Chapter Twenty Eight
A/N: No reviewers.
As Teddy turned another page in the ancient tome, Lena engrossed in a potion recipe at his side, he could not help but think of how much had changed since they had last been in this position. Back then, their efforts had been driven by hope, the simplicity of finding an illness, then finding a cure. It was not that simple this time.
"Do we actually know what we're looking for?" Fred asked, from his seat a little down the table from Lena. He was playing with the page of his old battered copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, looking more bored than Lena had ever seen him. "I mean, we're looking through all these books, reading all these things about werewolves, but we don't actually know what we're looking for."
"We're looking for anything that might help Lena." Teddy answered simply, and carried on reading.
Fred propped up his head on his arm, glaring daggers into the side of Teddy's head. "Great. Thanks for that."
"Fred, you don't have to be here if you don't want." Lena told him, her voice much gentler than her brother's had been. "I know there's Quidditch practices going on, you shouldn't be missing them."
Fred paused for a second, weighing up his options, then shook his head. "It's just older kids I don't like flying around a big patch of grass. The only reason I really watch is so I can laugh if one of them gets a Quaffle to the face. I'm staying here; I'm sure I can see them get hit again soon."
Lena chuckled a little, as much in relief as amusement. Even with the strangeness of the task he had been roped into, Fred was finally reverting to his old jokey self around her; she could not have wished for any better cure than that.
It was another half an hour of searching before Lena gasped, slamming her hand down on her open page as if the words would run away from her otherwise. "I've got something! It's a potion, it's called Wolfsbane."
"And it cures lycanthropy?" Teddy asked, looking a little as if someone were shining a bright light into his eyes.
"No," Lena corrected quickly, an edge of frustration to her tone. Teddy ought to know better than anyone that lycanthropy could not be cured, given how much he had read around the subject. "But it stops the drinker from being affected by the full moon. I'll still be a werewolf, the moonlight will still make me sick, but I won't transform."
"That's amazing." Fred smiled, looking down at the page. She had never seen the young Weasley so interested in a textbook. "How do we make it?"
Lena sighed, seeming to deflate like an old balloon as she read on. "According to this book, it's almost impossible, only a Potions Master could manage it. Definitely beyond a bunch of first years, anyway."
"So why don't we ask Professor Slughorn?" Teddy suggested, already rising from his seat and beginning to pile up the books they had used. The aged Potions Master had been teaching when their parents were still in Hogwarts, and as such he was no longer sprightly enough to teach the regular Potions classes, which had been entrusted shortly after the Battle of Hogwarts to a young woman named Matilda Prickle, the granddaughter of the famed potioneer. However, he had refused to leave the school entirely, and could often be found aiding elder students with difficult brews in the dungeons.
Fred held up his hands to stop him, his eyes already wide and intense in their stare. "I don't really think that's a good idea, Teddy. Slughorn can't keep a secret to save his life, and we don't want to know about this. Some people… they might not get it."
The boy hung his head in shame, his slightly too long red fringe falling over his eyes, as he remembered the way he had first reacted to Lena's confession. If he had been so volatile to his own best friend, who knew how the rest of the school would react?
"But we can't brew it ourselves." Lena pointed out. "Half of these ingredients are either toxic or ridiculously expensive, where are we supposed to find them?"
"How about the massive store cupboard down in the dungeons?" Fred answered, suddenly seeming much happier. Lena, having been raised without her parents, had never really realise how much a child could inherit their parent's mannerisms, but in that moment, Fred was his father in miniature.
"What, the one that belongs to the Potions Master and is only for her private use?" Teddy responded, clearly not enthralled by the idea. "You don't think they're going to notice when a load of expensive ingredients for a potion they never make go missing?"
"But if they never make it, how are they going to know?" Lena argued, not as passionate as her friend had been, but with a finality to her tone that suggested the decision was made. The two boys turned to her, one wearing an expression of complete pride and the other completely aghast. "We have to try it, don't we?"
And suddenly, Lena's voice was so quiet, so innocent, that Teddy's frown faded away. He reached out to clutch her hand in his, the tiniest gesture that was just enough to reassure her. "We'll try. If we all work together, we must be able to make the potion. It's just following instructions, just like a sleeping draught."
It would be a thousand times more difficult than a sleeping draught, but Lena appreciated the assurances all the same.
They did not make any more plans for their brewing that night; instead they headed up to bed, welcoming the comforting embrace of their mattresses after a day hunched over books in the library. For the first time, as the moon rose in the sky, Lena was not afraid. She drifted off into slumber with a smile on her face, her blanket draped gently over her shoulders, and dreamt of a time, just a few days away, when the moonlight would no longer burn.
A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, please review!