White Heather for Protection

Heart-Stopping Revelations

After leaving a quick kiss on his cheek, Heather ruffled his hair and then disapparated with a crack.

Brushing off the ever-present disorientation that came with wizarding travel, Heather approached the looming gates of the school. They opened without protest, settling the small part of her that was wondering at her welcome.

To her surprise, she saw Severus striding across the grounds towards her, leaving no question as to the purpose of his presence outside the castle. She smiled broadly and waved at him. He had come to greet her. She practically skipped the rest of the distance between them.

They exchanged pleasantries, more reserved on Severus' part, but she could tell he was glad to see her. He was quick to list a series of expectations for her. It was basically that she had to be professional, especially in front of students, and that dangerous brewing should be overseen by him. Just regular things.

He then gave her a set of tasks to accomplish over these few days. Like he had mentioned, the potions classrooms and storage cupboard needed tidying. There were also potions to be brewed for the infirmary and ingredients to be harvested from the greenhouses. All of these she could accomplish by herself, which would give him time to wrap up a few things he needed to do on his own.

It was quite a lot to do, but Heather was certain she could finish them all well before the allotted time of two weeks.

~~~

She decided to start with the cleaning since that would probably take the longest. There were three potions classrooms in the school each with the same adjoining storage room. Severus mainly used Classroom 1, but the others were there in case there was a mishap which damaged it or students wanted to use it for personal brewing.

Heather began with cleaning the first room, which she guessed would take the whole day if she didn't dawdle. She charmed brooms and brushes to clean the floor and walls, but set about scrubbing the cauldrons by hand. Any magical residue on the potions equipment could leach into the potions and cause adverse reactions. Which was why she would be manually handling the desktops, cutting boards, knives, pestles and mortars and other tools as well.

She eyed the school's stock of equipment with distaste, even as she carefully soaped them all up by hand. They were old and scuffed up, dented in places, barely fit to be used. Any potioneer worth their salt would have their own personal tools, though she knew most of the students were content to brew with these subpar ones.

Okay, she was a snob when it came to potions, but she did have her reasons! It was like the difference between flying with the school brooms and having your own. Her brother had only understood after she gave that analogy.

As expected, it took her most of the day to tidy up the room. The floor and walls were cleaned of any suspicious stains and grime, the desks smoothened and polished, knives sharpened to a fine point and all other equipment free of any potion remnants. The last thing left for her to do was to rearrange the cupboards.

They contained things left behind by students, including old books which could be used as spares for those who forgot theirs. Though Severus was rarely in a forgiving enough mood to give careless students such a boon.

Severus had instructed her to get rid of all the useless junk, only leaving the books that were in salvageable condition.

Even just opening the cabinet door let loose a billow of dust that made her eyes water in irritation. A quick Scourgifygot rid of most of the dirt. The older man was right when he'd said that most of this was rubbish. Heather just loaded all of the items into conjured bags which she would ask the house elves to dump later.