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Freddie spent the next several nights in much the same way and every morning she woke alone – for he had never really been there – but she felt well rested and alert. She couldn't go home with Snape every night, but it was the next best thing.

They continued their private lessons daily. Each lesson presented Freddie with a new challenge and each day she figured it out – diagnosing various instances of poisoning and brewing the antidotes with relative ease.

On Friday afternoon, her private lesson was the last class on her schedule. She'd had a study period before that and she'd worked on her homework in the Common Room for most of the period. When her watch beeped at 15 til, she rolled up her parchment, closed her books, and carried them to her dormitory. She put anything that wasn't Potions related into her trunk and decided, after a moment of consideration, to put on a bit of makeup. Just a little shimmering silver eye shadow and a touch of black eyeliner. A light pink lip gloss. Then she brushed her hair out and braided it meticulously down her back. She dabbed on her honeysuckle perfume then was good to go.

With her bag slung over her shoulder she left the Slytherin Common Room and headed towards his office. It's Friday, she thought with a small smile as she walked down the torch-lit dungeon corridor. I wonder if he'll take me home tomorrow? I know he said we had to be careful and we do but God...this has been the longest week ever. It's been so difficult to keep my distance, keep my hands to myself...and I'm not the only one having trouble.

She smiled a little wider as she remembered how yesterday he'd brushed up against her in the supply cupboard 'by accident' and she felt his cock harden against her ass. He'd quickly stepped back then returned to his office with a barely audible but clearly frustrated sigh.

Suddenly images filled her mind that definitely weren't hers. She saw herself pinned against a stone wall, his hands under the skirt of her school uniform. She stopped short and felt herself flush. She felt his smugness in her mind then received an image of him waiting for her in the Entrance Hall. Then he was gone from her mind.

Curious, she turned around and headed away from his office towards the Entrance Hall. Why would he be waiting for her there? Were they going somewhere? Was he taking her home? She shook her head slightly. Not now, not with one class period left. She knew better than to think he'd skive off a lesson. So it must be something to do with her Championship training.

She climbed the staircase up out of the dungeons and blinked in the bright afternoon sun that was streaming into the Entrance Hall, along with a flood of students chatting excitedly as they made their way to their last class of the day.

She spotted Snape standing to the right of the Grand Staircase, waiting for her. Their eyes met and she smiled briefly but of course his expression didn't change. He made a little lazy 'follow me' motion and started up the Grand Staircase. Intrigued, she crossed the sea of students to follow a few steps behind him.

They climbed staircase after staircase, ascending higher into the castle. Snape didn't speak except to snap at a group of Ravenclaw first years who were trying to un-stick the foot of a boy who'd gotten caught on one of the trick stairs. For a moment Freddie thought about stopping to help them but the dirty looks they threw at Snape's back, then at her as she passed, kept her at bay. They were Ravenclaws after all and it seemed even these scrawny kids knew who she was, had taken Geck's side no doubt, and didn't want anything to do with her.

Her fingers skimmed the banister as she continued up the stairs, fuming. She wished that, wherever Daniel was, he would come back. Come back and clear her name, and end this animosity between their houses. It seemed otherwise that it would never end. She wondered if, after she graduated, it would be forgotten. Slytherin and Ravenclaw houses had never been best friends but it was the house they got along with the most. There were more purebloods in Ravenclaw house than any other house besides Slytherin. Gryffindor had a few, but they were sworn enemies. And Hufflepuffs had always been considered laughable. For a moment she lost herself in the magnitude of what a rivalry with Ravenclaw meant for Slytherin house. How many friendships had been ruined, how many would never get a chance to form, because of her?

"Miss Gray," Snape said in a bored-sounding voice. She had fallen nearly half a staircase behind him and she hurried to catch up.

The higher they climbed the fewer students they saw. When Snape reached the 7th floor the bell rang loudly, echoing up through the stairs. Indeed all the students were gone now, having made their way to their classes.

When Freddie joined him on the 7th floor landing she was clutching a stitch in her side and breathing hard.

"Looks like you are out of shape, Miss Gray," he taunted lightly. Freddie scowled at him and straightened up.

"Where are we going?" she asked now that they were finally alone. "Shouldn't we be in the lab?"

"You'll see," he answered and beckoned her to follow him down the corridor.

Freddie followed him, brimming with curiosity, and it wasn't long before he stopped in front of an unremarkable slab of stone wall.

"What are we doing?" she asked. Snape shushed her and began pacing. She frowned at him then began looking around the corridor. Across from them was a tapestry of a wizard that looked like he was trying to teach trolls to tap dance. She was about to inspect it closer when she heard Snape say 'aha' softly. She turned to look at him -

-and found him standing in front of a stone door that had not been there a moment ago.

"Wh- where did that come from?" she asked, flabbergasted.

Snape smirked and opened the door. She quickly followed him inside and was shocked to find that they were standing in a garden. There were flowers and plants everywhere, and tall garden walls on every side. In the middle of the garden was a cauldron on a round stone plateau.

"What is this place?" Freddie asked in awe, looking around her.

"This," Snape said grandly. "Is the Room of Requirement. It is a rather unique room that I discovered in my third year, which presents whatever you need the most – in our case, a place for you to learn to prepare yourself for the Potions Championship. I'm surprised I did not think of it earlier, it is perfect. The perfect puzzle."

"Okay. So, what do I do?" she asked determinedly.

"It's a puzzle. Solve it," he said lightly. "I will return for you later. Good luck."

She watched him step back through the door and when he closed it, the door vanished.

"A puzzle," she said aloud. "Hmm..."

She put her bag down by the cauldron then began to walk around the garden. She looked at the plants, trying to match them up in her mind to figure out if they were a clue for what she was supposed to brew. But it didn't work. There were too many varieties, too many possibilities. He'd designed it that way she supposed.

She began to walk along the garden wall, through grass that was damp and springy. She was starting to fret a bit. What if she couldn't figure out what she was supposed to do? What if Snape came back in an hour and she was just standing there like an idiot?

She bit her lower lip nervously and ran her fingers against the rough brick of the wall. Maybe there was something hidden there, a message or a hidden room.

A hidden room within a hidden room? She thought dubiously.

Then she spotted it. She quickly knelt by the wall and pulled the grass away. It was a door. Small, about 8 inches high. She'd almost missed it.

She sat back on her heels a moment, wondering what she was supposed to do then it clicked. A Shrinking Solution.

"Brilliant," she said aloud, quickly getting to her feet. She ran back to her bag and pulled out Zygmunt Budge's Book of Potions. She flipped through it until she found the recipe, with the list of ingredients. Holding the book open with one hand she began to move around the garden, harvesting the plants she would need. Then she paused. She didn't just need plants. She also needed 5 hairy caterpillars and four leeches.

Thinking quickly she took the plants and the book back to the stone patio. She set them down then walked over to a patch of dandelions. She thought she remembered that woolly caterpillars liked dandelions. She crouched down and began searching. Sure enough she found a fuzzy black caterpillar munching on a dandelion leaf.

She used her wand to transfigure a nearby rock into a small bucket and put the caterpillar into it. It took her five minutes to find the caterpillars she needed. Then, toting the bucket, she began to walk around the garden again. She'd seen a small stream trickling under the wall. She found it again and pulled out her wand.

"Lumos," she said, lighting her wand tip. She held it out over the water and saw exactly what she was looking for – a dozen or so leeches, clinging to a rock at the bottom.

"Accio gloves," she said, flicking her wand towards her bag. Her dragonhide gloves zoomed towards her and she put them on before reaching into the water and pulling out the rock.

She made a face as she pulled four leeches off and dropped them into the bucket with the caterpillars. She was suddenly glad Snape wasn't there to see her. She wasn't usually squeamish but she'd never had to harvest leeches before. They were squirming, faceless blood-suckers and she shuddered as she dropped them into the pail.

She went back to the book and scanned the ingredients again. Her heart sank as she realized the last ingredient she needed was a rat spleen.

"A rat spleen?" she said. "Where am I gonna-"

Her eyes spotted movement at the far wall. A rat!

"Accio rat," she said and caught it in one hand. She held it carefully so it wouldn't bite her but kept her grip tight. It was squirming and squeaking, terrified, its black eyes bulging.

She felt a wave of nausea roll through her as she realized what she was going to have to do. She was going to have to kill it.

She had her Potions kit in her bag, she could use the silver dagger to slit it's throat. But as she thought of that, of the blood she knew would come, the hot sticky blood that would flow over her hands, like Daniel's blood all over her skin when she'd woken up in the Hospital Wing.

She began to shake and the rat bit her, hard. She yelped and it dropped to the ground with a soft thud. She swore and pulled out her wand again. She knew what she had to do but she'd never done it before, not even to a bug, not like this.

"Avada Kedavra," she said and she felt a chill go through her as her wand emit a flash of green light. The rat fell onto its side, unmoving, unmarked, and unequivocally dead. Even the grass around it had withered.

She approached it and prodded the rat with the toe of her boot. No blood.

I killed it, she thought. With an Unforgivable Curse, I killed it.

She wasn't sure how she felt about it. It was just a rat, but...she shook her head. There wasn't time to think about it now. She had a potion to brew.

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