Hogwarts Legacy: The Dark Veins In Time

And The Snakes Start To Sing (Part II)

**brief sexy spice and fluffy warnings**

**Alvira's Scriptorium - Hogwarts, 1799**

Cauldron.. brewing.. there was an alchemy station in that secret room once. What is that smell? It's... sickeningly sweet and nauseating. Wait.. how am I here with Alvira - wasn't I just with Ominis and Sebastian? I didn't hear her incantation, but she's pulled me under again somehow..Did she come back to the painting?

"Drink the potion."

I stand at my alchemy table tucked tightly into the back of the secret room I carved myself - a feat I was so proud of is now so somber in light of graduation only two more days away and I will very likely never return here. At least.. not as myself.

The small sample I drew from the simmering cauldron in front of me swirls a brilliant red with golden flecks within the small glass I am offering to the creature waiting at my feet.

The wiry little female house elf I brought with me from home, Bloom I named her, looks up at me with glassy black eyes filled with concern and some frustration. She is always the first to taste every batch of this particular potion I am brewing - a quality assurance before I dare give it to my precious Corvinus. I have made this concoction dozens of times now but there is always a chance of error, like the time I left it just a few moments too long and the elixir went sour. Corvinus spent hours throwing up afterwards and since then I have had Bloom take the first sips. I've only errored twice since then and the elf still lives - she shouldn't look so downtrodden.

We've drank this potion before.. it tastes just as it smells. But what are it's effects? And I've made so much more than last time.. is it not just for Corvinus and Alvira this time?

"Bloom will drink." She reaches out for the glass obediently and quickly swallows down the liquid. I watch her closely for any change in her as the potion takes almost immediate effect upon hitting the stomach. She stares blankly at the cup in her hands, gives a little hiccup and replaces back up on the table. "Nothing, my lady. The potion is not hurting Bloom. Bloom feels energized."

"Good." I smile to myself - my aptitude at the brew is near perfect now. "Keep packing up the books and manuscripts. Leave not a single scrap of parchment behind." It is impossible for anyone to find this place but one cannot be too cautious. My secrets are my own, some even unbeknownst to Corvinus and Septimus. "And do not disturb the painting."

The painting is here. We hate it. It isn't what I asked for when I had him create it but we've no more time for another.. Hogwarts will soon be a barren memory; seven years of my life spent playing along with the mindless moon calves of the wizarding world that believe anything useful comes from attending school here...

But Hogwarts is so wonderful.. why would anyone despise it so?

Because Alvira is a true Gaunt, and coming here is pointless when your entire family practically has it's own school of magic.

"Bloom understands." Such a tolerable little house elf, much better than the one whose name I had forgotten that died when I sent them into the Forbidden Forest in search of Centaur graves to pillage - the bones are quite useful in my experiments and research. "Bloom wishes to return home to the manor..it is soon, yes?"

"As do I, Bloom. Soon." I sigh while preparing the three bottles that store the empowering elixirs I created. Each one had to be filled with the exact amount, not a drop more, not a drop less, any excess left in the cauldron to boil itself away into vapor and char - an absolute nightmare to clean but the consequences of having the more than the allotted dose is far worse.