Lydia and Freddie sat down on their respective stools in the Potions Lab. Lydia heaved her bag onto the bench and took out her quill and some parchment. Freddie bent down to take the same from his bag, which was on the floor beside him. To do this he had to lean over sideways, balancing his body weight by swinging his legs up towards Lydia. She scowled at him. He could be such an idiot at times. She looked up at the professor's table. Verdi was sitting on the corner watching the students coming in. He saw Lydia look up and smiled at her. She smiled back with a little wave.
Teddy Lupin, on the other side of Freddie, caught her eye.
"Gryffindor versus Slytherin match tomorrow!" he enthused. "How's Sophie feeling?"
"She's good," Lydia assured him. "Still going to be a close match, though."
"Is that your guess, or Sophie's?" Teddy grinned.
"Like we know sports, Ted!" Freddie chipped in.
"Yeah. I'm just going by what Soph said," Lydia admitted. "You can tell your lot were in Herbology before. They're taking their time getting here."
"Hasn't Freddie told you?" Teddy asked, shocked. "Big news. Jane and Becks were sat at the back, working away. Next thing you know a venomous tentacular got them from behind! They've had to go to the hospital wing. And, of course, half the class has had to go to tuck them in and tell them they'll be all right."
"So Hufflepuff," Lydia shook her head. "I thought there was a buzz going around. Bloomin' Freddie's too busy practising his acrobatics on the stool to tell me about it."
Freddie snorted. "I told you I was puffed out running up from the greenhouses. I was going to tell you when we got properly sat down."
"Ah. It's OK, Fredster," Teddy assured him with a grin. "I've done all the work for you, as usual."
Freddie stuck out his tongue. Teddy responding by sticking out a long, green, lizard-like tongue. The forked ends fluttered.
"Just gross," Freddie complained.
Lydia giggled as Teddy waggled a pair of bushy blue eyebrows at them.
Professor Verdi waited until all the students had arrived and were at their benches, exhorting the last few to hurry.
"Good, good," he crooned. "Hello, everyone. Today we are attempting Sierpinski's splendid Warming Potion. This is a very useful potion, especially in the Scottish winter. It is also used therapeutically by healers, though one has to be very experienced and careful to produce any medical potion.
"The Warming Potion is a useful thing to be able to make. I imagine most of you have used some version of it at one time or another. The Pepperup Potion, for instance, contains one type."
The classroom rumbled with agreement.
"Sierpinski's Warming Potion, I must warn you, is not a very forgiving potion. If you get it wrong you can spend the day in a bath of ice, steaming away to yourself. Or, if you're lucky, you might only be sick for a few hours. Always take care in weighing the ingredients and following the instructions, which are here."
With a flick of his wand the instructions appeared on the blackboard, as usual.
"Please, if you have any questions ask me before you do anything you are not one hundred percent sure you should be doing. Please begin."
Lydia gathered together her ingredients from the storeroom off the classroom, pushing through the scrum of students. Returning to her bench she pulled to her the small crucible which had been among the equipment on the bench when they entered the classroom. She looked in it to check that it was clean. It had appeared empty but, now that she looked closely, there seemed to be three translucent blobs. They looked like some kind of gel but when she took a spatula to prod at them, she could feel nothing.
She turned to Freddie beside her. "Can you see something at the bottom of my crucible?"
Freddie peered into the crucible and scowled. "No, nothing there."
"Like three little blobs of transparent jelly?" Lydia prompted.
"No. Can't see a thing, o Queen of Drama," Freddie assured her.
Lydia scowled at him, stood, and took the crucible over to Teddy. He could not see anything, either.
"Take it up to Verdi if you're not happy," Teddy suggested. "He'll give you a clean one, seeing as you're his favourite."
Lydia stuck her tongue out at him but took his advice.
"Professor?" she murmured, arriving beside the professor's desk.
"Miss Ward. How may I help you?" Verdi beamed.
"I think there's something in my crucible," she explained. "I don't want to spoil the potion, if it's a really touchy recipe."
"You are correct to do so, my dear. Please, let me take a look at it."
She handed over the crucible. As he peered inside his face looked aghast.
"Come with me, Lydia," he growled, rising from his seat. "We need to deal with this in my office."
He strode to the classroom door and turned to the class.
"I need to step out for a moment," he announced to the students. "Please continue, if you are confident to do so. If you are at all unsure, halt and wait until I return."
He let Lydia out of the classroom, followed her and shut the door behind them.
"What is it, sir?" Lydia asked.
"What could you see?" he frowned.
"I thought I saw, like, three little clear blobs," she told him. "But I tried to touch them with a spatula and couldn't feel anything."
He opened the door to his office, and went in. She followed.
He closed the door behind them and gave her a stern look.
"Lydia," he said, "this is very serious. I think someone is trying to kill you."
She said nothing and shook her head a little.
"I left the classroom unlocked for a few minutes before the class was due. Someone must have been in. Whoever put this on your bench had no… qualms about killing students. Even with me as your professor I expect half the class might have died."
Lydia was aghast. "What is it?"
"I shall show you," his voice was low and, on the surface, calm. "Please stay by the door. If I cannot handle this, you must run. Run as fast and as far as you can."
"But," Lydia began.
"Just run upstairs and get help," the professor insisted. "Your class will be safe if you are not with them. This is no prank. Someone wants to kill, and I believe it is you they want dead. You are the only one in that class who is exceptional. You are unique in this whole school."
Lydia knew he was right.
"Lydia, what you see next," he went on in quiet solemnity, "you must tell nobody about, if I survive. There are those who know but there should be no more. The fewer who know, the better able I am to protect you."
He held up a hand, palm towards Lydia, directing her to stay by the door.
"Enough," he said. "It is time for action. I will put in the ingredients which you were to have put in. I believe that they were meant to be the trigger."
He reached around to the shelf behind him and selected a couple of ingredients.
"First, the flowers of sulphur," he told her, sprinkling a little of the yellow powder.
Lydia held her breath. Nothing happened.
Verdi looked over to her. "Hmm. Nothing. Let us try the dragon's tears."
He took a dropper from a tiny bottle of liquid. He examined it carefully, then held the dropper over the crucible."
"If this does not work," he relayed to Lydia, as if they were in the classroom. "I will need to heat the crucible."
Lydia nodded, without knowing why.
Her professor turned once more to the crucible and squeezed the rubber bulb of the dropper.
This time something happened. Many things happened in a rush. Time seemed to slow for Lydia, as it had once or twice before.
The crucible rocked. It shattered. Where it had been, a creature appeared. It was black and shiny. Its muscles rippled. It looked to be a tangle of huge, powerful eels. Three eyeless heads reared up, atop strong, squirming necks. The creature was three metres long, taking up much of the office.
Lydia dragged her horrified gaze to the professor. He was swirled around by a dark, grainy mist. It wrapped around him in coarse veils. Within the veils he was growing. He loomed over the creature. As the mist began to fall away Lydia saw, not her professor, but a dark-skinned beast. It was the shape of a man but, somehow, more angular. It had clawed hands and long fangs. Its eyes glowed red.
The man-beast lashed at one of the three eel-like heads of the creature with its claws. Another head lashed out at the beast, the professor, and latched onto his shoulder. It tore away a chunk of flesh and the professor growled in pain.
Lydia felt a surge of revulsion and anger. It flooded through her. The professor, or whatever he was now, was her friend. This disgusting creature from the crucible had been meant for her. With a shriek of fury and a swipe of her hand she willed a shield of protection between the two combatants. She had not even considered drawing her wand.
Feeling locked in a moment, all movement seemed to freeze. She could consider her options. The shield had appeared between the professor and the creature. If she did no more what would happen? The professor would be safe for now but the creature would turn on her. Or it would push past her, putting others in danger. She knew she must do more.
Movement returned. The professor reeled back. Blood poured from his wound. The creature hissed and thrashed about. It turned its heads towards Lydia. Lydia imagined the shield closing around the creature and it started to do so. The creature writhed and hissed and snapped its jaws at Lydia. She fell back against the door. She pushed harder with her mind, wrapping the shield around the creature. It fought back for all it was worth. It writhed and twisted, thrashing around inside the bubble of the shield. Lydia could sense that there was great power in this twisting horror. It was not merely its physical strength, which was immense, but the creature had the magical power to push back at Lydia's shield. With a grunt, Lydia pushed the shield harder still. For a moment the creature felt solid against Lydia's shield. Then it gave way. The shield squeezed it smaller and smaller. It shrank down to the size of a mouse then disappeared in a puff of grey smoke.
"Professor Verdi?" she said.
The dark beast held up one long-clawed hand and closed its eyes. It swayed where it stood for a few moments. Lydia saw the wound stop bleeding and the missing flesh regrow.
"Thank you, Lydia," it murmured in a deep, sepulchral voice which had a hint of an Italian accent. "It was worse than I expected. I have never fought a hydra before. It was, perhaps, arrogant of me to think I could easily defeat it, alone."
"Good job you weren't alone, then," Lydia grinned.
"Exactly so," the beast chuckled.
Even though she knew it was her professor, the beast's chuckling seemed incongruous. This beast was too fearsome to have a sense of humour.
"Please, forgive me," the professor said. "I should return to the form you are most accustomed to seeing."
With that the black mist wreathed the tall, angular form once again. It shrank back to the size of a man and cleared, revealing Professor Verdi.
"So, you're a vampire, after all?" Lydia smiled.
"Something of the sort," Verdi grinned. "A… friend gave me the ability to change to that shape at will. I do not have the unnatural hungers of the vampire, I am pleased to say."
"How did the rumours about you being a daywalker start, then?" Lydia queried.
"Oh, I started them," he nodded.
"Why?" Lydia was flummoxed.
"It was a bloof."
"A what?"
"A bloof," he repeated, straightening his robes. "A dooble bloof, really. You know, a bloof, like in cards."
"Oh, a bluff," Lydia said, realisation dawning on her.
"Yes. And it did no harm to my reputation," Verdi smiled.
"So, that was a hydra?" Lydia asked.
"A tricephalic hydra, yes," the professor nodded. "I have heard about them but I have never encountered one before. A tangle of muscles and teeth, magical as well. I am lucky you were here to protect me, Lydia, though it was supposed to be the other way around."
"Why could I see something, but Freddie and Teddy couldn't?"
"For the same reason that I could see it quite clearly," Verdi explained. "You have a little… darkness in you, Lydia. This is a creature of the darkness, as am I, as you have seen."
Her horror at being told she contained darkness must have shown on her face, as Verdi continued. "It is not that you are bad, Lydia. There is much power flowing through you. You have shown that here, today, for which I am eternally in your debt. It is the power of Nature. Nature contains all: good and bad; light and dark. A little darkness is no bad thing, if you have the ability to control it – like my vampire self."
Lydia nodded and mused for a moment. "You said a friend gave you the ability to change form. That's not something I've ever heard of before."
"He is a very unusual friend."
"Do I know him?"
Lydia was not sure where her question came from, and she was surprised at Verdi's reaction. He looked first shocked, then guilty. It was as though he felt he had given away a great secret. Lydia felt something strange around her. It was as though something was flowing past her. She tried to follow it, to hold on to it. Something pushed her mind away but she persisted. Then it disappeared, but she knew what it was. It was information, a message. A message has passed between Verdi and someone else.
"Who is it, our mutual friend?" she demanded.
Verdi tried to resist but could not. Something in Lydia's voice pulled the confession from him with an undeniable force.
"It is your uncle, Lydia. Ambrose," Verdi's voice was hoarse with inner conflict. "He is looking after you. As am I. As is your little friend, there."
Lydia looked down to where the professor had been looking. Xander wound around her feet.
"Don't change the subject," Lydia commanded. "How can my uncle give you abilities?"
"He is a wizard," the professor admitted. "A most unusual wizard."
"Well, I'm a most unusual witch!" Lydia warned.
She bent down to pick Xander up. He settled in her arms. She stroked him as she paced across the professor's office.
She rounded on Verdi. "That old git is the one who has been making the weird stuff happen. Trying to make me forget things. Passing messages, then pushing me away from them so I couldn't trace them."
She stopped sharply and glared at the professor. "McGonagall is in on it as well! Who else?"
Verdi did not answer.
"Tell me," Lydia commanded.
Her voice was soft and even but somewhere behind it was a power that the professor could not resist.
"As far as I am aware, only Minerva and I know a lot about Ambrose. Draco and Filius know what he is, and Rubeus too, possibly. They have sworn to help keep you safe."
Lydia glared at him. "Go back to your class, they need you."
"You look like you are about to do something foolish, Lydia," the concerned professor warned.
"No, I'm about to do something the Head Auror has wanted me to do for years," she told him with calm determination. "And you can tell Ambrose not to interfere, for once."
7