Chapter 12

"That can't be right," Vivienne insisted, jabbing her quill at the textbook. Her eyebrows were furrowed together. "You just told me that greenworm neutralizes the effect of the powdered fangs. So why put it in at all? Can't we just leave them both out?"

Freya wanted to groan. Her head ached, and she was tired of studying, but Vivienne refused to give up. She took a deep breath and calmed herself down before responding. "The greenworm cancels out the poisonous effect of the powdered fangs. Forget that, and the entire potion could become fatal. You can't just leave them out."

"But what if you-"

"Viv, please!" Freya begged. "I'm tired, I want to go to bed!"

"And if you go to bed, how the bloody hell am I going to get an E?" Vivienne demanded, turning to look at her friend. "The OWLS are just two or three months away, and you're my only hope!"

"Merlin, Viv, I'll buy you the bloody broom if you'll let me sleep."

"It's not about the broom anymore!" Vivienne cried, incredulously. "Freya, don't you understand? This is a matter of pride! Regulus Black thinks I'm a silly girl who has no brains, and can't get a decent grade without influencing the professor. I can't let him get away with saying that! I have dignity!"

Freya raised an eyebrow. "Well, your dignity isn't going to live very long. At this rate, I'd be surprised if you scraped an A on your Potions OWL. Can't you just concentrate on other subjects? You're not half bad at Charms, you could ace that."

"I don't care about Charms. I need to do well in Potions."

Freya shook her head, gathering her books while trying to keep her eyes open. "Well, I'm done for tonight. I'm meeting Rabastan in the morning, and I doubt I'll be able to get up in time."

"Is your boyfriend really more important than my dignity?"

Freya didn't reply. She left Vivienne sitting alone in the common room, with a growing sense of despair. Vivienne had been extremely confident a little while ago, but now she wasn't so sure. Having slacked off the entire year, the pile of studying in front of her was more than she could manage in just over two months. Even if she abandoned all her other subjects, it was a tall task.

Stealing a broom might be easier, Vivienne admitted to herself. But she looked up and saw that Regulus Black was sitting on the other side of the common room. He was talking to a fellow Slytherin, but when Vivienne looked up, their eyes met. His grey orbs were watching her with a careless confidence, and anger stirred in Vivienne's stomach. Who did he think he was? She could do this. Vivienne didn't lose, especially not to Regulus Black. She shot him a dirty look before turning back to her books.

"What are you doing?" a voice asked, sounding slightly shocked. Vivienne put her quill down, ready to scream at whoever it was that dared interrupt her studying. Her brother was standing above her. Evan's eyebrows were raised so high up, they seemed to disappear into his hairline. "Are you studying? It's half past eleven on a Friday and you're sitting alone and studying."

"Sod off, Evan."

Evan looked bewildered. He reached a hand out and put it on his sister's forehead, testing to see if she had a temperature. "I think you're a little warm. You need to go to the Hospital Wing, clearly something's wrong with you."

Vivienne shoved his hand off her face. "I'm fine. I just want to do well on my Potions OWL, all right? Just because you're the worst student Slughorn had in over a century doesn't mean it has to run in the family! Leave me alone!"

Evan nodded. That was more like his sister. "Never mind. You're fine." He started to walk away, but Vivienne called him back.

"Evan, wait. I want to talk to you. Sit down a moment."

"All right."

"Tell me what you know about the examiners for the OWLs. Who did you get last year for your Potions practical?"

Evan looked thoughtful. "Well, I got Tofty. He's all right, I suppose. Didn't really mind much when my cauldron exploded, and he even took into account what I did before the accident. Gave me a P. Not good, but it could have been worse. Honestly, I wanted Henderson to judge my practical, but that was my bad luck. I didn't get him."

Vivienne raised an eyebrow. "Who's Henderson?"

"Father told me they used to work together in the Department of Magical Transportation for a bit, before Henderson was appointed as an OWL examiner. They didn't know each other very well, but I hoped there was a chance he might recognize my name. You keep your fingers crossed," Evan told her.

Vivienne nodded, smiling. "I will. Thanks, Evan."

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"So how's Malfoy doing?" Freya asked Rabastan, as they walked to dinner together. Her hand was enveloped in his, and she loved the feeling of his warm skin touching hers. "Narcissa told me all about the duel with the Gryffindors. I heard he was seriously injured."

Rabastan's eyes darkened. "He was. He's recovering, I suppose, but it'll be a while before Madame Pomfrey lets him go. They even contemplated sending him to St. Mungo's. Those bloody Gryffindors. I'd have cursed every last one of them if I'd been there."

The duel was all anyone could talk about, for the past few days. Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange and a few other Slytherins had challenged a handful of the sixth-year Gryffindors to a serious duel in the corridors. Rumour had it that someone had used dark magic and Lucius Malfoy had received almost fatal injuries. Narcissa had cried all night when she heard and she'd been spending all her evenings with him in the Hospital Wing. "Well, I hope he gets better soon. It's really awful. I can't believe someone would use such dark magic on a fellow student."

Rabastan nodded, though his thoughts seemed to be elsewhere. Once they reached the Great Hall, he smiled down at her. "Well, I should go sit with my friends. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Of course," Freya replied. Rabastan leaned down and kissed her quickly on the corner of her mouth. He squeezed her hand and Freya took a deep breath before finding her usual seat at the table. Vivienne was already there; piles of parchment were spread in front of her instead of food.

"What's all this?" Freya demanded, moving a stack of parchment aside so that she could reach for a plate. "I haven't seen you all day, where have you been?"

Vivienne didn't look up. Her face was buried in a sheaf of parchment, and she absent-mindedly reached out for a piece of bread and bit into it. "With Slughorn. I talked him into lending me some notes and study material. He gave me a load of useful textbooks too."

Freya raised an eyebrow at all the material. "Wow. And you just went right out and asked him for it?"

Vivienne grinned. "Please. He was more than happy to give it all to me. All I had to do was tell him that Father admired him for dedicating his life to teaching when he could easily get a much better salary in the Department of Magical Education, with his expertise."

Freya rolled her eyes as she filled her plate with food. "And Narcissa?"

"Off nursing her betrothed. He's going to be tired of her by the time he gets out of that Hospital Wing; you should really tell her not to overdo it. Now if you don't mind, I need to get back to the common room. I have about five more stacks of notes up in my dorm, and I need to go through all of them."

Freya simply raised an eyebrow and watched as her friend took a last bite of the bread and gathered up all her notes. It was almost insulting. For the last five years, Freya had been almost pleading Vivienne to take her studies more seriously, yet all it had taken now was a cute boy who knew how to press her buttons.

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Vivienne stared blankly into the fire. Slughorn's notes were spread all around her on the carpet; there hadn't been enough room on the table so she'd had to move to the floor. Her mind was swirling with mixtures, antidotes, side-effects and ingredients. She'd done more studying in the past two weeks than she'd done in most of her life. Her head was hurting and if she looked at another page she was afraid that she might hurl the entire lot of notes into the Great Lake in a fit.

"You do realize that staring at the notes isn't enough? You'll have to actually read them if you're going to get anywhere."

Vivienne flinched. She knew that voice, and it was the last thing she wanted to hear at the moment. Her chocolate brown eyes flickered up to him with pure loathing. "Go to hell, Black."

"Oh, dear. You should handle that temper of yours," Regulus told her. He had to hold back the huge grin that was threatening to spread across his face. Vivienne looked tired and bitter. While a small part of him pitied her, the larger part was enjoying this. For once, he felt as though the power was in his hands. It was almost exhilarating. "Clearly you sweet-talked Slughorn into giving you all this material. I find it difficult to believe that you wrote all these notes."

Vivienne raised an eyebrow. "You're not going to try and make me feel guilty. If you didn't want me borrowing notes from Slughorn, you should have specified it when we made the bet."

Regulus shrugged. "I don't mind. It's not as though they're going to help you."

"Do you have nothing better to do than torture me?" she demanded. "And actually, they are going to help. I fully intend to make it into NEWT Potions next year so you might as well pre-order that broom. That way, it'll be ready by the time out OWL results come in."

"I'll think about it," Regulus replied. "Good luck with your studies."

Vivienne only glared at him as he walked away. What a horrible person.

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A/N – Thanks for all the reviews!

Yes, Ash-Caro-Lynn, since you mentioned it, Semper Vivens means something along the lines of 'Always Living' in Latin. I know. I have a cruel, cruel sense of humor. I might explain that further later In the story. Thanks for your review, but I'm slightly confused. Did you mean that it IS boring since you already know the ending, or that it isn't?

suttonsays, haha, I hope you're getting the rage-induced studying you wanted! By longer chapters, do you mean that you think more should happen in each chapter, or that I should be more descriptive? Honestly, the reason my chapters are so short is that I write most of them in one sitting.

Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Do leave suggestions and reviews, they're welcome!