Confident | Fred Weasley

Chapter 85 | Poison

Rancid vapours consumed the potions lab, spreading from one side of the room to the other in green tendrils. Sarah, ever the smart potioneer, was fortunately already wearing a protective mask. However, she was still quick to seal the room to stop any of the vapour from going upstairs, where Fred and George were working on machinery for the passport project.

They were at Copper Beech Mansion. The house was proving to be very useful, as it had far more space to experiment with projects. In the short while that they had occupied the house, it was starting to feel a lot more like headquarters.

There were constantly order members dropping in and out. Moody had popped around not long ago to organise an information board. Sirius had come around to deposit some old order material that he'd found in Grimmauld Place. Mrs Weasley came round to clean, and Mr Weasley had come around to help the twins with their project.

Sarah was pleased with how useful the house had become, but above all, she was most happy with the potions laboratory in the basement. It was much larger than the WWW lab, and she felt much less guilty about taking up space.

She had spent the morning trying the Revival potion again, but from the vapours, it was clear she hadn't been successful.

With some vigorous wand waving, she dispelled the vapours. She cast a stasis charm on her potion, which had turned a muddy brown colour, to stop any more vapour from appearing.

"Great," Sarah muttered bitterly under her breath before vanishing the potion.

She was getting nowhere with this active experimentation and was just wasting good ingredients. Especially her most ingredient of all, a vial of her own blood. Earlier that week, she had Sirius' help in extracting her blood in a healthy, sanitary manner. She refused to cut herself like most people who dabbled in blood magic did, and she was completely against giving someone a potion that hadn't been brewed in a clean environment. They had only extracted three millilitres of blood, so she didn't have much to work with.

Sarah was certain that for the potion to work, it wouldn't take a lot of blood. She didn't have that much blood on her hands when pulling the rope to save Sirius. At least, she hoped she didn't. She feared that it would take a lot of blood, far more than she could possibly give. Then, she would have worked out how to bring someone back to life, and she wouldn't even be able to use it to save people.

Sarah shook her pessimistic thoughts away. She wouldn't allow another failed test to get her down. Each failure was one step closer to success. She had notes on what she would do next time, so something useful had come from this after all.

Sarah pulled off her face mask and disposed of it. She washed and dried her hands before trudging up the steps to the ground floor. Her stomach rumbled, so she made her way towards the kitchen to sate her appetite.

After scoffing down a chocolate frog, Sarah headed into the dining room.

Fred and George had really spread themselves across the table. There were piles of parchment with all sorts of scribbles on them, cardboard boxes filled with passports, as well as a large metal machine in the middle. Fred was stood by the machine, jabbing at it with his wand, whilst George was shuffling through some parchment.

"Oh, wow," Sarah gasped, alerting Fred and George of her presence. She nodded to the machine, "Does it work?"

"Not yet," Fred responded, standing up straight, scratching his jaw in thought. "There's something wrong with the printing process."

"Show me?" Sarah stepped forward, staring down at the machine with intrigue.

George handed Fred a passport from the box. Fred flipped it open to show her that it was blank. There wasn't a picture or any information. Then he placed it so that it was open onto the flat surface of the machine. Fred jabbed a red button, and metal walls enclosed the passport so that it couldn't be seen. There was a jumble of metallic wiring and squeaking, and then a minute later, the metal walls ascended.