for what it is; the very annoyed pecking of a raven who has returned to their humble abode with the latest news from around town.
With a groan, Severus turns over to his left and reaches out to wave his hand at the window. It slides opens magically to allow for the raven to enter the room and then shuts back down once the bird has landed on his wooden bed frame.
"It's too early for this," he grumbles into his pillow. He wonders if all ravens were early risers or if he was so unfortunate to have met one that was.
"It's already seven, you said to wake you up at seven," caws the raven teasingly.
Severus wonders why he bothers to get up early when there were no children to teach and no lesson plans to put together anymore. 'Habit,' he thinks and proceeds to sit up.
"You look like you went through a few rounds with a tangle bush again," said the bird in laughter; or at least what Severus presumed was laughter for a raven.
Brushing through his dark locks, Severus tried to put them to rights but decided to just give up. Although he would never mention it to anyone, on the pain of death, his hair did resemble the famous messy Potter hair. His only saving grace was the abundant use of wizarding hair gel that kept his locks in place. His old students would call it greasy but Severus was just happy that the gel kept his hair away from his face during volatile potion classes with dunderheads all throughout the teaching year.
As a potions brewer, you wouldn't want any stray hairs to accidentally fall into the potions you were brewing. After all, there were less painful ways to die.
These days however, he kept it tied back with a simple black band. After inventing a very nifty non-contaminant barrier spell, which he had created during his free time, he no longer worried about stray hairs falling unwittingly into his brewing potions. Really, it goes to show what free time away from loud and aggravating children can do for genius spell invention.
"You're still in dreamland aren't you?" asked the raven who hopped unto his lap from the bedpost.
Severus glanced at the raven and sighed.
"Right, so what's today's latest happening? Has Suzuno-san decided to move her rose bushes closer to the fence again? Is Tanaka-san complaining about the shinobi who broke his window? Is Konoha going to be attacked by a giant turtle?" asked Snape as he stroked the raven's head.
The bird gave him an amused stare and leaned into the gentle petting.
"Yes, to the first two and as for the giant turtle, I think it has better things to do," chortled the bird.
"So, any important news?" Severus asked as he raised an eyebrow.
"The Uchiha police have apprehended a human trafficker in the red light district. Seems he was trying to make off with one of the street kids," croaked the raven.
"Huh, good for them," Severus answered nonchalantly and then indicated that he wanted to stand. The black raven flew off to his usual perch on the bed post.
"Kazu, would you like some breakfast this morning?" he asked as he made his way to the attached bathroom to get ready for the day.
"Some jam would be nice," answered the raven tilting his head to follow Severus' movements about the room.
Later that morning, as they were breaking fast with some toast and jam, or just jam as in the case of the raven perched on top of the dining table with his beak dipping into a full jar of strawberry jam, Severus heard a knocking from the front door.
"It's too early for customers," he grumbled as he stood up from the dining table.
"I don't sense any malicious chakra, it should be safe," commented Kazu who stopped eating to look towards the entrance of the house.
"Of course it's safe, the wards would have alerted me if someone was approaching with the intention to harm."
He waved a hand to put a stop to any magical activities going on in the house. What would the neighbours think if they saw the dishes washing themselves in the kitchen sink or the knitting needles floating in the air while they knitted a blanket?
He pulled open the wooden front door and looked out to see who could be knocking this early in the morning. It wasn't even time to open the tea house as of yet.
"Yes?" he asked, catching sight of a blond mop of hair standing under his nose as he stood at the entrance.
"Kuro-san, I'm here! You said to be here bright and early at eight! So, here I am!" said a young boy dressed in an orange monstrosity enthusiastically. He looked to be bouncing from foot to foot on the door mat by his front door.
Severus prayed to Mother Magic for patience and sighed.
"Why do you keep calling me Kuro? I told you my name was Severus," he asked as he pinched the tip of his nose in annoyance.
"Cause you like to wear black and you have black hair! So you're Kuro-san!" answered the boy with a grin. "Also, I can't pronounce your real name," he added sheepishly whilst scratching his whiskered cheek.
Severus sighed again and cursed himself internally. Why oh why did he have to be a good Samaritan and offer this boy a job?
'Because he reminds you of a certain boy you couldn't help,' replies a voice in his head that sounded a lot like his own. A picture of a young boy with a lightning bolt on his forehead appears briefly in his mind.
"I said eight, it's not even seven thirty," he grumbles at the boy.
The blond boy just offers him a wide cheeky grin.
"Fine then, have you had breakfast?" Severus asks.
"Yup! I had a slice of bread," answers the boy.
Severus steps back to observe the young child. The boy is thin and it's obvious even under that baggy orange jacket he calls clothes. He's also short for his age and his sandals look to be tearing at the edges. There was also a smudge of dirt on his right cheek. This was not a picture of a well-off or even relatively well-raised child. It reminded Severus again of another boy, one who he himself had been during his pre-Hogwarts years living under his abusive father.
"Come in then, you'll need more than a slice of bread to survive through the morning, especially for a growing young child such as yourself," he says to the boy as he holds the door open for the young boy to enter.
"What?" asks Naruto, his eyes going wide.
Pinching his nose again in annoyance, Severus tells him, "Come in and join us for breakfast."
"You want me to join you for breakfast?" asks the bewildered boy.
"Yes."
"You want me to come into your house and join you for breakfast?" asks Naruto again, looking at Severus with a perplexed expression.
Severus looks at the boy, his expression so open and vulnerable that Severus starts to feel something soften in the region of the body he would usually call his heart.
"Yes," he answers, gentler this time.
"Are you sure? No one's ever asked me to join them for breakfast before," the child starts to look unsure of himself now.
Severus internally curses himself for getting himself in this situation. 'You just had to go be a good person huh? Now look, you have a young emotionally scarred child on your doorstep who's making an expression like the child actor for that Oliver Twist play you once watched in the muggle world.'
He placed his hand on the child's thin shoulders and nudged him gently into the house. Naruto slowly took a step into the house with a somewhat lost look on his face before looking up at Severus to observe his expression. What he saw in Severus' face must have been enough of an explanation as he then proceeded to smile happily at the tall adult.
"I can really have breakfast with you?" he asked again to confirm.
"It's just breakfast," sighed Severus as he led the way into the kitchen. 'Poor affection-starved brat,' he thinks.
"Kazu, we have a guest," he calls out to the black bird as they arrive at the dining table.
Kazu caws in welcome and studies the blond boy seriously before going back to stuffing his beak into the jar of sweet red jam.
"You have a pet bird?" asks Naruto as he looks at the black bird perched on the table.
"It's more like he has a pet human," huffs Severus.
Kazu stops eating to caw in agreement and Severus snorts in amusement.
He then takes out an extra plate from one of the built-in cupboards and places scones and croissants on it before handing them to Naruto.
"Eat," Severus instructs and Naruto hurries to do so as he tentatively climbs up one of the dining chairs and sits on it. Severus passes the jam to him and then goes back to his own breakfast of toast and steaming green tea. He had developed a taste for green tea sometime during the past few years traveling about the continent.
"Slow down, Kazu isn't going to take your breakfast from you," he comments teasingly when Naruto begins choking on a croissant.
Kazu merely shoots him an unimpressed look.
Severus then pours some green tea for Naruto to ease his choking.
Severus can literally see stars in the boy's eyes as he takes in the interior of the tea shop next to the house. It made sense after all for Severus to open a tea shop right next to his place of residence if he didn't want to spend time journeying back and forth from his shop to his home six days a week.
"It's awesome, Kuro-san!" Naruto tells him in obvious wonder at the shiny new establishment.
Severus grants him a small smile. "You'll be working here part time as my errand boy and waiter six days a week. You may drop by after school and begin work after completing your homework for the day. I'll teach you the ropes of working in a tea shop as we go along, are we agreed?" Severus looks to the young boy as he holds out his hand to shake on it.
"Yes!" Naruto looks at the hand offered to him and hurriedly takes it.
"Good," Severus nods and then tells him, "I will also provide any meals you need while you are on the clock."
Naruto just stares at him with a disbelieving stare and then nods enthusiastically.
Severus studies the boy again and thinks back to when he first offered the boy a job. He sighs inwardly as he recalls the time he found the boy digging through the trashcan to look for his school stationeries which were thrown into the trash by his bullies. Something in his gut gave in that day as he stared at that pathetic scene and he had somehow impulsively asked the young child if he would like to work in his tea shop for a bit of spending money.
'I probably sounded a lot like the human trafficker the Uchiha police have in their jail cell at the moment. I'm surprised the boy even took me up on it,' he thought while shaking his head.
"Alright, since we open the tea shop at nine every morning, we'll need to get this place ready for the day," he tells the boy as he hands him a small child-sized apron and a wet cloth.
Kazu, who sits serenely on his shoulder, gives him a very amused look. Well, as amused as a bird can look.
With Naruto cleaning the tables in the tea shop, a job that would usually be redundant as the tea shop had anti-dust and cleaning wards set up around it, Severus took the opportunity to head to the storeroom where he kept his ingredient stock.
"You could have reminded me that the boy was coming over today," he grumbled at Kazu.
Kazu just cawed at him in laughter and flew off his shoulder to fly out to the tea counter in the shop. Severus knew he would keep an eye on the child.
Looking through the ingredients and the different types of teas, Severus took stock of what he needed to replenish. 'Perhaps more of that genmai tea from the Land of Rice,' he took note.
The sight of the basket of lemons caught his eye and he decided to give Naruto his first lesson on one of the drinks sold in the tea house.
"Naruto, how would you like to learn to make Iced Lemon Green Tea?" he asked as he carried a couple of lemons to the tea counter out front.
Naruto stared at him, his mouth open in surprise before flinging his wet cloth unto a table and rushing to cling unto one of Severus' legs. Severus was surprised before looking down at the child who was clinging unto him and staring up at him with big blue teary eyes.
"You're the best Kuro-san!" Naruto cries out happily as snot starts to drip down his nose. "You give me a job, food and teach me things," he tells the adult.
'Poor affection-starved brat,' he thinks again as he hands the boy a handkerchief.
Kazu laughs at him from his wooden perch by the counter.
"Kuro-san! Kuro-san! I passed the test!" a blond whirlwind rushed into the shop as he shouted at the top of his lungs.
Severus sighed. He had been doing that a lot lately.
"Naruto, think of the customers," he said to the boy as he latched onto one of his legs.
The boy looked around the tea shop and scratched his head in chagrin from where he was clinging to Severus. It had been two weeks since Naruto first started working in the tea shop and by now most of Severus' regulars were used to the loud but bright presence of the shop's part-time employee.
"Oh, good job boy! You've been studying hard eh?" called out one of their many regulars, Tanaka-san, who owned a bakery right across the street.
"Yup! I have! Kuro-san's been teaching me to read and write," answered the boy happily. "Thanks Kuro-san!" added Naruto as he tightened his hold on Severus's right leg.
Severus sighed again. He had escaped one job of handling loud children to another with another loud child, how was this his life?
"Go clean up, brat. You can start work after you're done," he tells Naruto who throws him a loud 'ok!' before rushing to the bathroom.
"You're doing a good job with him," comments Tanaka-san who pays him for his glass of cold black tea before rushing back to his own bakery.
Kazu crows at him from his perch.
'That bird is getting cheekier by the day,' Severus thinks as he glares at the raven in annoyance.
The other customers hunker back down to sipping at their own teas after watching the brief interlude and some even snicker at him from their tables.
Severus wonders if he should start poisoning their teas. It would be so very easy to do so; a little bit of nightshade here and a little drop of venom there.
"I'm ready Kuro-san!" calls out Naruto as he steps out of the bathroom wearing his apron. He looks about the shop for things to do and when he sees an empty table, he goes over with a wet cloth and a tray to clear it.
'He's shaping up to be a diligent worker,' Severus notes to himself and eyes the blond boy moving up and down the shop floor.
The boy however, was still short for his age and relatively on the thinner side of the spectrum. Even after two weeks of feeding the boy with more nutritious foods, the boy still had the look of a malnourished street urchin.
'Must be the energy burn from the Kyuubi,' Severus thinks. It also didn't help that the boy hasn't been getting much nutrition from a very young age and with the addition of the Kyuubi whose chakra needed a lot of nutrition to supplement, especially with it trapped inside a human body, Naruto's malnutrition problem would probably be difficult to overcome.
'He'll probably be forever short, since the damage has already been done,' Severus thought disparagingly. He thought of another young boy who would grow up shorter than his peers and who had carried a large burden over his shoulders due to a simple prophecy.
'Well, we'll have to do something about it wouldn't we?' he thinks as his mind goes over the many potion ingredients that he currently has in his stock.
When they close the tea shop for the day and he has fed Naruto his fill of a nutritious dinner, he waves the blond boy off and Naruto skips back to his rented apartment across town.
"You're planning something," Kazu states as he stares intently at Severus.
Severus merely lifts his eyebrow and stares back at the bird.
"You're definitely planning something," the raven repeats after they have been staring at each other for the past minute.
"Oh? How do you know?" he asks the bird and smirks.
"Because you have the look on your face that means you're planning something diabolical," answers the raven with a wary look.
"Nothing diabolical, more…ah…magical," he tells Kazu with a small grin.
"I knew it," the black bird says in exasperation. "And here I thought you said you wanted to lie low and not be attracting any attention," reminds the raven.
"Needs must, I simply cannot stand the sight of something that can be fixed but has not been. I've lived most of my life ignoring such matters," he drawls and stares at the ground in thought.
"Perhaps I simply want to give into my whims for once," he continues in a softer voice.
Kazu sighs and shakes his head in a very human-like gesture. "So, what's the plan?'" he asks.
"We're going to need more essence of sunleaf and red fire-bark," he tells the raven.
"That should do it," he says as he draws the last connecting circle of the runic-equation.
He only needs to add a drop of his blood to activate the portal and they would be on their way to the Dawn Forests of the deer summons. His charmed gunny sack, which he carried on his left shoulder, was filled with a few bottles of rejuvenating potion.
"You ready?" he asks Kazu who sits on his right shouder.
"As I'll ever be," drawls the raven. He hadn't been too happy to hear of their trip to see the deer.
Severus gives his head a tiny pat and then drips a drop of blood on to the floor to activate the runes. In less than a minute, they find themselves in a sunlit forest in which the trees towered over them like mountains. There were no sounds of birds or insects as you might hear in a usual forest and there were no other animals in the forest, well, save the deer.
Severus looked around to see if he could spot any of the deer summons but there were none in sight.
"Bah, lazy fellas," comments the raven with a scoff.
"We're the ones intruding," Severus says to calm the bird.
"If this was the Lone-Moon Forest, we'd be welcomed the moment we appeared," harrumphs the avian.
"Well, we can't all have wings can we?" he replies with a smirk.
"Hmph," the raven turns his head away.
The sound of hoofs stamping on the forest floor stops their banter and Severus turns to see a lone deer with golden horns walk gracefully towards them.
He bows at the deer and the tall deer comes to a stop and bows back at him.
"Greetings, friend-Severus. Have you come to talk to the elders?" questions the deer politely.
"Greetings, Kinji. It's been a while but no, I've come to do a trade," he says to the golden-horned deer.
"Oh, did you need more red-fire bark?" he asks the human.
"Yes, and also some sun leaf," he tells the deer who has come forward to nose at his hair. He knows it's a form of greeting and affection so he stands still for the deer to inspect him. It's ticklish but he tries not to squirm.
"Of course, friend-Severus. I will bring you to the healer," Kinji replies and bends down for Severus to climb on top of him.
"I'll just follow you in the air," says Kazu as he flies off Severus' shoulder. Severus knows the raven can't stand the idea of riding atop a deer summon so he throws him an amused glance.
He smoothly climbs on top of the deer and once he braces himself, Kinji climbs to his feet and takes off at a fast pace deeper into the forest. The trees past by like blurs and they see clear streams of winding rivers along the way until at last, they reach the foot of a tree that is as large and as tall as the Konoha mountain.
Kinji graciously bends down again for him to dismount.
"Ah, Severus, you're back!" cries out a small high-pitched voice. A small fawn races to Severus who has just stepped away from the tall deer. The fawn proceeds to sniff Severus' black cloak as he hasn't reached the height of an adult human to sniff at his hair.
"Hello, Fuji," he greets the fawn and pats the small furry head.
"Hello, Akino," he greets again when he sees Fuji's mother who is also the deer summons' chief-healer.
"Greetings, friend-Severus. Have you come to trade?" she asks as she goes forward to sniff at his hair. Although she wasn't a very large deer, by deer summons measurement, she was still two heads taller than him and so had to bend down to sniff at his hair. Once again, he tried not to squirm.
"I'm running out of red-fire bark and sunleaf," he tells the healer-deer once she deems him physically healthy through her sniffing. He then places his charmed gunny sack on the ground and takes out five bottles of rejuvenation potion. Kazu also takes the opportunity to land on his shoulder.
"Of course. Fuji, you know what to get," she tells her young fawn who has been stamping in circles excitedly around the human.
"Okay!" he yells out in agreement and rushes into the opening of the large tree.
"So, tell me about what has been going on," Akino says as she and Kinji come to settle down next to Severus to hear about the human world.
Much later, Kinji brings them back to the spot where they first appeared.
The runes are still visible on the forest floor and all Severus has to do is drop another drop of blood to activate the portal back home. His gunny sack is now full with large bags of red-fire bark and sunleaves.
"Farewell, friend-Severus. I look forward to seeing you again," Kinji says with a bow and Severus bows back politely.
He then activates the runes after making sure that Kazu is perched firmly on his shoulder. They soon appear back in their house and the runic-equation under his feet slowly starts to disappear like it was never there.
"It's good to be home," Kazu comments pointedly.
Severus snorts and makes his way to the potions lab and storage.
Once inside he goes through the motions of processing the red-fire bark and the sunleaves. In his mind, he is already putting together the recipe for the potion he will be attempting to make. He places the red-fire bark under a sun-warming spell for five hours and squeezes the sunleaves and bottles up the sunleaf liquid essence that he manages to squeeze out. He is left with a full bottle of sunleaf essence and carries the rest of the crushed leaves out to be used for fertiliser for the heat-absorbent magical plants he is raising in his greenhouse.
The next day, with all the ingredients he hopes to use spread out before him in the potions lab, he pushes his magic into each of them and pictures the potion he intends to brew. The red-fire bark, sunleaf essence, red-pore mushrooms and the dried blue moth-eating trumpet stand out and his magic responds positively to them. He writes out a simple recipe and hopes that it will achieve its required use.
*Nutrition Potion for Growing Children*
- Essence of sunleaf (2 drops)
- Sliced red-pore mushrooms (10 grams)
- Red-fire bark (15 grams)
- Dried blue moth –eating trumpet (stalk only, 5 grams)
After testing it using the potion attributes test, he finds that it does work and smiles in satisfaction. It had been difficult to find replacements for the potion ingredients he used to rely on back in the wizarding world at first, but he has since improvised.
The next day, when he prepares dinner for Naruto and himself, he adds a few drops of the nutrition potion into Naruto's portion. It will not taste any different as the dried blue moth-eating trumpet has the attribute of being able to hide the taste of all the ingredients in the potion.
Oh, how easy it would be to poison anyone he so chooses to. A little drop there and they would be dying of unknown causes. He smirks evilly to himself.
"Thanks, Kuro-san!" Naruto says to him when he serves him the curry-katsu dish.
The boy eats his portion with gusto as usual and thanks him for dinner before making his way back home.
Severus looks on, feeling verily pleased with himself.
'Here is one boy who will not be malnourished if I can help it," he thinks and goes back to the lab to brew more of the same potion for the coming days.
A month later, Naruto runs into the tea shop after school looking healthier than he has been in years. He carries out his usual routine of clinging to one of Severus' legs before rushing off to get ready for work.
The usual customers watch this scene everyday knowingly with an amused smile and Kazu laughs at him whenever he looks at the raven to convey his exasperation with the situation.
Naruto soon finds his way to the floor of the tea shop and begins taking orders, all outfitted with his small apron that looks to be needing a replacement soon for he is slowly outgrowing it.
The bell on the front door of the tea shop rings to signal the arrival of a new customer and Naruto turns to greet them with the usual spiel.
"Welcome to Snape's Tea and Brew!"
