Bitter Draughts PV

6 May 2025

With pace in his step, the boy power walked deeper into the lowest level of the school. The fact that he was late again didn't escape his notice as he began to slow as he approached his destination. He hadn't brought anything along with him, besides shoving down a plastic pen into his jeans' pocket. Studious and organised as ever, the badger was. Yet with every step closer, a minor bubbling began to cultivate in the pit of his stomach. In the past year that Jack had been gone, he had developed a few side effects of his supposed character growth, such as the nervousness that was growing inside of him. Everything felt different. But why? The well-hewn yet dusty walls that lined the dungeon's corridors remained entirely unchanged. So was it just Jack's imagination? The boy was an instinctual creature at heart, so maybe it was the feeling that a storm was coming that had the Hufflepuff raising his hackles. Like smelling burning ozone right before a bolt of lightning strikes the earth, and in truth, that was the issue. He could always smell the ozone. A roiling black cloud of energy had been hanging ominously over him, as if every glower or dirty look shot in his direction only fed the writhing mass.

The delicate flickering of the torches fluttered as Jack strode past, hands shoved down to the inside seams of his pockets. Mr. Warren pressed his shoulder against the iron-banded door and replaced his dour expression with a light grin and walked into the oubliette-like potions classroom. An untamed squeal peeled its way off the hinges of the door, as if a court crier was announcing the perpetually tardy boy's arrival. "Oh shit, I'm sorry I'm late!" The boy called out to the room, as he dug around his pants' pockets for that loose pen. "I got held up-" A soft 'uh' fell limply from his lips as the words died in transmission as he saw the young woman sat across from him.

Jack didn't believe in fate or predestination, but he wasn't a fan of how close of a line the Universe was cutting. This heavy-handed coincidence is already very close to toppling over into dramatic irony as Jack looked at probably the last person he would have wanted to be his designated tutor. "I, uh, I think I might be in the wrong room or..." Jack muttered, shoving his thumb over his shoulder, pointing towards the still-open classroom door. He knew better than to believe that, but it was giving both of them an out if they wanted.

Interacting with and slightly panicing about @Dealla Prince

Despite originally only intending to kill some time, Dee had soon gotten lost in the potion brewing, as she often did. There were few things that gave her a sense of home, that seemed to soothe away churning thoughts the way a steaming cauldron did. The steady motion of grinding moonseed berries, moonseed seeds, and snake fangs into a dry, crumbling paste left her mind centered and steady, solely in the present, until she'd almost forgotten that she was supposedly still waiting for someone.

She was about to pour moondew into her cauldron when the door squeaked open and a voice rang through the room, and Dee lifted her head in reaction before realising - she knew that voice. Intimately. Could recall the way it made her name sound, dozens, hundred times, whispering and shouting, fond and laughing and annoyed. Still remembered the urgency in that voice a week ago on the Astronomy voice, the anger, the pain. Pain that she'd caused.

Dee dropped the moondew. The bottle slipped through her fingers, usually so sure, and fell, then shattered, spraying liquid that soaked the seams of her robes, scattering glass fragments around her feet, but Dee had her eyes fixed on Jack, where he hesitated just inside the door, clearly just as surprised as she was. She felt her chest squeeze painfully at the sight.

"This has got to be a joke," Dee muttered, then picked up her wand from the desk next to her to point it at the mess at her feet. The universe was laughing at her, it had to be. "Tergeo," she cast, clean and clinical, betraying nothing of the confused chaos inside her, the conflicting impulses to smile, to cry, to scream. To step closer or run away, or to stare at him and just drink, drink, drink it all in. She didn't do any of it. The spell cleanly siphoned away any evidence of her lapse.

Jack's suggestion that maybe he'd gotten the wrong room was met with a glare before she looked away again, unwilling to make eye contact. "Nonsense," she replied shortly and set her wand back down with a click, wood on wood, not in her hand but in easy reach. She crossed her arms, an instinctive, defensive gesture; but then felt oddly more vulnerable. She needed her hands loose. "You want to pass the advancement test, I'm the best in my year, and all the seventh years are busy studying for their N.E.W.T.s and don't have time to take on charity work. You need me." The words came out sharp, little cuts and needles, Dee's defenses always looked suspiciously like offense instead. It was easier to hurt than risk getting hurt herself, and she didn't want him here. This was her sanctuary.

But that wasn't fair. Jack hadn't chosen this any more than she had, and hurting him more wasn't going to make this any easier. Hurting him hurt her, anyway. So she clenched her hands into fists, nails digging into her own skin for just a moment. Then she forced herself to let go. Exhaled and relaxed her hands, before she turned back around to face Jack. (The tension stayed.) "Let's get started, then," she suggested, nodding at the desk next to hers. At least her tone was more neutral this time, dry if anything. Maybe focusing on business would help.

"I brought my notes from studying for my O.W.L.s last year; I don't know what your test is going to look like, but I assume it would be similar? They're sorted by difficulty, and complexity and how it long takes to brew them. I marked the ones more likely to come up in the practical portion, and ones more suited for theoretical questions..." Dee had launched into her explanations without waiting to see if Jack even agreed, but would glance up from where she'd dropped her stack of notes on the empty table if he approached. "I see you've brought absolutely nothing." A trace of amusement filtered through. "Not even parchment to take notes on, really, Jack?"

@Jack Warren