Chapter 8 – Potions and How Not to Conduct an Interview

The school was finally built with still two months to go before they opened their doors to their first students. The four founders were extremely proud of all they had accomplished in the short time they'd had. Every classroom was numbered, every library book was catalogued and everything they could think of was in place.

There had been a few hiccups along the way. Godric had altered the school timetables twice, which had resulted in a few minor problems with Rowena's moving staircases. The third year Slytherin Charms students would be taking a rather long walk to get to their classroom for their lessons on Thursdays for instance. Rowena had pointed out that in this case she simply couldn't move the staircases around to accommodate them as it would mean cutting off access to the hospital wing at that time. Since Godric's Care of Magical Creatures classes were on this day as well it was unthinkable not to have easy access to the hospital wing; they all still remembered last year's unfortunate incident with the unicorn.

But all in all the moving staircases had been a great success and would actually help students to navigate their way around the school. She'd even factored in the lessons of the older students in the following three years. Of course this would only work as long as no one altered the timetable or the uses of the classrooms at any point in the future…but who would do a silly thing like that when it was so well planned?

All in all they found themselves well pleased with the castle that was soon to be opened as Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Since they had managed to finish so far ahead of schedule it transpired that Rowena found herself at a bit of a loose end on the sunny morning in early July.

Godric had gone to make arrangements for the transportation of students to the school. Most of the children would be delivered to the edge of the grounds by their parents but there were some who were in difficulties in getting there, mostly those who were muggle-born and unable to apparate alongside their older relatives.

Helga was interviewing potential caretakers in Hogsmeade and Salazar had slipped out of their chambers and disappeared goodness knows where before she had even woken.

She wondered if he was in their secret chamber but had no way of accessing it to find out. She'd tried to remember where the entrance to the back tunnel was located but it was easier said than done. Salazar had sealed the tunnel shut so that whenever they wanted to access it all they had to do was use their wands to tap the bricks surrounding the entrance in the right sequence. Unfortunately the long dark tunnel all looked the same and she had yet to find the right spot without Salazar's assistance.

She had just given up for the day and was wandering back towards the entrance hall when she heard the sound of something being dropped in what she'd previously assumed to be an empty Potions classroom.

Turning back she approached the door and peeked inside.

The room was a hive of activity with no less than nine cauldrons containing what appeared to be a wide variety of partially completed potions.

Rowena watched quietly from the doorway as Salazar moved from one desk to another, chopping ingredients here, stirring a cauldron there, all the while smoothly keeping each and every potion under control. The only one he didn't seem to be working on was the one in the very centre of the room which he hovered near several times as he worked but never actually touched.

He had just stopped near that same potion for the fourth time when he let her know that he was aware of her presence. "Rowena, either come in and close the door behind you, or bugger off and find something useful to do. The draft you're causing is sending all the most noxious fumes in my direction."

Rowena stepped into the room and closed the door. "You really should consider Helga's offer to move the Potions classrooms to the second floor. It's not like you'd be in one of the towers; it's quite close to the ground in fact and closer than the History of Magic classroom up on fifth."

"Do you all really believe I wanted the Potions classrooms down here because of my little, and I stress the word little, problem with heights?" Salazar looked incredulous as he rolled his eyes.

"Isn't it?" Rowena asked, wondering what she was missing here. "Surely it'd be easier to have the classes in rooms with windows so you can open them and get some fresh air when the fumes are bad?"

"And what do you suppose would happen when a stray insect, or dandelion seed, or whatever came fluttering into the window and landed in the potion of a distracted student?"

Rowena shrugged. "I don't remember any potions that require dandelion seeds," she admitted.

"That's because most of them don't," Salazar replied. "And adding things to potions that shouldn't be in them is not the brightest thing to do, is it?"

"Oh."

"Besides, this works just as well, much better in fact." He nodded to the central potion as he turned down the heat on one of the other cauldrons.

"What is it?" Rowena asked as she moved closer to see what he meant.

"I'll pretend you didn't ask that," answered Salazar with a sigh. "I know brewing potions was never your favourite pastime but I'm sure even you can recognise this one."

Rowena sniffed, partly just to be haughty and partly to see if she could figure out what it was and salvage a little dignity.

"You've been brewing amortentia?" she asked as she finally recognised the contents as the most powerful love potion in existence.

"Ten house points to Ravenclaw," Salazar replied with a smirk. "Took you long enough."

"But why?" asked Rowena as irrational jealousy kicked out common sense for the morning.

Something in her voice must have alerted Salazar to the direction her mind had wandered in and he turned to stare at her.

"And get out of my head!" she snapped, feeling the familiar sensation of him probing into her thoughts. It never usually bothered her but her temper was rising by the second.

Salazar retreated both mentally and physically and took a seat on one of the stools behind him. He folded his arms across his chest and looked at her calmly.

"Well aren't you going to say something?" asked Rowena when she could bear the silence no longer.

"What do you smell when you're near the potion?" Salazar asked, taking her somewhat by surprise with his seemingly irrelevant question.

"The Canterbury Bells that used to grow back at the Manor and…" she broke off as she felt her face flushing.

"And me," Salazar concluded for her. "I'm brewing eight different kinds of healing potions in here this morning and most of them smell as bad as they'll taste when they're done. If I leave to go outside for some air, then I risk ruining the whole batch. So I brewed the amortentia before I started so that I'd be able to smell you when the fumes were getting too bad."

"Oh."

"Yes, 'oh'. Now would you mind lowering your wand," Salazar asked calmly. Rowena looked at her hand and saw that she was indeed pointing her wand rather threateningly at Salazar; she hadn't even realised she'd pulled it out of her robes. She lowered it and tucked it back inside her robes.

"You really smell me in the amortentia?" she asked as Salazar hurried from his seat to one of the potions that had started to bubble over whilst she'd had her wand trained on him.

"Of course," he replied in a tone that clearly conveyed that under any other circumstances he'd not have thought the question worthy of an answer.

"Have you ever…?" Rowena hesitated as she drew a little nearer to the potion.

"If you're about to ask whether I've ever slipped you any of it, then you'd better reach for your wand again, right now," Salazar warned.

"I wasn't," Rowena hurried to assure him. The thought hadn't actually crossed her mind. "I was wondering if you'd ever tasted it."

"No," Salazar replied as he moved over to another desk, adding some roots to the potion there. "It's pretty powerful stuff and not to be used lightly."

He looked up from the cauldron, satisfied that everything seemed to be under control. Rowena stood looking at him with a strange look in her eyes and the index finger of her right hand in her mouth.

"You didn't?" he asked.

Rowena removed her finger from her mouth and smiled.

"Please tell me you didn't?" he asked again.

Rowena edged her way round the desk towards him.

"Oh bugger, you did!"

Helga sat in the small hovel on the outskirts of Hogsmeade. The witch sitting opposite her took a long swig of mead. Helga took her momentary distraction to take a quick look at her list of questions.

It was strange how she'd assumed that she would be the one questioning the applicant and not the other way around.

So far she hadn't managed to get a single one of her own questions answered. Heck, she hadn't managed to string more than two or three words together since she'd stepped into the room.

"Right," the woman continued with a toothless grin. "As you can see I keep a shipshape sort of place."

"You do?" Helga asked a she looked around the room in astonishment. If this was shipshape then she pitied all who sailed in the conveyance. They'd be sunk before they left port. A stray chicken wandered across the straw covered floor and a cauldron in the fireplace bubbled over causing various hissing noises and a variety of multicoloured flames.

"Something wrong with me place?" the woman asked, rather more aggressively than was necessary.

"No, no, it's…er…lovely and homely," Helga stammered.

"So when do I start?"

"Start?" Helga parroted.

"Working at this little school of yours…when do I start?"

"The school isn't that little," said Helga firmly. Perhaps there was a way to put off this particular applicant because she really didn't want the woman in front of her working at Hogwarts. Not least of which because she had a feeling that the lonely looking goat currently poking its head in the window was the mate of Sal and she didn't fancy being brought before the local Sheriff on charges of goat theft.

"Can't be that big," the woman replied with a grunt. "You've only been there a few months."

"Oh, it's bigger than you think," Helga said with a smile of commiseration. "It's a fully furnished castle."

"You've built a castle up there?" the woman sounded like she didn't quite believe her.

"Indeed."

"Are we being invaded?" the woman asked as she grabbed her wand with one hand and a poker from the fireplace with the other.

Helga jumped up with a squeak and scurried for the door. "We'll let you know," she called back as she ran down the path, chickens and geese fleeing at her approach.

"Well that was productive," she muttered after she'd caught her breath. "I hope the other applicant is at least on the right side of sanity."

Luckily for Helga the man who had submitted the second application from Hogsmeade was completely sane, or at least he gave every impression of being so…at first.

"You keep a lovely home," Helga complimented the man as she looked around the small abode.

From the outside the building had looked like nothing more than a shack, very similar to every other hovel in the village. Inside however it was an entirely different story.

The room was spotless, she'd even go so far as to say immaculate. There was no sign of any indication that the occupant of the property was a wizard and if Helga hadn't known that the village of Hogsmeade was the only entirely magical community in the country she'd have thought herself in the home of an elderly muggle matron. Lace doilies were scattered on every surface and there was nothing even slightly out of place. She seemed to have found her caretaker.

"You mind taking your shoes off?" the wizard said as she looked around the room.

Helga did a double take as the man pointed down to her muddy boots that were currently soiling the polished marble floor. She muttered an apology as she took them off and left them by the door. She blushed as she realised she had a hole in the toe of her left stocking. She blushed even more when she realised their potential employee had spotted it as well.

What followed was the most disastrous interview she had ever been a party to. Unfortunately she didn't realise that this was the case until she stood up to leave, assuring the man that she was almost certain that he'd been successful in obtaining employment as Hogwart's first caretaker.

He had apparently been under the impression that he was interviewing her to see if she was a suitable employer. Unfortunately he informed her coldly that she fell short of his requirements.

"Well, how do you like that?" Helga complained to herself as she pulled on her boots and started the long walk back to Hogwarts.

The path that Godric and Salazar had constructed the previous week made the journey far easier than it had been the first time she'd travelled this way. Her pace however was just as slow, disappointment at the events of the morning weighing heavily on her shoulders.

She arrived at the newly constructed gates to the school to find a stranger standing at them, clearly wondering how to gain access to the grounds.

"Can I help you?" she asked as she approached him.

"Looking fer work Ma'am," the young man said, bobbing a small respectful bow. "'eard this 'ere place is looking fer staff. Came ter offer me services. You too?"

Helga wondered what it was about her appearance that conveyed to the casual observer that she was looking for work, and not in fact one of the Headmistresses of the school.

"Actually I'm…" she began but the young man, who was clearly a bundle of nerves didn't seem to hear her.

"What do yer think they're like? Do yer know what posts is open? Have yer met any of 'em?"

"What post are you interested in?" Helga asked, curious as to what the young man had to offer.

"Well it's difficult like, yer see, I'm a…well I've got…I can't do no magic."

"You're a Squib?" Helga asked, sympathy evident in her tone.

A flash of anger appeared in the young man's eyes as he picked up on her pity.

"No chance of 'em takin' on someone like me is there? Ne'er mind that I'd be workin' twice as 'ard an' twice as long as the rest of 'em." He kicked at a stone on the ground before turning away from the gates and starting back down the path back to Hogsmeade.

"Wait!" Helga called after him. "The school's looking for a caretaker if you think you can manage the job."

The young man turned round and looked back at Helga, then at the castle, then back to Helga again.

"They'd ne'er 'ire a Squib," he said morosely.

"Yes we would," Helga replied. The young man looked at her in surprise, though whether that was surprise at the fact that they might hire him or surprise that she was in fact the person doing the hiring, she didn't know. He didn't carry on down the path so she continued. "If they're the best applicant, and so far you are."

"No one else want the job?" the young man asked with a flash of unexpected humour.

"Actually you're the third person I've spoken to about the position today," Helga answered.

The young man looked back at the castle again. Helga could see the hesitation in his eyes. She didn't blame him. Even for a wizard the position of caretaker was going to be a difficult one. The size of the building alone would make the job one of the most difficult they had to offer. Unfortunately it was the only position they could offer a Squib, especially now the position of librarian had been filled by a young witch named Jocelyn Jones.

"I'm Helga Hufflepuff," she greeted him as she held out her hand. He shook it with a firm grip and an easy smile. "Augustus Addison," he replied.

"Would you like a tour of the castle, before you decide if you want the post?" Helga asked as she tapped her wand on the gate and stepped back as it swung open. Augustus nodded and let her lead the way.

"You'll find a lot of the castle will take care of itself," Helga said as they walked into the Entrance Hall. "There are plenty of storage cupboards so there won't be any problems with carrying too many cleaning utensils up and down the stairs. Erm…about the stairs…they move about a bit. We'll provide you with a rota so you don't get lost because of them…"

Helga showed Augustus the first floor and the kitchens before leading the way down to the Slytherin quarters.

"You might find the damp gets into these quarters a bit more than the rest," she said as she walked down the tunnel. "It stretches out under the lake and although we have charms holding back the water so we don't flood it does still get a little moist down here."

Augustus nodded in understanding.

"Ah, it sounds like Professor Slytherin is in," Helga said as they approached the door to one of the Potions classrooms. "Let me introduce you. These dungeons are his quarters and those of his students so he'll be able to let you know the trouble spots."

She knocked on the door and walked into the room with a bright smile on her face. This interview was certainly going better than first two of the day.

Helga froze instantly two paces into the room, her face turning redder by the second. She backed out again, closed the door quickly and ushered Augustus back down the tunnel as she muttered "maybe later, he's a little busy right now."

"Er, can I ask yer a question?" Augustus asked as they reached the Entrance Hall.

Helga nodded as the young man looked back down the tunnel they'd just exited.

"Jus' what sort of an establishment are yer runnin' 'ere?"