A New Dawn at Hogwarts

Chapter Twenty-One: Detentions Can't Be Fun, Can They?

Aurora stared at the cauldron in the corner of her father's office, immediately thinking she was going to have to scrub it. The thing was enormous - at least six feet in diameter - though it was only half as tall. Nevertheless, she'd have to actually get inside it to clean it. Her arms began to ache at the mere thought of manually polishing it, and she rubbed them absently.

"This certainly wasn't the reaction I expected. I thought you'd be pleased to be working on a potion."

Aurora frowned. Potion? She glanced at him before looking back at the cauldron. On closer inspection, she could see the faint wisps of smoke rising from the surface. Mentally smacking herself, she now also noticed the fire burning away underneath the thing.

"Sorry, just a bit flustered, I guess," she apologized as she stood on tiptoe to peer inside. The liquid contained within was almost neon orange, and gave off an unmistakable odor of rotten eggs. Wrinkling her nose in disgust, she turned back to her father. "What is it?"

"That," he replied as he joined her by the bubbling brew, "is the sleeping potion that you will be able to ingest on a nightly basis."

"I've got to drink that?" She looked inside the cauldron again, then shook her head in defiance. "I'd much rather take the stuff you gave me on Friday. I'm not putting anything that smells like that in my mouth, thank you."

"Don't be ridiculous," he said testily. "When it's been completed, I'm sure you'll have a different attitude." He withdrew a key from his robes and unlocked an intricately carved cabinet that extended from the floor to well above even his head. Opening the door, he pulled down a tattered book. Before he flipped it open, Aurora saw the words Unusual Sleeping Draughts of the Fourteenth Century. Fourteenth century?

"Father -"

"Hmm?" Severus was flipping through the pages intently, muttering under his breath. "I just used it this morning."

"Father!" He looked up when she raised her voice, his eyes snapping with impatience.

"What?"

"Shouldn't we be trying something a bit more - modern?" she asked, pointing to the book's title.

"The age of the book has nothing to do with its usefulness. This sleeping draught – with my improvements - is one of the safest and most reliable for daily use." He turned back to the book. "Ah, here it is," he announced, handing it to her. "There are your ingredients and instructions. All of the supplies are in that cabinet." He pointed to another cupboard behind her. "Finish preparing it. It has brewed for nearly eighty hours now - pick it up with the addition of the boomslang skin." She nodded eagerly as she perused the list of ingredients, and then retrieved them from the cupboard.

"Shredded boomslang skin, crushed beetle wings, powdered root of asphodel, boiled nettles - I think that's all that's left," she muttered to herself as she rechecked the remaining directions against the ingredients she'd acquired. She paid careful attention to the spiky scrawl between the printed lines that she recognized as her father's. Nodding with satisfaction, she prepared her supplies as instructed, then pulled up the chair she'd been sitting in during the meeting with the staff members.

Placing her phials of ingredients on the chair, she read the directions a third time, then began to add them in the proper order. All of the tension she'd felt during the meeting of her teachers drifted away as she fell into the rhythm of the work. Her father leaned idly against the wall, but she knew he was observing her every move, knew he would point out the smallest mistake in an instant.

As she sifted in the crushed beetle wings, the draught began to take on the slightest purple tinge. It was very odd, seeing a purple swirl amidst the bright orange of the majority of the brew. It wasn't until she added the nettles that the smell abated, leaving behind a slightly sweet aroma akin to freshly baked bread. Aurora looked up at her father as she finished the last line of instruction, and he nodded his approval as he withdrew a large glass bottle from the same cupboard in which he'd kept the book. He dipped it into the finished potion, somehow transferring the entire contents. Putting the stopper in, he handed it to her, then nodded with satisfaction as they watched the potion swirling inside the vessel.