Gellert contemplated skipping history of magic, he was too late to get a decent seat and his impervious charm was too visible to escape the teacher's attention. Figuring he was going to get into trouble anyways he snuck into some of the potion storeroom cupboards to grab a handful of ingredients he would need once classes were finished. Taking a shortcut through painting and crawling through a narrow tunnel he popped out two doors down from the classroom.
There was a queue still waiting outside, murmuring their discontent. Gellert tried to position himself so he might have a chance of getting a spittle safe seat, but the other students were not having any of it. He was jostled to the back of the line with such force he collided with their substitute teacher. "Sorry," Gellert said as he helped them back to their feet.
The teacher grunted, unlocked the door and barred anyone from entering. "Since you are all so keen, I think we should fill up from the front this afternoon. No moving," he said with enough gusto to stop the shuffling of bodies backwards towards Gellert. "All homework to be handed in, I expect all 23 rolls of parchment on my desk before we begin or else we will all stay until it is done. And no, I will not let any quidditch players, regardless of team, go early. As much as I want to see Metalli win this year I will not create unfair bias. Professor Van Houten will be expecting these when she returns tomorrow."
"Can't be anything too urgent then," Aleksa quipped as she managed to barge her way backwards in the queue to torment Gellert.
He said nothing, hoping that the class would pass by quicker than it normally did.
With 23 rolls of parchment, some considerably longer than others, placed on the desk the Professor stepped in front of the class. "I know there were plans for a mock exam in this lesson." He pulled a face as the class groaned. "I don't know what questions were planned and I don't have the time to grade papers that aren't for my own subject, so I will not be doing a written test."
The class whooped and cheered in celebration.
"I'm going to call each of you in turn to make a timeline of the goblin rebellions." He ignored the pained expressions and grumblings. "Wilhelm, you start, what was the catalyst for the rebellion of 1392?"
The boy stuttered, his brain drawing a blank. He buried his nails into his palms I the hope that the pain would be enough to claw the memory out of him. "Wizards?" He offered at last; breathing a humiliated sigh.
"Well, vague as it is I suppose it is correct." The professor sighed and moved on to the next student, "can you shed any more light on the subject?"
"It was a debate about the right to use a wand wasn't it?"
"Have a little more conviction in your answer, you are right." A smile played on the corner of his lips for a fleeting moment, "Who were the main players?"
"Ingamis the impossible, Greyheart the greedy. James Lightwater and Peter Cranium were the wizards in charge of the negotiations that failed." Gellert said confidently, glad his turn to speak was over.
"Correct, I can see you know your history." The professor nodded, finally finding a flicker of hope in the class.
"Not surprising since his Grandfather was a historian," Aleksa spoke a little louder than she had intended. She gripped the underside of the desk as the teacher swivelled back around to face her.
"Well volunteered, could you tell me where the battle started and who made the first move?"
Aleksa turned pale, two different answers swam around her head, but she hadn't a clue which one was correct.
"Apparently not, so if you could refrain from unnecessary comments that would be grand, we would all like to leave this class on time." He turned back to the boy that was sweating profusely, "You're next, how many days did the battle rage on for?"
Alaska's skin flared, she slid down in her seat until her face was barely visible above the desk.
Gellert stifled his laughter, not wanting the teacher to notice. The clock above the teacher's desk appeared to be moving quickly, soon they were over-running by ten minutes.
"I'm not letting you go until I am certain you could write a half-decent answer for your OWLs, it reflects badly on us if no one in here can achieve anything higher than 'Troll'"
"I'm sure one of us will," Aleksa stared hatefully at Gellert.
Gellert was too preoccupied to hear her jealous whisper, the closer it got to half-past six, the closer his latest batch of the potion was to spoiling. With the teacher preoccupied with interrogating his fellow classmates, he focused the tip of his wand at the teacher's desk.
It suddenly sprung to life, cantering around the classroom like a wild animal, scattering their homework and knocking over a coat rack. It chased Professor Grabowska, barely giving him enough time to get the doors open to escape.
"Class dismissed," his voice was drowned out by the sound of the racing desk's legs on the stone floor so the class missed him sentencing them to 'a week's worth of detention'.
Gellert jostled his way to the front of the queue out of the classroom, keen to escape the complaints and questions bubbling amongst his classmates. As they all turned right onto the main corridor he turned left, following it down to the familiar tapestry of a Skaar Island. Two warring tribes of giants were battling for territory, wounding the earth below their feet, the scars of which were still visible in the topography of the island.
The dusty material gave way to a tight spiral staircase, climbing it quickly made him dizzy and left him out of breath. It delivered him to a secret chamber somewhere between the second and third floor, just big enough for him to sit and work at a reclaimed desk while a potion bubbled away on the lit fireplace in the furthest wall.
Late at night, when the fire wasn't lit, it was possible to hear snoring through the shared flue with the dormitory he had lived in during his fourth year. When he first discovered this nook he had been worried that someone might be able to hear him or smell his workings, but even the pungent aroma of an overcooked draught of the living death failed to raise any suspicious comments around the castle.
He breathed a sigh of relief, the cauldron was simmering nicely, a light purple mist hovering just above the pearlescent surface. His notes, odd scraps of parchment and duplicated pages of library books lay strewn across the surface of a tiny desk, he pulled one close and scanned the instructions. Setting his bag down gently he pulled out his stolen valerian root powder and lavender buds.
Gellert lifted his cauldron off the heat, letting it rest on a lump of wood that had been scorched by centuries of other wizards using it for the same purpose. Carefully measuring a teaspoon of powder into the blue liquid, stirring anticlockwise until it turned magenta. It was looking a little darker than he would have liked, close to the colour of a ripe plum.
He scoured his notes, looking for any clue as to what could have gone wrong, everything looked good until this point, had he over-stirred or added the Valerian too quickly? The smaller trial batch had worked fine, he had to do the medium batch twice to get the larger volume to work, the result then extrapolated to match the largest sized cauldron that would fit in the fireplace. Slapping his forehead with the palm of his hand he raced back to his bag, mumbling to himself about forgetting the catalyst.
The delay in adding the porcupine quills would weaken the solution, meaning it would probably only last six hours rather than the usual 8-12. While that wouldn't be a problem for this 'test' batch, making it on an even larger scale could prove problematic. Frustrated and not wanting to waste a month of effort, he put the cauldron back into the fire and reduced the heat.
He was busy extracting the juice from the lavender buds when he started to feel his body grow uncomfortably warm. It rose up in waves, making him feel sick and shaky as his sweat-slick hands struggled to keep a grip on his silver knife. The pounding in his head and the swimming of his vision forced him to close his eyes.
Surrounded by darkness he could hear voices, their screams ringing in his ears as they whailed for help. The black became brown, stained with red, so thick it rooted his feet to the ground. Hands, ghostly white reached up out of the quagmire, gripping at his clothes, trying to pull themselves out of the muck that had once been farmer's fields. Heavy artillery fire shook is bones as he was forced to look on, helpless to do anything more than to bear witness to the horrors of yet another muggle war. His heart ached. He longed for it to stop, he screamed until his throat was raw.
A piercing whinny made him jump, silencing his protests. The poor animal waded through the unsteady ground, slipping and tripping over the bodies of the fallen. It passed right through Gellert, allowing him to feel its immense strength and fear. He turned to witness it fall, the mud sucking its limbs into unmeasured depths, the noise it made indescribable as it fought against the rising tide.
Tears cascaded down his cheeks as his knees buckled, the earth claiming even more of his flesh. His thoughts caught on his own steed, Cara, the thestral he had trained when his father had grown impatient and his Grandfather was too sick. How she had saved him from the darkness of neglect and given him something to live for when all seemed to be lost.
It was enough to break the vision, drag him back to reality, to the small room hidden in Durmstrang castle. Still feeling sick, he grabbed blindly for one of the vials, unsure how much 'real-time' had passed. His hands shook terribly, half the contents missing the cauldron and falling into the low flames where the liquid sizzled and popped.
By the time his vision cleared he could see that he had made a mistake. Instead of a nice clear liquid, the potion had turned milky white and thickened up to the consistency of single cream. He swore loudly. There wasn't enough time to brew another batch, the full-moon had passed and he had no lunar toadstools left in his stocks, picking them this late would almost certainly kill anyone he tested the potion on later.
He sighed, snuffed out the flames and turned to see his mistake. The vial of fresh lavender oil lay untouched, the peppermint oil on its side, but the gabriella sap had been uncorked and was now dripping all over his scruffy looking instructions. It had been left over from his last dreamless sleep draught and he hadn't wanted to waste it, he now wanted to throw it at the wall.
Looking down at the disappointing potion he had no idea what to do with such a large volume of potentially dangerous material. The plumbing in the castle was rudimentary at best, ill-equipped to handle anything as viscous as this, and pollution of the surrounding lakes or ocean would be noticed. He sniffed it, nothing untoward about its aroma, it didn't smell like anything. He needed a test subject.
Having worked in the room for months at a time for the best part of two years he knew about the regular, non-human, visitors. Pointing his wand at a small hole in the wall he cast a summoning charm. The mouse wasn't keen on human contact, it squirmed and tried to bite his fingers, forcing him to change tack and create a magical container.
The mouse raced around the small cage, gnawing on the golden bars in a bid for freedom. He was reluctant to take anything the man offered him, suspicious of the strange liquid.
"Add the peppermint," Gellert uncorked the bottle and added a few drops to a goblet-full of the potion. He used the handle of the spoon to offer some to the mouse, holding his breath as the rodent came in for a curious sniff.
"Yes!"
The exclamation startled the mouse, sending it careening around the cage once more. It started chewing the bars, but then stopped, looking a little dazed, as if in a daydream. After a while it blinked away the glazed look from its eyes and started to clean itself, completely ignoring Gellert who was hovering over the cage making loud observations and scribbling notes.
Confident the potion wasn't a complete waste, he let the mouse go. It stood there watching him for a long while before disappearing back into its tunnel. Bolstered by the successful test, he contemplated jumping straight to a human test, something that he had never done before, but time wasn't on his side. The end of the year was drawing nearer.
He wiped his still slick palms on his robes and poured the rest of the goblet into a large empty jar. Reluctant to spoil the potion he left the remaining liquid in the cauldron, he could always come back and add the peppermint if he needed to. Tucking the still warm jar into his trouser pocket he shoved his notes into his bag and left.
"Just the little rat I was looking for," Aleksa cornered Gellert in the corridor "scurrying from nest to nest, trying to hide from what's coming to you." Her wand was barely concealed in her sleeve as she checked the area for any sign of a teacher.
"I'm too busy for these pathetic little games."
"Who are you calling pathetic? Like you are one to talk." She pushed him against the wall, her leg brushing his as she tried to choke him. "What's that?"
"Nothing."
"Doesn't feel like nothing," She put her hand into his pocket and pulled out the jar of warm liquid, "Is this for me?"
"No."
"Trying to keep it for yourself? Naughty boy." She waggled her finger in front of his purpling face. "How much should I take?"
"Don't..."
"Oh stop," she punched him in the gut and stepped over him to examine the liquid in the light of one of the torches. "You make everything too weak, watering it down so it's ineffective, I'm not being fooled this time."
Gellert made an unintelligible sound as he struggled to inhale enough air to voice a warning. He grabbed her ankle and received a swift kick to the head in reply.
"Get off me you creep." Excited she twirled the lid off the jar and tossed it at Gellert who was still mouthing a silent warning. She downed half the jar and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Thanks for adding the peppermint, tastes a lot better than your last one."
Like the mouse it took a moment to kick in, leaving her looking rather dazed, confused and a little cross-eyed. Gellert took the opportunity to get himself back on his feet, his ribs and head still tender from the assault. Using the wall to support himself he edged closer.
Aleksa's breathing suddenly went shallow, her body crumbled slowly to the floor. Her pupils reduced to pinpricks as her eyes started to roll towards the back of her head. She started to convulse, a whistling sound filling her throat as she struggled to breathe.
Gellert swore, wincing with every movement he tore open his bag in search of an antidote. He didn't have one for this, as he never intended to make a mistake, the only thing he had was the antidote to serenity. With no other option, he knelt down beside her and poured the liquid into her gaping mouth.
The potion sloshed out of her mouth as she thrashed. She tried to scream, but she didn't have enough air in her lungs. Her nails scraped the stone, sending shivers up Gellert's spine.
"Bezor." Gellert dived into his bag once more, searching for the stone his father had made him carry every day since the rigged election. Not finding it, he turned the bag upside down and shook it violently, ignoring the smashing of his ink bottles and the jumbling of his papers. "Accio bezor." He thrust his wand angrily at the tired material, but nothing dropped out. He tried again, this time pointing his wand in the direction of the potion store cupboard.
Aleksa gripped his arm, digging her nails into his flesh.
"I told you not to." He tried to peel her fingers off him but it was like fighting steel, her body locking up. A part of him was tempted to put her out of her misery, but something more primitive told him to do something else.
Gellert ran, summoning his belongings to follow him towards the spare classroom at the end of the hall. Once there he allowed them to jump inside his bag, resentful that the half-jar of toxic liquid considered itself his. His hand felt for the trigger on the underside of the mantelpiece. He couldn't wait for it to fully open, instead, he squeezed himself through the tiny crevice. The slope was steep and curved, making it difficult to maintain an upright position without picking up a breakneck pace.
The antechamber at the bottom was a semicircular shape, the slope followed around the curved side and the straight side forming the back wall of the divination classroom in the basement of the castle. As soon as his foot met the stone floor a torch above his head ignited, throwing the statue of Eric the Enlightened into sharp relief. He hurried over to it and pushed his way through the small archway it concealed.
Fighting his way through cobwebs and spiders the size of small dogs he clambered through the small storeroom no one else seemed to know existed. The air was thick with dust, disturbed by his flustered entrance. Gellert flopped down on a three-legged stool in an effort to catch his breath. However, he jumped up quickly when it tried to canter off with him on-board.
It skidded to a halt, almost colliding with a floor-to-ceiling bookcase stuffed with discarded potions, shredded books and something that might at once been a crystal ball. Seeing his chance, he tucked the jar behind a pickled niffler, using a charm to pick up the dust from the shelf to plaster the jar until thick enough to obscure the contents.
Taking a moment to calm his still racing heart, he pulled his robes straight and slipped out into the corridor. He could hear a commotion above his head, raised voiced and thundering footsteps. His heart leapt in his throat as he made his way up the staircase toward the ground level.
Everyone seemed to be heading towards the west corridor on the first floor. Teachers tried in vain to shepherd them towards their dormitories. The knot of people congregating in the hallway swelling rapidly as they all fought to see what was going on.
"Everyone head to your dormitories at once." The headmaster cut his way through the crowd to Aleksa. His presence was enough to send the crowds running.
Gellert kept his head low and tried to blend in with the crowd. His face felt uncomfortably hot and his insides seemed determined to tie themselves into a knot. Emotion, he wasn't sure which, lodged itself in his throat making it hard for him to breathe. What have I done?