Chapter Ten

"Try and steal one of the toad lady's quills for me, okay?" Holly whispered to Ivy as she sat down at the Gryffindor table.

Ivy stuffed a sausage in her mouth. "Why?"

Holly grabbed a goblet and poured herself some eggnog. "So I can see how she made it." Holly looked at the pitcher in her hand. "You know I almost feel bad taking this from the Slytherin table every day. Maybe we should talk to those house elves about it."

"I'll see what I can do about the quill." Ivy snickered, "You know, I'm not sure the house elves will appreciate you sneaking into the kitchen to tell them you want another pitcher of eggnog at a different table."

Holly shrugged. "I'm just thinking about that poor guy who keeps trying to stop me. I'm pretty sure he's going to hurt himself if he keeps getting in the way of my hand and the eggnog pitcher."

Ivy laughed, making Jack and Hermione turn to look at them. "I can't believe it! You sock Draco Malfoy, the biggest bully of all the bullies here, every day to get some eggnog and you're feeling sorry about it? Holly, you've got the weirdest conscience ever!"

Holly grinned. "It's not weird! I just feel bad for punching him every morning just to get a pitcher of eggnog when there are easier ways to get it."

"At least he's learning how to share," Jack cut in.

Holly rolled her eyes. "And of course this is the best way to teach him that."

"Yep!" Ivy and Jack affirmed.

Holly shook her head. "Whatever." She then grabbed a muffin, signaling the end of the conversation.

After a brief, uncomfortable silence, Jack turned to Ivy and Hermione. "Where are Harry and Ron?"

Both girls shrugged. "They're probably upstairs finishing up their homework," Hermione suggested. "Which reminds me. Holly, did you finish the Ancient Runes assignment?"

Holly nodded. "Yeah. How about you?"

Hermione nodded and leaned forward. "Oh, yes. Did you have trouble on the third passage? I found it rather difficult to discern the difference between ruler and servant. They seem so similar."

"That's because the people whose runes we're studying thought of their rulers as servants of the people," Holly explained, grabbing a napkin and drawing the runes. "That's why those two runes are so similar. They wanted that ideal to be shown in their writings. The runes for enemy, oppressor, and tyrant are similar for the same reasons."

"That's so interesting!" Hermione exclaimed. "Where did you learn that?"

Holly blushed. "I had a teacher at my last school who was very interested in that," she lied. Telling Hermione that she had grown up reading and writing those runes was definitely not an option. "She'd point those similarities out every time we came to them."

Luckily, Hermione bought it. "That's so cool! Perhaps you could show me more of them later!"

Holly nodded. "Sounds like fun!"

"Well, I'm glad you two nerds are having fun," Ivy cut in, waving her knife in the air between the two. "But I think we'd better be heading to our classes now. You know, if we want to be on time."

Jack tossed a grape at her. "You're no fun!"

Ivy grabbed at her heart, acting as if he had given her a fatal wound. "Jack, I'm hurt! I'm loads of fun! I just realized that most of the other students are gone."

Jack looked around and realized that most of the students had left the Great Hall. "Oh."

Holly laughed and stood up. "Fine. See you in Potions, Jack."

When Holly walked into Potions, Jack was saving her a spot.

"What took you so long?" Jack whispered.

Holly shrugged. "I was busy. Besides, it's a long walk from Transfiguration down here."

"Quiet, everyone." Snape said as he stalked into the room. "Today you'll be making Draught of Peace. I doubt I need tell you Ravenclaws the dangers of doing this potion incorrectly, but for the rest of you Hufflepuffs, be warned. One wrong ingredient, one missed step, and your potion could put the drinker in an endless sleep." He tapped the blackboard with his wand and words appeared on it. "These are the ingredients and procedures. You have the rest of the class period to work on the potion." Then he swished behind his desk and sat down, glaring over his nose at the class.

Holly and Jack walked over to the student supplies cabinet. As Jack read off the ingredients, Holly grabbed them from the shelves and put what they needed into her cauldron.

"We need eel eyes?" Jack frowned.

Holly took a glass jar from the middle shelf. "I guess so. How many do we need?"

Jack looked back at the blackboard. "Six, three for each of us."

Holly grimaced. "Great. I hate these. The texture is so weird."

Jack grinned. "Maybe you should grab a few extra. You know, just in case either of us mess up."

Holly glared at him. "I haven't messed up for centuries. If you mess up, you're just going to have to work with it. This is a very long brewing potion."

"Thanks for the advice." Jack's grin grew. "I'll be sure to remember that." Then he noticed Holly had slipped a few more potions ingredients from the student stores. "What are those for?"

Holly looked down at the ingredients sheepishly. "Ivy and I figured out a way to lessen the brewing time considerably a few decades back. These are the extra ingredients we had to use."

Jack rolled his eyes and finished reading out the ingredients on the blackboard to Holly. "…and we need syrup of hellebore." Holly grabbed one last phial of liquid and picked up her cauldron. "Alright! Let's get brewing!"

Jack soon realized that Potions was not going to be his best class. No matter what he tried, he couldn't stir his cauldron without ice forming around his wand. Holly, when she wasn't working on her potion, would watch to make sure he was doing everything else right.

"You just need a sprig of dried valerian, not a bunch."

"Step away from it very slowly, very slowly. Good. Now maybe it will heat up enough in seven minutes that you won't be adding that hellebore to a block of ice."

About halfway through the lesson, Jack turned to see Holly adding a little bit of a greenish liquid to her cauldron. "What's that?" he asked a bit abruptly.

"Essence of Peppermint," Holly explained, wafting the vessel under his nose. The sharp tang of mint greeted him and he nodded.

"What does it do?"

"Gives the potion a nice taste," Holly grinned. Then, as an afterthought, she added, "And it counteracts the stinksap." She looked over his shoulder at his cauldron. "I think you might want to stir that again."

Jack spun to see a green haze and purple sparks emanating from his cauldron. He grabbed his wand and whisked it through the potion a few times. Eventually he sighed and motioned Holly over. "D'ya think he'll accept a popsicle?" Holly snorted and shook her head.

"Let me try to help you. My potion just needs to rest for a few minutes, then it'll be done." Holly looked at the clock. "Looks like we've got fifteen minutes left. How about restarting the burner beneath your cauldron and then slowly start swirling your wand around. But don't focus on the potion," she added hastily. "Focus on something else. Ask me something. What do you want to talk about?"

Jack thought for a minute. "How did you and Ivy become legends?"

Holly shook her head. "Save that for when we're with Ivy. Pick something else."

Jack nodded. "Okay then. Why didn't I ever meet you guys till after the battle with Pitch?"

"Who's to say you didn't pass us by whenever you could have seen us? It doesn't seem like you were that focused on other immortal beings." Holly shrugged, "Of course, we didn't try too terribly hard to meet you till after the battle. But when we did! Do you know it took Ivy and me three weeks to catch up with you? We stopped at the Pole, the Warren, Tooth's Palace, even Burgess! Everywhere we went, you had just left, or they hadn't seen you for a bit. It was so aggravating!" Holly grinned. "That's why Ivy pounced on you when we finally met. She didn't want you to disappear. So, I think it was partially your fault we didn't meet sooner. You can stop stirring now."

Jack stared at her for a minute, then realized that she meant he could stop stirring his cauldron. "Oh."

Holly leaned over and looked at his potion. "That's as good as it's gonna get. At least the smoke is silver, if it is a little thick. And it isn't spitting sparks anymore. That's good. You should probably put it in a phial and mark it as yours."

Just then, Professor Snape announced that there were just ten minutes left and that a light silver vapor should be rising off their potions. Holly grinned and winked at Jack. Then she got out one of her phials, poured a bit of her potion in, stopped the top, and stuck a label on it. Jack carefully poured out a portion of his potion and sealed the top. After carefully writing his name and house on a label, he stuck the label on the miniature flask.

"Now what?" He asked Holly, not noticing the frost forming on the glass container in his hand.

"Now we clean up, put these on the front desk, and leave," Holly said, pouring the rest of her potion into a larger flask.

"Do I need to save the rest of my potion, too?"

"Nope. Just wave your wand over your cauldron like this and say 'Evanesco'. That'll basically make the potion in your cauldron disappear." Holly stuffed the flask and her cauldron in her bag and stood up, shouldering it.

Jack followed Holly's instructions, then followed her to the front of the room. As they were walking out the door, Snape called Jack back in.

"What is the meaning of this?" He growled, holding up Jack's potion.

"What?" Jack asked confusedly.

"Your potion!" He sneered. "Why is it frozen?"

Jack stared at the vial in Snape's hand. Sure enough, the potion was frozen solid. Jack turned to Holly, who shrugged. Turning back to Snape, he saw that a cruel smile was starting to form on the Potion Master's lips. Instinctively, Jack grabbed his staff from his pocket and froze Snape's head.

Holly snorted behind him and pulled him through the doorway. "C'mon. The faster we get away, the less likely it is that you'll get a detention tonight." Once they were on the main level, she turned to him. "Okay. We should be safe now. See you at lunch." She waved and walked away, towards the staircases.

At first, Ivy's second detention with the toad lady was kind of boring. She and Harry walked in to Umbridge's office, sat down silently at the table, and quickly got to work. After a little while, Ivy mumbled a spell under her breath. Umbridge started coughing umcontrollably. While she stumbled over to a teapot, Ivy stuffed her quill in her pocket and pulled out an exact replica that she had made after dinner. Setting it beside her parchment, she grabbed a pink lozenge from another pocket.

"Would you like a cough drop?" Ivy offered the tablet to Umbridge.

The professor nodded and snatched the 'cough drop' up. She popped it in her mouth and her coughing stopped.

"I think that's enough for tonight. Let me see your hands." Umbridge said a bit breathlessly.

Ivy and Harry let her inspect their hands, then left.

"You're lucky that was your last detention," Harry sighed, rubbing his stinging hand.

Ivy shrugged and inspected her fading scars. "I don't know. I'll have to put some cream on this if I want it to stay."

Harry stared at her. "You want your scars?"

Ivy nodded. "Of course! Look what I wrote!"

Harry stared at her hand. There, in big cursive letters was 'Ivy LURVES Jack!'

"You like it?" Ivy asked after he had stared for a few minutes. "I'm pretty sure Holly will hate it, but that's just because I wrote 'lurves' instead of 'loves'."

Harry slowly shook his head. "How did you get that past Umbridge?"

Ivy grinned. "I put a glamour on what I wrote. And on my hand." Ivy paused at the turn to Gryffindor tower. "I've got to go meet Holly. I'll see you later, okay?" As Harry nodded, she raced off in the opposite direction.