"Russ?" Ginny stared at his silent form. "could you say something, or move or you know, breathe or something?"
Finally, after staying silent and stoic for twenty minutes after the girls had finished their tale, Severus moved. He slowly sat back in his chair and wiped a tired hand across his face. He began to rub the tear ducts of his eyes with his index and thumb, trying in vain to combat a headache.
"So… what was your theory again?" he finally asked in a tone that clearly said he was having trouble comprehending all the new information.
"We think that the sand," Alina said slowly, "acted like Floo powder."
"Yes, instead of sending us in terms of distance, it sent us in terms of time, you see?" Ginny asked.
"So we think that the key is in the sand. It has to be."
"It's not sand." Severus said
"What do you mean?"
"Look, it's just as well you two can't read this journal because everything in it is very technical. I had trouble understanding it."
Alina smirked, "I thought you said you could easily read it."
"Read it yes; understand fine, but practical application is…." Severus shook his head.
"Let's not quite before we start," Ginny said heartening. "Russ, if it's not sand what is it?"
"It's a crystalline debris hand ground to a fine powder."
The girls blinked and cocked their heads.
"This is what I meant by it being technical."
"Try to explain it." Alina pleaded.
"Okay first," Severus reasoned, "we have to make an incredibly difficult potion, using incredibly rare ingredients, boil it to almost nothing; place the remnants in direct sunlight until the crystals form, scrape the cauldron and then using mortar and pestle, hand grind them into the finest powder possible."
"Oh…" Ginny gulped. "That doesn't sound too terrible."
"How long would it take?" Alina asked.
"Weeks, if not months." Severus intoned regretfully.
"but could you do it?" Ginny insisted.
Severus put his hand on his chin and rubbed it lightly thinking. After a moment he slowly nodded. "Making the potion will be time consuming and meticulous, but I could easily accomplish the task."
"And getting the ingredients?" Alina asked.
"We could find such things as needed around the school." Severus suggested.
"Like what?"
"Some would be simply, things to be found in potions kits, like salamander tails, but in large quantity." He warned, "Other will be more difficult like the sap of the Dittany flower, and others more impossible like blood of Phoenix, Unicorn and Thestrals."
"I don't understand, why will those be so hard to get?" Alina inquired.
"The dittany flower only grows in the abandoned wilds of forests," Ginny explained.
"Do you think it would grow in the forest here?"
Snape and Ginny looked at each other.
"It might."
"So feasibly we could make this stuff?" Alina asked a glimmer of hope shining in her eyes.
"yes, feasibly."
"Ginny we could go back!" Alina gasped.
"We could go home!" Ginny cried amazed.
"Whoa, wait a minute!" Sever us interrupted waving his wands at them. "I said we could make what's in the Journal. This was designed to go back in time, which is very different than moving forward. I have no way of knowing whether or not this can send you to the future."
"Isn't there some kind of research or something we could do to find out?" Ginny insisted not willing to let her excitement fade.
"Well, I do have some books in my room that though not exactly legal, may shed light on the situation."
"You have illegal books?" Alina asked looking between the other two. "What is this Communist Russia, you can't make literature illegal!"
"You can when the contents fatal." Severus supplied.
"Books don't kill people, people kill people." Alina argued.
"I'm not saying it's right or that I agree with it," Severus said, "simply that it is."
"Fine, let's go take a look at them." Alina was stopped from rising to her feet by Severus's hand on hers.
"We have classes; you two must keep going on as if you were supposed to be here. Besides I said that they might, maybe, shed light."
Alina slowly sat back in her seat, a crestfallen expression graying her features. Severus felt suddenly guilty for taking away her hope. He blinked in surprise as his instinctive reaction was to comfort her.
"Hey, don't discourage," he assured her. "there very well may be something to help you get home. But we can't keep ourselves confined to a study while we look. We can gather the ingredients and prepare to create the potion; it shouldn't change no matter what we find."
Alina nodded and smiled at him in thanks.
"Why don't you make a list of ingredients and we'll split up and see if the three of us can't gather them all." Ginny suggested to Severus.
"Very well." he took a quill from his class satchel and began flipping back and forth in the journal writing periodically on a blank page.
"Is this really happening?" Alina asked Ginny. "it seems too much to hope for."
"It figures. We were starting to get too comfortable here anyway, this isn't our time, we can pretend all we want but we'd never fit in here, not really."
"I rather enjoyed the company." Severus muttered while still writing.
"Ooh, Severus just admitted he liked us!" Alina cooed.
He suddenly stopped writing when he realized he had voiced his thoughts out loud. He looked from one girl to the next and all he saw were proud smiles. Neither seemed to have a hint of mal intent in their eyes but he wasn't sure. He finally rolled his eyes, with everything they seem to know about me, this can hardly be worth vexing myself about.
"Here," he ripped out a page from the journal and gave it to Ginny. "This is for you Kat-err-Ginny?"
"Thank you Russ,"
"Or would you rather we call you professor." Alina said flirtatiously
Smirking Severus handed Alina a page as well, "Professor will be fine."
They all couldn't help but laugh.
"Wow, this is quite a list." Ginny said reading the ingredients.
"I've divided it up for a bit of everything on everyone's list, we should all have an even chance of finding these. It shouldn't be too hard and gathered fairly quickly."
Alina nodded to acknowledge Severus's statement, "and should anyone find something on someone else list-where are we putting this stuff?"
Ginny spoke up first, "since the professor has to make it we should leave it with him."
Severus nodded, "I agree, I think it would be best if I held on to everything. Slytherin is the safest place in the school. Nowhere else is afforded as much security and privacy."
"That's true," Alina laughed, "I don't think anyone else gets a secret passage way in their bedroom."
"You two have gotten more use out of it than I ever did."
"You should use it more, it's very conveniently located." Ginny added
"Well you two would know….speaking of which, do your new playthings know about your more, shall we say, wild side?"
Alina furrowed her brow, "wild side?"
"Sirius and Remus are not playthings." Ginny aid defensively.
Alina shook her head.
"Yet they were the first things you thought of when I said 'playthings'." Severus smirked.
"you walked right into that one," Alina laughed.
Ginny laughed and blushed. She covered her face with her hands.
"No," Alina told Severus. "The boys don't know about our…proclivities. Nor will they."
"Well they might should they ask the right questions." Severus smiled.
"Why would they ask any questions?" Ginny pouted.
"Maybe because we missed all our morning classes."
The girls swiveled around to find a clock and were shocked to see how much time had passed.
"Alina come on, we can still make it to care of magical creatures if we run!"
Gathering themselves and their lists the girls quickly thanked Severus and surprised him and onlookers when they leaned down and placed a kiss on each of his cheeks. He blushed and gently touched his face.
"Come find us after dinner and we can go look through some of your books." Alina called over her shoulder as she ran from the library.
The girls ran as fast they could through the halls, they had to make it to the other side of the grounds in less than five minutes. Alina simply tucked her parchment in her bra and her quill in her hair and ran as fast as her legs would work. Ginny was having more difficulty but still managed to stay close to Alina. The stairs that led down to the grounds from the entrance of the school loomed before them and as Ginny slowed down to carefully jog down them Alina reached behind her grabbing Ginny and sped up.
"What are you-OH NOO!"
Alina jumped the whole set of steps and landed on her feet with an 'umph'. The momentum was too much and propelled her forward; she quickly placed her hands before her and moved easily from a crouch to leap into a sprint. Ginny ended up rolling forward in a sort of dive and chased after Alina with a vengeance.
"I'm going to kill you!" she cried.
The small hut on the edge of the grounds was calling out to them, urging them to push harder. Alina and Ginny could see the other students languidly making their way to it. The professor was still preparing things and so they had barely made it on time. Seeing Remus and Sirius standing nearby the girls kept running until they would reach them-well, Alina was trying to reach Remus, and Ginny was trying to reach Alina.
"REMUS!" alina yelled breathlessly.
He turned at hearing his name and barely had time to brace himself as Alina hurled herself into his arms. He grabbed her arms to steady her as she almost pitched them forward; she grasped his upper arms as her chest heaved trying to force air into her lungs.
"What in Merlin's name?"
"Alina!" Ginny raged finally reaching them.
Alina quickly hid behind Remus using him as a body shield. Ginny stood her hands on her hips trying to breathe.
"Nice of you two to join us." Sirius said in a monotone voice. "I trust you had a good morning."
Ginny and Alina both heaved and wheezed and made no reply. Alina rested her forehead on Remus's back with her hands on his shoulder blades. He kept turning his head to see if she was alright but if he moved to far she turned with him to ensure he was still between her and Ginny.
Remus quickly moved away from her almost as quickly as Ginny advanced.
"What were you thinking? Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?"
"Why are you getting so worked up it's not a big deal!" Alina defended.
"We could hav-I could have died."
"I knew what I was doing!" Alina said stepping forward and in Ginny's face.
"Oh of course, you always know what you're doing. Nothing you do ever goes wrong."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
Ginny growled, "Have you ever noticed how often trouble and danger seem to trot in your wake?"
"That isn't fair-"
"Why were you two running like that?" Remus interrupted.
"uh-" Alina regulated her breaths to keep them deep and steady, "we were –uh-across the grounds." She answered though she never took her eyes off Ginny.
"You two were in the library the whole time?" Sirius growled, "with him?"
Ginny stopped glaring at Alina long enough to see Sirius was thoroughly upset.
"Him who?"
"You know who, that sniveling little grease spot-Snape!" he snapped.
Alina and Ginny both turned to face him with their eyebrows raised into their hairlines and their eyes huge. Something miraculous and terrible happened in that moment. Though Ginny was upset and Alina was stressed and they both were scared instead of continuing to bicker at each other they focused their vexation on one target-Sirius.
"excuse me?"
"You heard me." Sirius folded his arms across his chest and tried to seem authoritative. "you two are new here, so no one has really said anything, but its time you two know before something bad happens. Slytherins are evil. They are arrogant, soul sucking, scum that shouldn't be allowed to outside their dungeon. Let them consort with their own."
A group of nearby Slytherins overheard and turned starring at Sirius.
"Wow, arrogant, soul sucking, scum?"
Alina turned to Ginny and said sarcastically, "I wonder what it's like to meet someone like that?"
"You know what's a better question, what's it like to be friends with someone like that?"
The girls turned to Remus, "So tell us Remus what's it like being friends with Sirius?"
The Slytherins laughed and Sirius was so shocked he hadn't said anything.
"Do not presume to ever know me," Ginny snarled, "If you think I would stand by and let you insult anyone that way."
Sirius opened his mouth to say something but Alina cut him off.
"ah-ah!" she raised her hand in a gesture to stop him from speaking. "do not attempt to grow a brain."
The girls turned their backs and walked away from the stunned Gryffindors. They stood fuming not sure what they were actually angry about.
"Ali?" Remus put a tentative hand on her shoulder.
She turned and wanted to snap at him but seeing the look in his eyes stopped her.
"Is everything okay?" he asked.
She sighed and looked at Ginny who gave her a slight nod of acceptance and understanding. Then sighing Ginny turned and made her way over to Sirius to speak with him alone.
"Ali?"
"uhm, yeah Remus, I mean no. Everything is not okay." Alina placed her hand over his which was still on her shoulder. She nuzzled it slightly against her cheek.
Remus pulled her to him and hugged her.
"What's wrong?"
"Everything," she whispered into his chest.
He rubbed her back lightly and rested his head on the top of hers. After only a matter of seconds she pulled away and checked to make sure no one was starring. Then taking a deep breath she closed her eyes and pushed everything down inside her. She opened her eyes and looked at Remus.
"Thank you for that."
He stared at her amazed, he literally saw her bury something inside herself and saw nothing of the hurt girl he was just looking at. It was almost like starring into the glass eyes of a doll.
"How do you do that?" he mused aloud.
"Lots of skill and an unfortunate need of practice."
Alina looked over and wondered how Ginny was faring with Sirius.
"I said I was sorry!" ginny said harshly.
"Yeah, that makes up for it." Sirius grumbled.
"Fine, stay mad at me and see if I don't kick your ass all over the Quidditch pitch."
Sirius looked at the red, glowering expression Ginny wore and couldn't help but laugh and marvel at her.
"What?" she snapped.
"Nothing it's just, you're so beautiful when you're angry."
"Yeah well you-" Ginny stopped when she realized what he had said. "oh…thank you?"
He shook his head and before she could say anything about it, grabbed her and pulled her into a deep kiss. When he finally let her go they stared blankly into each others eyes.
"Why were you mad again?" he asked.
"I have no idea, you?"
"The hell if I know." He laughed.
Laughing Sirius reached out and took Ginny's hand in his own as they walked to a hill and sat waiting for class to begin. Alina and Remus joined them, maintaining a respectable distance from each other much to Ginny's amusement and Sirius's embarrassment.
Discreetly taking out her list, Alina looked over the ingredients. How are we going to do this?