Chapter 12

AHHa wanted to do something nice for Alcithoe Bat; and he had his opportunity sooner than he might have expected. She sought him out; and she had been crying.

"Oh Angel, I know it's not nice to want revenge on people but I wish you will think of something to make that wretched Grey Scholar have a few manners!" she cried.

"What's the egregious little creep been up to now?" demanded AHHa "We usually shout rude things at him if he starts on us and use the insubstantial tickling charm."

"You are SO clever to be able to affect the insubstantial" murmured Alcithoe "He IS rude without provocation; you see I was a schoolgirl before he and the other ghosts were banished so he knew me when I was just a little girl; and he taunts me that I was a hopeless scholar and probably a hopeless teacher and no real scholar. And I know I wasn't very good; but then I knew no better for having myself been taught rather inadequately. I learned a lot from Severus" she added.

"He is rather exceptional" said AHHa. "Actually, I think I have an idea; and you, as a trained chanter can help and make it work all the better."

"I can?" said Alcithoe sounding half scared half eager. "I get to pull a jape?"

"Rather" said AHHa "Full of himself is old Zalmoxes; fond of his dignity. Likes the name 'The Grey Scholar'; it has a ring, a sound of dignity and – and full of gravitas. Listen."

He spoke quickly and specifically with a lot of theory for several minutes; and Alcithoe Bat giggled almost girlishly.

They began to chant.

oOoOo

The Grey Scholar burst into Severus' office and demanded that something be done about the terrible state of affairs.

Severus was hard put not to laugh at the terrible state of affairs; for instead of being the usual pearlescent bluey-white colour that was natural to ghosts, Zalmoxes was a pearlescent shimmering pastel fluorescent thing, the colours in him of the more obnoxious shades, made somehow insubstantial, of the fluorescent fart jinx.

"Whom have you irritated?" asked Severus "- more than usual that is" he added.

"How should I know? Just DEAL with it! Call yourself a scholar? If you can't deal with some schoolboy prank then you're no such thing!" cried Zalmoxes.

"Funny, I have this aversion to dealing with problems when their removal is backed not by a polite request but a rather rude demand" said Severus "I might echo your words; YOU call yourself a scholar; can't YOU deal with some schoolboy prank? If not I shall have to draw my own conclusions about YOUR level of scholarship."

The Multicoloured Scholar was practically gobbling in rage.

Severus gave up and broke down in laughter.

Zalmoxes howled in despair and anger and flounced off – so far as a ghost may flounce, especially when fluorescing.

oOoOo

"Would the clever pupil or pupils who has er, adversely affected the Grey Scholar be kind enough to give me an explanation?" asked Severus at supper.

AHHa arose.

"Well sir, he's been bullying Alcithoe; and I think he bullies Merope too. And I wasn't going to stand for it any longer. Alcithoe helped and we chanted it in" he grinned wickedly "And if he can't undo it, that really kind of rubbishes the remarks he made about Alcithoe being incapable; because if he can't get rid of a curse made by someone he thinks incapable, what does that make him?"

"Hmmm" said Severus, as Zalmoxes was heard to howl in outrage where he lurked listening for an answer to Severus' initial question. Severus went on, "May I take it he was to wear this er, unusual form for a particular time?"

"Yes sir" said AHHa "Right up to when he makes a public apology to Alcithoe and Merope and makes an undertaking not to rag them anymore."

"Never!" howled Zalmoxes, becoming briefly – and fluorescently – visible to the school.

There was laughter.

"Oh well, your problem Zalmoxes" shrugged AHHa "It's not unreasonable is it Professor Snape? Like making some bully wear the word 'git' in zits until they apologise?"

"Oh perfectly reasonable, Mr Hallow-Hellibore" said Severus "And I think I add my applause if my little grandmother-in-law AND my dependant have BOTH been so badly bullied."

"Zaloxes looks like a fluorescing fart! Zalmoxes IS a fart!" shouted Spassmacher, the school poltergeist.

"Y'never said a truer word Spass, mate" said AHHa.

Zalmoxes retired hurt.

oOoOo

Zalmoxes quickly picked up a new name from the upper school, who spread it about those with less extensive vocabularies to make sure there was a pleasing level of alliteration in 'The Psychedelic Scholar'; though there was some move, as he was now brightly coloured to just massage his name to 'the GAY Scholar'.

Zalmoxes was NOT pleased.

He was in two minds whether to report the outrage to the convention of spirits and ask for a punitive haunting; but on the other hand he would have to show himself; and the thought of the ridicule of highly respected ghosts was not pleasant. Besides, there was no guarantee that these terrible children might not TICKLE a visiting haunting or – HORRORS! – turn THEM multicoloured! And they would never forgive him for THAT!

Zalmoxes had to eat humble pie and declare himself ready to apologise and promise not to rag Merope and Alcithoe any more; and the childish word 'rag' was NOT one he thought much of since to his mind he merely depressed their pretensions.

He choked his way through the apology and the promise; and AHHa and Alcithoe performed a rapid negating chant that restored him to his usual pearlescent perfection.

The Grey Scholar was not to be much in evidence for the rest of the term.

He called it preserving a dignified silence; everyone else called it sulking.

oOoOo

The Would-Be Marauders met quietly.

"All right, WHAT are we going to do about Kate Grant?" said Grace "She's in my sister's class and Rose said that she's decent enough if a bit single minded about quidditch; but if you ask me, harrying us out to practise when none of us actually gives a hoot about quidditch isn't decent."

"I expect she means well" said Hiob gloomily "And thinks she's doing us a favour; you know what sporty people are, so convinced that their game is wonderful they assume that everyone else must like it too."

"She has the, what you English say, bats in the upper playing field" said Otylia.

"Yes, exactly" said CuHH. "Well used idiom by the way, Otylia. Now I like a game of quidditch and of course I like to see the school do well, but HONESTLY! Routing us out when we have better things to do just because it isn't actually snowing; I was hoping we'd be croc'ed down to the pasture and have a decent walk or a snowball fight in the yard or something, but no! She TELLS Professor Snape that the young ones would prefer a game of quidditch. It's telling fibs!"

"Well if you ask me, there's two things we can do" said Law "And the first is a kind of civil disobedience sort of protest; and the second is ragging a senior. Or several seniors to get Kate in hot water with her fellows"

"Well shoot; give us the second first" said Hiob.

"If we rout the seniors out of THEIR common room after telling Professor Snape how much they want to have a spelling contest that's a kind of tit-for-tat" said Law "Because they won't, especially Kate, who can't spell."

"I like that" said Rence "Definitely what's sauce for the goose is sauce also for the gander. What's the other?"

"Next time she routs us out we put on our PJ's over our clothes and dressing gowns instead of quidditch robes and claim that it's such a yawn having to play quidditch instead of doing something fun outside we thought we'd better get ready for a snooze" said Law.

"Wow" said CuHH "That's so much more subtle and grown up than a rag; I vote we go for that one."

"Seconded" said Otylia "I know Boleslav and Rence like the radical ideas but I think that's got more impact AND we haven't then broken any rules which gives us the moral high ground."

"I have to third that" said Grace. "If it DON'T work THEN we can do the radical sort of rag. But if we tell Professor Snape they WANT to do a spelling bee we've then lied; and the fact that Kate has lied too doesn't make it right. When we get shouted at for the PJ's THEN we point out that it's hard to cope with seniors deciding what we want and what we don't and telling staff for a fact what they want us to be wanting."

"Lumme, Hubble, can you manage worse grammar than that?" said Hiob.

"Only on a bad day" said Grace, not in the least discommoded.

oOoOo

The rest of the first, including the two new ones, were talked into going along with civil disobedience; and they talked the second into joining them too.

"It's brilliant" said Wilhelm "And we Ubiquitous Marauders wish we'd thought of it first. I like a game of quidditch but why waste snow?"

"And I'm really keen on quidditch; but my sister is getting ridiculously bossy about it" said Lydia Grant. "I'll certainly go along with it."

Even Jöran Ulvaeus, when assured that civil disobedience was not rule breaking, agreed to make a point!

Thus the next time Kate Grant informed the first and second that they were to play quidditch they duly turned out in their pyjamas and dressing gowns.

"Hello, what?" said Professor Ron.

"Well sir, we think being made to play quidditch when we could have had a snowball fight is so dreary we thought we'd better get ready for a snooze" said Law, who had decided to be spokesman as it was his idea.

"It's so tedious when the big ones decide they know what we want and inform the staff accordingly that their concept of a good time is the same as ours" said Hiob whose grammar was better in any of the languages he knew than Grace's was in her mother tongue.

Ron blinked.

"Well I did think you were seeming rather keen for a bunch of – forgive me – quidditch duffers" he said. "When Sev- Professor Snape said that you were electing to play quidditch after he'd arranged a snow fight I was quite surprised. Go and get your Jams off and your coats on and get out here double quick and we'll have those forts up."

"Yes SIR!" they all chorused.

oOoOo

Ron regarded Kate.

"Kate, you good ass" he said "TRY to remember that not all kids are mad about quidditch; making them play when they don't want to is close on bullying you know."

"Well they could have refused" said Kate.

Ron cocked an eyebrow.

"Could they? How come I can just HEAR you saying 'Nonsense you don't mean that, you need a good brisk bit of exercise, it's the head's orders you get outside' whilst neglecting to consider that there are other things they can do outside?"

"Well I never passed up an opportunity to get on a broom at their age" said Kate.

"Maybe not" said Ron dryly "And at their age my wife never neglected an opportunity to creep into a corner with some arithmantic problem or other. If they're as much duffers at quidditch as you and I are at Arithmancy, don't you think they might find playing quidditch as much a chore as you or I would find being made to do er simultaneous equations in OUR leisure time? Because if they feel strongly enough for TWO WHOLE CLASSES to join a protest I rather fancy that's a fair indication of what it means to them. And if you told Professor Snape they WANTED to play without actually calling for a show of hands – you didn't did you? – then that's telling lies, Kate; even if you didn't intend it as such."

Kate was brick red.

"I meant it for the best" she muttered.

"We all do things we mean for the best that are actually anything but" said Ron "You've had a rebuke from the first and second; a mild rebuke. They could have set up some kind of a rag instead. Learn from it; and try to think of the feelings of others. Always remember your sister's best friend was too frail to play quidditch; but that friendship grew anyway. There are more things in life than quidditch. And you are not actually even head of games; that's George because he's into Quiddpolo too. You're captain of the quidditch first team. And the lower two years are NOT good at quidditch except your sister; it's the way it goes. And as even LYDIA was a part of the rebuke I should think that really proves how heavy handed you've been. All right; next time ask for a show of hands, and take out ONLY those who are interested. The Head can roust out the rest for a brisk walk or whatever."

"Yes sir; sorry sir" said Kate.

"If I were you" said Ron "I shouldn't be thinking about saying sorry to me but to the juniors; they'll respect you the more for it you know. As YOU would have done at their age."

Kate, flushing, nodded; and when the juniors came out ready for a snowball fight – Ron having fetched Severus and the younger resident children to join in – she apologised to them for making assumptions and being heavy handed.

The juniors gave her an ovation; they appreciated her ability to unbend to apologise.

And the snowball fight was enjoyed by all, even Kate, who was co-opted as a referee because she could be guaranteed to be astute and on the ball in issuing points for captures and 'man down' on either side.

oOoOo

Outside games were the order of the day during fine weather; because of the necessity to take advantage of such good weather as there was. And rest was scheduled after Kaffee und Kuchen for an hour on such days and lessons took place in the evening instead. Extra study periods for preparation were then introduced before school on inclement days with early snacks followed by a full breakfast after preparation. This was the term which was most disrupted by weather, and the staff worked around the exigencies of the climate; and Severus blessed the fact of a rather competent weather diviner in Miss Gimlet, who may have fallen just short of the average required for an insurance diviner but who had a positive genius over long term weather prediction! Thus, timetables might be drawn up and displayed a full fortnight in advance so that pupils knew when their normal lesson times might be disrupted and duly prepare. The school as a whole were down to earth about the matter and behaved very well, none of the children taking advantage of the changes.

It was a shock to the new French arrivals, used to a school in the warm south of France; Viridian and Vivienne lived too in a more clement region and the bitter cold was a shock.

"You wait until the summer term, Viridian" said Henik "The heat then is incredible; because of the thin air so high up. We have hats as part of our uniform; straw hats of the kind expensive English schoolchildren wear. And we need them!"

"Such seems incredible at the moment" said Viridian, shivering "Now I understand the need for some of the kit on the list; I laughed at first at the idea of long underwear with embedded warming charms but I must say I am much glad of it!"

"Oh well, at least you did do as the kit list said" said Rudi "We have had the odd idiots who decided they knew better than Professor Snape and ended up shivering. Mind you, the Muggle Marauders did have good excuse, because they have muggle parents who hadn't a clue about getting kit with warming charms in and that had to be sorted out here."

"Ah, yes; I am a Marauder in Beauxbatons" said Viridian, who still had a few idiomatic problems with English. "There was one other girl in my year; here there are four."

"We sort of thought we'd let you find your feet before overwhelming you, Vir mate" said Vava "But if you're ready to rock we'll have a proper Marauder meeting tonight."

"Thank you; this I should like" said Viridian.

oOoOo

The number of Bee Marauders slightly staggered Viridian.

"We started off as four in our year and included my sisters from the year below" said Yrdl "Only then Jo came as new and this year Kizzy joined us and now you; and I'm half inclined to suggest we split into the Bee A Marauders and the Bee B Marauders or something."

"Crumbs, Yrdl, that's far too much a tongue twister" said Hette. "If you guys stick as the Bee Marauders and we younger ones become the Bee Too Marauders that is a pun in the English fashion on Too and Two and so appropriate for Marauding, nicht wahr?"

"Perfect" said Crow. "Poor Viridian though, stuck with what Professor Snape calls a monstrous regiment of not-yet women."

"But then he has more choice of us to dance with at the ball next year" giggled Jo.

"Or he could take all four" suggested Hette.

"Or he could decide you're all horrid brats and take someone else" said Yrdl brightly.

There was a brief scuffle.

"I say!" said Viridian "You English-trained have impromptu duels without it meaning any harm; in fun. It is very jolly!"

"It's one way Marauders hone their skills" said Yrdl, negating the exploding pustules filled with maggots. The trip to Durmstrang had rather fired the imaginations of those marauders who had gone after all, and those to whom they had passed on the information! "You only had a few marauders at Beauxbatons, yes?"

"Five" said Viridian "Three in the sixth; my fellow marauder in the fourth must be lonely. She is too part goblin and that is lonely also in Beauxbatons as yet."

"Then tell us all about her and we shall pulse her with support through you" said Crow. The others nodded. Viridian grinned. These Marauders were all his brothers too!

And after a bit of shuffling and jostling, they decided too to bring him in specifically to their group and went to scrounge goodies to have a feast afterwards. And Viridian had no need to feel in any way wary of them any more; because they were closer than kin!

oOoOo

Viridian was finding the work a little harder than he had been used to; the professors were more demanding. He blessed Darryl Zabini for bringing him on in Arithmancy as it was a compulsory subject here now; and he was well up in chanting. Art was his special subject and he was glad of the opportunity to switch to studying domestic beasts, since care of beasts had been part of the core curriculum in France; he was quite good at Ancient Runes; and excellent at Herbology though that was because he loved the intricacies of plants rather than because he had any expectations of doing at all well at potioneering. He asked if he might try those subjects he had missed; and Professor Snape organised him into the taster classes. It soon transpired that he was without any talent in metalworking to the point of being a danger to himself and others; and had no especial feel for either Comparative Magic or Geomancy.

As he also wished to continue his astronomy – because he enjoyed it – this was as well, since he would be taking eleven subjects, ambitious by any standards.

Professor Snape organised Pru Buffer into giving Viridian a hand with his studies in astronomy as well as teaching him himself; if Pru hoped to teach it next year, a little practise with a single student would NOT do her any harm. And would give her the feel for whether she was prepared to teach or not.

Pru was delighted to help out and to find someone else who was fond of her subject; and Viridian felt he had a really good chance, with the help others gave him, of passing all eleven OWLs and getting good grades at his favourite subjects too!

It must be said that the clear skies were a great help to the two astronomers; and Pru professed sympathy for anyone studying the subject in cloudy Scotland. She did not hope to get the top grade in her NEWT; studying alone with tutorials from Professor Snape, who freely admitted not having studied so high himself, she knew that she might well miss the point of certain aspects of her craft that would become obvious no doubt in the actual exam. However, Professor Snape had kindly organised tutorials from Professor Sinistra in Hogwarts, who also marked essays she set for Pru; and Aurora Sinistra had been glad enough to find someone who shared her passion for the skies deeply enough to go it alone, and had been pleased and surprised when Severus paid her for the written tutorials. It did not come amiss, though she would have been prepared to help a keen girl in any case. Severus was quite happy to pay for the really good training of a future professor! Aurora Sinistra had suggested Pru transferring; but Pru had written a pretty letter explaining that she liked having the brightness of the stars to study high on a mountain, and that moreover it was her duty to stay to help the brain-damaged girl that Professor Snape had placed in her care. Professor Sinistra envied her the clear skies, if not the care of a brain-damaged girl; but she appreciated a nice child when she heard of one and was not about to discourage that! Severus had written too that he was studying informally alongside Pru, because he had studied only as much of the subject as covered potioneering and felt that he had neglected something that had more significance than he had, as a schoolboy, realised.

The study of astronomy was, after all, quite important in the timing of ritual; and Severus was beginning to realise that it might be allied with Arithmancy to make even more powerful effects. There was no doubt that wizards and witches were governed by the movements of the rest of the universe, even if the effects on muggles were a lot less than the readers of their more trashy periodicals believed; even if muggles had NOT been working on an inaccurate system that took no account of the precession of the equinoxes.

oOoOo

The studies of the skies might have been more rewarding had not Spassmacher been feeling his oats and decided to perch on the end of the newly installed telescope displaying a rather new full moon that was most certainly not a heavenly body by any description.

Pru complained to Severus; and Severus unpacked some Weasley's Wizard Rockets and next time the unwanted phenomenon occurred calmly activated the spell that fired them.

Spassmacher went on an involuntary journey, showering sparks as he went.

When he returned, Severus summoned him and said,

"NEXT time you interfere with the telescope I send you to the other side of the moon. Your permission to remain is dependant on not interfering with the lessons here; astronomy is a lesson."

"Well how was I to know that?" asked Spassmacher crossly "It don't take place during lesson time."

"Because the stars aren't visible during lesson time; do have some sense" said Severus waspishly.

Expecting a poltergeist to have sense was a forlorn hope; but Spass managed to look sheepish.

"Sorry" he said.

Unfortunately now he had got the idea of mooning he did it at times and in places where his activities were permitted; and Severus gave up and left it to the ingenuity of one group of marauders or other to deal with the problem.

Fred and Peter Lowther came up with the simple and brilliant idea of irony.

"Crumbs, Spass, mate, now you've moved your face, it's so much better looking" said Fred.

"Yeah, so many pimples the expression is delightfully hidden" said Peter. "Here, have an ice cream" and proceeded to pull off the conjuration of his life to produce an ice lolly that he fed into Spass's 'new mouth'.

The poltergeist was no further trouble.

"And if you can manage a conjuration with that much aplomb in your NEWT exam you'll pass with a really good grade" said Krait to Peter, who had watched in approval as Spass, taken aback in more ways than one, fled with a startled falsetto squeal.

oOoOo

Pru was much disposed to look kindly upon the Lowther twins. True it had been Severus who had sorted out the problem with the telescope, but Pru was inclined to think well of anyone who could actually subdue the German poltergeist.

His antics quite upset gentle Frieda for one thing; and Pru liked Frieda. The brain damaged girl was so well settled and really looked as though she had every chance of passing two NEWTs that anything to upset her equilibrium was to be avoided. True, Frieda was only brewing Amortentia for her NEWT level potion, which did not need more than one session; but it gave her the opportunity of brewing it several times over if need be, to gain a perfect grade on the low marks that so relatively simple a potion would give her. Pru, who was rather good at Potions, was brewing Mandragora, though she had NOT raised her own mandrakes as Rory had; she had however accepted his spares to write notes on the origins and care of them for extra marks, crediting a herbologist friend with their raising; and she had unpotted and killed them herself again for extra marks, using the subsonic charm pioneered by Madam Parnassus to stun them for unpotting and to keep them subdued long enough to cut off the leaves. Mandragora always came in handy so she, like Rory, could donate their brew to professor Snape once the exam was over.

oOoOo

Those taking the NEWT in potions might be described as at worst, competent.

Which did not include Rose Hubble who had gladly given up potioneering after managing to struggle through a pass at OWL; so what possessed Rose to decide to brew her own beauty products in what became known in the annals of the school as 'the week of the Hubble moments' even her closest friends could not guess. Rose was concerned about chapped and dry skin from flying; she was keen to win a place on a professional quidditch team and, though her play was erratic, had every chance of being scouted if she could improve her consistency; and she recalled having made skin preparations in the fourth and thought that with a bit of mugging up there was no reason she should not quickly whip up a skin preparation to moisturise and protect her face and hands. And perhaps with almost anyone else that would have been all there was to it.

Rose however was always a rather hasty and careless worker; and sent for the ingredients she thought she wanted from a potion supply centre. Unfortunately when reading through the catalogue of ingredients she marked the wrong line; and was too sloppy to check back her ingredients, and not enough of a potioneer to wonder if it really had been Erumpant horn fluid she had wanted when she had been marking what should have been Evening Primrose Oil.

Amazingly, Rose managed to duly mix her ingredients without mishap, largely as true potioneers pointed out later, because she had not got her study fire hot enough to explode the erumpant horn fluid. The beeswax and oil held the whole in a pleasing cream; and Rose smoothed it on to go out to practise quidditch.

She was soon being stared at by her fellows; and in truth her skin felt a little odd.

"Rose, I really think you ought to go and see Madam Mandrake" said Kate urgently, from a distance "In case it's catching."

"In case what is catching?" asked Rose "Is there something wrong with my skin lotion? My face does feel tight."

Kate ducked as the first explosion went off loudly.

Rose's face had formed a tessellation of hexagonal chambers which each exploded with a loud detonation; and her fellow quidditch players bravely fled from the spray of erumpant horn fluid as Rose yelled in shock and horror.

George and Kate ran her into the hospital wing and sent for Severus while Peter and Fred chanted to reduce the effects. Severus demanded to see her skin cream and summoned it from her study to examine.

"ERUMPANT horn fluid?" he demanded after using the Revellaspell "Why ever did you put THAT in, Rose you Hubble you?"

"Well it arrived with the other ingredients" said Rose, flustered "And in the recipe I copied out there was something beginning with 'E' in the ingredients so I guessed that must be it; I mean, I checked the ingredients and marked them in the catalogue, so I shouldn't have expected the potioneering book to be wrong, should I?"

Severus groaned.

"Rose" he said "Pray do NOT lay the awful results of your Hubble moment at the door of a perfectly blameless textbook; since Evening Primrose – which is what you SHOULD have been using – lays directly below Erumpant Horn Fluid in most catalogues I suggest you have merely read the wrong line."

"Gosh" said Rose "Who'd have thought that ingredients so close to each other would have such different effects?"

Severus later told his wives that if Rose survived marriage unstrangled if she cooked with the same happy abandon he would be surprised and that they should praise him for his forbearance and patience in the face of unbelievable temptation to commit Rosicide. They kissed it better and he was later able to explain that he had pointed out to Rose with some asperity that Potato and Peach were similar in the same way in having the same initial letter, but that somehow he doubted she would much like mashed peach with her lamb nor potatoes in syrup with ice cream.

"Which would not be so bad had we not also had Grace Hubble" said Dione, who had heard Dimsie Burke Nuffield on the subject.

Grace, in the throes of brewing the forgetfulness potion, permitted her mind to wander far enough to recall the last potion she had brewed – boil cure potion – and to absently add porcupine quills.

As with the boil cure potion, porcupine quills did NOT take kindly to being added while the cauldron was still on the heat of the burner; and a cloud of olive green and muddy red smoke arose in acrid profusion and with a hiss like a cat facing a crup the whole concoction exploded, showering the rest of the class; and it took the combined efforts of the second, under Dione at the time, being in Charms, to round up the first and poor Dimsie, all of whom were wandering around the school asking who they were and where they were supposed to be.

The Ubiquitous Marauders thought it a splendid improvement on the usual forgetfulness potion which had never had so drastic an effect; and mourned the fact that Grace had forgotten entirely what she had done.

Dione and Dimsie had, when the memories of the class were largely restored by Severus' emergency stores of memory potion, used Scarpin's Revellaspell on the remains in the girl's cauldron out of sheer curiosity; because though the memory of who they were and what they should be doing had been restored the memory of the entire potion lesson remained decidedly hazy for all of them. Dione planned to write it up in the book of wickedness; and suggested to Severus that he might try it in a controlled fashion.

"And if it's that profound applied EXternally Merlin only knows what would happen if drunk!" said Severus.

"Well a lot of people lose their memories when drunk" giggled Sirri.

She had to be well spanked and given a good seeing to for that flippant comment; which put Severus in a better frame of mind over considering experiments.

"With specific antidotes prepared beforehand" he added grimly.

It only took Grace Hubble letting out a yell because she found a flesh-eating slug in the greenhouse causing her to throw from her the pot that she was holding – full of bubotubers – to round off the week of Hubble moments and Grace labelled with some accuracy as a feckless article and worse than her sister.

As Grace prided herself on being – generally – more efficient by far than Rose, that stung; and she determined to really work hard to get herself back into the good graces of both staff and form mates again; and counted herself fortunate that her form mates did no more than tease her good naturedly despite being somewhat covered in boils and still unsure what happened in their last potions lesson; and as Otylia said, doubtless she had accidentally been overcome by fumes of the forgetfulness potion leading to that occurrence and that being upset anyone might take a bit of a funk at coming face to face with a flesh-eating slug, being an even more offputting sight than Spassmacher's bum.

Grace hugged her friend and felt better; and asked Madam Burke if the fumes might have befuddled her wits.

Dimsie considered and agreed cautiously that if Grace had leaned too close to the cauldron she might have been sufficiently affected to confuse one potion with another but there was no excuse for anything but daftness not to have taken the wretched cauldron off the fire before adding porcupine quills in any event.

Excused and condemned in one sentence Grace retired both soothed and chastened in spirit and still determined to succeed in the course!