Feeling his legs drag across the granite tile floors from the effort to walk, Felix was heading back to the Hufflepuff common room and dorms when he heard muffled voices from within the Potions classroom.
"At this hour?" Felix looked inside from the crack in the slightly opened door, in case it was any students up to no good, he was a Prefect after all.
Professor Hudson stood with his back against the door, talking to Professor Marvey. She had that smug, arrogant smirk on her lips which made Felix's stomach churn.
"Why are you even here, Morgana? Torturing me during school wasn't enough?"
"I'm not torturing you now, we are adults. If my presence annoys you this much, perhaps you should consider quitting", she shrugged with a giggle that made Felix want to punch her, and from the clenched fists by Professor Hudson's sides he was having the same desire.
"Quit? After what you and your friends did to me and Betchy? I just need a good reason to fire your arse, and you will give it to me, sooner or later Morgana", Felix couldn't see Professor Hudson's face, but his voice betrayed an evil snarky grin.
"You and that damned dog! Get over it already!" Morgana replied, now arrogant and angry, unable to understand why Professor Hudson was still upset about whatever had happened during their school years.
Rather than reply further Hudson made a turn to leave. Felix tiptoed fast away from the Potions Classroom door. "Slytherin poop" he whispered the password to the portrait guarding the Hufflepuff common room entrance and entered it before Professor Hudson made it out of the door.
Six weeks passed and Christmas was in the air, in two weeks they would be going back to their homes for the vacations. Most kids were already having trouble concentrating except for Felix who in Irina's final seminar was doing his Muggle studies homework, having already finished with his Herbology homework.
Ten minutes later Irina tucked away her wand she had been using to write on the blackboard and turned to face them with a pretend emotional face.
"And this wraps up my seminars, thank you for attending", she told the few students who had stuck through to the end, even Lisa and Emerick had quit after the third week. "Felix, stay behind, please."
Felix readied his backpack and leaned against his desk, waiting for the other students to empty the classroom.
Felix knew what this was about. "Yes?"
"Time's running out, have anything for me?" Irina asked him, yet her tone of voice was almost as if she wanted him to have something that could replace her current story.
"I will", Felix replied having no idea where and how he would find the dirt on the Governors he had promised to get her, especially if his vault in Gringotts turned out empty.
"You've found nothing yet have you? I have though, it'll paint a very colourful picture", her voice turning back to its predatory normal.
"And ruin peoples' lives."
"It always does. If people don't want their lives ruined, they shouldn't go do nasty things which make reporters like me all giddy inside."
Felix elected to leave without further reply and searched around the castle for Ethel. Outside winter was baring its teeth with subzero temperatures and snow falling in a slow, mesmerizing dance.
"Hey, Ethel wait up", he found her talking and walking with a couple of her girlfriends. "I need your help."
"Go ahead, I'll catch up", Ethel told her friends who nodded walking ahead. "Sup?"
"I need you to arrange a meeting between me and whoever's running the main smuggling operation in Hogwarts for banned items and such. I'll pay this time if need be, and you know I've got the coin for it."
"How do you know I'm your girl?" Ethel asked him reproachfully, without admitting to anything that could get her in trouble.
"Come on, I've no time for games, you have procured for me and others anything we've asked for. You know someone who knows someone. I want a meeting."
"You are a Prefect, why would they agree to a meeting that could cost them much more than coin?"
"Because you know me and will vouch for me, and because I'm not looking to get them in trouble or give them detention. I need something under anyone's radar, even the Deputy Headmaster and Headmistress'."
"Headmistress Horsewood knows everything that goes in this place, it's folly to think otherwise, I do not know why she even allows the banned items operation in the first place."
"She does, and yet they have not been expelled yet, and its not like they have not done something which could get them expelled. They sold an auto-answering quill to a first year. They are lucky he has a big mouth, small sense of secrecy and self-preservation and that it was I who overheard and confiscated the quill and destroyed it, and not anyone else."
"I can't make any promises, but I'll let you know in a day or two."
"It's Hudson important, I need to know today", Felix left before Ethel could reply.
She found him in the Transfiguration classroom taking her seat near him and the rest of her best friends.
It was the middle of the class, and Uriel's hand shot up in the air.
"Yes, Mr. Fatherspoon?" Professor Hudson asked him still worried of possible pranks even if they had stopped since before the end of the previous year as suddenly as they had begun.
"Sir, did you ever have a dog? 'Cause me parents are thinking about getting a crup puppy", Professor Hudson's face changed from apprehensive to sad, drawing from memories of old no student could see.
"No…not for a long time. Crups are nice dogs, and very defensive against Muggles", Felix hid it, but he felt very smug. Ethel glanced at him from the corner of her eye, unable to understand where he was going with this and how it connected with his earlier demand.
After Transfiguration ended, they were headed for Potions class, when they saw Irina leaving with her luggage floating behind her. "Felix, as I mentioned earlier I have everything I need for my article, it should take me a month to write and have it edited. I expect to have it released by the first week of January. You have until the third to send me something to rival it. I'll give you a freebee because I like the Slytherin in you. My informant has two Masters, one is his fellow Governors, the other one are the guys who want to lock them behind bars. Goodbye."
"Bye", No one blamed Felix for not being sad she was leaving, not even Irina.
"Interesting, and easy to decipher", Socrates declared once she'd left.
"It is?" Uriel raised an eyebrow, not sure why Socrates thought it easy to deduce who Irina's second Master was.
"The Governors are one, we know that from that letter. Who's the other one?" Emerick felt just as uncertain.
"Something she said when she first came here, and we ignored. "The Headmistress could be after the Minister's job", Fairbanks is the other one. Governors want her out because of Azrail, Fairbanks is afraid of his job and is tired of whatever she has on him. I need to get to my vault in Gringotts", Felix told them, with Socrates nodding his agreement.
"Ah…can't you go there officially with Mr. McCormack?" Uriel shrugged making a grimace with his face.
"Don't want anyone to know until I'm there."
"Where's Claudia and Ethel?" Emerick asked noticing the two girls weren't there.
"Claudia's still angry with me for whatever reason and Ethel's running an errant for me."
"Ah, right she mentioned something, I think", Emerick regretted making the slip of tongue as soon as he did.
"She told you about it?" Felix asked surprised, considering how defensive Ethel had been when he asked.
"Not really, no. Just mentioned you…nevermind."
"Okay, well let's go to Potions.", Felix didn't push him further, it was not wise to have any more of this in public.
Socrates was the one astounded now. "Why are you looking happy to go to Potions?" In fact everyone felt astonished at the sudden change.
"I have nothing against Potions", Felix replied with a faint smirk and a very calm posture. Too calm.
"You've not exactly been friendly with Professor Marvey, though", Uriel noted. The Slytherin in him detected deception and sleight of hand with ease, which intrigued him.
"Indeed, things change though, don't they?" Felix continued being evasive.
"Change is the only constant."
"Couldn't have put it better myself, Socrates", Felix nodded pleased.
"What changed?" Emerick joined the chorus, unable to contain his curiosity anymore.
"Everything and nothing, yet", Felix knew he was enjoying this more than he should have, but his strategy needed secrecy for now and his friends would have to wait.
"You've been spending way too much time with Professor Enigma, mate", Uriel tried to tease him back.
"Well, to be fair Felix's tutoring with Professor Jordan has its advantages, he learns cool and amazing spells and curses and then he teaches them to us", Emerick replied with a smug smile.
"Yeah, and he's also mopping the floor with my face", Felix sighed.
"so, you two started dueling, have you?" Uriel asked laughing along with the others.
"No, he's wiping my face on the floor, and for the first-time passion, emotion and downright aggressiveness is failing me admirably."
"My friend if your strategy is having no strategy is not working anymore, time to change it?" It wasn't so much a question from Socrates, more a statement which Felix should have thought of on his own.
"I have, I did when we started dueling."
"Then?"
"For the moment, Uriel, part of my new strategy is having Professor Jordan think I haven't changed."
"Why?"
"Surprise and finality."
"As Charles would have said, my head hurts now", Emerick chuckled bitterly.
"Charles…he would make me laugh whenever he'd feel I was stressed or down for whatever reason. He was smart and he had street smarts and he'd never show it, he'd prefer to get lower grades than display just how smart he was", Felix smiled remembering his cousin.
"Took you long enough to notice", Emerick gave his shoulder a a friendly squeeze.
"I noticed it the first time I met him in passing in Olivander's', then in Flourish and Blotts and verified it when we became friends in here."
"Then…" Uriel was even more lost by each reply.
"Why do you downplay yourself when you have the smarts"? I never asked him, he was my best friend and then he was also my cousin, family. His grades were good and if he didn't want straight Os that was okay with me. Asking him could have had adverse effects for him and our friendship, and it didn't matter, grades aren't everything. He was happy with it and I was happy to have him as a friend and cousin", Felix wiped a tear from his eyes before entering the Potions classroom.
He never ceased to amaze them, just when they thought they had him, they had understood the measure of him, he would do or say something that would increase their respect of him, their knowledge of his depth of character and empathy towards others.
They took their seats at the front of the classroom, unlike usual when Felix preferred the limited privacy of the rear near the entrance. Not that it made a huge difference with how the classroom was set up with desks, ingredients shelves and work benches around the walls of the hexagonal vaulted room and the center nigh-void.
Professor Marvey seemed even less pleasant than before, something in her mind making her grungy. "Today we will be covering everlasting Potions and Elixirs. Who can tell me Liberatius Borage's equation?" She asked looking across the classroom for a raised hand, to find none. "Anyone? Felix?"
"It is a transfiguration Potion, Professor. It states that a potion can produce content – nigh- everlastingly if the potion's ingredients can be transfigured into the transfiguration rune portion of the equation in a form that can incorporate them directly into the formula in a liquid form while the transfiguration rune accurately and continuously create and resupply the potion's overall formula.
"So, the equation is two parts transfiguration and one part Potion's formula and if you want, Professor, I can give my improvements into it, like how not only to maintain steady everlasting quantity but increase it as well as potency without sacrificing speed by introducing the ingredients into the formula in the proper temperature and quantum state as well as what the textbook mentions", Felix replied to Professor Marvey leaning back against the back of the desk behind him and his knees crossed one over the other.
"And what makes you think I don't already know all of that?" She asked him annoyed.
"You didn't teach us the improvements in the first place, and since we're sixth years heading for NEWTs we could use that information. How do I know, Professor? You didn't teach us this in the first place and this is a revision", Felix told her with a triumphantly smug smile.
She swallowed her rage towards him and in her effort to make him dig his own grave, she made yet another mistake. "Well, in that case why don't you stand and teach us, your Eminence."
Felix stood in a slow, deliberate fashion went to the Professor's bench and started writing in the blackboard behind the desk with his wand like he had seen Irina do. After he had explained his improvements to them and how they were incorporated into the formula and they had written it down he had them gather around him as he showed them how to do it in an actual elixir. First, he showed them the standard formula and then one with his improvements.
Finally, he had them taste the two different versions which caused some hiccup-side effects as if they had been inebriated by a strong alcoholic beverage.
"Even the taste is slightly different, more citrusy!" A Gryffindor girl exclaimed.
"Class dismissed!"
"But, ma'am…we have another twenty minutes of class yet!" Socrates cried disappointed as Potions was his favourite subject. She stormed off slamming the door to her office behind her.
"I guess not", Felix sat back down chatting with his friends as other students left the room.