Year 5: Out of Sync

Chapter 48: April 2018

The next few weeks were a little strained, but in time Dominique and William forgot about their career argument and continued on as before. It was so early to be talking about their futures together, Dominique decided. They'd only been dating a few months and still had two more years of school to get through before it would even be an issue. She wasn't going to start worrying about things now. Their situation could be completely different when the time came to actually apply for jobs.

In the meantime, Dominique began her study of ancient runes in haste. After her first attempt to skim through the third-year textbook, she realized that it was going to require a lot more work than she'd originally realized. First, she had to learn the runic alphabet, then she had to learn all the vocabulary, and then she had to learn the grammatical system. It was going to be a long, multi-step process. It was a good thing she was getting started now.

Classes were also starting to get more intense, what with O.W.L.s coming up so soon. In transfiguration, they were beginning their hardest topic yet: inanimate conjuration. In herbology, they were working with a new plant, screechsnap, which was actually semi-sentient, making it all the more dangerous. History of magic was, as always, the dullest class. Presently they were covering the history of the domestication of wizarding pets.

And in potions, they'd spent the last few weeks working on the theory of strengthening and weakening potions and were now at the point of being ready to attempt brewing them. It would take a number of classes to successfully complete the brewing process, and the potions would need to stew and be supervised in between classes.

"Feel free to choose your own partners," Professor Abbott-Longbottom said at the beginning of their first day of brewing. "You're almost N.E.W.T. students, you're old enough to work with the person of your choosing."

Dominique immediately made a beeline for William, who she noted only looked slightly put out that he wouldn't be working with his Ravenclaw friend, Blaine Townsend.

"Hey, I'm good at potions," Dominique defended herself as Blaine went to pair up with Leanne Mitchell, also from Ravenclaw.

"Well you've got to admit," William said. "It's not your best subject. But I'm glad to be working with you." He hurried to add on that last bit when Dominique's eyes flared red.

"Good," Dominique declared, relieved that she didn't have to find another partner. Tom and Brooke had already teamed up, as usual, and Miles had started setting his cauldron up at Timothy's workbench.

"Professor?" Leanne Mitchell spoke up as everyone was getting their cauldrons ready. "You haven't told us whether to brew the strengthening solution or the weakness potion."

Professor Abbott-Longbottom smiled. "You're right, I haven't," she agreed. "Feel free to brew whichever you feel most comfortable with. I have plenty of ingredients for both, and the theory is the same."

"Wow," Dominique muttered to William. "Usually she micromanages us to the extreme."

As the potions master, being a micromanager was almost necessary, especially with the younger students who were likely to blow up the dungeons if they weren't careful. As long as Dominique had been at Hogwarts, the rules in potions class had always been strict and clear.

"Like she said, we're almost N.E.W.T. students," William said. "She's got to let us work freely at some point."

Dominique nodded. "You want to grab the ingredients while I get the water simmering?" she offered.

William nodded and disappeared for a moment into the store cupboard. Meanwhile, Dominique prepared William's cauldron by setting it up and filling it with water. She lit a small fire underneath and brought the water to a boil before lowering the temperature so that it would be ready to receive ingredients.

William returned and while Dominique worried about temperature, began chopping and crushing and mixing things at his station. He began to add the ingredients and stir, and as he did Dominique noticed that the potion was a little bluer than it was supposed to be at this preliminary stage. Frowning, she consulted her book and noted that a couple of snake fangs would clear that right up. Quickly, she hurried over to the cupboard and grabbed a couple, crushing them in her mortar and dumping them into the cauldron while William carefully measured the next ingredient.

Dominique began to stir, and the potion changed from the unnatural blue color to an earthy green and Dominique relaxed. She kept stirring while William did his measuring, and then once he added the next ingredient, she handed him the stirring rod.

"I'll prepare the next ingredient," she volunteered. "You make sure the stirring is consistent."

The next ingredient required was a very precise amount of salamander blood. Dominique grabbed a small vial and returned to the store cupboard where she poured a small amount of the blood into the vial before returning to her station. Then, while William continued to stir, she very carefully measured the required amount and tipped it into the cauldron.

The two continued like this for much of the lesson until William added one of the final ingredients of the day and the potion began to thicken.

"Why is it thickening?" Dominique asked nervously. It was supposed to take the next couple of days to thicken, not thicken all at once.

"I don't know," William fretted, flipping through his textbook.

Dominique was torn between looking through her notes or continuing to stir. But at this point, the potion was already messed up, so it would hardly matter if she didn't stir for a minute. Scrambling, she looked through her notes, trying to find any mention of this particular situation and how to handle it.

"When you added the valerian, did you notice anything strange?" Dominique asked, her brow furrowed.

"Valerian?" William demanded in a harried voice. "No, this potion doesn't take valerian, it takes lavender."

"Lavender?" Dominique asked, looking up in confusion. "No, the weakness potion takes valerian."

"Weakness potion?" William asked, freezing mid-way through flipping a page. "Dominique we're brewing a strengthening solution."

"No," Dominique said, her stomach dropping. "We're brewing a weakness potion."

"Oh no," William dropped his head into his hands. "Dominique, we've been brewing two different potions."

Dominique looked into the cauldron of what was becoming muck and had to sit down for fear that she was going to fall over.

"You mean we did all that work for nothing?" she asked.

"Seems like it," William confirmed, refusing to look up now.

"Maybe it can be salvaged?" Dominique asked hopefully.

"Does that look like it can be salvaged?" William demanded. It was now almost a tar-like, brown goop, while the rest of the room was filled with cauldrons of either pale yellow or deep purple potions.

At that moment, Professor Abbott-Longbottom came over to inspect.

"And what do we have here?" she frowned upon seeing their potion.

Dominique sighed. "We both thought we were brewing a different potion," she said. "It's half a weakness potion and half a strengthening solution."

Professor Abbott-Longbottom shook her head and then waved her wand, vanishing their potion from the cauldron. "Zero points for today's lesson," she declared. "You may make up today's work in the after-hours lab tonight in order that you have a base to work with next lesson, but I will not allow you to earn back the points for today's work. Let this be a lesson on the importance of communication."

She looked pointedly between Dominique and William and then returned to the front of the room.

William just looked at Dominique angrily. "Thanks a lot," he muttered.

"You're blaming me for this?" Dominique demanded. "You're equally as responsible as I am."

"You told me to get the ingredients," William defended himself. "You should have paid attention to which ingredients I got."

"You should have stopped me before I added the snake fangs," Dominique retorted.

"I didn't know you added snake fangs to the potion!" William cried. "No wonder it turned to sludge."

A few nearby students had started to look up at them arguing as their potions simmered and Dominique felt uncomfortable.

"Let's not have this argument now," she pleaded.

"Fine,' William said, crossing his arms. "We can talk about it tonight in the after-hours lab while we redo our potion. For zero points."

"At least she's letting us redo it," Dominique pointed out. "We could have just got zero on the whole project."

"Today's work was a third of the grade," William pointed out. "We're going to have to do perfect in our next two classes just to pass."

Dominique repeated that she didn't want to have this argument in front of all their classmates, and William immediately shut up, becoming silent next to Dominique as he reviewed his notes in preparation for that evening.

Dominique noticed Summer smirking at her out of the corner of her eye and determined not to look at her. This must be like a dream for the Slytherin girl. All the conflict and she didn't have to lift a finger.

Dominique spent the last ten minutes of the lesson silently fuming.

DdDdDdDdDdD

At dinner that night, Dominique and William sat together at the Gryffindor table with Brooke, Tom, and Miles. Dominique was trying to make the most of things, at least while they were with her friends, but William couldn't seem to lighten up.

"So how are you guys feeling about Gryffindor/Slytherin match this weekend?" Dominique inquired of her friends.

"It should be good," Brooke said confidently. "Slytherin are tougher than Ravenclaw, but we have a solid team. And I'm not letting Summer Snow get the best of me on the pitch."

"Good," Dominique said. She'd mentioned to Brooke how Summer had been abusing her prefect's privileges, and while there was nothing Brooke could do about it, she'd said that she wasn't surprised.

"Are you going to watch the game?" Tom asked William, trying to include him in the conversation. Dominique appreciated this. Though her relationship with Tom was strenuous at best, and her relationship with all her friends had been tested many times over, they continued to try to accept her and her new boyfriend.

"Well I don't think I'll have time now," William insisted. "If I have to waste an hour of my night re-brewing our potion, I'm not going to have time to write my essay for transfiguration. Which means that I'm going to have to spend all of tomorrow night working on that, which will push practicing incarcerous for defence against the dark arts to Saturday."

"I'm sure you can find some time," Dominique said. "You don't need the whole day to practice one spell. And you're only losing an hour, not the whole evening."

"You don't understand," William insisted. "This whole thing has just thrown my entire schedule off."

"Well how do you think I feel?" Dominique demanded. "I need every spare second to learn ancient runes. I don't have time to be brewing potions in the after-hours lab either, but I'm not complaining."

"Really? Because it sounds like you're complaining," William returned.

"I'm complaining about you complaining," Dominique corrected. "Big difference."

"Guys – " Miles said uncomfortably.

"Right," Dominique remembered herself. They were in the Great Hall, hardly the place to be having this conversation. And especially in front of her friends. "Come on William, let's not talk about this now."

"Fine," William said stiffly, returning to eating his dinner. He made no effort to start any new conversation or to even look at anyone else at the table. Dominique shifted uncomfortably.

"So," Miles said in a higher-than-normal voice. "Domi, how is it going with ancient runes?" he asked.

"Oh, you know," Dominique replied vaguely. "It's going. It's a lot more work than I thought."

"It is an entire language," William pointed out unhelpfully.

Dominique ignored this. "What I mean to say is, there's a lot to memorize even before I can start learning to translate. It's not like charms where I can just work my way through the spells one at a time until they're all mastered. I need to set a foundation and I don't have much time."

"I could give you some pointers if you'd like," Miles offered, as the only one of the four of them that had elected to take ancient runes in third year. "Unless William would rather – "

William shook his head. "No that's fine, you can help her out," he said. He also took ancient runes, as well as arithmancy. "I have much too much to do as it is."

Miles nodded and everyone shifted a little awkwardly. William's presence was making it difficult to talk and Dominique suddenly wished that she hadn't insisted her boyfriend sit with them all that night.

"Well Domi, how about this weekend?" he suggested. "After the quidditch match, I'll have loads of time. You know, apart from the fact that we all have tons of studying to do for the O.W.L.s," he joked.

"Oh the O.W.L.s!" Dominique cried. "Miles I'm sorry, if you don't have time – "

"I can make time," Miles assured her. "Come on, this is important to you."

Dominique nodded and smiled at her friend gratefully. Miles was always there for her when she needed him. He was such a good friend.

DdDdDdDdDdD

After dinner, Dominique and William headed down to the dungeons to redo their potion. William was still sullen, and Dominique was in a pretty bad mood herself. She always tried to be polite when she sat with William's Ravenclaw friends at dinner, but William had hardly said two words to her friends, apart from when they'd asked him a direct question. Dominique was getting tired of always having to play the go-between. Why couldn't she and William be like Tom and Brooke? They got along great with each other and their friends. Then again, Tom and Brooke had come from the same group of friends to begin with, so it was possible that was a factor.

When they arrived in the lab, William began to set up their station and Dominique headed to the store cupboard.

"Okay, so what potion are we brewing?" she asked before taking any ingredients. She didn't want to make the same mistake as last time.

"I guess we can do a weakness potion," William said with a sigh.

Dominique clenched her teeth at the tone. "Well if you want to brew a strengthening solution so badly, just say so and we'll make one," she insisted.

"No, it's fine," William said. "You wanted to brew a weakness potion."

"I didn't want to brew one, I just thought we were brewing one," Dominique protested. She honestly didn't care which potion they made, just so long as they made one.

"Just get the ingredients for the weakness potion already," William barked. "I have other things to do tonight."

"Like what?" Dominique demanded. Their plans for tonight had originally included spending time in the fifth-year lounge just the two of them, so it wasn't as though he could have had that much to do.

"Just things," William said.

Dominique gathered up the ingredients for a strengthening solution and carried them back over to the bench.

"Seriously?" William demanded. "I said weakness potion."

"But you clearly want to brew a strengthening solution, so let's just brew it already," Dominique cried, getting angry.

"Why do you have to be so difficult?" William demanded. "I was willing to brew the weakness potion. I'm not the one being difficult here."

"And I am?" Dominique demanded. "I'm just trying to brew the potion you want to brew so you won't complain about it later."

"When have I ever complained?" William demanded.

"Try all day long," Dominique retorted.

William opened his mouth to say something else and then shook his head and closed it.

"Can we just do the assignment," he said in a tired voice.

"Whatever," Dominique agreed, turning around and beginning to prepare the ingredients. She was so done working with William. This would teach her for thinking it might be fun to do a project with her boyfriend. Clearly love and school should not mix.

Over the course of the next hour, the two managed to brew a functional strengthening solution base and Dominique placed it with the potions the rest of their class had made earlier in the day to thicken. As soon as they'd cleaned everything up, William bolted from the room, claiming that he had homework and he would see Dominique the following day.

With a sigh, Dominique headed up to Gryffindor Tower alone, feeling very discouraged about how the day had turned out. Things with William had been rough. But relationships always went through rough patches. Dominique determined that this was just a fight and that they would patch things up in the morning and then everything would be like it had been before.

This was how relationships went. You fought, you argued, and then you made up. At least Dominique had heard that make-up sex was good. If anything, she had that to look forward to.