𝒍𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝒉𝒂𝒛𝒆 - pjo x hp [₂]

xix. history of potions

𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐀'𝐒 𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐃𝐘𝐈𝐍𝐆.

It was the only explanation to Raya's nightmare. She watched in horror as her siblings attacked the dragon, before other campers joined in on the mix. It was the middle of the day, but even then, the dragon shouldn't have been able to cross the border line.

Not unless there was something wrong with Thalia's Pine.

"Archers! On my mark!" Raya's brother, Lee, yelled.

Following his command, the archers let out a volley of arrows, all of which struck the dragon true. 

Thankfully it was a smaller dragon, and so it disintegrated as it died.

"Fourth attack this week," Clarisse LaRue, an Ares kid, muttered.

The Campers looked winded, picking themselves up and making their way to the Infirmary. Raya looked past them, at where Thalia's Pine stood.

The needles of the tree were yellow, with a huge pile of them on the ground. In the center of the trunk, three feet from the ground, was a puncture mark the size of a bullet hole, oozing green sap. It really was dying.

Someone had poisoned the tree.

Raya woke with a start, her heart beating erratically as she tried to place where she was. Tonks' snoring, the light that shone through the old curtains... she began to breathe easier as she realized she was in twelve Grimmauld Place.

After her dad's death, she couldn't bring herself to live at the Manor. It just seemed so... empty without him. Rosie had been devastated, but she'd done her best to take care of Raya here at Grimmauld Place. After learning of Kreacher's betrayal, Raya dismissed him to the Hogwarts Kitchens, where Dobby would be keeping an eye on him. Mumpty was also affected by Alphanso's death, and was finally showing her age. Raya wasn't sure how long the old house elf had left.

She got out of her bed, unable to sleep any longer.

Every night since the end of the term, three days now, she'd been having nightmares about Camp. She Iris-Messaged Chiron immediately, only to learn that Thalia's tree had been poisoned and the barriers were weakened.

Tonight was the first night that she actually saw it poisoned.

Raya made her way down the stairs slowly, doing her best not to wake Walburga Black. Her and Kayse had taken off the elf-heads that were attached to the wall and stashed them in a corner in the attic. She didn't realize how nice it was to walk down the stairs without a bunch of deformed faces looking down at you.

Raya continued all the way to the basement kitchen, where she took some pizza out of the fridge and began eating. She didn't want to wake Rosie up, considering the house-elf was working so hard to keep this old house together.

Upstairs, Kayse, Tonks, Lupin, Moody, and Sirius slept in their rooms. Lupin was working on Raya and Kayse's portkeys to America, which should be ready by the morning.

Now that Raya knew exactly what was wrong, she didn't want to waste time getting to Camp.

She stuffed her face with some more pizza, partially tempted to go visit Cedric using the maintenance vent she'd found months ago. Her gaze fell across the room, finally landing on a hidden room.

Regulus' brewery.

Raya was a brilliant potioneer, everyone knew that. What very few people knew was that she'd inherited her passion and skill from her birth father — Regulus Black.

She'd been in there once before, when she was making the heritage confirming potion. Regulus had a habit of scribbling in the margins of his books, while keeping a separate, clean copy of that book on the opposite shelf. He was brilliant, Raya could tell that just by reading his notes. If only he hadn't joined the Death Eaters, he might still have been alive and putting that brilliance to use.