The Grants Artefacts

12 Creatures of Habit

Creatures of habit

The week's teaching left Arun with very little time for anything else. Her evenings were taken up with marking and preparing for the next morning or helping Hagrid. She still hadn't managed to get down in the dungeons, but nobody reported anything disturbing. She hadn't seen Severus to ask him about Filch, he hadn't been in the morning briefings and when she had been to his classroom he was not there. She'd asked Minerva McGonagall, who had come to audit her planning and observe one of her classes, if Snape was at school and had been told yes but had she pushed much more it would have seemed suspicious. By Thursday Arun had a routine, wake up at six thirty, wash and dress, briefing and breakfast, lessons back to back, work through lunch and break, more lessons, help Hagrid with the animals, dinner at six, return to room, mark books, read until bed and sleep. When Friday hit she had no idea what to do with her time and dressed in her warmest jumper and leggings she decided that she couldn't waste any more time sitting idle. She took herself to the student library and started to hunt the history section.

"Hi Professor," a girl greeted her. Arun looked up with bleary eyes and saw long auburn hair, and a heart-shaped face set atop a long neck.

"Oh, hello Freya."

"You've been here for a while? I've got free periods this morning but Professor Snape set us a test and he's marking it like our NEWTs so-" she shrugged, "I'm here."

"In the history section?" Arun asked, her eyes travelling down to the names on the books Freya was holding. A history of hauntings. Curses of the old magic. And a hundred useful tips from the brewing masters. So not a complete lie.

Freya held up the last book, "There must be something..."

"What's the potion?"

The sixth-year brightened, and took a seat next to Arun, she leaned in to whisper because Madam Pince had appeared at the end of the history section and peered at them down her bespectacled nose. "It's a volubilis Potion, I tried to brew it last night but it turned red and then solidified- I wrecked my caldron."

"Show me your notes, if you have them."

Freya deposited her books onto the table next to Arun and started to hunt in her bag. Arun saw that Freya had drawn a map of the dungeons, and in tiny writing had mapped out where the attacks had happened. Her friend Jacob was by the entrance to the lower vaults, Filch was deep inside them, she had written Snape? In the corner of the page and the Slytherin boy had been inside the vaults too- not in the common room like Arun had supposed. Snape's quarters in the dungeon were where? She wondered. Perhaps deeper down than the potions rooms.

"Here it is," Freya opened her workbook and showed Arun her notes. Arun reached into her own bag for a quill and underlined where Freya had gone wrong.

"Too long at that temperature will wreck it, you didn't add enough honey water-"

"-But the book says-"

"I know what the book says but the book is wrong, add two hundred mills more and it will stop it getting too thick at the end. Once the mix turns pink, let it cool but not completely, then you will find it turns orange. You don't want to wait until it's dark orange before the next stage- you want to get it on the turn, a kind of skin colour, and then take it off the heat and add the sprigs."

Freya took her workbook back and started to make notes, Arun watched her to see when she was ready for the next instructions.

"Why do I take it off the heat rather than increasing the heat like it says to do in the book?"