Lesson 8 - N.E.W.T. Level

Bloody hell, he came here only to be the Headmaster, and to think that he had almost been denied that promise, and now he is limping to the Dungeons to teach Potions... all over again, to hormone raging brats who have absolutely no interest in these bottles filled with colorful liquids. Yes, he had been some sort of puppet Headmaster, but he did actually have far more authority than anyone thought, which made him a powerful nemesis to those who wanted to control him, but more on that later, right? He sat on top of his desk, starting to play with his cane, waiting for the brats to arrive.

Amelia was early to potions, despite her attempts to arrive later than she usually would. Amelia's hesitance to arrive early stemmed from the fact that the last time she had been in the headmaster's classroom, it had been after class and he had asked her a very important, very weighty question that she had yet to answer.

It had been an unusual request, the most unusual Amelia had ever faced from a professor. She had been asked for help with detention, asked to join the Imperium Squad back when that still existed, even asked to help clean up after class. But she had never before been asked to help defend the school from imminent danger. It had been a shocking question to hear, and Amelia had done what she always did when faced with a question she didn't know how to answer - she had frozen, stalled, and told him she would have to think about it.

The answer was really meant to give her some time to mull it over and come to the logical conclusion, but Amelia wasn't sure what that conclusion was. She had logical reasons both for obliging and declining the headmaster's request, and was still torn as she arrived to the dungeons to find that Doyle was the only one in the potions room.

She hesitated by the door for a moment, wondering if she should take a lap around the first floor and come back, but if the headmaster had already seen her, that would only seem cowardly. Instead, Amelia tucked her chin to her chest and carried her cauldron, kit, and bag to a table on the left hand side of the room near the front, but not so close to the headmaster's desk that she would be obliged to greet him formally. If she was lucky, another student would arrive soon and save her from the conversation that headmaster might start with her if they were alone too long.

((Doyle, I implied my response to Doyle's question in this post because you locked the previous thread before I could answer. You can do whatever you feel is fit here. I am placing this class start ahead of the incident on the grounds because I don't feel like that has played out enough for me to know Amelia's overall thoughts on it, but I plan to have her accept Doyle's request there.))

It was as if she’d thought by writing to him she’d get on his good side. It was as if she assumed that by letting him know about her sodding pregnancy he’d think to care. Elijah didn’t give a toss about his father’s love life but apparently he had to. There was nothing wrong with Irina per say but she was just pathetic in Elijah’s eyes. Elijah wasn’t sure what disturbed him more, that she was the same age as Harry and Lorelei or the fact that she was already pregnant with the son that was expected of her. He knew she needed a friend. Amongst all of the resentful Krum women he knew that she’d be feeling lonely but he didn’t want to be her friend. Still, despite his better judgement he found himself writing back to her dutifully as if he had nothing better to do than wait for her to write letters to him.

He rather liked talking to her if he was honest but he wasn’t going to be honest about a woman that he should have hated. He didn’t though. He found her stupidly charming. She was lost in the sea of Krums and she was leaning on him, asking him without uttering the words themselves, to let her out. All she wanted was a friend but Elijah didn’t trust himself to be one. He knew what the ‘other’ version of himself would have done. Oh yes, he’d analysed his person rather well thank-you-very-much and he knew that he would have charmed that woman into his bed within spending mere days with her. As pretty as she was, beautiful even, and as nice as she was...Elijah didn’t want her. He thanked the Gods that she was besotted with his father. It was a bizarre thing to watch. She watched him intently, as if waiting for the moment he decided to love her back.

The last letter he’d received from her suggested all of this and more and Elijah could only do but stare at the cursive over the rim of his cup of tea. Finally, he stuffed the letter into his bag and drank down the rest of the tea before deciding to head to Potions. She was looking for a friend; he wanted her to leave him alone. Right now the last thing he needed was to be verbally abused by the Headmaster. Still, with threats of Hogsmeade privileges being taken away, Elijah had no choice. He enjoyed the weekend coffees he had with his cousins in the village. They were the only current direct link to the family so he wasn’t going to pass up on the information they brought with them.

So, upon entering the Potions classroom, Elijah had a renewed sense of purpose. That was quickly made useless when he realised that it was only him and Amelia in the room. He remembered her but more importantly, he remembered the look on his face when he announced rather carelessly that Chase was pregnant. They hadn’t spoken since then to Elijah’s limited knowledge and he decided that maybe it was about time to make peace with her.

He didn’t bother greeting the Professor as he wanted to put off the tirade for as long as possible. Instead, he focused on Amelia who was carefully setting out her things. Elijah cleared his throat and gestured to the seat beside hers. “Mind if I sit with you?” he asked gently.

Amelia had taken her potions kit and was carefully removing the small jars and bundles of herbs tied off with thin twine. The headmaster had yet to announce the focus of today’s lesson, so she was merely taking out the most commonly used ingredients and laying them in neat rows of four, alphabetically (of course). She was just reaching out to turn a sprig of mint 15 degrees to the right when she heard a familiar voice from beside her that made her hand pause in mid-reach.

Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around. Don’t even look at him. Maybe he’ll go away.

Although Amelia had been hoping for another student to arrive and save her from the conversation she was dreading with the headmaster, this was not the conversation she had wanted to replace it with. She knew that the voice beside her belonged to Elijah Krum. His was a voice she had heard so often, it would have been difficult not to recognize it. Two years ago, it was the voice she had been introduced to in the owlery, when it still held its thick Bulgarian accent which had diminished slightly over the years. Then it was the voice that had woken her up early in the morning to return a pair of shoes. It was the voice of a man she had given a unique present to, some of her most ingenious magical work to date. But it was also the voice of the man who had informed her, almost nine months ago now, that he was going to be the father of another girl’s child.

And that was the association she always made with the voice now. Every time she heard him speak in class, yelling in the hallways, or talking with his friends at dinner, those words came flooding back to Amelia. At first, they had stung like daggers every time, piercing through the places in her ice castle that had been weakened by Elijah’s kindness and his promises that things could be different; that she could be different. But after a while, Amelia reinforced those weak places, making them and the rest of her walls even thicker than they had been before.

And now here Elijah was again, trying to attack her fortress again, only this time, he was using a sling shot instead of a catapult. There were so many other desks, why did he need to sit here? She had successfully avoided him these last nine months, or maybe it had been Elijah just giving up on her that made it easier to do so. Either way, Amelia hadn’t had to deal with him directly, and it had made suppressing her anger much easier.

“If you must,” Amelia said curtly, moving her cauldron to the floor so Elijah would have desk space. Common courtesy demanded that she be civil to him, but she didn’t have to be intentionally nice. Amelia didn’t owe him that. She didn’t owe him anything.

She hadn’t looked at him when he spoke, and after she had made adjustments to allow him room, she still kept her eyes on her ingredients, keeping them all in neat, orderly rows. At least some small part of her life was within her control.

So little of Amelia had actually remained coherent inside of Elijah’s brain. He remembered bits, as with everything, but it wasn’t enough to form a picture of her in his mind let alone an opinion. She seemed older somehow – not in appearance but in personality. Certainly she was more mature than he was, Chase being the case point, but she seemed as if she’d surpassed everything and everyone, becoming something entirely different. She was cold if not icy; icier than he remembered. Elijah knew now that what he’d done to Amelia was more than treat her poorly. He was notorious for breaking promises; he saw that upon looking back. He’d promised Chase the earth but he’d broken every one repeatedly. He’d promised things to Amelia too but even they fell through. What he’d proved to her the night he ‘told her’ was the suspicions he’d been having of himself since the Obliviation: that he really had been a cold-hearted, self-serving asshole.

So Elijah had no right to be miffed with her reception of him. Of course that didn’t stop him from feeling that way but he knew he had no right to do so. He knew what she must have been thinking, with at least a dozen other desks to choose from, why this one? Well, Elijah didn’t know how to answer that. He was trying to make peace with himself and what he was finding was that he couldn’t do that unless he made peace with everyone else first. Elijah decided then and there that the best person to start with was Amelia. She’d be the highest mountain to climb. He’d need to burrow back through her defences even if he had to take the medieval route and dig underneath the corners. Mira was a walk in the park in comparison to the stubborn Ravenclaw he had scorned so. With Mira, all she wanted was his love and devotion...something of which Elijah was beginning to think was one of his better ideas to give into. Amelia he couldn’t predict and he doubted he’d ever been able to.

“Thank-you,” He replied softly, setting his bag down on the table.

All of his potions things had been shrunk so they were easier to carry. He’d long since put a weight spell on the satchel itself; lightening it so anything inside wouldn’t play havoc with his shoulders. It didn’t take long for him to set his things out. All of his ingredients were in a crimson box, each one lovingly slipped into its appropriate pouch. Of course, Elijah hadn’t done that. In fact, it had been his aunt who had purchased it for him having been determined to see him do well in school for once. She’d given him a long enough lecture before presenting him with it and Elijah had had a feeling at the time that it would come in handy. Merlin knew his bag smelt better now the vials weren’t breaking inside.

Elijah decided it would probably be best to broach some sort of conversation with Amelia now. He cleared his throat and pushed a lock of hair that had escaped the pony tail behind his ear. He pursed his lips thoughtfully before asking a cliché question but it was one that would hopefully get her to speak; or at least, Elijah hoped she would. Knowing Amelia though (which he didn’t seem to) she’d shut down any attempt he made at a conversation before he made any headway.

“How have you been?”

You’re not welcome, Amelia thought as Elijah thanked her for allowing him to share a desk with her. She found herself gripping the vials more tightly as she took them from her kit, taking out her frustration on the clear containers as though they had something to do with the fact that she was now stuck sitting next to the last person in the school she wanted to be anywhere near. And it was a three hour potions lab. This day was not off to a good start.

Amelia had decided even before Elijah sat down that ignoring him would be the best policy. Obviously that wasn’t his intention, or he would not have chosen to sit by her. Amelia didn’t know what Elijah’s angle was, but she wasn’t planning to play along with his games. She had given in to his boyish charm and empty promises once before, and she felt stupid enough looking back on that. She was not going to be foolish enough to do it again.

The dark-haired Slytherin boy removed his potions kit from his bag and took the ingredients out. His system of organization wasn’t nearly as rigid as Amelia’s, but at least everything had a container. She could see in her peripheral vision that Elijah’s hands had stopped moving with purpose from kit to table, so she knew it was only a matter of time before Elijah found something else to occupy him until the lesson began. Unsurprisingly, it was one of his trying questions that revolved around the small-talk that Amelia so despised.

“Oh, you know, living the dream,” Amelia replied sarcastically, making no attempt to hide the scorn in her voice. As she answered, she had looked up at Elijah for the first time since he had arrived, and her eyes held nothing but contempt. She had found that it was more bearable to feel anger toward Elijah than to mourn for what she had lost, so she had made the decision that would be less painful. Standing next to him now, though, looking contrite and somehow younger than ever, Amelia had to remind herself to hate him.

“But I’m sure it’s nothing compared to the glamorous life of Elijah Krum,” the redhead added acerbically, rolling her eyes and looking back to her kit as she removed a cutting knife and a paring knife, laying them parallel to one another on the table. There seemed to be no end to the gossip involving Elijah, so much so that even though Amelia rarely saw Elijah anymore, he was impossible to avoid among the conversations of other students. Elijah’s with this girl, Elijah’s not with Chase anymore, Elijah’s so handsome, so talented, I wish I was old enough to be with Elijah.

It was enough to make Amelia want to cast a permanent muffliato on herself just to avoid hearing another sodding person sing his praises.

They said that the Gryffindor Tower was a world away from the Dungeons. Whoever ‘they’ were didn’t know how right they actually were. Rafael felt it every time he took the descent down to the Potions classroom. He hated having to cart all of his things down there just for one lesson but he knew it couldn’t be avoided so he took advantage of the things they learned in charms class and actually charmed a drawstring bag to be bottomless and it was that way he managed to get all of his things inside.

There had been talk recently of another student coming to the Gryffindor Tower but Rafael hadn’t been paying much attention. There were claims that it was a runaway student who was being dragged back by his ear. Yes, his. Rafael had noticed that the male population tended to think of Hogwarts as their home more so than the females did so why would he run away? Rafael didn’t dwell on it much and so he put the gossip to the back of his mind. He instead focused on the fact that he had the most awful timetable mankind could ever even think of creating for him for the day ahead.

However begrudgingly it was done so, Rafael made it down to the Dungeons and he entered the Potions classroom. He was unsurprised to find it empty as there had been a crowd of people behind him for most of the way. He left the door open and walked inside, a spring in his step for a reason he wasn’t willing to divulge. He looked up and smiled warmly at the professor before wishing the man good morning. Rafael then took one of the aisle seats and unloaded his bag, careful not to smash any of the vials as he did so.

Perhaps Stefan was a little too good with memory charms. In fact, he was too good with them because in his mind, Elijah remembered vividly a great percentage of his first fourteen years of life. Everything else just seemed to be a weird add on that explained why he was seventeen and, apparently, rather toned. That was the first thing that had told Elijah he wasn’t exactly himself was his hand in relation to his face. Then a few days after the St. Mungo’s escapade, he’d really discovered himself – or rather, the body he found himself in. He’d known it was him because there were a few tell-tale signs that it was his body – burn marks, Nachash and scars were some of the dead giveaways. If not for them then Elijah would have truly doubted that what he was seeing in the mirror was himself. It was him though and it was a pity Robert’s abrupt spell work hadn’t pulled back the confident, borderline cocky, seventeen-year-old. No, he still had the emotional temperament he had when he was fourteen.

That was why he was so shocked by Amelia’s words. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t heard the scorn before but it wasn’t something he expected from her, and definitely not as strongly as it came through. His mother had treated him with a great amount of disdain and his father had always followed suit. Their words were always cruel but their tones betrayed their indifference. Amelia’s words were innocent, as blue as day, in comparison to her tone.

Elijah swallowed and put his hands on the rim of his cauldron, gripping it tightly in an attempt to keep his self and his emotions level. He cleared his throat and dropped his eyes to the box of potions ingredients. He opened it up and directed his thoughts to something else – anything else – he even thought about Irina for a few moments before the idea of a half-brother became too much. He needed to face her words, however cutting and however painful they were. He could take this, he knew he could. Actually, he was just guessing. He had to take it like a man. He wasn’t a mouse; he was a cat – something else he discovered – but not just any cat, a tiger. She didn’t scare him!

Liar, liar pants on fire! the childish part of his subconscious sang.

“Glamorous?” Elijah repeated scornfully, shocked by his own acidic response. “Hardly. Don’t just assume things, Amelia. I asked you a simple enough question and you only had to answer it. Small talk isn’t your bag, I know, but you can at least be civil. I am sorry, I truly am. Given the chance to do it all over I never would have done what I did.” Although he gave no hint as to what he was referring. “Can I please make it up to you? I’ve done wrong. I knew that even then and now I’ve been given...a new outlook whether I like it or not. I want you to stop loathing me the way you do. You have every right to hate me, I know this, but I want to melt the ice between us, Mia. I have missed you.” He admitted the last part quietly and swallowed before striking a match and lighting the burner underneath his cauldron. He leaned over and did the same for Amelia’s before waving the flame away. “Please give me a chance,” he murmured, searching her face to give him any indication as to what her reply would be.

It was a difficult call to make. Athena didn’t know whether she was ever going to show up in Potions again, let alone go there today. But after another letter detailing a list of suitors for her from her mother, Athena couldn’t think of a worst class to go to. She figured she had better go, though. So, after putting up her head of curls in a high pony-tail, Athena left the common room where she’d had breakfast and she sauntered down the corridor towards the Potions classroom. There was something brighter about this part of the dungeons – probably because it wasn’t being manned by the Head of Slytherin. She had often heard about Professor Snape from her father and she couldn’t think of anyone better to have as a Potions Professor. This one was a miserable oaf asshole.

“Good Morning all,” she greeted them all with faux cheer before dumping her bag down on the table she chose near the back. Athena flicked her want at it, making the items within spring out and assemble themselves on her desk. With that dealt with, she took her book from her bag, swept her bag under the table and took a seat before opening up. Then once again she swathed herself in the sixteenth century.

A rare streak of bravery was what made Ariel unwind the bandage he’d tied around his upper arm the night before when the wound had reopened. He didn’t care to remember how he’d done it but he knew it had hurt and he knew it would be a B**** to have to tie back up again. He instead decided that it would be best to go and get it seen to so that was exactly what he did. He went up to the Hospital Wing and had it sorted before he went to the kitchens to make himself some breakfast. He made short work of his breakfast, not really having the stomach for it after the round of anti-inflammatory and anti-infection potions the matron had shoved down his throat.

He stormed out of the kitchens, not having the energy for the House Elves, and made to the Potions classroom in record time. The door was already open so he didn’t have to worry about making a dramatic entrance. He entered, the expensive shoes he’d bought with Richard’s money, hitting the cobbled floor. He threw his things down beside Athena and flicked his wand into a similar fashion to hers and set the things out before sitting down in his chair. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair before looking over at her and sending her a smirk. “Alright, Thea?”