Lockers Full of Thorns

Chapter Seven: Drug Shack, Baby

The sky had been dark and brooding on the day Hermione and Neville got their letter back from Procter & Gamble. 

Never before had a manila envelope meant so much to either of them.

If the voucher that told them they'd won the P&G state competition was inside, it would've meant a free ticket to the college of their choice. Even a podium finish would have got them unimaginable benefits. Hell, an honorable mention would have at least been something to put on their transcript.

But when they opened it, their stomachs had sank in unison, like two halves of a waterlogged frigate.

Inside was a simple white sheet of copy paper. On it, there was a typed message, in Arial. They couldn't even bother to add serif, Hermione had thought bitterly.

She could recall every word of the letter in detail, but only one passage really bore repeating: your entry (#121 "Dioxyphenolate 'Feruum') was disqualified, on account of being a Class 1 Narcotic.

The worst part was they had taken great and painstaking care to downplay the hallucinogenic effects of their drug, and had entered it as a topical burn reliever. The judges would've had to sniff or ingest the sample to find out it was narcotic, and neither of these were recommended uses.

Anyway, the moment they'd opened the letter was the moment Hermione knew her life had shifted off course. And it was the moment she'd resolved to sell the drug for profit.

Now, one week later, she and Neville were squirreled away in the old gym storage shed behind the school's baseball fields, cooking up new batches of the drug - which they'd codenamed Erised - to distribute amongst their peers.

They'd just arrived for the day - they usually met after school, because they were the only two members of the Chess History Club. Originally founded to promote learning about chess through the ages, they'd now begun using it as a cover for their operation, with their sponsor, Dr. Spraute, agreeing to move their meeting space to the old shed. The two had never stepped a toe out of line during their years at Goswarth, so they knew that the teachers wouldn't be bothered to come check up on them. Their lonely five months as the only members of Chess History Club had also taught them that there wouldn't be any student interest, so they could meet without fear of discovery.

Neville moved aside an old volleyball net to reveal his portable camp stove. Plugging it into the wall, he cleared up what looked like nothing more than a pile of leaves from the corner, and began scraping teal, fuzzy mold off each individual leaf. Without a word, Hermione pulled a bag of empty gel capsules from inside an abandoned roller skate, then removed a tiny silver scoop from her lunchbox.

As they sat waiting for the mold to boil, they made small talk.

"How's your grandmother been?" Hermione asked, pulling out her Calc homework and starting to work on it.

"Pretty good, you know," said Neville. "She started taking a new iron supplement and it's done wonders for her energy levels. She walks around the house nonstop. It's actually kinda scary." He stirred the mold absentmindedly before Hermione slapped his hand away gently.

"A watched pot never boils," she admonished, letting the adage roll off her tongue with a silky, lilting tone.

"Maybe we should invent a better pot, then," said Neville, and Hermione raised an eyebrow. "An exhibitionist pot who only boils when you watch it."

Hermione laughed. "I'm writing that one down, it's Nobel material."

They studied in silence for the next couple minutes. Neville couldn't help but look up from his papers, noticing the curls of his study partner's hair, the curve of her chin, the way her front teeth stuck out just a tad. He drummed up the courage to say what he'd wanted to for ages.