the salt and the sea → regulus black

rat tails.

"She's not wrong." Alice teases playfully. The three of them walk through the corridors in a tightly-knit group, practically walking on each others toes as they head towards the dungeons. "You definitely won the partner lottery."

Teddy supposes she can't argue with that, considering the uselessness of their partners, so she doesn't bother to say anything further until they reach the dungeons. Slughorn has decorated the Potions classroom with festive wreaths and candles, brightening up the usually dreary dungeon. They separate as they move to their desks, though Alice goes most reluctantly — Dolohov is already in his seat and glaring at her as she walks towards him. Teddy watches her go with narrow eyes, her hand brushing against her wand in her pocket. If she sees Dolohov so much as twitch towards Alice, she swears she'll hex him so hard his balls fall off.

Regulus is already at their usual desk, cauldron bubbling away in front of him. He doesn't acknowledge her as she joins him, though that's not unusual; they both try hard to pretend not to notice each other in public where ever possible.

"How's it coming along?" She asks, tossing her bag under the desk and peering curiously into the cauldron. The potion is thick, bubbling a soft lavender colour. It smells like iron.

"Fine." Regulus says, sounding bored. "It's about time to start adding the second round of ingredients. Start preparing them."

Teddy rolls her eyes at the authoritative order, but moves past him towards the ingredients cupboard. When they had been asked by Slughorn two weeks ago to research, plan, and brew a potion of their own choosing, it had been Teddy's idea to try to brew the Wolfsbane potion. Her choice had been made with Remus in mind, as she knew that he took the potion every month to afford him some measure of relief with his transformation, and Regulus hadn't argued. He'd just shrugged, lazy and insouciant, and moved to start looking for the information regarding the potion in their textbook.

She returns with a little pouch of rat tails and a box of mint, along with another bunch of aconite to add to their cauldron. They've already added most of the truly expensive ingredients — other than the difficulty of making the potion, one of the biggest barriers for most werewolves who wished to access the potion was the cost of the ingredients that go into it. Teddy thinks often of Remus' shabby robes and patched over jumpers, his frayed trousers. If she can offer Remus any hope of relief, she will do it eagerly.

She fiddles with the delicate purple blossoms of the aconite, thinking of her own ever-blooming bunch of flowers that still sit forever unchanging on her dresser in her dorm. Regulus watches her out of the corner of his eye, and though they're undoubtedly thinking of the same thing, he makes no mention of the blossoms when he speaks. "Typical of you to choose one of the most difficult potions you could think of."

"You're doing a wonderful job." Teddy nearly bites her tongue when her comment comes out sounding like a genuine compliment — Regulus looks rather surprised, though he schools his impression into indifference quickly. In an effort to play off that rather awkward moment of honesty, Teddy turns her attention to preparing the second round of ingredients. Once she finishes plucking petals from the aconite, she turns to the rat tails and pulls out a chopping board from one of the cupboards.

As soon as she goes to begin chopping the tails, however, she encounters a problem. The tails are squishy and sinewy, and everytime she attempts to slice through them with the knife they leak blood and make her gag.

She tries to push through her nausea by closing her eyes as she chops the tails, but Regulus snaps the knife away from her as soon as he spots what she's doing.

"The fuck? Are you trying to lose your fingers?"

"I think I'm going to be sick." She complains, gagging as she looks away from the mess of blood and muscle on the chopping board. "Shit, that's disgusting."