Spells in Silence

Chapter 43: Momento Mortuum

Hazel felt eyes and thoughts on her as she sat at a small table in the common room alongside Sally-Anne, so it was not a terrible shock when she glanced up to find Sidonia Smith approaching them. "Hi, you two," the prefect said with a smile. "Good to see you down here for once. Perks I see every now and again, but Potter is like a bleeding ghost, I swear. What are you two working on?"

'Potions.'

"Hazel's trying to help me with Snape's assignment," elaborated Sally-Anne, "but I think I'm getting more confused. We're supposed to write 10 inches on the interaction between moonstone and elderberry sap in the Ebullient Emulsion, but I don't understand Hazel's explanation at all."

Sidonia frowned to herself and glanced above their heads. "I think I remember that essay, actually. Which is sad on all its own that it's stuck this long. That was one assignment I think everyone failed. It turns out there's a principle in potions that certain substances combined in certain ways can act like an entirely different substance. I don't remember exactly what that combination acts like—"

'Ratatoskr venom.'

Sidonia glanced at the words that appeared and snapped her mouth shut. "That… sounds right, actually. How in the world do you know that?"

'Because all three have essences that resonate with the moon, but we can't use ratatoskr venom both because it's exceptionally rare and because it is also associated with Venus. That would cause it to counteract the mint due to its own connection to Jupiter. Using moonstone and elderberry lets us get around that limitation.' Now Sidonia was staring at her with the same look of confusion and incomprehension that Sally-Anne had on her face, and Hazel glanced back and forth between them. 'What? One of the people who taught me potion theory before I came here told me essence resonance and diffusion were fundamental concepts. I'm surprised Snape hasn't given a lecture on it already.'

It was not quite the first thing Gertrude had taught her, not if she included their initial brewing session as a lesson, but by the third lesson that was definitely something the hag had taken to pounding into her head.

"I don't take NEWT Potions," Sidonia began slowly, "and wouldn't want another two years with that bastard even if I had gotten an O, but in the five years I was in class we were never taught anything like what you just said. I almost want to tell you to include that in your own essay, but I don't know if Snape knows what you're talking about either."

A pause, then Hazel wrote, 'I already finished. I thought that was what he wanted us to base our explanation on.'

Sidonia burst out in laughter a moment later, and while she forced it down with a shake of her head her shoulders still jerked in time with her giggles. "Don't worry about rewriting it, then," she managed to get out. "Dear Merlin, I wish I could see his face when he starts reading it. Since I haven't seen them having their tutoring sessions out here before, is this a new thing or…"

Sally-Anne shook her head. "Not really. She's been helping me for the last few weeks, but normally we're in the library."

"So what changed?"

"Granger," they both replied. Sally-Anne continued, "I mean, I don't mind her studying in the library too, that's what it's there for and everything, but she makes it all dreary and angry-feeling …uncomfortable."