ARITHMANCY & ALCHEMY | h.p.a.u

Silver

☾

DIANA THOMAS STARED AT THE hands of her delicate silver wrist watch, every anxious tick sending her more and more into a downward spiral of immense overthinking.

Lysander had left their session, his surprised look not lost on her when she said that there was another appointment booked after him.

"Another appointment?" He had blinked twice.  "I thought you were cutting down on tutoring?"

"I was." she said firmly, ushering him out of the Room of Requirement. "But an unavoidable opportunity presented itself."

Lysander tossed her another strange look and left after an insistent shove on her part.

Now she had five minutes until Albus would show up, no doubt coming to wreak havoc on her life now that he knew her secret. She glanced at the worn panel of mirrors, smudged with ash from spells gone wrong.

"Don't turn." She told herself, itching at the space where her ribbon hair elastic would normally rest. "Don't turn."

A shuffling of bricks pulled her away from the mirror.

"Hello?"

Her mouth went dry when she saw him. "What on Earth are you wearing?"

"A shirt?" he looked down and plucked at the tan fabric of the polo he wore.

"You're not supposed to wear civvies outside of your common room," she cleared her throat.

"It's past dinner, I'll be fine." he rolled his eyes and slid his brown leather messenger back over his shoulder to settle on one of the two empty seats connected to the long table.  "Do you always wear your robes even during tutoring?"

She held back a scowl. "And what am I supposed to wear?"

He glanced at her under lowered soot eyelashes. "What you had on this past weekend was... acceptable."

"Acceptable?" she felt her eyebrow twitch. "Enough out of you. Do you have your notes with you at least?"

He grimaced. "May have forgotten that actually. I don't even have parchment and quill. Mind if I borrow yours to copy notes? I know you let others in Ravenclaw copy your notes."

"Depends on how serious you are about Alchemy. And they reference my notes, not so much copy."

Albus leaned back in the chair, stretching out like a smug cat who got all the cream. "I promise you, Diana. Once I'm serious about something, I'll achieve it no matter what."

She crossed her arms, fingers tapping incessantly in a strict rhythm of irritation on her sleeved arm. "In that case, I hope you brushed up on your Alchemy textbook before you came here. I was going to give you an open notes placer test, but instead I'll draft it to the basics in a form of a quiz. If you can make a passing grade on this and draft a decent Transmutation circle then I'll lend you my notebook for the weekend to copy over any notes you need."

Albus paused at that. "You do know what letter I received on my exam?"

"No, but I do know that when I spoke with our professor I've never seen her so flabbergasted at your grade before so it was clearly something out of character for you." she reached into her bag, pulling out the test she had drafted out. She cut out the harder concept questions, added multiple choice options since the placer test was originally free response, and finally removed future chapter questions in hopes that he'd at least read ahead before their next lecture. "Now take this. I'll let you borrow my quill. I'll give you our entire session to do this and complete the Transmutation circle. I'll be practicing Arithmancy on the mirror so I can see if you attempt to cheat."