For the QLFC S3 - Round 7
"This is a new potion I made," Rowena announces excitedly. Surrounding her, almost as if playing some bizarre game of show and tell with dangerous and new concoctions, are the rest of them in a small semicircle. "It'll theoretically lightly compel the user to say what's on their mind."
She looks expectantly around.
"That's great, Rowena," Salazar says distractedly. Normally he would be paying a little more attention but 67℅ of his energy is focused on convincing Godric that diving into the Black Lake with his birthday suit on is not a good idea in the dead of winter. He's not winning the argument.
Rowena harrumphs at the lackluster reaction. She then turns to Helga, who smiles and nods thoughtfully "How fascinating," she says. "What's it called?"
Rowena practically beams at the question. She flops down on the cushy seat next to Helga and holds out the clear potion in front of her.
"Veritaserum," she declares, with just the right amount of emphasis. "Veritas, meaning truth is Latin and also after Veritas,the Roman goddess of truth."
Helga 'oohs' appropriately at that.
"It's still in its experimental stage though," Rowena admits. "But I have no doubt that once I refine it a bit more, I can start testing it."
"Just not on the students," Helga says with a laugh.
"Maybe I'll find out once and for all if they've actually practiced like I asked!" Rowena jokes back.
Despite that, the new potion slips as easily out of their mind as water through their fingers. Life goes on at Hogwarts, where it's just the four of them during the winter months. Rowena still works slowly on it, and her rough potion slowly transforms itself. From a mud coloured concoction, it becomes clear and odorless. It becomes pure.
It's fitting, Rowena thinks. Veritaserum is clear and straight-forward, just like water, how truth and justice should be. She allows the cauldron to cool before carefully pouring it into a flask. Then, she plugs it and stores it in the dark and cool storage with her other potions.
She's finally finished. There's a satisfaction in that where nothing else will compare. Veritaserum is complete.
And then at this point, Rowena sets the potion aside and pushes it into the back of her mind in favour of taking care of Godric, who's suffering from an extreme case of both hypothermia and stupidity. Unfortunately, only one of those has a cure.
Together, they spend the rest of the cold winter in that way — holed up in their castle with the fireplaces constantly burning and it's just the four of them sharing ale and waiting for the spring to come. All their students will return in the spring as well.
"I was thinking of building some dorms, maybe, for all those orphaned children we get," Helga murmurs one sleepy evening.
Salazar looks up from his book. "That's not a bad idea, actually. Not like we don't have plenty of room here."
"Alright!' Godric says, jumping up from the floor. "It's decided then. Once this weather changes, we're changing the castle again!"
Warm and toasty and happy, Rowena joins in their hushed talks on the thicks rugs lining the floors. She feels like she's a child again, safe in her mother's embrace.
...
Spring comes slowly, then all at once. Their first student comes running through the halls, shouting gleeful greetings that echo through back at him. The four of them emerge out of their rooms and exchange peasantries with her.
"We'll start teaching again once more students have arrived," Rowena says to her.
Her face falls dramatically at that. "I wanted to get ahead," she says. "Oh well. I guess I'll hang around here for now."
She goes off, to maybe explore the grounds again. Maybe she's off to say hello to the Giant Squid. It doesn't really matter, because her contagious excitement has already spread to them.
"I hope more students come soon!" Helga says. Rowena can't help but agree.
And yet, with the students comes another complication.
As the winter thaws and the spring is well and truly here, Rowena all but forgets about her potion in her cupboard. And one chilly spring morning, she sends her students to grab something from it.
What she doesn't know is that, as they snatch the right potions off the shelf, they notice another clear flask of liquid inside. What she doesn't know is that they puzzle at it, wondering how their sharp teacher could forget something like a flask full of water in her potions cupboard.
What she doesn't know is that they take it out.
And so she continues in her lesson and her ignorance until nightfall. It happens in an instant.
She and Helga, walking by a study table. A group of students. A single student, crowded and jeered at by his peers. A single student with tears running down his face as he talks.
Rowena frowns at the scene, and storms over, Helga following worriedly behind.
"What," she asks sharply, "is going on here? And don't waste my time with excuses."
They turn and look up at her, not with faces of shame, but of excitement. Excitement as their peer cries, snot dripping from his nose and trembling so hard his hand repeatedly bumps against the table. It's this that unnerves her the most.
"Thomas'll tell the truth of anything you ask him! Look!" a dark haired student, Chance, grins toothily, as if expecting to be praised. "How did you lose your virginity, yeah?"
Thomas cries harder but his mouth still stutters out the words. "M-my mother r-raped me when I was a child."
Rowena's world abruptly stops. She hears the quiet intake of breath from Helga behind her and the raucous laughter of the group of boys, but all she can she is the terrified eyes of Thomas begging her to do something.
Her anger swells.
Her hand clamps down on Chance, and yanks him to his feet. Sending a cold glance to the other boys causes them to quickly scramble up as well, and she strides to the front entrance of the school.
When they've arrived, she faces them all in a row, her face an impenetrable wall.
"Do not come back," she says tightly. "This kind of behaviour is not welcome at Hogwarts."
Ignoring their stunned expressions, she then turns and strides right back to where Thomas is, where Helga remained to take care of him. She's soothingly murmuring to him under her breath, and glances up at Rowena's entrance. She doesn't ask.
Instead, she nods her head at a flask sitting on the table. "I think that might be the cause of the... strange events."
Rowena picks it up, examines it. It looks just like water, but it can't be. No, not water at all. Why would it be in a potion flask...? Her mind comes to a rapid conclusion and all the blood drains out of her body.
Without another word, she sprints to her potions cupboard and yanks the door open. Pushing aside flask upon flask, her frantic eyes quickly scan the small space and—
Nothing.
Rowena stares numbly down at the potion, the Veritaserum in her hands. As if in a trance, she walks over to the window and makes as if to throw the stupid thing away.
She's going to do it
She has to to.
She...
doesn't do it.
Rowena's fingers clench tight on the neck of the flask and shame and self-hatred fill her chest. She shoves it in the back of her shelf and tries to forget what Thomas' eyes had looked like, begging her to make it stop.
She had created a monstrosity. Veritaserum wasn't compelling the truth. It was the forcing of truth, no matter what the cost.
But there's nothing to be done now.
Later, as she and Helga sit in their shared living room explaining to the others why there are now six less students attending and what the cause is, she pretends she doesn't see the interested gleam in Salazar's eyes.
When her potion disappears a month later, she says nothing.