Inductions into the Honor Society took place with less fanfare than they had last year, or at least by Alice's estimation they did. She did not know many of the graduating seniors this year, and there had been no special awards for Ellen to snicker at. Alice was grateful that Hieronymous had been able to distract her roommate with studies of 'magical theory' last year after Potsdam had caught Ellen taking pictures of objects that she had used Blue magic on. Mixing normal tech with magic was forbidden to students, but as long as Ellen was using no invention more recent than the pencil she could 'alter factors and see if there was a repeatable result.'

Hieronymous had admitted to her that he thought Potsdam could have been more specific in addressing why something was not done, especially to the brighter students who would be more likely to experiment and question. Apparently there were treaties involving instruments that could not be taken into Otherworld, and some wizards skipped between the two realms so easily it was easier to ban the objects themselves even on Earth. It did not even matter how innocuous it was, but if it had a power source more complicated than a wind-up-watch, it was forbidden. Apparently, there were also some physically dangerous effects of mixing tech with magic even on Earth, and letting students experiment with them would be about as safe as letting first-graders into a nuclear reactor facility.

If Ellen really wanted to experiment with magic and tech on Earth, she could…after completing about ten years of post-grad study, and then only in a containment facility designed for such experiments. Alice suspected that Ellen was interested in this course of study, as she always wanted to know the 'why' of everything she ran into.

After double-checking with Potsdam what she could and could not do, Alice found herself at the Pancake supper doing Minnie's share of the work along with her own as Minnie was 'not feeling well' this year. It seemed to her that as soon as the setup was complete, the rest of the students arrived and she spent the rest of the evening running to and from the kitchens exchanging empty platters for ones that contained fresh pancakes.

It did give her a behind-the-scenes look at the event, and it was actually the first time she had seen Brownies. She suspected that they were responsible for the cooking at school too. She knew that the creatures did not like to be seen, so she entered and exited the kitchen as quickly as she could without spilling the pancakes. She was the only one tasked with this duty, and she suspected it was both because she could not participate herself and to lessen the exposure the Brownies had to face. The experience made her wonder what other creatures lurked around school that she had not run into yet.

Her next exam answered at least some of that question for her. They were all allowed to pick a same year partner to take the test with them, with the stipulations that the other student could not be a roommate or someone they were or had been romantically involved with. It also had to be someone that had not let them down before.

This was how Alice and Donald ended up in the dungeon together. Apparently, most of the rest of the student body thought that they had 'let her down' by gossiping about her behind her back last year, and with her roommates off the table that did not leave Alice a lot to choose from. The fact that everyone now 'knew' that her marriage had originally been a political arrangement seemed to make them feel guiltier about the gossiping, though the fact that she now seemed to enjoy her husband's company ensured that she was not exactly an object of sympathy. With the setup of the test as it was, Alice suspected that the purpose was at least half to force the students to evaluate how they treated each other, not to mention assessing each other's skills.

She still considered Donald a good choice. The day the testing procedures had been made known, he had shown up at her door asking to partner with her. Everyone in the class had been looking for the most powerful, smartest, or the most skilled partner that fit their parameters, and she thought that she would be unlikely to do better. He had that certain ingenuity she had learned to appreciate in her twin siblings, and he typically did well in his tests. He seemed pleased to have her as well, as he knew how often she got extra merits during exams. Donald had also confessed to her that he thought that she might have received as many offers as Ellen had were it not for the 'issue' she had had last year, as he had heard some of the other students bemoaning the fact when he had told them who he had gotten for a partner. Apparently, they considered taking the test with Mrs. Grabiner to be an automatic pass, even if her husband showed no favoritism.

When they both touched the door that teleported them into the dungeons, they found themselves in a small room separated by a see-through magical barrier from a large open area that led into a cave. There were various supplies behind them in the curtained-off area, and before them stretching in the mouth of the cave…. Oh no, it couldn't be. Her eyes went wide, and Donald's mouth dropped open. Even if those things did spit poison or fire, at least it was not one of the big ones. Alice shuddered to think what would be on their final exam if this was what she had to deal with before then.

"Your instructions," the voice came booming as it usually did. The barrier must be soundproof. "Once you leave this area, the dragon will be able to sense you. It is not a trick, this is a dragon. Your exit lies inside the cave where the dragon is, and you may use any tool in your current area to help you get past the dragon. If either of you surrender, it will count as both of you failing and the appropriate demerits and detentions will be applied."

It said something about them both that neither of the students more than briefly considered surrender. Alice started looking around to see what they had to work with. "Can you see what kind it is Donald? Fire or poison?" she asked, looking over the heap of supplies. She suspected only some of them would be useful in getting past the dragon, with the rest of them merely added as a distraction. What interested her the most, however, were the various potion ingredients. Although potions had their weakness, they were still very useful.

"It's a Saxon Green…so…poison, only one head, and not that smart," he said, peering at it. "Not a bad dragon to face if it's your first time."

"The first for you maybe…you haven't met my father in law," she grumbled. "So," she mused more loudly, "we don't need to mix a flame retardant. What other potion could we use…not enough time for an antivenin, even if we had covered those yet."

"Disable, or distract it, you think?" Donald asked her. "It's not that big…only the size of a Buick."

"If you don't count its head, neck, and tail, that's an accurate description," she mused. "There's plenty of fat here, so we could hide something in it to get it to swallow it." She suspected that many students passed this test using a sleeping potion on the dragon. She rejected the obvious solution as lackluster. She knew her husband expected better of her; he expected almost as much from her as she did from herself. Then a thought hit her, and her smile was so wicked that Donald almost backed away from her. "Say Donald, can you mix up a good glue from what we have here?"

It turned out that the former Master of Detention did indeed know several good glue recipes off hand, including one that even stuck to organic, moist matter…like teeth. When Donald had mixed what he guessed would be a good mouth full…for a dragon…she froze the outer layer of the blob she was holding in midair, coated it with the fat, and levitated it out toward the dragon.

The green dragon stirred, sensing either the magic or the presence of food. She hoped that she had gotten enough fat on it to disguise the presence of something added as the dragon's head came up and started sniffing the blob that she held in midair. The dragon appeared suspicious at first, but greed apparently overcame suspicion and it snagged the blob out of the air and proceeded to try to chew it, immediately crunching through the frozen shell. Then the dragon stopped, likely sensing the new taste, and tried to expel the bolus from its mouth.

The dragon's head swayed to and fro, and it eventually lay on its back and tried to get at its mouth with its front claws, which only succeeded in getting the front claws stuck.

It struck Alice that it was good that they were behind a sound-proof barrier, as she and Donald were unable to contain their mirth. It finally occurred to Alice that now that the dragon was halfway across the room pulling at its front legs with its back ones, that this would be a good time to find the exit. "Come on," she said, grabbing Donald's forearm, and they both cast low-magical-residue Chameleon spells on themselves so the dragon would be less likely to notice them as they snuck across the opening of the cave and found the exit.

As soon as they walked back out into the sunlight, Hieronymous was there looking somewhat annoyed. "Full marks, plus extra for ingenuity. The remark about my father was accurate, but does not gain or lose merits," he said. "But who do you figure has to unglue the beast? Its back legs are messed up in the glue now, and it is annoyed enough that erasing the last fifteen minutes from its memory will be that much harder."

"Sorry Professor," was all she and Donald could get out before they doubled over in fits of giggles again.

Her husband sighed, and walked back toward where they had just come from, muttering about how he hated putting the dragon to rights more than he did putting the blasted walls back up.

...

"I should never let you or Mr. Danson near one of those poor creatures again," Hieronymous told her over supper.

As was her custom, she sat at the small round table that was normally reserved for faculty and their guests. Potsdam had joined them tonight. "Why, what did they do?" the other professor asked.

Hieronymous turned his flat gaze to her. "While you were happily monitoring the freshman, Mr. Danson and the other miscreant you see before you mixed up glue, covered it in fat, and fed it to the poor subject we keep for their exam."

From his tone, she knew her husband was not really angry, but it was rather a mixture of pride and irritation. She also noted that his avoidance of the use of the word 'dragon' was probably so passing freshman students would not be able to pick up too many hints about this exam. While the word 'fat' did not grab many ears, the word 'dragon' certainly would.

Potsdam had already started chuckling, but Hieronymous was not finished yet. "It was a good enough of a glue that it stuck to its teeth, so it was unable to open its mouth more than about four inches." As he continued, Potsdam's chuckling started to change to outright laughter. "Consider the beast is smart enough to try to dislodge the unwanted object from its mouth with its forepaws, and then gets them stuck. By the time I get down there, the glue has started to turn into a strong taffy-consistency, and the hind-legs and tail are now involved in the mess. It took me so long to mix up a solvent and knock the beast out, that everyone after them was late."

Potsdam's face was now red, and she was slapping her thigh with one hand and forcing herself to stay upright with the other, she was laughing so hard. It took her several minutes to calm down again. "Whose idea was that?" she finally asked when she had stopped wheezing.

"Mine," Alice admitted with a grin, "but Donald was the one that knew the glue recipe and mixed it up."

"I see," Potsdam said. "And Hieronymous, you should really tell her that you are more proud of her than annoyed."

"I already know that," Alice admitted, "but that shouldn't keep you from saying it."

Her husband sighed. "You are both correct. Your idea was an excellent one, and Mr. Danson's glue was possibly the best I've seen ever used. I do admit to being tired of unimaginative students that feed it sleeping potion, and admit that I expected better of you and you delivered. I think that I will stop trying to guess how you will handle your examinations, now. You find some unusual way to pass more often than not."

Alice nodded thanks. "Donald did more of the actual work than I did," she admitted, and then frowned at the table. "How many students opt out of this test? There should have been some, so we shouldn't have made you that late."

"My detention class will be full of Sophomores tomorrow, true," her husband admitted. "Perhaps I should have Donald make up another batch of glue for the creature, knock it out, and then make them clean the glue up."

"It would have given them a hint about what they could have done," Potsdam admitted, "as well as steel their nerves a little bit."

"And Donald would find the irony of inspiring someone else's detention hilarious," Alice said. "People might stop complaining about how boring detention is, though, and I'm not sure if you would think that a good thing or a bad thing."

"Playing dental hygienist to even a stunned dragon would be a good, sharp shock," Hieronymous mused. "It would also remind them that problems do not go away just because they run from them. Maybe a points system would be in order, so the ones that clean the teeth or claws get out of detention faster?"

In the end, Hieronymous ended up finding Donald and offering him extra points to replicate his success for use in detention tomorrow, so the failed students could have the same experience that Hieronymous had in cleaning up after Donald's exam. As Alice had predicted, Donald agreed to do so before he started to cackle madly and rub his hands together. Some of his table-mates looked at each other in askance, so Alice guessed that Donald had not yet started bragging about what he had done to the dragon. Now, he would not do so until after detention simply to keep from giving the other students any warning about what they would have to face. He would probably ask Hieronymous tomorrow if he could stop by detention, just so he could see the faces of his fellow students once they discovered their task.

Despite her currently high spirits, Alice could not help but feel something prickling in the back of her mind as she put her tray up. She did not think that she was forgetting anything. March thirteenth was not an anniversary of anything special that she could remember. Once back in her room, Alice found her diary from last year, but the only note was that Donald had been acquitted from suspicion of setting the fire to Jacob's door. Still something….

She got into her jewelry box and pulled out the locket that had her grandmother's picture inside. Somehow, just holding it made her feel a little better so she put it on. Deciding to make an early night of it, she changed into one of the long nightgowns her grandfather had provided her before getting out some books to study for a while before actually going to sleep.

"Don't tell me you're ready for bed! It's only eight!" Virginia exclaimed upon seeing her as she entered the room with Ellen.

"Neither of you failed the exam, right?" she asked.

"Of course we passed," Ellen said, somewhat indignant that she had even been asked.

"Ok, I can tell you both about it then. I'm ready for bed because nothing else of note will happen today. Donald, your brother Virginia, and your boyfriend, Ellen," Alice said, just to make herself clear, "is helping Hieronymous design detention for tomorrow."

...

Stay tuned! It's about to be another big night.