Serendipity

Chapter 16 (Ember)

It had a few months now since Ember and Katherine's fight.  They were primarily not talking to each other.  KAtherine had even moved from being in the bed that was next to hers over to the other side of the dorm.  A girl named Alice Haneson was now in Katherine's old bed next to Ember.  

   "Ember did you finish the homework for Potions?"  asked Greer as she sat on her bed with her books open.

   "Yeah, here."  replied Ember handing over what she did for her homework.

    "Where did you find this infromation about the Pungous Onion?"  asked Greer pointing at an instruction that wasn't in their potions book.

    "Hazel found it in a book...but she wouldn't tell me where she got it excatly..." trailed Ember, but she had a good guess. Hazel liked to sneak into the restricted section of the library and "borrow" books.  Professor Snape would sometimes actually give her permission to be in there when he would give her extra projects.  Apprently Hazel had a gift for potions and which he liked to take some low key pride in.  

     "She got it from some special book Snape gave her didn't she?"  asked Greer.  It was well known that Snape favored her as much as he did those of his own house.  

    "Maybe,"  shrugged Ember.  "Either way she shared the information.  Which is good because now when we have to so this we can now burn our eyes."  

   "Easy for you to say.  I don't know how to use a spell to chop things like this."  groaned Greer.

   "Hey Alice!  Do you know how to magically chop ingredients?"  Ember called over to Alice. 

    "Kinda, I'm not very good at it though."  admitted Alice.

"Well that's better than nothing."  shrugged Ember.  Alice was Greer's potions partner.  Ember's partner was Celeste who she knew would be able to cut the Pungous Onions since her Celeste's mother was very encrouaging of practical magic.  

    "Why don't you have Yoongi show you, Ember?  I'm sure he knows how to do it well.  Most pureblood families use magic for just about everything."  suggested Celeste who was sitting on her bed sketching some sort of plant that they had seen in Herbology.

    "What makes you think he'd show me that?"  inquired Ember.

"You guys seem to have gotten pretty close over the last few months after you two talked in the Hospital Wing."  shurgged Celeste.

   "Plus he shows you how to do that shield charm in case you got into another fight."  added Greer.

    "That's diffrent.  I don't think he wants to tutor me in something so mundane."  scoffed Ember.  "Anyways.  It doesn't matter, we have to use it in class tomorrow."  

   "Why is Snape so awful!"  groaned Greer as she fell back onto her bed.

"Because its Snape?"  replied Celeste.  "He doesn't even need another reason."  

     "Do you recon that Hazel might actually be in our common room right now?"  asked Greer suddenly.

    "Its possible.  She does seem to appear there quite often, even when its late."  mused Celeste.

"I'm going to go look, if she's here maybe she'll give us a crash course in how to use the cutting spell."  said Greer as she pushed herself up off of her bed.  Ember debated for a moment before following Greer and Celeste and Alice both got up as well as they all headed down to the common room.  There smooshed together in one of the large chairs by the fireplace was Park Jimin and Hazel May.  Jimin had seemingly fallen asleep with his head rested on Hazel's shoulder as she was reading a book that Ember could see was actually her Standard Book of Spells.   She had her wand her in her other hand was glowing at the tip before disaperaing and relighting again.  She got startled when she looked up from her book to see the four witches looking at her.

   "Uh, hi...can I help you guys?"  she asked, confused.

"Um, you know that bit of information that you gave me for potions for tomorrow?"  asked Ember. 

   "Which bit?  The one about taking the cauldron off the the fire before adding porcupine quills?"  asked Hazel confused.

    "No, the other bit."  pressed Ember as all of the witches got closer.  Ember noticed that Jimin had moved his head to get more comfortable.

  "Oh!  The cutting the Pungous Onions!"  exlciamed Hazel excitedly.  This was now what woke Jimin up who blinked his eyes sleepily and looked around a bit annoyed.

    "Damn, you're bloody loud." he complained as he sat up.

"Maybe you should let Halls go and sleep in your own bed."  teased Ember.

    "Look, Hazel, we need you to teach us how to cut them with magic."  inturpted Greer.  

    "You don't know how?"  asked Hazel in surprise.

"It not a spell that is usually taught to first year."  replied Celeste.

    "Right, um, okay.  I, Jimin, you're going to have to let me move."  said Hazel practically pushing him out of the chair as she got up causing him to fall on the floor.

    "Sorry, we don't have a lot of time to do this, but you have to be very careful."  Hazel warned.  "One careless swibe and you could severly harm or kill yourself or others."  

   "Hazel, maybe you shouldn't."  warned Jimin.  "It can be dangerous.  I don't even know why the bloody hell Min Yoongi taught it to you in the first place!"  Celeste, Greer, and Alice all glanced at Ember when Jimin said this.

    "Do you really want to be responsible if one of them hurts or worse kills themselves or another?"  continuted Jimin.  "Besides its almost curfew."

   "It's alright Hazel, your don't have to teach us.  Jimin's right, you should head back."  said Celeste.

    "Are you sure?"  asked Hazel.

"Absolutely.  We'll see you in the morning."  assured Ember.  

    "Okay, goodnight."  said Hazel before heading out the door.

"She's too willing to teach for her own good.  Its going to get her in trouble one of these days."  sighed Jimin