Lockers Full of Thorns

Chapter Two: Firefingers

The light in the lab was low and atmospheric. It would've been romantic, maybe, if Hermione Granger wasn't so stressed out, and if the flickering fluorescence was the fault of a candle instead of the underfunded public school system.

Hermione shrugged her blue-and-gold flannel tighter around her shoulders and leaned closer over her beaker. "How's it coming, Neville?"

Neville Longbottom was the best lab partner she could ask for. They were staying overtime to work on their entry to the Citizen Chemists competition. A gold at States could really help them both with their college applications.

College. The word almost made Hermione vomit, or maybe that was just the smell of simmering detritus on the burner. Either way, she was uncomfortable with the entire college system. Well, not the whole system - she'd looked forwards to the going-away-and-learning part for years. It was the application part that scared her. Her fingers were still sore from long nights of browsing the Cornell, Harvard, Columbia, and MIT admissions calculators, changing this AP score and that SAT subject to tweak her chances of getting in. Less than a coin flip each time, and she was top of her class.

Neville stopped her intrusive thoughts with a well-timed grunt. "The leaf litter isn't really boiling down. I think we need to add some more water."

The duo was planning to make a sort of essential oil for their entry. They were hoping they could distill and simmer leaf litter, a product in high abundance, down to a high concentrate and then dope it with metals to increase its conductivity. If it worked, it could help people the world over make simple, low-cost batteries with nothing but leaf litter, a stovetop, and nickelate. They'd have to get the gold if it worked.

Only issue being, it wasn't working.

"Mine's just reducing, I'm gonna take five," said Neville. "Watch my station for me? I think it's time for me to have a vape break." He motioned to the juul clasped to his necklace.

Hermione nodded surreptitiously - she was pretty sure there were no security cameras here, but vaping wasn't technically legal on school property - and moved over to Neville's station. She heard the door click as he sauntered away to the men's bathroom.

Taking stock of his messy, yet somehow methodical, work, she noted that the leaf litter looked a little green. Peering closer with a hand lens, she noticed a strange, teal-colored fuzz on the top of the dried oak leaves. Some kind of mold, she figured.

She scraped it off the top with a scalpel, and was nearly going to bin it when it occurred to her that there could be some use to its slimy protrusions. It wasn't like the leaves were getting them anywhere, and mold historically was famous for its many uses.

Acting on a whim, she dumped the mold in a crucible and gently threw it over the flame. Gripping the crucible with a pair of tongs, she watched as the mold reduced to an amorphous slime. It was withering just like her social life, except the flame catalyzing her decomposition was college applications.

She just wanted to get a scholarship. Lord knew her parents could use the money, and she couldn't pay her way through. She needed every scrap of merit aid, every enrollment plan she could get.

She was once again removed from her brooding by Neville, returned from his vaping. A strawberry-scented reek came from his general direction. "What's that, Granger? It doesn't look like leaves."

"No shit, Sherlock," said Hermione, alluding to the popular detective. "It's mold. Where'd you get those leaves?"

"I picked them up under the Kissing Tree in the front of the school grounds," said Neville. Goswarth High had more than one Kissing Tree, so specifying its location was, in fact, necessary. There were other Trees for other vices, too, but they both preferred to stay away from those areas. "Why?"

"The mold was on them." Hermione took the melted mold off the heat and stirred it around. "In case this works, I want to know where we can get more-"

In conversation, she'd lost her focus and dropped the crucible. Boiling fungus splattered across the counter.

"Gross, Granger!" shouted Neville. "That's more disgusting-looking than when Oliver Wood got athlete's foot - on his face."

"Don't remind me," Hermione said wryly, already rushing to the sink to disinfect her hands. "Wipe the counter down, would you?"

Rinsing her finger under the cold water, she noticed burns swelling along its length. Her mom used to call her Firefingers because of how fast she typed. But these fingers clearly couldn't handle real fire, let alone churning mold goop.

After a tense couple of minutes rinsing her finger, she turned back to Neville. He'd cleaned the workstation and was playing with his juul, weaving it between his fingers. He caught her eye, but then quickly broke his gaze again, reaching down to his pocket. He pulled out his cell phone.

"Sorry, Granger, I got to take this," he said, tossing the juul on the counter. "It's the radio station's number - I entered to win tickets to a Fall Out Boy concert!" He rushed into the hall.

Alone once more, Hermione looked contemplatively down at the juul. Neville did seem relaxed all the time, and she was just so stressed over this college stuff. One puff couldn't hurt, surely?

She put the juul between her teeth and took a long, hard draw on it - just one, so Neville wouldn't see. She slapped it back down on the counter immediately, exhilarated and frightened by her rashness.

And then she was exhilarated by something else. A tingling started in her nose and throat, and spread down to her toes. It was warm and golden and soft. It felt like she'd inhaled a party, or maybe a star. The feeling was so intense she could barely stand, and certainly couldn't close her mouth.

Neville ducked back in the door after what felt like hours of rapturous silence. "So it turns out I didn't get tickets, but I did win a keychain signed by Pete Wentz's brother." He pulled up short. "Granger, you okay?"

"I vaped," she said, finally falling back to Earth. 

"Okay, well, sanitary issues over the shared vape aside, you don't look like you vaped," grimaced Neville. "You look like you just made out with an angel in the back of a VW Bug that's traveling through the cosmos."

"That's about what it feels like," she said, her head finally clearing. "Isn't that all vaping?"

"Nope," said Neville. "Usually, it just feels like you, well...vaped."

Her thoughts fell back into place. "Neville - did you wash your hands after cleaning up the mold?"

"No, I used a towel -"

"That's it! I think the mold got on your juul! This is my eureka moment!" She ran to the crucible, laying forgotten by the sink. "Try this!" She held it out to him.

Neville dipped his finger tentatively in the still-warm mold, then held it under his nose. His wrinkled facial expression turned to one of complete bliss.

"Neville," she said. "I think we just made a drug."

His eyes still spaced out, Neville murmured a slight agreement.

"I don't know if we can win the competition with this," she mumbled, poking around. "But there has to be some use for it."

Neville had a dreamy smile on this face. "You could sell it and make bank."

A brief vision of stacks of cash flashed through Hermione's head. Cash to help her parents, to buy her way into college. Cash for the best feeling in the world. It would practically be charitable work. But at what cost?

"No, we should keep this just between us."

For now, she added internally, another mirage of green bills floating in the back of her mind.