"Penny checks her hands once, twice even, before she tugs you into her arms to say thank you for hunting down that spare cauldron or rubs your back to soothe the sting of tonight's Great Hall gossip. Even so, touching her comes with the risk of brushing against the remains of any number of dangerous potions. It's still worth it."
She slipped into the Artifact Room with a spare cauldron tucked under one arm and a sense of foreboding weighing heavy on her shoulders. It wasn't unusual for Penny to ask for help for one project or another, but it was strange for her to send the Fat Friar to accost her on her way to the Great Hall for dinner, begging on Penny's behalf for a spare cauldron to be delivered to her favorite clandestine brewing spot. Penny certainly got in less trouble than most of her friends, but after the day she'd had, she wasn't keen on trouble of any sort. Still, a friend in need was a friend in need.
"You brought it!" Penny grinned at her from where she sat cross-legged in front of her own bubbling cauldron, a collection of open books and half-empty ingredient jars scattered around her and a sack of sandwiches heaped precariously close to the cauldron. "You're a lifesaver, you know that?"
"All in a day's work. Besides, the Fat Friar did make your request sound pretty urgent...What are you making anyway?" She leaned over the cauldron from a safe distance to get a better look at the hazy green concoction, then hastily retreated as the smoke rising from its surface stung her unprotected eyes. She could never be quite sure with Penny's potions. Some were as mild as pancake syrup while others seemed to border on illegality. Still, given how similar her own "hobbies" were, she couldn't blame the other girl for liking a bit of variety. She set the requested spare cauldron down as gently as she could—just in case the new experiment had any explosive tendencies—and settled on the floor next to Penny to investigate.
"I'm not entirely sure," Penny murmured absently, stretching forward to sprinkle an assortment of unidentified powders and elixirs into the new cauldron. "I know what effects I'm looking for, but I think we'll have to wait and see what I actually end up with after the second brewing stage and the combination of the two halves of the potion."
"That sounds a bit ominous."
"Maybe, but that's half the fun." Penny grinned as wickedly as her angelic face would allow and dug into the bag of sandwiches to offer one to the other girl. "Sandwich? You don't have to, of course—no need for you to skip dinner to watch a pot just because I am, but I thought you might like—"
"I don't mind. Pot-watching is a lonely business, after all. You shouldn't have to do it all by yourself. And I'm in the mood for some peace and quiet, anyway."
"Peace and quiet? You?" Penny narrowed her eyes shrewdly, almost as if she'd been waiting for something to pounce on. "Are you alright?"
"I...I'm fine. Just a bit tired of crowds," she muttered around a bite of ham and cheese. Penny could always be trusted to see right to the heart of things, even when she didn't particularly want her to. It was true that she was always ready to pitch in with tasks like fetching emergency cauldrons, but tonight did involve a certain amount of ulterior motive. With Rita Skeeter's latest appearance and her accusations about the source of the school's many curses, Hogwarts had been buzzing with rumors and gossip all day. Most of it about her. When she got the chance to avoid dinner in the Great Hall and the parade through the gauntlet of whispers and stares that came with it, she had pounced on it.
"This wouldn't have anything to do with that reporter, would it?"
"No."
Penny arched a brow at her and took a casual bite of her own sandwich, apparently content to wait for the truth.
"Maybe a little." She heaved a sigh and wilted against the shelves at her back. "It's just that it's been five years. I was hoping most people would be past believing that I'm some sort of walking curse by now! It doesn't usually bother me that much anymore, but it gets...hard to stomach sometimes."
"I know, and I'm sorry people are being so horrible about it again." Penny let out a sympathetic hum and dropped her sandwich back in its paper wrapper. She dusted off her hands on her robes and leaned over to hook an arm around her shoulders that—despite smelling slightly of powdered newt and essence of dittany— made her feel more relaxed than she had ever since that rotten beetle of a woman had come nosing around again. "After so many years of you risking your neck for ours, they really ought to be more grateful."
"Well...they can't all be as understanding as you Hufflepuffs." She snickered at the huff of indignation that comment prompted, but didn't protest Penny's hand rubbing comforting strokes up and down her back.
"Maybe not," Penny said primly, her gaze shifting back to the tiny flames blazing beneath each cauldron and turning slightly steely when she spoke. "But that doesn't excuse their unkindness."
The room went comfortably silent apart from the cheerful pops and gurgles of the potions and the distant rumble and clatter of the Great Hall. She frowned then, mulling over the oddity of the situation. Who at Hogwarts knew every tidbit of gossip that traveled through its corridors? Who would never be the last to know about anyone's hurt feelings? And who could concoct a last-minute friendly ambush better than anyone else?
"Penny, did you actually need to borrow my cauldron?"
"No," Penny admitted as she flashed a subtly sly smile and gave her friend another squeeze around the shoulders that warmed her all the way through. "But you needed to be borrowed for a while, so I improvised."
She let out a bark of laughter and let herself lean into the snug embrace. "Are you quite sure you shouldn't have been sorted into Slytherin?"
"Hufflepuffs are allowed to be clever, too. Particularly when we're looking after our friends."
"Well," she said, savoring the fact that the hurt and irritation of the rest of the day had been pushed to the back of her mind—at least for the moment—by something so simple. "You certainly have a talent for that."
