The Potioneers of Damocles ✓ | JILY

Chapter Five

The pair were up bright and early the next day, mainly because they'd somehow convinced themselved that finding the book on brewing Felix Felicis would take an hour in the perfectly ordered library. As they walked in, James breathed deeply, looking around with a fond smile.

"Wow, this is nostalgic," He said, his eyes closed as he stood in the doorway, "I can't remember the last time I was here."

"Why? Too lazy to study?"

"Eh, sort of," He replied, taking another deep breath, "Me and Padfoot got a three year ban for making the books fly around this one girl who was annoying us. It's odd to be back, this is the one place I don't go."

"Explains why it's one of the few places I can actually work in then," She replied dryly, before narrowing her eyes a little, "Can you stop that? You look really weird just standing in the doorway."

"Sorry," He replied, finally opening his eyes and following her, "Just enjoying being back, maybe I'll come here more often from now on."

"Don't," She snapped in response, "Okay, Caradoc seemed to be having trouble finding the book which means it could be anywhere," She exhaled in frustration, "This could take days."

"No, I think it will be easy," James replied, "I don't think Caradoc couldn't find a book on it, I reckon he just didn't want to. Besides, Oni mentioned brewing it before and failing, it's probably easy to find, she's the sort of girl to put it back."

"If it was easy, Oni would have it."

"If you say so," He replied, following her as she began to examine the backs of books, "Hey Evans, I bet you a galleon that we find it within ten seconds in the potion seconds."

"I'm not betting on this, Potter," She snapped.

"Because you're scared you'll lose?"

"No - "

"Because, you know you'll lose?" He suggested, grinning slightly but she scowled at him; it was far too early in the morning for her to be dealing with his crap.

"NO."

"Well, galleon or no galleon, it would make a lot more sense to start in the potions section rather than muggle studies," He replied.

"No, because Oni had trouble finding it so it wouldn't be in the obvious place!"

He raised an eyebrow at her as it dawned on her than her justifications made no sense, "Oni had the book, she never had trouble finding it. Come on, can we just go and look in the potions section?"

Eventually she sighed, "Fine. This is way too early for me to comprehend anything."

Annoyingly, James was right and within a few minutes, they'd managed to find the book they needed which had made James's smile grow wider but Lily's frown deepen. She knew she should have done this in the evening when her productivity was flowing and her mind was at it's sharpest.

"Okay... here we go..." She murmured, flicking through the pages rapidly.

"You went past it."

"I didn't."

"I saw it."

"Well, you didn't!" She snapped, smiling a little as she came to the right page. It was a little victory but given that it was a) against Potter and b) in the morning when little good things meant a lot, her mood improved sharply.

"Hey, there's not that many instructions should be a piece of cake," James grinned, "Let's see what is says."

"We don't actually need that much," She said with a grin, reading aloud, "Ashwinder egg, that's in love potions, I can do that... Squill bulb, Slughorn has tonnes of that lying around!.. Murtlap tentacle ... Tincture of thyme... Occamy eggshell and Powdered common rue... Murtlap tentacle will be hard to come by though."