Not your typical orientation

Keith was rather impressed with himself.

He had never used the Room of Requirement much before - he always found it a tad too easy, like the professors had bugged it and were just waiting for him to waltz in so they could jump out from behind a cleverly placed potted plant and mock him for falling for such an obvious trap.

But with the Spice buisness steadily expanding, he needed to expand. And the Room of Requirement was certainly useful, supplying him with all of the materials, if not the ingredients, nessecary to create Spice. There were cauldrons, plenty of room, even a few books on the darker side of theoretical potions making that Keith guessed must've been pulled from the restricted section of the library.

Hell, even the decorations were nice. There were banners with the Ravenclaw colors draped across the wall, and in the middle of the room was a huge bronze statue of him grinning with two thumbs up. Classy, magical closet. Real classy.

He still needed one more thing though - manpower. And that was what he was here to address.

Wally had proven herself very useful when they had run into each other at the Three Broomsticks, and watching her in potions class revealed to Keith a very organized, analytical mind - the perfect contrast, he figured, to his spectacular but sporadic bursts of genius.

Yes, it was time to greet the rookie. Keith could hardly wait.

Wally made her way up to the corridor that led to the Room of Requirement. She had only figured out the secret to entering the room that year. She had entered the room first year by mistake when running away from a Charms experiment gone wrong. She had sort of accidentally exploded a suit of armor and rather than facing the wrath of the prefects and Head of House she had just run away.

She had never claimed to be a Gryffindor and that had been before her total hatred of all authority.

She made her way up in her usual casual stroll, fast enough to imply she had somewhere to go, slow enough to imply she really cared little about impressing anyone. She had her heavy backpack slung on her shoulder, bouncing heavily against her back as she walked down the corridor.

She entered the room and immediately took a step back, her vision impeded by the sight of a huge statue of Keith. She blinked, looking between the statue and the boy that occupied the room. She blinked, as though clearing all surprise from her being, and turned to Keith. "You know, this room gives us what it wants. It could reveal a lot about one's character." She raised her eyebrows and smirked, one expression that showed that she was not a robot and she stepped inside closing the door.

She looked around, unslinging her bag and dropping it softly on the ground. "I brought some ingredients," she said, poking her bag with her foot. "What are we doing?"

Kent waved her comment off. "Character shamaracter," he said with an easy grin, holding his thumbs up in an imitation of the statue. "I have a giant statue of myself. Life is good."

She shrugged off her bag and asked what they were doing, so kent swooped down and plucked it off the floor, opening it up and rifling through it. "Ooh, you actually brought Belladonna leaves," he said, pulling out a plastic baggie of still green leaves. "Fresh too. I needed some of these." He opened the bag and took a whiff, nodding in satisfaction. "Ah, nightshade. You have to bog this stuff down with some cow or rabbit innards - they can eat the plant without adverse affects you know - unless you're looking for a really intense high."

He snapped his fingers, looking back at Wally and grinning wider. "That's right. You're still not completely aware of my...line of work, shall we say?" He nodded and reached into his pocket, pulling out a small vial. There was a blue liquid inside, electric blue with veins of silver running though it. "This," he said, tossing the vial to Wally, "Is Spice."

He walked over to a cabinet and tossed the belladonna leaves inside, no particular organization. "At the end of my - our first year here, I was working an extra credit project for potions, you see. But I got something mixed up and didn't really know what I ended up with. I consulted Amelia - the new potions teacher, remember when she was a student? And after a bit of beating around the bush I realized what I had." He paused for dramatic effect and arched an eyebrow. "Liquid galleons.

"That's what this shit is Wally. You wanna know a little secret?" He asked. "Hogwarts is full of little rich kids who have just gotten out from under their parents' wings. They go straight for the firewhiskey, and once you've had a few of those...you're not thinking to straight, am I right?" He asked with a small laugh. "So the next logical step...is Spice." He motioned towards a large cauldron, smoking merrily away off in the corner. "Easy, quick, hard to detect...and ridiculously addictive. A few weeks is all it takes before your body literally stops functioning without it. It's the greatest thing I've ever made," he said, "and you're going to help me make it better."

Wally smirked slightly, shaking her head, and dragged the bag with her to the foot of the statue. She released the bag and Keith started to rummage through it, not that she minded, as she raised a fist to the statue and rapped her knuckles against the statue. The echoing boom implied that the statue was actual real bronze. She could not deny, it was impressive.

Keith spoke behind her and she nodded. "Yeah, I have an anxious mother trying to buy my love. I have access to a lot of potion ingredients." It was true. She sent a list of what she wanted and her twitchy mother was quick to send her all Wally's little heart desired. And if it was too awkward to send, she would send a small bundle of money.

Keith continued on and the nature of what he was saying was enough for her to drag her eyes off the statue and turn to see the nonmetal version grinning devilishly at her.He said she was still in the dark about some aspects of his creation and she blinked, waiting for him to elaborate. He pulled out a vial and tossed it to her. She reached up and deftly caught it, looking at it quizzically.

Wally listened to his spheel and about halfway through, she smiled. "So you're a drug dealer," she said, her voice unfamiliarly joking. She did not joke. And the content of her statement was not really a joke either. Yet she had an odd amused expression on her face. He stated her job and she looked up, before tossing it back to him. "Sure thing. If we go to Askaban before we graduate, my mum will kill you, though."

Keith caught the vial, putting it carefully back in it's place, and grinned. "Don't worry about Azkaban," he said, stirring one of the cauldrons until it began to emit puffs of blue-grey smoke. "I've done my research. Since Spice is completely new and they haven't officially classed it as an illegal drug yet, I would fall under distribution of addictive potions without a permit, third degree. I'm a minor, so Azkaban is out of the question for something like that. A hefty fine and a shitload of community service maybe, but I'm prepared."

He began rifling through the nearest cabinet and grabbed a small plastic baggie filled with a white, sandy substance. "You would be an accomplice, and if they ever catch us you just have to swear ignorance to Spice's more addictive tendencies. You should get off with a small fine and a slap on the wrist, so no problem there." He shrugged. "And besides, I'm very careful. Everything is hush-hush - contracts are signed so that neither party can reveal the other party to anyone, so I can't tell you who I deal to any more than they can tell you who deals to them. It's a pretty elaborate system - I don't hand this stuff out like candy you know. Too much at risk for carelessness."

Wally smirked over at Keith. He really had this figured out, then, didn't he. She vaguely wondered how long he had been working on this Spice thing. It obviously was not a new development, there sounded as if there had been months of trials and errors to get where he was now. She idily considered why she had not heard of it yet. Oh, right- no friends. And her siblings thought she had the plague.

Ah well.

She would rather deal with adolescent drug dealers anyway. She nodded as he finished up his ascertation of the illegailty of their actions- she had said her mother would mind. Her young mind did not quite understand consequences quite yet. "Small fine is fine by me. I won't have to pay it." She grinned. "So what's first?"

"First," Keith said, rubbing his hands together eagerly, "is the tour. You've met mega-Keith," he said, pointing to the giant bronze statue, "and over there is the brewing area," he said, motioning towards the long row of columns, all puffing different color smokes that seemed to dance in the air above their respective cauldrons. "This," he said, walking over to the far corner of the room, "is the research and development area."

The research and development area was basically a corner with a lot of chalkboards. A few books were piled haphazardly on a bookcase up against the wall, and a small desk was nestled in the corner, but the wall was dominated by a massive chalkboard with several different equations scrawled over it. "This is where you'll be doing most of your work, at least at first," Keith said. "I need innovation - less potent Spice, less expensive materials - anything that can save me money or attract more people to the market. This," he said, circling a huge equation, "is the current Sugar model - a non-addictive, non hallucinogenic version of Spice that I want to use to make candy." He grinned. "But that's neither here nor there. I need you developing a more mild version of Spice, preferably something you can smoke - I think it would make a great gateway drug to the more hardcore versions I offer." He shrugged. "You work on your own time, you get a could galleons a week - more, when you start showing results, and that's it. Not a bad gig huh?"

He walked back over towards his statue and smiled. "So what's your deal exactly Wally? I want to get to know my new partner."

Wally followed Keith around the room as he showed her each part of the space where it seemed she would be working from now on. She rolled her eyes with a smirk as they passed the statue again, though she could not say she was unamused. She glanced over at the brewing area, sniffing and identifying various ingredients from her quickest senses.

He brought her to the place that she was going to be working from now on, according to Keith. She blinked and strode closer, sitting at the chair, pleased to find it was a spinny chair. She swung from left to right, placing her palms on the desk, looking around and getting a feel for her work area. She nodded. "I can do this," she said, affriming that this worked for her.

He explained her job and she nodded, finding that ideas were already beginning to formulate in her head. She figured she could come in here when she had breaks, when she finished lunch early, when she wanted to sneak out of the dorm, or she wanted to ditch. Now she actually had somewhere to go, something to do, a home base she could escape to.

He suddenly turned the conversation into a much more personal sense. Wally blinked. "Not much to know. I'm going to work hard. I have no distractions. Don't worry about that."

"I'm not worrying," Keith said with a shrug. "I'm just curious. You're quiet. You're focused. Ok, I get that. But you're not some kind of robot. There's a person under there." He grinned slightly. "Unless you are actually a robot. In which case, you have to tell me. Company policy.

"But seriously," he continued, "there's got to be something that sets you apart. You've got to have some sort of deal. Everyone has one. I'm the weird kid who never shows up for class and is always setting things on fire...you get the idea. So what's your deal, Wally. Describe yourself in a sentence."