Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them are what make life meaningful." -Joshua. J. Marine
He knew something was wrong within the first few seconds of apparating to the Slytherin Manor.
The Manor, physically, was intact. There was nothing out of place. Everything was picture perfect.
That was what worried him, sadly.
In the three days since Rose Potter had become a resident of the great Manor, he had come home to feathers, crying house elves, broken objects (most fixed with a simple reparo) and a tea party between a girl, a snake, a painting and two unanimated stuffed dolls.
He had come to a realisation that Rosalie did not bring trouble with her, she created it.
He thrived in creating an order out of the chaos, while she lived for creating chaos from the order.
A peaceful house worried him.
He knew she wouldn't have been asleep, considering she had convinced the Elves to feed her plenty of sugar for breakfast, and currently, it was only half past four.
There was hardly any sound, bar the busy rustling of the House Elves.
Five days ago, Nagini would have been eagerly waiting for him to come home and would have welcomed him sweetly.
Now, however, she was nowhere to be seen.
Rose's curiosity and smartness combined with Nagini's knowledge and ruthlessness along with their mutual boredom was proving to be very troublesome for him.
Tom Riddle was starting to get worried after not spotting them and seeing the Manor in a proper conditions within the first five seconds of his arrival.
Then he smelled it.
It smelled awful, much like Rose's attempt at cooking. (Don't ask)
Tom Riddle frowned his eyebrows before his legs started carrying him to the direction of the foul smell.
After a few minutes of walking, he found himself in front of a door.
Upon realising exactly what was behind the wooden door, he felt absolute dread and horror flash across his mind.
Potio Locus
Or in English, Potion Room.
'Rose is in the potions room without supervision.' he thought calmly before his eyes widened, 'ROSE IS IN THE POTIONS ROOM WITHOUT SUPERVISION!'
He mentally prepared himself for whatever horrid sight would be waiting for him, before opening the door gracefully.
He was met with the beautiful sight of the Potter Heiress in front of a large cauldron with a snake draped around her neck like an expensive scarf.
She looked as beautiful as always, with her blonde hair pulled back into a high pony and a few rebel strands swaying naturally on her face. She was dressed in a deep blue velvet dress, which brought out the greenness of her emerald eyes. Her face showed a bit of tiredness and her nose was scrunched up weirdly, obviously because of the foul odour.
Yet, there was determination and happiness shining on her face as brightly as the sun at noon, and her lips were tilted upwards, somewhere between a smile and a smirk.
Nagini would occasionally hiss something, but other than that seemed perfectly content to her current position.
The big black cauldron in front of the girl had a bright orange colour liquid that was bubbling away, causing fumes in the air, and hence causing that putrid stench.
The previous day, Tom had taught her the basic Hiccoughing Potion, which stops excessive hiccoughing. She had executed it flawlessly, under his guidance of course.
He knew for a fact that that potion did not release such an odour or looked such a poisonous colour.
Rose looked up from the potion she was carefully brewing.
"Hello Marvolo!" she said cheerfully. "How was work?"
Nagini hissed in acknowledgement before going back to rest.
He blamed Rose for corrupting his precious snake.
"It was... eventful." He replied in answer to her question before focusing his gaze on the potion once again.
In all his years, he had never seen anything like it. That news was either extremely good or horribly bad.
However, considering this was Rose he was talking about, it was definitely bad.
Very bad.
"Rose..." he started, looking into her pretty eyes. "This is not the Hiccoughing Potion. What are you brewing?"
She brightened up even more -if that was possible- and smiled happily, "We already did the Hiccoughing Potion, so I wanted to try something new. But don't worry, I followed a recipe!"
Somehow, this did not calm his nerves.
"Rose," he started again, "the last time you 'followed a recipe' it did not turn out too well, remember? Do I need to remind you what occurred at breakfast the other day?"
"It was an accident that could have happened to anyone." Defended Rose, the tips of her ears turning a shade of red, out of anger, embarrassment or perhaps both.
Tom's face showed exactly how much he believed her statement.
"And besides," she said happy once again, "this time I actually followed the recipe to the T. No substitutions, exchanging of ingredients or Fermi calculation of any kind and-"
"Fermi calculation?"
"It's a mathematical thing, named after Enrico Fermi. Basically, making rough calculations in your head." She explained before looking into his beautifully dangerous icy blue eyes. "I really did follow the instructions presicely."
He looked at her eyes. She showed no signs of lying or backing down.
"I believe you." He told her finally.
He did not believe her at all. What kind of a potion had such a colour and smell?
She was humming a song softly and stired the liquid lightly.
He frowned.
The smell was getting worse, if possible.
"You get used to it after sometime." She said, noticing his expression. "It helps to breathe through your mouth rather than your nose."
Then they descended into silence.
"Rose?" he asked after a few seconds of thinking.
She hummed in response.
"Which portion are you making? List your ingredients." He demanded.
"You don't know? You don't recognise it? Have I really bested the great Marvolo Slytherin?" she said, eyes shining with unconcealed mirth.
He glared at her in response.
She flinched.
"Alright." She said happily before clearing her throat dramatically.
"Get on with it already!" he said, the repulsive stench getting stronger.
She glared before saying, well, more like singing.
"Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good." she sang melodiously.
She looked very proud of herself.
"Are you mad!?" shouted Tom with wide eyes.
She looked at him in confusion, "What?"
It was official, she was insane and apparently wished to join her dear parents in death.
"Macbeth? Shakespeare's Macbeth? You are brewing the song of the witches?" he asked.
She looked at him oddly, "Yes. What's the problem? I followed it perfe-"
"-It is not a real portion you idiot! It is fiction!" shouted Tom.
"But I found all the ingredients in the potions cabinet and-"
"-It does not matter." Tom finished.
He looked hurriedly at the potion again, now that he knew what it was. His eyes widened minutely as he realised what was going to happen.
He dashed across the room quickly and grabbed Rosalie and pulled her with him.
"Hey! What are you doing?" she protested angrily at being grabbed at.
"Saving your life. You're welcome, by the way." he replied swiftly.
He pulled Rose close to his body, keeping one of his arms around her shapely hips tightly. His wand expertly in his other hand, "Protego." he said with a clear deep voice and power rolling off of him in waves.
It was not a microsecond later when the cauldron as a volcano and the potion as the magma, erupted violently all over the room.
He had saved them, just at the nick of time.
It was another 28 seconds before the cauldron stopped spewing out the repulsive neon orange liquid.
It seemed that unfortunately, Rose had indeed executed it perfectly.
He released the charm after he was sure the cauldron was not going to spill any liquid again.
"Mipsy." he called out.
The House Elf responded to her Master's call and popped into the room. The little Elf looked at the room with horror and terror in her tennis ball sized eye balls.
"What can Mipsy do for Master?" she asked obediently.
"Clean this mess up immediately. Also, replace all the potion ingredients that have been damaged or used because of this accident." He ordered before pointedly staring at Rose as he mentioned the last part.
Mipsy nodded before popping off.
He turned around to scold and lecture Rose before he saw the state she was in.
She looked deathly afraid and pale, tears threatening to spill from her eyes.
Before he could say anything, he was met with a hug from a crying teenage girl.
"I'm so so sorry." She cried tearfully. "I didn't mean for this to happen, honest. Please believe me. I'm so sorry."
If it was anybody else, they would have been met with a Crucio. But this was his beloved horcrux.
"Do not let this happen again. You will do nothing without my direct supervision." He stiffly replied instead.
She nodded vigorously before releasing him from the hug, now looking quite embarrassed.
He nodded to her and Nagini (who was surprisingly still soundly asleep. They must have had yet another one of their slumber parties last night), before turning elegantly on his heel and walking out of the now destroyed room.
"Thank you for saving me!" Rose shouted to him as he left.
He smirked, stopping at the frame of the doorway.
"Look on the bright side. At least the portion did not turn out to be as bad as your cooking." He said before walking away.
He did not need to be in the same room to see her face flushed with obvious anger and embarrassment, neither did be need to use a charm to hear the river of curse words that left her mouth soon after. (Which, by the way, were creative and vulgar enough to make a sailor blush deeply).
"A Lady does not curse, Rose." He shouted back before leaving with a smirk on his face as wide as that of a Cheshire Cat.
He loved having the last word.
