Wey, sorry about the slightly longer wait - been busy busy busy in the world of German history. You'll be pleased to know that I have absolutely shedloads of work to do but I am doing none of it because I'm going to a hallowe'en party tomorrow and therefore will be in no position to analyse French passives. The hallowe'en preparations made me think of this and I made a concerted effort to get it typed and up here. Enjoy.
PS. I think my characterisation goes off at one point - you'll know the point I mean hopefully. I apologise for this.
Four
The Hair of the Dog
Ethel woke with a squeal as the door to her bedroom burst open without warning and she curled up as small as she could as the tall silhouette that stood in the frame spoke in a terrible, instantly recognisable voice.
"Ethel, where is the bottle that you took from the dangerous potions cabinet this morning?" Her form mistress's tone was soft and icy, venom dripping from every word. Even Ethel, who hadn't had as many late night run-ins with Miss Hardbroom as Mildred had, knew that voice to dangerous.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she stammered, although she knew that it was a futile attempt at a lie, an embarrassment considering her usual aptitude in such a field. Miss Hardbroom stormed into the room and the moonlight from the half-open window illuminated a face to match the voice.
"Ethel Hallow, this is a matter of life and death!" she hissed, bending so that her nose was an inch from her pupil's. "Maud Moonshine has been poisoned and if I cannot find what she was poisoned with then I cannot make her an antidote. She will die. Now give me Mildred's blabbermouth potion!"
Ethel scrambled out of bed and scrabbled about in her bag for the bottle. Miss Hardbroom suppressed a heavy sigh and closed her eyes for a few moments before drawing herself back up to her full height. She had been loath to believe that Ethel was involved in the drama, but the more that Mildred had described on their way down the corridor, the more it made a horrible sort of sense. And she had to admit, it wouldn't be the first time that Ethel had flouted the rules to the detriment of her fellow pupils.
Ethel finally located the bottle and pressed it into Miss Hardbroom's hands before bursting into genuine tears of shock.
"I didn't mean to poison her!" she spluttered. The teacher ignored her and called back through the open door.
"Mildred, take this down to the lab."
Reluctantly, Mildred appeared around the frame and took the proffered bottle. Miss Hardbroom returned her attention to Ethel.
"You..."
"Miss Hardbroom," interrupted Mildred nervously.
"I said go, Mildred!"
"But ..."
"What?!"
Mildred shook the bottle, her face a picture of panic.
"There's none left."
A ream of choice profanity ran through Miss Hardbroom's head but she kept control of her tongue. She turned back to Ethel, resisting the urge to shout and wake the entire school.
"There is a very good reason why the dangerous potions cabinet is so-called, Ethel, and also why it is off-limits to students. You are in an unspeakable amount of trouble. Miss Cackle's office, first thing in the morning." If I were you, I'd start packing now, she added mentally. "Mildred, lab, now!"
She swept out of the room, closing the door forcefully behind her. Mildred caught a final glimpse of Ethel's face before she was shepherded down the corridor. For the first time, she could see a distinct similarity between Sybil and her elder sister.
XXX
Miss Hardbroom could move quickly when she wanted too, reflected Mildred as she stood just inside the doorway of the potions laboratory, watching the teacher flying around the room gathering ingredients out of nooks and corners and throwing them seemingly haphazardly into the cauldron on the front desk.
"Miss..." she began, but as soon as Miss Hardbroom looked up and saw her she was cut off.
"Don't just stand there Mildred! I didn't bring you down here just so that you could watch me make a highly illegal potion!" She waved her hand and the flame beneath Mildred's usual cauldron roared into life. "Since there's no potion left for the antidote, you'll have to make it again. The ingredients are in the cupboard."
As Mildred collected the herbs together and slid quietly into her place behind the desk, she didn't think that she had ever been so scared in her entire life. Maud's continued survival depended upon her being able to make a potion incorrectly in exactly the same way as she had made it incorrectly before. It was a daunting task considering she had no idea what she'd done wrong in the first place. She looked up from her cauldron to the front desk, where Miss Hardbroom was muttering to herself as she measured out droplets from bottles whose names Mildred didn't even begin to try and pronounce. She wondered if it was safe to talk to her, and subsequently if it was ever safe to talk to Miss Hardbroom. Despite coming to a conclusion in the negative, Mildred had to ask her question. Not knowing the answer was gnawing at her stomach with jaws like ice.
"Miss Hardbroom," she began quietly. The addressee looked up, angry at the interruption. Mildred took a deep breath and carried on regardless. "Is it true what you said just now? Is Maud really going to die if she doesn't get the antidote?"
Miss Hardbroom paused with a handful of herbs hovering over the cauldron, giving Mildred her undivided attention. Her face showed a real sadness that was seldom seen ordinarily.
"I would dearly love to answer no, Mildred, and that I only said what I did to scare Ethel into giving up the bottle. But I can't lie to you. Not in such circumstances. Maud's life is in danger." She quickly returned her attention to the cauldron, perhaps in an attempt to mask any further emotion that she was in danger of showing.
Mildred looked down into the bubbling depths in front of her. The icy jaws had increased in their violence, and she knew that they weren't going to improve in any hurry. The lab was silent save for the occasional hiss as a drop of potion spat onto the flames below. Mildred added the final ingredient but she knew that it was wrong, or rather, right. The liquid was crystal blue, the colour of a perfect blabbermouth potion. Like the flame spell, she could only do things right at the wrong time.
"Miss," she ventured cautiously, not wanting to admit to having made a mistake at such a crucial point in the proceedings for fear of Miss Hardbroom's reaction. "I've made a blabbermouth potion."
"Good," said the teacher without looking up. "Bring it up here."
"You don't understand... I've made it correctly." She showed her the blue potion.
Miss Hardbroom leant heavily on the desk, staring at the wood as she fought the desire to say something, anything that would show up Mildred's inadequacies. After all, the girl couldn't really be blamed; she had just been told that her best friend was in mortal peril.
"Start again," she said eventually. "There are enough ingredients."
Mildred's hands were shaking as she began the potion again, this time throwing in more random amounts of virtually everything that she could lay her hands on in an attempt to recreate the flurry of the morning's test. She knew that a lot of pond reed had gone into the potion, but was that before or after the bindweed? Didn't it have the same consistency as custard at one point? It had definitely exploded at the end, as her potions so often did.
"I need that potion now Mildred," said Miss Hardbroom from the front desk. "Is it ready?"
"Nearly there..." Mildred flung in the final ingredient and crossed her fingers. There was no explosion. She looked down into the cauldron only to see crystal blue.
"You've made it correctly again, haven't you?" said Miss Hardbroom, her voice heavily checked. The tone made the jaws in Mildred's stomach suddenly clamp down tight.
"Stupid," she whispered to herself, fighting back tears and nausea. "Why am I so useless?"
Unable to hold back any longer, she ran from the lab with a hand over her mouth. Miss Hardbroom watched her leave, seeing for the first time not an infuriating second-year with a seemingly endless capacity for trouble but a petrified thirteen-year-old, who was staying awake on adrenaline alone and whose self-confidence had just deserted her. She knew that she was asking a lot of her at that moment in time, but she honestly believed that Mildred could do it. Perhaps it was time to let her know that...
XXX
Mildred let the tears fall freely as she stood over the sink, shivering and retching.
"Useless! Useless! Ethel's right, I'm useless and stupid and Maud's going to die and it's all my fault because I'm so bloody useless at being a witch!"
"Shshsh..." A pale hand pulled her long bunches out of her face. Mildred looked up to see Miss Hardbroom standing behind her in the mirror.
"Why..?" she began, choked.
"Because I too know from experience that being sick and having very long hair does not make for a pleasant combination. Now, why is it that you can only make potions right when you need to make them wrong?"
"Because I'm a pathetic witch!" Mildred exploded, half-screech, half-moan.
"Mildred, you will wake up the entire school if you continue in this vein. Please try to lower your voice." She paused. "You aren't pathetic or useless Mildred. Everyone makes mistakes. I've been brewing potions for almost twenty-five years and even I slip up occasionally." Mildred, floods of tears renewed, found herself turning and crying into her formidable teacher's chest, aware of the possible consequences of such an action but far too distraught to care. To her astonishment, Miss Hardbroom merely put an arm around her in what could almost be called a hug. "You do seem to make mistakes four times as regularly as everyone else and yes, it does infuriate me when you get things wrong that you really should be getting right by now, but you aren't useless. Look how many times you've saved the school, saved your friends, saved me even though at one point you were quite prepared to believe that I had turned you into a frog. You are not useless Mildred. Never think that."
They stayed like that, listening to the storm outside, until Mildred's sobs slowed and finally stopped. Miss Hardbroom released her and suddenly it was as if the previous moments had never happened.
"Mildred, get back to the lab. You have fifteen minutes in which to make a perfect blabbermouth potion. "
"But..."
"Do as I say, Mildred!"
Miss Hardbroom swept out of the cloakroom, leaving Mildred to contemplate the extraordinary scene that had just taken place.
XXX
It was only as she was adding a handful of roughly chopped bindweed to a cauldron full of what appeared to be thick custard that Mildred realised she had been a victim of reverse psychology. As the miniature explosion heralded a wrongly made blabbermouth potion in a swirling, opalescent colour, she knew that by trying to make the potion correctly, she had done it wrong, which was exactly what they were aiming for.
"And?" asked the teacher presently. "Have we been successful this time?"
Mildred bottled the potion and set it on the desk next to the cauldron of half-made antidote, which was the colour of dark treacle. "I knew you could do it in the end Mildred. I had every faith in you. Now, the amounts must be exactly right." She discarded a teaspoonful of the potion; that evidently represented the test that Maud had been warned about in the lesson. "Then Ethel poured the whole bottle in." Miss Hardbroom went to do the same but Mildred stopped her at the last moment.
"Maud didn't eat it all because she said it tasted funny."
"How much did she have then?"
Mildred tried frantically to remember.
"It wasn't more than half; I know that... oh, I don't know!"
"Don't panic!!" warned Miss Hardbroom sternly. "Time is of the essence." She waved her hand over the table and a bowl appeared. Slowly she began to pour the thick potion into it. "Say when."
Mildred watched the bowl begin to fill.
"Will that work? I mean, the bowl had semolina in it as well... won't that affect the amount?"
The stream of potion stopped.
"Mildred, look at me."
She obliged, and saw a pleading expression flickering over her form-mistress's stiff features.
"You have to trust me. I trusted you to make the potion again. Please trust me in this matter."
Mildred nodded and returned her eyes to the bowl. Finally it reached the level at which Maud had stopped eating and what little was left was added to the potion. She couldn't believe that such a small amount of potion could have such an adverse effect. Just then, the lab door opened.
"Is it ready?" asked Miss Drill. "Maud is on the last block of ice and it has already begun to melt. She hasn't woken up."
"One minute," said Miss Hardbroom, concentrating hard on stirring the potion. Its colour lightened until it was the same pearly hue as the original poison had been. "I need to measure it. And for that I need silence," she added as Mildred opened her mouth to speak. Chastened, she retreated to the back of the room with Miss Drill, watching the process. She thought of Maud, alone upstairs and running out of time.
She prayed that they wouldn't be too late.
Well, it's pretty obvious what I'm going to say now... Please review. Again, the wait for the next chappie might be a bit longer because of coursework commitments. (German poetry commentary, French passives, the complete history of Austria from Roman times to the present day.... that kinda thing.)