That night was awful, I felt sick and I genuinely wanted to throw up, I had a fever and my sleep was short and fitful. Sthyss, who was grouchy because I had kept him awake all night, slept on the mantel of the fireplace, and when I asked him if he wanted to join me for the day he declined in a foul temper. “Go on your own.”
I wasn’t going to have his company so I lethargically stepped out the door and into the Slytherin commons. I had been moved into the house dorms by Professor McGonagall the night that I had been released from Madame Pomfrey’s care, and of course as I had now been officially sorted into my many-great grandfather’s house, it was logical for me to stay here. I lounged in the long leather couch until eight and then finally walked slowly up from the dungeon like place into the main body of the school, climbing steadily higher through the castle until I reached the corridor adjoining Professor McGonagall’s rooms. I politely knocked on the door and the stern looking woman opened it, her lips pursed, and her hair pulled back particularly tight. “Morning Professor.” I yawned. She smiled briefly and stepped aside to let me in to have breakfast. I wasn’t particularly hungry so I just helped myself to a piece of toast and sat down. She offered me a drink but I declined, I hardly felt up to toast, the last thing I wanted right now was liquids. We ate in silence as we had done before, until she noticed that Sthyss was missing.
“Where’s your snake dear?” she asked suddenly, there was something that she found unnerving about Sthyss that I naturally I couldn’t understand, but I had a feeling that it had to do with Sthyss trying to eat her.
“He didn’t sleep too well last night, so he decided that he would stay in the dormitory; it’s warmer there anyway,” I added as an after-thought and took another bite of my toast.
“You don't look like you slept very well either.” She commented lightly, peering over her cup of tea at me, I smiled.
“No, I was feeling a bit off and didn’t sleep properly.”
“Maybe you should go and see Madame Pomfrey I'm sure she can help.” The professor suggested helpfully.
I nodded, “I’ll see how I’m feeling tomorrow. I should be alright after I get a good night’s sleep.” She raised an eyebrow and watched me for several seconds but said nothing.
“Are you ready for your Potions examination?” she took a long sip and put it down again.
“Everything’s up here and ready,” I tapped my head, “I just hope I will manage to put what I know into a cauldron.” I answered nervously. My anxiety was genuine, I had remembered all that I could and there wasn’t enough time for me to be able to practice so I was going to have to get everything right the first time. Seemed easy enough. I stood and took a deep breathe, “I suppose I should go.”
“Do you know where Professor Snape’s classroom is?” She asked as I picked up my backpack.
“Yes, thank you Professor.” I turned and left the room, shutting the door behind me and heading back down into the depths; I turned a corner and felt empty without Sthyss wrapped around some part of my anatomy.
The corridors got steadily darker as my steps took me below the water-line of the Black Lake, the light became faintly green and gloomy, I reached the cold, ajar wooden door and it creaked ominously as I pushed it further open. “I didn’t hear you knock.” A deliberate, cold voice spoke from somewhere behind the door that I had only pushed open a little way. “Sorry sir the door was open.” I called, knocking. I had to say it through gritted teeth and I knocked very slowly and sarcastically. I knew I was meant to have respect for my teachers but I was not feeling up to being orderly today. The door was pulled open and Professor Snape stood inches from me, his billowing robes creating a draft that chilled me almost as much as the furious look on his face. His hair was black and very greasy, as if it had been too long since he had washed it, his nose stuck out from the curtain-like hair that framed his face and his black eyes bore into me like thread worms. I returned the look, not out of resentment but rather out of pride, I knew that I wouldn't back down to him and I was letting him know.
“Come in,” he said in a dangerously flat voice, I heard Sthyss come up behind me and looked down at him as he slid up my leg and up around my arm. “I changed my mind.” He added as if it was an ordinary thing and I smiled, that smile I think caught the Potions master off guard more than the Parseltongue did, which I suppose was good.
He had walked back into the room and I followed him to a small cauldron he had boiling away on the floor next to a shelf stacked high with bottles and jars and small boxes that were all delicately labelled. I placed my bag onto the floor by the leg of the table and at the same time I peered into the pewter cauldron and took a quick smell of the clear liquid. “Tell me the name of this potion and its uses.”
“That is the draught of living death; it is used to induce a death-like slumber and made from sloth brain, valerian roots, wormwood, asphodel and the juice of a soporphorous bean, reversible by the Wiggenweld potion.” I quoted it almost directly from the book, Professor Snape nodded, his face softened and he led me to the other table set up in the classroom, and began explaining what I was to do.
“You will prepare and correctly write down the preparation and ingredients for the cure-boils potion from memory, you may begin.”
I began writing and my quill furiously scratched along the dry, crackling parchment. Sthyss, spiralled down off me and up and around to the chair where Professor Snape sat watching me closely.
“Add 6 Snake Fangs to the mortar.
Crush into a fine powder using the pestle.
Add 4 measures of the crushed fangs to your cauldron.
Heat the mixture to 250 for 10 seconds.
Wave your wand.
Leave to brew and return in 80 minutes.
Add 4 horned slugs to your cauldron.
Take the cauldron off the fire before adding the next ingredient.
Add 2 Porcupine Quills to your cauldron.
Stir 5 times, clockwise.
Wave your wand to complete the potion.”
My hand was sore by the time I had written it all started the process by crushing and pouring four measures of the crushed snake fangs and had heated the cauldron to the appropriate heat of two hundred and fifty degrees, I waited for exactly eighty minutes after waving my wand; and added the horned slugs and took the cauldron off the heat before adding the two porcupine quills and waving my wand. “Finished.” I said. The professor had long since lounged back in his chair and was reading a book. “Are you now?” He looked up from ‘Moste Potente Potions’; stood and walked over to my cauldron. He shrewdly peered into the blue coloured potion and sniffed in the fumes that smelt distinctly like lemon.
“Perfect, I expect nothing less from a Slytherin.” I noticed that the corner of his mouth curled up a little, and felt very proud of myself.
“It would seem that you have impressed him.” Sthyss said approvingly.
“And unfortunately that doesn’t make me feel any better.” I replied truthfully.
“You still feel unwell?” He asked, concerned, Sthyss worried about me about as much as a snake could.
“Yes.” I frowned and picked up my backpack and Sthyss; turning back to the potions master I opened my mouth to speak. “Professor, can I go now? I have a lot of studying to do if I'm going to be caught up enough to begin school properly next week.” He paused as he moved back to his desk and closed the book he had been reading.
“Yes Imogene you can go.” He sat and I walked out of the room, my head drooping a little from tiredness but held steady as I closed the creaking door behind me.
XXXX
The library was bigger than I first thought it would be, but as all places in this school, things were always bigger on the inside than they were outside. Like for instance, the library, where when I stood at the door I could only see a sea of book cases filled and overflowing with their scribbled, printed and bound bounty. There were many windows in the library but at the same time there were many corners and places where it was possible to escape the light and read by the smallest amount of luminescence as possible. A house elf had showed up in the commons just before I had decided to come to the library and given me lunch which I then of course attempted to eat, leaving me with a splitting headache once I had unwillingly regurgitated it, but not so bad that I couldn’t spare time to come here.
I was regretting leaving Sthyss behind however, as I couldn’t bring myself to start looking for the books I needed or even take a step further inside and so quite by accident I ended up roaming the school, finding my way around places I hadn’t been in before and discovering new routes to and from places I was accustomed to.
I wandered outside eventually and my ears picked up the birds swamping the trees squawking and screeching at each other. Having seen the forest from a distance for a week or more now I inevitably decided it was about time I had a look, the sea of green drawing me in. The mossy green floor was littered with the debris and the brown sodden mass of dead material, mostly made of rotting leaves and snapping twigs.
I reached a clearing and began mapping out the next few days, the cool sheltering shadows under the colossal branches of many trees relaxing and alleviating the pressure of my headache, my ears buzzing but with the sounds of nature not the strain of the school, even though the noise was far greater here; it was natural and less stuffy. I would sneak out of the school, which shouldn’t be too hard, and run out here, spend the night and hopefully get back before anyone realised I had gone. There were a number of problems that I could see with this plan of mine; if it could be really called a plan.
The first was that someone was bound to notice as I ate dinner with Professor McGonagall every evening, and I would need to leave well before then; and then I would have to be sure that no-one came looking for me in the commons. I would have to feign feeling better the day after, as I was positive that I would likely feel worse, and I didn’t want Madame Pomfrey looking at me too closely.
Lastly I was going to have to find a spell to heal simple wounds, they were often in occurrence and sometimes brutally visible, but I suppose I could come up with some sort of excuse for that as well. I sat on an uprooted tree trunk, it was a bit of a task to get on top of, but once there, it was comfortable. I realised that I still had my backpack on and, being careful not to drop it, I took it off and pulled out a book. It was ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration’ and it seemed that the second year part of the book was just as simple as the first year section.
I was greatly hoping that I might come across some harder material as time passed because as I glanced briefly at each page and then at the next I realised that I was almost at the end of this book and would soon after get the next. I had been borrowing the first and second year books and had the third in the trunk I had bought in Diagon alley. I turned the page and read a spell for turning animals into water goblets, “I wonder if Sthyss would let me practice this on him?” I wondered out loud.
Suddenly I heard something to my right and I jumped, grabbing my bag and pointing my wand in the direction of the noise, I wouldn't do anything much harm but it seemed the natural thing to do. But when nothing happened, no loud noise no projectiles, nothing jumped out and attacked me, I was for some reason; quite disappointed. Sighing I gathered up my bags and started back to the castle, the sun had started moving lower behind the few clouds that burdened it and the sky grew tinted with scarlet. I would have loved to stay out until the moon came up but I had started shaking and my hands and feet ached like I had hit them on something hard. I walked quickly back up to the castle and desperately got inside just as the moon peered over the horizon.
“And where have you been?” It was Professor Snape; I turned and looked up at him, pushing my hair behind my ears as the wind coming through the door blew it forward.
“I just went for a walk around the grounds, I didn’t realize how far I’d gotten until I-”
“Spare me your excuses.” He interrupted rudely, I clenched my fist and shut my mouth he stared at me and then finally continued.
“I thought you would like to know that you passed your Potions test, congratulations.” He spoke somewhat less than enthusiastically, “Oh and incidentally Professor Dumbledore has decided that there will be no need for further testing on the second year syllabus, he seems to think that you will be too busy next week.”
My face lit up, I knew because I smiled brightly, until another thought came to mind. “Does that also include Potions sir?” I inquired, dreading the seemingly probable answer.
“It does.” He looked mildly vexed, and thanking him again I rushed off down to the dungeon-like common room, mood considerably lifted. “Sthyss?” I called around the room, hoping he wasn’t too angry with me to talk.
“What do you want?” I heard an indignant hiss from a particularly dark corner.
“Wow you look awful.” I stated honestly as he slithered out of an increasingly dark and shadowed cranny. He was moulting, it was unpleasant, very unpleasant from what I had been told and observed. Sthyss was extremely aggravated during the whole process which meant we clashed horribly, resulting in some pretty gruesome arguments.
“Be silent,” he spat at me. I clenched my jaw and stomped up to the dormitory, my pajamas were on the bed and I put them on, picked up my hairbrush and stood in front of the mirror, something I tried to avoid as much as possible. I was, as I thought I might be; looking bad.
In fact 'bad' was an understatement, my eyes looked sunken and my short, close cropped auburn hair was looking limp and my face was paler than a ghost's. There were large bags under my eyes and my hands shook as they dragged the wooden handled brush.
“Wait a minute.” I said, suddenly realizing that my excuse could be found downstairs in a particularly dark corner.
I went to bed soon after, staying up as long as I could to try and go over the things I had learnt but I became too tired and my eyelids drooped and finally fell, tossing me headfirst into a stressful and disturbed sleep, my dreams; or appropriately nightmares were, visions of people running, screaming, crying … cruel laughter and a small girl. I woke with a start and found Sthyss coiling around the bedpost, hissing angrily and attempting to scrape off dead skin, discomfort; obvious. I sat up and winced at the aching in my body, the little moonlight in the room made less by the lake outside the window. It was still late into the night, or; more likely; very early in the morning, but there was no chance of me getting back to sleep, sweat soaked my body and my head throbbed painfully. My body knew what was coming today, I was used to this dysfunctional pattern of sleep and unfortunately I knew that I would be better off leaving the room and even more importantly, leaving Sthyss be, so naturally I headed into the commons with a book and sat in the most comfortable chair that I could find.