Fred and George sat at the Gryffindor table for breakfast. Each one would keep the conversation going with their friends, but they were too preoccupied at glancing towards the entrance. It had been over an hour since Tessa went to the Lake, and she still wasn't back yet.
"This isn't like her", thought George.
Tessa walked onto the bridge leading away from the Lake. She waited until dawn to see if Flint would show up. He never did.
"Success," said Tessa, to herself out loud.
"Success of what?"
Tessa's stomach dropped when she whipped around to see Marcus Flint in Slytherin's Quidditch practice sweats and hoodie.
"Um, j-just a successful walk on the Lake is all," stuttered Tessa as she slowly walked away back towards the castle
"Yeah, I decided to go for a run myself. Just had the urge to be down there, see you 'round," said Marcus quickly. He brushed past Tessa and continued running up to the castle looking back occasionally.
"What the hell?" Tessa thought looking at Marcus Flint's back. She jogged the longest path back to the castle; making sure to not get into Marcus' way again, and slowed a walk to fumble through her bag for a sheet of paper. Once she reach the she stopped at a wall with a smooth surface, she wrote on the sheet with a ball point pen and folded the note into a dragon. She whispered a spell and threw it in the air.
Fred stood up with George and said their goodbyes to their friends at the table. They couldn't wait any longer this wasn't normal for her to not contact them. Just as Fred turned around an origami dragon smacked him in the face and fluttered around both of the boys' heads.
George snatched the dragon and unfolded the paper while speed walking out of the Great Hall he slowed his speed when he fully read the note and turned to his brother.
"She's fine, but we need to go to the study room," said George to his brother. Fred sighed in relief and turned to make his way to the Hall of Hexes.
Tessa turned around from the window, where she was looking out at the lake, when she heard the door click open.
"What happened", said both of the twins in unison as George shut the door.
"I'm fine! Everything's fine. He never showed up at the rock, but, as I was walking back to the castle, I ran into him jogging," said Tessa quickly.
"Jogging?" George asked with a confused look on his face.
"Yes. Rarely anyone else does," said Tessa exhaustingly.
"Have you ever seen the girl you stole the hair from jogging?" Asked Fred.
"No, definitely not, but I hope we'll have class with them, again, today."
"Alright," said George.
"We'll just have to see how it goes", finished Fred.
The Morning went by, and there were no Slytherin girls gossipiong about budding ramances in their elective periods. After relentlessy eavesdropping on many crude conversations for the morning, Tessa swiftly walked into the Great Hall scanning for Hannah, the target, and Marcus.
She spotted the girl sitting with her friends cackling and laughing obnoxiously when she first walked in. Marcus was at the far end of the Slytherin table, closest to the Professors' table, with some Quidditch players.
"With his assertive and non-consensual personality, he should definitely be talking to the girl right now", said Tessa quietly to Hermione as she sat down with her.
"Marcus has been glancing at this table since I showed up," said Hermione glaring at Tessa. "He's looking at you."
"He was jogging this morning, and we crossed paths", said Tessa non chalantly.
"Right, well you should keep an eye on him. The potion is not giving him a keen eye towards the other girl", said Hermione with a worried look on her face.
"It'll be fine, if anything the potion didn't work", said Tessa. "This was an experiment after all. Hopefully the potion will set in and mediate his thoughts towards the target soon."
"It should have done it already," snapped Hermione as she reached of a bicuits that popped onto the table between them.
Afternoon classes, also, went by quickly and Tessa decided to go for a jog after her last class. She walked up the stairs towards the Gryffindor common room when some seventh year Slytherin boys walked passed all looking at her intently.
"Someone saw", she thought growing nervous. She held her head up high and made it to the Fat Lady's painting.
"Fortuna Major", she whispered and walked in before the guys reached her part of the staircase. She ran up the girls' common room steps and changed into a pair of black running pants, a Gryffindor hoodie, and her new tennis shoes her parents bought for her birthday. She walked out of her dorm, and climbed the stairs, a little more, to Hermiones' dorm.
She knocked at the door rapidly until she heard a book slam onto the floor.
"Yes?" Asked Hermione through the door.
"It's Tessa. Wanna go for a walk?" Tessa asked hoping to get her approval to join.
"Not today, but definitely tomorrow morning", replied Hermione who was still hiding behind the door.
"Alright", said Tessa and walked down to the Common Room.
"Hey, Tess." Tessa turned to see Oliver walking out of the entrance of the Boys' dorm with active clothes on as well.
"Going for a walk I see", said Tessa smiling at as Wood hopped off the last step.
"Well, yeah. Gave it a shot over the Summer, and enjoyed it. Thanks to you", Oliver smiled at Tessa as they both turned together and walked out of the Common Room.
They both walked at a quick pace once they reached the Herbology building. They jogged to Hagrid's hut and ran alongside the forest until they reached an opening to the lake. The beach was slippery after a light mist came down during the last classes of the day as the rocks squeaked and grinded against their rubber soles. Once they reached sight of the Quidditch pitch, Oliver ran full speed towards it.
"Hey, that's cheating!" Tessa yelled. She gasped for a breath as she picked up her speed to catch up. She was ten feet behind him once Olive slowed down to a walked and put his arms behind his head.
"That was a good run", he said to Tessa as she slowed down to his walking speed and nodded in agreement. As they were walking passed the entrance, she saw the Slytherin team walking out of the pitch. She wouldn't have cared to notice them, but Marcus caught her eye. His eyes were dead set on Oliver as they walked passed.
"This isn't good", thought Tessa.
"Conditioning", said Oliver annoyingly.
"What?" asked Tessa.
"Yeah the Captain came up with the idea all himself. That's why we don't have the field today", said Wood rolling his eyes.
Once they reached the castle it was time for dinner and they opted to just go in with their sweaty clothes.
"Nice jog, I see", said Hermione smiling at Tessa as she passed the trio and headed towards Lee Jordan and Angelina.
"Have you seen the twins?" Angelina asked Tessa, as soon as she sat down at the table.
"Don't know, never really saw them since afternoon classes," replied Tessa exhaustively.
"Well, they're looking for you", said Lee.
"They'll find me here", Tessa smiled at her friends shaking their heads while grabbing a roll from a basket.
As soon as the main course appeared on the table, the twins sauntered in still in their robes. "Busy, I see", said Angelina as the twins sat down.
"Nope still in our robes because we enjoy it," responded Fred sarcastically.
"Rar," said Angelina mockingly as she grabbed some food and placed it onto her plate.
Once they were all stuffed from desert Tessa stood up with Fred and George as the trio said their goodbyes and walked slowly towards the Gryffindor Common Room.
"We need to keep an eye out on Flint", said Tessa worryingly.
"Already on it", said the twins in unison.
"Right, but I think he's stuck in a limbo of—", Tessa paused contemplating for the right word.
"—Emotions," finished George. Tessa looked up at him and smiled.
"Don't worry," said Fred. "We have it under control." Fred and George smiled at each other and talked about other potions they were working on while walking up the staircase to their dorms.
The month of September went by without an issue. Flint still acted normal, but continued to randomly bump into Tessa between classes and would be cordial towards her, which was a first. He still jogged in the morning or evenings depending on his schedule, and even jogged with Tessa for a split second before veering off towards the Quidditch pitch one afternoon.
"It's weird", said Tessa to Hermione quietly after Tessa showed her a journal filled with time tables, slots of peculiar observations, and quickly scribbled notes of Marcus' activities for the past few weeks .
"You need to look into the love potion book I gave you. I assume this particular potion the twins made is more powerful on "love at first sight" than on DNA. It's not like any other love potion I've studied on. I've been reading this other book—."
Tessa tuned out Hermione after registering what she meant by love at first sight. "Shit", she thought to herself.
"The potion isn't faulty", whispered Tessa in a frantic tone.
"Quiet!," yelled an old man in a Baroque painting.
"Sorry", Tessa whispered as the old man loudly shut the book he was reading, blew out an oil lamp, and sauntered off the canvas.
"That's what I've been trying to tell you! If you would've listened instead of interrupting me", said Hermione in a parental tone.
"So let me get this straight", said Tessa still wrapping her mind around what the hell she got herself into. "After he drank the potion he, he—"
"Yes", interrupted Hermione as Tessa couldn't get the words out.
"I, no… No. This wasn't supposed to happen", said Tessa getting nauseous.
"Look, whatever the twins did while they were making the potion was new. Like I said earlier, I have never read this before, merely in theories really," said Hermione.
"The perfect love potion", said Tessa after she was finally able to catch her breath.
"The perfect love potion", Hermione repeated.
Hermione's words sunk in as Tessa walked briskly to the Hall of Hexes. She barely saw a glimpse of the door she needed to enter when the click of a lock being opened entered the silent hallway. She pushed the door open with so much force Fred nearly knocked over a line of jars they nicked from Professor Snape's office while he was teaching a long potions class.
"THE PERFECT LOVE POTION!" she shouted as her voiced echoed from the silent charm she created. Tessa reached into her bag to chunk the History and Theories of Love potions at both of their heads.
"Tess," said George.
"What are you on about?" yelled Fred as George tried to cover him and the ingredients from the book hurling towards his head. The book stopped dead in its tracks lopped to the floor, spine down, and landed on its side with a thud. She knew Fred was quick with silent spells, as well, and glared at him from across the room.
"The potion is perfect", said Tessa as she straightened up and walked over to an empty table.
"It produced love at first sight not falling in love with the Hannah girl from her strand of hair."
Fred and George looked at each other as silent filled within the room. They began to laugh so hard that George had to lean on various objects in the room for support.
"This is the best product we have ever achieved", said George smiling like a proud Father. Tessa faced grew to a shade of pink as the twins scrambled to look for the recipe they scribbled down at the beginning of the semester.
"Oh this is beautiful", said Fred.
"The things we could do!" George said with excitement over their discovery. Tessa's cheeks blushed to a shade of red before she pulled herself together and sighed.
She spotted a stack of papers with navy blue and purple dye on them.
"It's too good", said Tessa closing her eyes and rubbing her temples with her fingers.
"Oh calm down", said the twins in unison without looking up from a sheet of paper they were reading. Tessa walked towards the table and snatched up the stack papers.
"He'll lose interest eventually", said Fred.
"Unless he had feelings before", finished George with a smile.
"How about I make you deal", said Tessa. She turned around quickly towards them.
"Go on", Fred and George said in unison with a peaked interest, still scanning over papers in their hands.
"If the potion goes the way it should and he loses interest. Then, you can keep the recipe." Fred and George snapped their heads at Tessa who was holding the stack of papers in her hands. "But, if he doesn't it goes."
Fred and George turned towards each other and nodded in agreement.
"Deal."