Later that night, Xiomara leaned into the curve of the highest goal hoop of the deserted quidditch pitch, too deep in thought to notice the dark or the cold. The sharp breeze tousled her short, silver hair, but the post holding her and the hoop up didn't even hint of swaying. "The only thing steady in my life," she thought despondently. She watched absentmindedly as her old broom traced lazy circles around the stadium, staying near her end of the pitch like a faithful old dog. She had bewitched it to do that long ago. It flew across the shadowy face of Hogwarts castle in the distance, here and there silhouetted by the lights burning in its windows as she dropped off into her contemplations once more.
Her thoughts returned to the light in her newly-reconciled lover's eyes and how overjoyed she had been to see it flare to life after so many weeks of darkness. It meant that Minerva was finally recovering from her encounter with the inquisitors. Her life was out of danger; she was safe, warm and happy, for the first time in so very long.
But here, Xiomara's joy was a mere wisp of emotion, struggling against her bitterness and guilt. It had been her own stupidity that had put Minerva's life in danger to begin with, and it was not her own presence that lit her eyes earlier that day. It had been his. He had been the first to arrive at her bedside once Xiomara had brought her to the hospital wing, bleeding and unconscious. He had stayed with her for the duration of her recovery. Minerva had insisted that Xiomara go tend to her business with the Harpies when she was called on. He had been allowed to stay.
She tried to put these facts out of her head. Max had been Minerva's best friend her entire time at Hogwarts. The two of them were on the Gryffindor quidditch team together, while she was busy playing for Ravenclaw. It was hard to carry on inter-house relationships; it was good that she had someone of her own colors to fraternize with. Xiomara had not minded him when she and Minerva had been dating, as he gave no hint of desiring her heart as well as her friendship. But things had changed. She knew about the kiss long before anyone thought she did, and the thought haunted her still. No, tonight was the same as every other night. She could not slay her jealousy and be content that her true love was safe.
Unlike every other night, she did not linger on her guilt over revealing her friend to the Inquisitors. She had seen the brand on her chest, a lion counterpart to her own raven. It was bound to happen sooner or later. It is impossible to keep family secrets at bay. Unfortunately, it is just as impossible to deny one's feelings. Xiomara had heard Minerva talking in her sleep the past few nights. Her subconscious was in turmoil over this bisexual love triangle that had developed. At least that part of her was just as in love with Max as she had been with Xiomara.
"Times have changed, Mara." She said aloud. "'Deanna' is gone, because 'Xiomara' has been found. She loved Deanna. You, Xiomara, broke her heart and then betrayed her, no matter how accidentally. There is no place left for you. Let her move on, let her live!" With these words, the tears that threatened her all week finally rose and streamed down her cheeks to the pitch below. She allowed them to fall freely, too consumed to do anything else. Her sobs were painful, not liberating as they once were, and her chest grew heavier and heavier, as if she were drowning in an icy sea. Images of Minerva swam in her tear-clouded mind, sharp, beautiful, unattainable. Her heart, once full to bursting with love, shattered in the cold night air and fell like the fragmented splinters of a wrecked broom. All at once she was weightless, the oppressive pain was lifted, and she could breathe again. She could feel the wind in her hair and robes, much stronger than it had been before. She reveled in the familiar sensation of flying, not stopping to wonder what it was that made her feel like that.
With a sickening jolt, she realized she was falling, plummeting straight down the side of the goals like a bludger-struck keeper. She must have slipped off her perch while she cried. Her finely-honed quidditch instincts took over and she splayed her limbs out to slow her fall, whistling for her broom. Right on form, it swooped in above and behind her, falling with her for a few feet before pressing into her chest and leveling off so the toes of her boots grazed the turf below her. She tumbled off her mount and skidded to a stop on the edge of the center circle. Her broom landed dead-center and stayed there, waiting.
She lay in a heap of torn robes, panting but still numb. Her eyes welled again, but not from pain. She couldn't place the feeling, so she shook it away and pulled herself to her feet. She crossed over to her broom and, after a fast examination, shouldered it and marched determinedly off the pitch. The stone building that housed the broom racks and the team showers was silent, except for the eternal drip in the Hufflepuff shower as it echoed through the empty stalls. She left the lights off: she knew this whole complex by heart. Each of the changing rooms had a corner of the building, all of which were connected to the main hallway by smaller corridors. The brooms were kept in the center. She made her way to the far left corner, where she kept her own brooms. She located the empty space and laid her broom in it, making sure she didn't ruffle the tail.
The room smelled of wood and polish, dirt, grass, sweat and just a little blood, and she stopped to take it all in. The smell reminded her of the misplaced feeling she had lying on her back after her fall, and she realized it was a vague disappointment. An opportunity lost. It was most similar to the feeling she got standing in this very corner as a first year. She hadn't made the starting team that year. None of the first years ever did, but she had been close. She knew she had to try again.
The connection confused her. She had not tried and failed anything. Her fall was an accident, and her recovery was no different than any time she'd been knocked off her broom in a game. She was delirious, she decided. Heartbroken, delirious, and utterly depressed. Heaving a sigh, she turned on her heel and headed back to the castle. She knew she had to get some sleep, or she'd be miserable in the morning. Tea. She needed tea. That always calmed her down and made her feel better. Minerva always teased her that tea with honey was her cure-all. Minerva. Her heart leapt to her throat, choking her again. She struggled to force it down and quickened her step. It was too dark to see anything but the dim outline of the castle, but once she got inside it would be light, and anyone passing by would be able to tell that she'd been crying. The last thing she needed was for someone to ask her if she was alright.
"Of course I'm alright, I'm just tired. It's very late, you know." She muttered to herself, practicing. She repeated this little mantra over and over, trying to convince herself. Each time, though, her breath got shorter and shorter, and fresh tears fell more and more freely. It was no use, she was not alright, and she doubted if she'd be better in the morning. She struggled to remember a morning when she woke up feeling refreshed and more hopeful than she had when she'd fallen asleep. It was too long ago. She felt so very tired, yet somehow she knew it was going to take more than tea to help her sleep. "Maybe a sleeping potion?" she wondered. "I could go right up and ask Madam Pomfrey for something… No. No need to bother her, I can make one myself." She reached the huge front doors of the castle and stopped to catch her breath. Wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her robe, she pulled the door open just enough to slip through and shut it silently behind her. The entrance hall was dark and eerily quiet, devoid of the usual clamor of students and teachers. The paintings were all asleep in their frames, though not a one of them snored. Xiomara became intolerably self-conscious of the way her damp boots squeaked on the marble floor and finally broke into a run, up the stairs, down a back corridor and around one hidden corner. There she stopped short. In her desperation to get out of the front hall, she did not realize her feet had taken her to the hall that hid Minerva's room. Shakily, she approached the statue of the sphinx with the incredibly pained expression on her face. A horrible guardian for the Assistant Transfiguration Teacher's room, but oddly appropriate. Xiomara scratched the figure behind her left ear, and then patted it lightly on the head. It leapt silently out of the way, revealing the entrance to the hidden room. She slipped in, careful not to wake the sleeping inmates. She crossed the room to where Minerva's bed was. The sight before her was not unexpected, but tonight it was almost unbearable. Max was asleep with his head on the foot of the bed. Minerva was also asleep, looking very peaceful with a small smile on her beautiful face. Xiomara crept closer and placed a firm but gentle kiss on her lips. The sleeping Gryffindor didn't even flinch; she kept dreaming, oblivious to kiss or the tear that slid from her heartbroken friend's nose onto her cheek.
And suddenly Xiomara knew the reason behind her strange feeling earlier. She stopped crying almost instantly as her mind went cold. Leaning down, she kissed Minerva again, this time passionately. She wrapped her arms around her sleeping form and held her for a long few minutes. As a clock began to strike two o'clock, she whispered softly into her ear.
"It's good to see you so happy, my love. I know you've had a rough time of it, what with our fight, and the attack, and now this new question of who and how to love." She paused to kiss Minerva's neck, just behind her ear: Minerva slept on. "Perhaps I can make that easier for you…" She kissed her again and slipped quietly back out of the room. She headed for the dungeons, her mind turning to tea and a powerful sleeping draught.
Fifteen minutes later found Xiomara down in one of the empty potions rooms. She had a small cauldron over a white-hot fire and was concentrating on rifling through the ingredients cabinet for the things she would need. The tea, a few peppermint leaves and a great deal of honey were already laid out next to the cauldron, along with a small phial of powdered asphodel root. She sifted through the glass bottles in the cabinet, looking for wormwood and inspiration. She finally selected a clear bottle in the bottom right-hand corner. The label was not facing her, but if the ingredients were still in alphabetical order, this would be what she wanted. She grabbed her mixing bowl, uncorked the bottle and sniffed cautiously. It was indeed infused wormwood, but the smell was weaker than she had remembered it. Upon double-checking the label, she discovered her mistake.
"Bugger! I can't work with 2M, where's the 6M…" She recapped the bottle and set it where she found it. The 6M bottle was misplaced at the beginning of the "W" section. She grabbed it roughly and lifted it off the shelf. Her fingers brushed against a textured bottle behind it, catching her attention. She set the wormwood down and pulled a diamond-ribbed, cobalt-blue bottle out into the light. Thinking back to her NEWT potions classes at Hogwarts, she read the label and determinedly set the bottle down to be added to her tea and potion.
Xiomara set to work, first adding the tea and peppermint to the now-boiling water. She let them diffuse while she measured out the correct amount of asphodel and wormwood for a simple but powerful sleeping draught. "Asphodel in an infusion of wormwood may not taste very good, but you'll be asleep too fast to care." she quoted sardonically, mimicking her old potions teacher's quiet voice. "Yes, Professor Allahand!" she continued in a high-pitched mockery of a third-year class before pouring the concoction into the cauldron with a flourish. That done, she moved to the extra ingredient she had selected. She wrenched the cap off and grabbed a small set of tongs off the shelf so she could fish out one of the pickled roots floating in the bottle. The roots smelled strikingly like parsley. Reluctantly, she tossed the one she'd selected into the cauldron, where the parsley smell was quickly covered up by the strong odor of the wormwood. She made a face and set about adding a great deal of honey to the mixture in order to make it drinkable. After a few minutes of stirring and simmering, she removed the cauldron from the fire, transferred the right amount of tea and potion into a mug, recited a fast cleaning spell and put the ingredients back in the cabinet. Once she was sure she had locked everything up again, she left the classroom, mug in hand.
She headed up to her apartment in the teacher's wing of the school. To her exasperation, she met a bleary-eyed Max just outside her door. He was knocking on the door and jumped to see her coming up behind him. "I thought you'd be in your room…" he explained, looking sheepish. Upon getting a good look at her, though, his expression changed to concern. "You don't look well," he observed, "are you alright?"
"Of course I'm alright, I'm just tired. It's very late, you know." Xiomara recited. "Sloth-grip Roll!" The door to her room opened and she invited him inside. "You'll excuse me, but I was headed to bed, so I'm not prepared to be hospitable…" She kicked her boots into the corner, set her mug down and leapt into bed.
"That's alright; I just came to check on you. Were you just in 'Nerva's room?"
She gave a curt nod, hurt that he used the nickname she'd coined for her friend. "I was checking on her."
"She's beautiful when she's sleeping, isn't she?" Max commented.
"Very."
There was an uncomfortable silence. Max tried again. "Peppermint tea and a Draught of the Living Death." He laughed. "I suppose I won't be seeing you at breakfast tomorrow. Or at lunch, even!"
Xiomara didn't answer. She took a long drink from her mug and stared into the steam.
"What's that other smell?"
"Honey." she answered, never looking up. "So it doesn't taste like wormwood."
"Max laughed again. "I'd expect so! But there's something else, is there?"
"My own secret ingredient. Smells like parsley, doesn't it?"
"A little, yes." Max watched her finish her drink in silence. Then, he rose to help her get into bed and turned down the lights.
Xiomara yawned, noting with grim satisfaction that the potion was already setting in. "You're an alright guy, Max." she said as he turned to go. "Minerva is lucky to have you."
He thanked her politely. "I'm lucky to have her, too. Sleep well." As he left, Xiomara thanked any god or goddess who was listening that she had made the right choice. With that, the sleeping draught carried her away.
Max didn't make it more than a few feet down the corridor before a strange sense of foreboding stopped him. It was quite obvious that Xiomara was, or had been, very upset. Her eyes were red and dull, and she kept them on the floor the whole time. He didn't know her that well, but he seemed to remember that Xiomara was not a person who stayed that calm when she was distraught. In fact, he could remember a few times in school when she had completely collapsed crying into Minerva's arms. Something was not right. He retraced his steps and listened intently at her door. From the sound of it, the sleeping potion had taken effect: all was silent within. He lingered for a few minutes more, but nothing else happened.
He turned to go, but a limp thud and the scraping of furniture legs on a wood floor caught his attention. Once more, he knocked on the door. "Xiomara? Are you alright?" There was no reply, but the scraping continued. "Mara? XIOMARA?" The young man began to panic. Something was definitely wrong, and he couldn't remember the password to her room. Something quidditch, no doubt. He began naming all the positions, balls, players, teams and techniques he could think of between pounding on the door and begging to be admitted. "SNIDGET! Haversacking? Hawkshead formation? SLOTH-GRIP ROLL!" The door finally sprung open and he ran to where Xiomara had fallen onto the floor. She was unconscious, bleeding from a gash on her forehead - presumably from her fall from the bed – and was convulsing violently. Her chest heaved as she struggled for breath, but only a sick choking sound came from her efforts. Max wasted no time in scooping her rigid form off the floor and running headlong to the hospital wing.
"POMFREY, COME QUICKLY! I need help!"
Poppy Pomfrey came running from the back room, looking severely alarmed and confused. Max deposited Xiomara on the nearest cot and caught his breath while the nurse examined her in horror. "She's been poisoned!" She exclaimed almost at once. "Water hemlock, I'm sure of it. Max, can you tell me what happened?"
"She made herself a sleeping potion and took it with peppermint tea and honey. She must have made a mistake!"
Madame Pomfrey frowned. "Impossible. I remember her in school; she was one of the best potions students in her year. It must have been an attack, or…"
"'My own secret ingredient…'" Max cried weakly. "I should have known."
"It's a good thing you were there, Max. If you hadn't found her she'd have been dead." Pomfrey finished administering a powerful concoction of essence of bezoar and sat back with an incredulous sigh. Xiomara's convulsions slowly ceased and her breathing returned to normal.
Max drew a long shuddering breath. "Don't thank me, Poppy, it's thanks to me she tried to kill herself in the first place."
His companion gave him an inquisitive stare. "What do you mean?"
"She's still so deeply in love with Minerva! I should have known. I thought they were over years ago. I never would have approached her if I had known! 'Minerva's lucky to have you…' I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN!"
Madam Pomfrey said nothing while she checked Xiomara's pulse and breathing. "Don't worry yourself. She'll be fine." She lifted her eyelids. "See? Her pupils aren't dilated anymore, she's breathing fine, and she's relaxed. I'll just patch up her head and her lip where she bit through it, and she'll be just like new. She might not even have scars. Now you take this," she handed him a commercial sleeping potion, "and get some sleep."