The Keeper and the Monster

Chapter 9: The detention

The glass shattered in pieces and emeralds rolled across the floor. Ophelia protected herself with her arm. She then carefully walked on the gems and came closer to the broken hourglass.

It hadn't been easy to find a moment to investigate on it. This corridor was never empty. During the day, students and teacher had been chatting in front of the hourglasses. At night, there had been prefects, as it was the ideal spot to watch the castle entrance, the door to the great hall and the Great stairs at the same time.
The only time she could go was during class, so she had eventually asked professor Sharp to allow her to leave his class so she could investigate. They'd pretended she had to fetch some ingredient at the greenhouses.

Unfortunately, she hadn't been able to find anything on the Slytherin's hourglass. Maybe you have to be a Salazar's descendant once again, she figured. Ominis thought otherwise, saying he would've noticed something odd after walking by it for five years, like a hissing or a sensation.

So, out of ideas and not willing to waste time, Ophelia had exploded the hourglass. She could always use reparo later.
She looked through the gems, casted Revelio, tried to see if one of the emeralds were different than the others. It took quite some time and eventually she found... Nothing. She sighed. The hourglass of Ominis' vision had been smaller. Maybe it was not the one.

"Miss O'Conor, may I ask you what you're doing?" yelled Professor Black.

Bloody hell. She slowly turned around. "I... Professor, I had an accident. I'm sorry, I..."

"An accident? Do you think I'm a fool?" Yes, kind of... "These majestic hourglasses have been untouched and unbroken since their creation, five centuries ago."

Five centuries? So they couldn't be linked to Salazar Slytherin.

"Do you know what I think? You saw that the Slytherin house had too much points for your taste and decided to remove them. " He accused.

"I did not..."

"Don't interrupt me. I'm taking 30 points from Ravenclaw."

"30 points?!"

"And you will spend some time in detention. Now go back to class."

***

~ A few minutes earlier ~

Sebastian was absentmindedly looking at the bubbling cauldron in front of him. He had do idea what it was. There was one an each lab bench. Him and Garreth had arrived early to their potion class, before anyone else actually, and were waiting for it to start.
He sighed.

"Still gloomy, I see" Garreth noticed, without looking at him. He was reading his notes.

"I'm not."

"That you are. You've been down in the drumps for weeks, now. Sometimes you pretend you're fine, but you're not very good at it."

"I'm fine. It's this potion, the smell makes me all... moody."

"Bollocks." Garreth looked up to him with mischief in his eyes – mischief and hope. "You know what could help you? My latest work of art."

"Your bliss elixir? I'll pass. I don't need music in my ears and smoke blurring my sight these days." He remembered Ophelia's words. She had said something similar. Except it was different for him: he needed all his senses to investigate for his mission. And he was already struggling enough. Would he be expelled if he failed?

"I'm not talking about that. This one is already perfected, I don't need to test it anymore. No, I have a new project. An alternative version of the butterbeer: the buttersyrup. I've already have most ingredients, Ophelia even helped me find some of them."