Marcelle's throat was dry as they followed Professor Aleksandrov in to the room, despite the whole glass of water she'd drunk. She was seriously beginning to regret the whole decision to enter the tournament. Her hair had become greasy with sweat, and her stomach had twisted in to a double knot.
Peeking around the door with the other two champions, the color drained out of her face as she clapped eyes on the huge reinforced iron cauldrons and menacing looking shelves of ingredients. This was a potions room. They were brewing something, no doubt something incredibly difficult.
Well damn you, Marcelle, she cursed to herself. There's nothing you can do now. Marcelle was terrible at brewing potions. Her only strength was simple beauty potions used for hair and skin, but she guessed that wouldn't be any use at all.
"Our Champions," Headmaster Aleksandrov said warmly. "Your task today is to create an antidote. You must identify the symptoms of a poison and brew a successful remedy. You can use any materials in this room and your wands. You may not interact with each other. You will have an hour to complete the potion." He said slowly and clearly so that they would understand perfectly. There was no need, however. All of the champions were listening like hawks, but Jane was still giving the headmaster a puzzled look.
The professor smiled. "I know you are wondering who you will be curing of a malady, and how they will be infected. I can tell you this much. The poison is deadly and will kill the consumer in exactly an hour and fifteen minutes. The symptoms are mildly painful and very obvious to the observer. And as for the victim's identity, well," he gave them all a sly grin. "I am trusting you all drank the water that was provided? And it tasted funny? Yes, you must treat yourselves."
Marcelle gulped and wrung her hands.
"Your time starts now. Good luck!"
The other two champions hurried off, Jane immediately prepping her cauldron and lighting a fire underneath, and Pyotr rushing over to examine the shelves of ingredients. Marcelle slowly walked to the remaining cauldron and tried to remember something useful.
Come on, brain! She commanded. How can I not have learnt a single thing about antidotes in four years of potions classes?
She gently massaged her aching stomach under her corset. She knew the pain wasn't from nerves or from the choking material, but from the poison creeping through her already weak body. Every time Marcelle had gotten sick she had felt like this and she had just had to tough it out with tiny amounts of precious homemade remedies for coughing and stomach pain. It had been horrible.
Marcelle walked around the room, staring at shelves, trying to find some meaning in any of the contents, but avoiding the space between the teacher's bench and the wall, where the three Heads were gathered, surely judging their performance. Pyotr was rummaging in some boxes across the other side of the room, and Jane looked like she was completely in her element, finding ingredients from all across the different cupboards and putting them in tiny jars and flasks, adding them in at the exact right moment with precise movements. At one point she even had a tiny clipping of her own hair.
I have no idea what I'm doing, Marcelle thought, helpless tears coming to her eyes. The pain in her stomach had gotten worse, she was sweating uncontrolledly, and she could taste slithers of blood in her mouth. After limping in pain once more around the room, hoping to find an instruction book, something this classroom seemed to be devoid of, she collapsed down in to the wide windowsill and placed her sweaty hand against the cold glass, staring longingly out at the frosty lawns outside, where some of the younger children were running around, and the icy blue sky, where some of the older Durmstrang boys were flying over the towers. She so wished she could be out there with them, even in the bitter air; free of the burdens of being a champion, living in poverty, being exiled because of her heritage.
Tears slipped down her pale, sickly cheek as the pain in her body intensified. She coughed several times, and almost fainted when her hand came away specked with blood, reminded of her mother's condition. She lay on her side, horrified, eyes wide with terror.
I am going to die, she thought. I am going to die when the hour's up and I can't do anything about it.