It all started when Rowena Suggested she tutor Argus one to one.
"You mean like secret lessons?"
"Just think about it Argus..." Rowena explains while they wait outside the green house for their Herbology lesson, "you won't have any distractions-"
"No one laughing at me you mean." He interrupted kicking the dirt with his shoes and glaring at the other students.
"And you won't have to worry about getting it wrong all the time either. You can just... well, try again"
"Rowena, we don't even share the same common room. Where would we practise?"
"Well... I've already thought of that as a matter of fact."
"Where?" Argus asks standing up a little straighter, suddenly more intrigued.
Rowena opens her mouth but then closes it again as soon as she spots Theo making his way towards them, dragging his heavy school bag across the ground.
"This thing... just keeps getting... heavier." He complains, out of breath.
"Do you think my uncle... would put an undetectable extension charm ...on this thing if I asked him? How on earth...do they expect someone... as little as me... to carry all these books around"
Rowena smiles at Theo sympathetically as she and Argus watch him drag his school bag passed the line of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw's and into the green house.
Herbology had to be Argus's favourite subject. They hardly ever had to use their wands in Herbology. Which meant, what could possibly go wrong?
"You've killed it!" Lution cries.
"I didn't mean to-"
"What on earth did you do?" he snaps his temper getting the better of him.
Argus fumbles around with his notes. "I did exactly what the instruction said... secure ear muffs, tightly over ears... place the mandrake in a clean pot... keep fingers away from the mouth... if thrones are visible on sick mandrake, start by removing the thrones and applying the potion medicine first on the leafs and then-"
"NO, no, no! you've done it all wrong! PROFESSOR SPROUT!" Lution yells before continuing, "You have to use the potion medicine before you take off the thrones... otherwise the mandrakes already dead!"
Lution shakes his head at Argus accusingly before turning around to join another table. "Stupid Squib" he muttered under his breath quietly.
Argus sinks his head against the table and signs in defeat just as Rowena comes over to inspect what all the fuss is about.
"What's going on?" she asks before her eyes fall on the lifeless mandrake,
"Oh! Never mind Argus I'm sure professor Sprout can fix him"
"Too late, it's gone a funny colour now... I should have put the medicine on first." Argus admits before accidently pricking his finger on a throne.
"I don't think that would have made much of a difference either. This isn't the right potion." Rowena offers Argus the same sympathetic smile she wore earlier.
"Rowena?" Argus asks quietly, his voice muffled against the table.
"Yes?"
"About those secret lessons..."
*
Rowena had found a very cold, very dirty potions class room down in the dungeons.
"What if a teacher comes in?" Argus asked nervously the day of their first lesson.
It just so happened to be the first weekend that it hadn't rained since school started and all the other students were outside enjoying the cloudless skies while he was stuck indoors.
"I read it was cursed somewhere... oh don't give me that look Argus!" she signed as soon as Argus eyes widened.
"It's only cursed if you're a teacher. Apparently a dark professor put a hex on years ago so no one could teach in his place... WOW! Come and look at all these ingredients...the best thing is no one will ever notice them missing!" Rowena explained excitedly. She grabs a large cauldron covered in cobwebs and begins filling it to the brim with tiny, dusty old bottles of ingredients.
"Shall we start with these?" she asks Argus dumping the cauldron on the desk in front of him.
Argus shrugs his shoulders before sneezing, "I guess. What are we to do with them?"
"I thought we should start with something, well... simple." Rowena bites her lip worriedly but to her relief Argus nods undefended.
"Good idea!"
"Nearly all of these bottles look the same, see? But they sure won't give you the same results, trust me. Your job is to learn their differences...are you following?"
"I think so..."
"Take these two for example." Rowena says holding out two skinny, indigo bottles, in one hand. "They may look the same but they smell-"
"Ugh!" Rowena and Argus exclaim in disgust as the first bottle it opened.
"Now smell this one"
Rowena unscrews the cork from the second bottle and puts it under Argus's nose. His nose twitches expecting something revolting but is instantly surprised at its fresh sweet smell.
"Mmm!" This time they both breathe it in welcomingly.
"OK then Professor Green, what are you going to do?"
Rowena laughs before walking away to stand at the front of the class room.
"I'm not sure. Maybe I'll just practise some potion we learnt in class."
Rowena flashes Argus an innocent smile before they both get to work.
Argus was just in the middle of writing down the differences between two red bottles when something flickering in the corner of the room distracts him. When he looks up Rowena is busily steering a bubbling cauldron that is floating neatly above a blue flame.
Argus quickly jumps off his stool to investigate. Rowena has both sleeves of her school robes pushed up passed her elbows as she continues stirring at high speed. Her hair tie is coming loose and her frizzy red hair look like snakes wrapped around her white neck.
"I don't remember doing this in potions" Argus finally tells her his eyes glued on the cauldron.
Rowena ignores Argus and asks him to pass her the jar labelled Black sea salt instead.
One second the potion is a yucky sticky green but as soon as Rowena sprinkles a hand full of salt over it the colour changes into a deep, ocean blue.
"Cool!" Argus cheers.
Rowena smiles to herself in triumph. "I think... I think it's done."
"What's done?"
Rowena ignores Argus again and puts her hand inside her robes pocket before extracting a small, silver tin. Inside of which, cushioned against purple velvet, sits a single green leaf.
Rowena hands the silver tin to Argus. "Can you please put it in? I'm not allowed to touch it."
Argus knots his eye brows together confused.
"Why aren't you allowed to touch it?"
"It's part of the spell"
"What spell?"
"Argus please we're running out of time. It has to be now."
Not a moment too soon Argus pinches the leaf between his thumb and finger and drops it into the cauldron.
The potion hisses angrily as Rowena and Argus both bend their heads together to watch.
Like someone had just pulled a plug from the bottom of the cauldron, the potion begins to disparate. In a matter of seconds the only thing left, lying at the bottom of the empty cauldron is the leaf.
"Where did it go?" Argus asks turning to Rowena for an answer.
"It drank it. It's all absorbed inside leaf!"
This time Rowena doesn't hesitate and reaches her whole arm inside the cauldron, and picks the leaf up for herself. Before Argus can ask what she was going to do with it now, Rowena pops the leaf inside her mouth and tucks it away neatly in the side of her left cheek.
"What was that? Why did you just-"
"I think that's enough for our first lesson Argus. Same time next week?"
But their next lesson never came. As the weeks followed, Rowena no longer pressured Argus to continue his tutoring; in fact she didn't mention it ever again.
Argus on the other hand spent the next several weekends with Theo. The pair of them would hide away In the Hufflepuff common room in order to ovoid Sebastian and his Slytherin friends. On the contrary it wasn't all that bad, after skipping dinner in the great hall a couple of time, Argus and Theo found themselves retreating to the school kitchens where the house elves would make a great big fuss over them. Its exactly where they were when someone came snooping!
"There you both are!" Rowena cried, striding forward in their direction, Lucina, pacing at her heal.
It seemed where ever Rowena went; Lucina followed her like a shadow. Unaware she was there Argus accidently kicked her once under the desk during muggle studies.
Argus and Theo were too busy stuffing their faces with Lemon tarts and carrot cake that Rowena had to repeat herself twice just to be heard.
"I said it's safe to come out now!"
"How did you get in here?" Theo accused.
"The same way you did I assume." Rowena smiled.
"Safe... to... come out?" Argus asked, swallowing a mouth full of tart, "So Sebastian can throw food at us again from across the hall. No thank you"
"They never miss!" Theo adds.
Rowena crosses her arms in amusement and signs. "well if you hadn't been hiding all day then you would have heard the good news for your selves. All the school is talking about it!"
"What good news?" Argus and Theo ask together.
"Sebastian won't be bothering you for a while now." There is a brief pause before Rowena breaks into a great big grin and declares, "Your brothers been expelled!"
Theo holds a hand to his chest and nearly choked on a bit of cake.
"Expelled... For how long?" Argus askes bewildered.
"I heard it was till Christmas-"
"CHRISTMAS!" Argus interrupts.
"That means I won't have to see him till... till-"
"Till next term" said Rowena.
"I wish it was forever... what about his friends?"
"Same fate. All five of them were found flushing a first years head in the boy's toilets."
Theo winces at a painful memory and exchanges a knowing look with Argus. The same thing had happened to them the previous week.
How the tables had turned dramatically for Argus. For a whole month he would be the one living at Hogwarts with his friends while Sebastian was sent home to sulk.
*
Trembling, Argus held out a hand... he was inches away from touching it... he could feel the magic close to his fingertips... nearly there... almost... In one split second, with a heap of grey smoke the wand dissolved into ashes onto the floor and someone began to laugh.
Argus turned around to see his brother hugging his stomach he was laughing so hard. But Argus didn't care about his brother or the wand. Rowena was standing next to Sebastian's side holding a fat cat in her arms. She too began to laugh until tears fell onto Lucina's wet fur.
Argus did a double take, Lucina had gotten a lot fatter since the last time he had seen her...
"Wait a moment... this is happened before" Argus told himself out loud.
He points a finger in his brother's direction, "You're not real!"
Sebastian and Rowena stop laughing and look at each other. "It's not real!" Argus shouts again and his knees sink to the floor...
... Argus nearly screams in fright as his eyes shoot open in bed.
Perched on his chest just inches from his face, thankfully, is a tiny black kitten staring down at him with bright green eyes.
"Lucina?" Argus whispers, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. "What are you doing here?"
Lucina meows friendly before she jumps out of sight. Without hesitation, Argus throws his blankets off of him and sits on the side of his bed.
"Where are you going?" Argus whispers into the darkness unable to see.
Lucina rubs the side of her face against one of Argus legs and entwines her tail around the other to make herself known. As quick as lightening she darts across the room and out the door.
Argus quickly follows her down the spiral stair case, through the circular door and across the common room. Out in the hall Argus spots a black tail vanishing behind a corner and scurries after her. After three more turns, left, right and another left Argus begins to wish he had stopped long enough to grab a pair of his slippers before chasing Rowena's stupid cat in his bare feet.
When Argus runs down another set of stairs this time in the school dungeons he stops abruptly to find Lucina is actually sitting down waiting for him to catch up. Argus leans his arms against a cobwebbed stone wall to catch his breath. Lucina smacks her tail impatiently and meows loudly, her sharp green eyes staring at him like two green speaks of light.
"Why... have you taking me...here?" Argus asks between breaths.
Lucina drops her gaze on Argus and jerks her small head to a door to her left that stood ajar. Argus slowly walks towards the same classroom door he and Rowena had spent that one afternoon weeks ago teaching Argus how to detect the differences in potions.
Lucina was the first to squeeze through the small gap, Argus quickly followed behind her, his hand pushed the door open without hesitation to make room for him. Just in case anyone had followed him he closed it shut behind him.
If he had thought the halls at night, with only a few touches still lit at this time had been dark nothing had prepared Argus for the blindness that welcomed him. He opened his eyes as wider as they would go hoping it would help them adjust to the darkness. Just when he thought he could make out the outline of a small black cat darting across the room a blue flame flickered in the far left corner making Argus jump and brightening the room, it looked exactly like the one Rowena had managed to conjure up the last time they were in here. When she had made her secret leaf spell. Had that been the last time she had come here? Argus thought to himself. Had she come back, without him?
"Rowena?" Argus whispered.
A hiss echoed in front of him followed by a quieter meow. Argus looked down at Lucina and jumped back.
Next to the small kitten was a much larger, fully grown, grey cat. Sitting proudly while Lucina danced around her in circles trying to catch the grey cat's tail.
Argus signed in relief and shook his head at Lucina half of him was annoyed she had gotten him out of bed and possibly in trouble if anyone found out and half of him wanted to laugh at how silly this night would sound in the morning when he replayed It back to Rowena.
"Really, Lucina?" Argus finally broke the silence. "You woke me up just to tell me you made a new friend?"
Lucina looked up at her name being called and meowed innocently at Argus who laughed out loud.
"Now if you don't mind I'm going to bed"
Argus turned around and took a step closer to the closed door, his arm half outstretched towards the handle when he froze.
"Hello Argus." A Familiar voice sounded behind him.
Argus spun on the spot so quickly he jerked him neck and yelped in pain, rubbing at the sore spot under his right ear.
but as soon as his eyes met hers Argus forgot about the pain altogether and his mouth dropped open as he gaped at her.
Standing exactly where a moment ago the Grey cat had sat, stood looking at him with a franticly excited grin was Rowena Green. The Grey cat had vanished and only Lucina could still be seen her front paws propped up against Rowena's leg like she wanted to climb up. Argus watched as Rowena bent down and scooped up her kitten in her arms and plants a kiss on her ear.
"Well aren't you going to ask me anything?" Rowena finally says smiling at Argus.
"How did you... where did the... am I dreaming?"
A string of giggles escapes Rowena's lips and she almost drops Lucina to the ground again to stand closer in front of Argus, who without thinking takes a step back.
Rowena stops laughing and raises her eye brows.
"Don't be silly Argus you don't have to be frightened it's just me" she reassures him putting both her hands in his. "It was just me"
"I'm not frightened" Argus quickly argues shrugging free of her hands. And then his eyes widen when he realises what she just said.
"You mean... the cat that was you?"
Rowena nods enthusiastically. "I promise to tell you everything Argus... about the real reason I wanted you to study with me, why I put that mandrake leaf in my mouth that day, why Lucina follows me around everywhere now, when I wasn't even sure she even liked me that day I chose her in diagonally. But you have to promise not to tell anyone. Not even Theo not even your mother or my father-"
"Slowdown" Argus interrupted her starting to feel a headache coming along. He ran his fingers through his hair rubbing at his scalp. Maybe he was still dreaming, I mean how could his best friend be a cat?
Argus let Rowena steer him to a stool where he gladly sat down.
"Rowena how...that was a mandrake leaf?"
"Promise me first" Rowena begged.
"Promise what?"
"Promise me this will stay our secret! promise me you won't tell anyone that I'm an Animagus"