The Grants Artefacts

07 the Potion

The potion.

When Arundel entered the dungeons a door slammed and somebody screamed. She immediately thought about the Grants Artefacts until a student ran past her with her hair on fire. "PUT IT OUT," the girl screamed. Arundel flicked her hand down through the sky and water followed, it drenched the screaming girl who stood with her mouth open blinking and making a strange eww noise.

"What happened?"

"Snape happened." the girl pouted, her face going red. "He made me test my own potion and he knew I'd done it wrong."

"Hay," Arundel shrugged, "you created a potion to make somebody's hair set on fire. Congratulations. Never be so rude about a professor again, five points from Ravenclaw." She'd always wanted to do that.

"Wait...what?"

Arundel smiled.

"You're a professor?"

"Oh yes, Care of Magical Creatures."

"Why are you down here?"

"Why are you so interested?"

"I'm-" the girl paused and at that moment caught Arundel's eye. Arundel saw her snooping, saw her friend being pinned to the ceiling by ghostly hands and having to use a curse to cut him down. She saw them fighting with a Slytherin who they thought was involved. All in the blink of an eye.

"I'm...?" Arundel pressed.

"My name is Freya Griffin, I'm a sixth year."

"Freya, it's not sensible to be out of class alone in the dungeons. Anybody would think you set your hair on fire on purpose to get out of class."

Freya took a step back, but with the practised ease of a school child, she shook her head, eyes wide. "Honestly professor, I just needed to get to the bathroom."

"And now you don't. I'll walk you back."

Never trust a child who says 'Honestly.' with satisfaction she saw Freya sag as she turned and was lead back to potions room.

Snape looked up as the door opened, his eyes studied Freya, then fixed on Arundel. The same old mix of anger and resentment that masked his many insecurities so well. Arundel smiled at him, he did make her laugh. "I've brought you a student, Professor."

"Miss Griffin thinks it's acceptable to run away from her mistakes, I think five points will be sufficient for it."

"But!"

"Be silent Griffin," Snape snapped. "Take your seat and fix your useless potion."

Arundel crossed the classroom and whispered in Snape's ear, "May I borrow a caldron and some supplies?"

"Are you going to pay for what you use?" Snape said it loud enough for his students to hear, showing them that nobody was above his reproach and dispelling any notion that Arundel and he were in any way friendly, it was a warning to her more than anything else. A slap on the wrist for disturbing his lesson.

Arundel fished around in her pocket and gave him a handful of knutts. Snape looked down at the coins, looked back up at her with a very long face, pocketed the coins before the class could see and continued teaching. He wouldn't speak to her again, and she would set herself up in a corner of the room and ignore the rest of the class.

She set the cauldron on a fire ring and measured water to simmer before she hunted the shelves for the right ingredients. She tied her hair back cracked her neck and began. It wouldn't take long to make the draft she needed to render her students able to fly tomorrow.