When Hermione and Blaise entered the Chamber of Secrets, something was immediately different. There was almost a mist in the air, it seemed, but not visible, and the air was slightly chill. Hermione looked at Blaise, and he nodded slowly, aware of it as well. Carefully, they continued forward, keeping alert for what may have caused the change.

When they reached the cauldron, the invisible mist seemed heavier, stronger. For a moment, Hermione imagined it was invisible droplets of cold magic she was inhaling somehow, before she looked into the glittering cauldron and stopped.

Blaise leaned over, his eyes widening. He whistled.

"Well," he said. "It certainly didn't look like that last week, did it?"

The water inside was like diamonds.

Hermione shifted the cauldron slightly, sloshing what was inside. The liquid moved like water, but it seemed to catch the light impossibly much and reflect it to a dazzling degree. It glittered, even in the dim light of the Chamber of Secrets, and abruptly, Hermione wondered if the liquid itself was giving off light somehow. After all, she'd mixed up magic with light before.

"So… is it done?" Blaise asked. "I'm guessing this means it's done."

Hermione quirked her lips. "Let's find out."

The liquid felt oddly cool around Hermione's arm as she reached in for the stone. It felt like water, but almost with a film of other water laid over her skin. It was decidedly weird-feeling, and Hermione wondered at the sensation.

This time, when Hermione reached out with her magic to the stone and found herself floating in nothingness, the stone sent to her first, before she could even reach out.

⁌ ↂↈ◉⦾⅌Ⓐ⁍ the stone told her. Somehow, it seemed smug. ⁌ ↂ₰¤₦ↂↈ ℭ ◉¤⦾৻৳ ⅏✭₰⅌Ⓐ⁍

Hermione couldn't make out all of it, but she remembered some parts.

⁌ ↂↈ◉⦾? ⁍ Hermione asked. ⁌ ✓? ⁍

⁌ ✓ ⁍ the stone replied. ⁌ ↂↈ◉⦾⅌Ⓐ⁍

A giddy feeling filled Hermione, and she pulled herself back from the endless ether into her body, opening her eyes.

"It's done," she said, pulling the stone from the liquid as she removed her arm. "It's finished. The Elixir of Life. I'm sure of it."

Blaise raised an eyebrow.

"You got all that from talking to a rock?" he teased, but he was examining the cauldron, tipping it back and forth a bit. "Are you sure?"

"I'm certain," Hermione said confidently. "I could understand the feeling of completion."

"And we're sure it's the Elixir of Life that it's transmuted?" Blaise's lips quirked. "That we haven't transmuted some other alchemical aberration?"

Hermione paused. "Err…"

She wasn't, actually, and Hermione was dismayed to realize it.

"How do we know, then?" she breathed, horrified. She looked to Blaise, eyes wide. "How do we know?"

"We have to test it." Blaise shrugged. "Only way to know."

"Yes, but Perenelle said it heals telomeres," Hermione despaired. "I don't exactly have an electron-scanning microscope to watch it react in real time!"

Blaise looked thrown. "Erm. Well." He paused. "It does fix other things, doesn't it?"

"It fixes DNA," Hermione stressed. "How are we supposed to test that?"

Blaise wasn't following along, but Hermione was too far gone to catch him back up.

"Lupin, maybe? Does becoming a werewolf magically change your DNA?" she asked, beginning to pace. "Only, no, we'd have to wait for the full moon to test it, and we can't wait that long—"

"If the Elixir is that limited, what did Voldemort want with it?" Blaise cut in. "It doesn't make any sense."

"Of course it does – he could have gotten a giant gold cauldron, filled it with water, and chucked a dead body, a bunch of apples, and the Stone inside of it," Hermione said absently. "The stone could have gradually altered the dead body's DNA into his own. After it was done, he could possess the new body, and do something like drink Polyjuice of his own blood. The potion would change him to match the body image laid out in his genetic material, but then when the potion went to wear off, it just wouldn't, because the body and DNA would match." She shook her head. "That doesn't matter now, though – we're certainly not going to test this with a dead body. Do we know anyone with cancer, maybe…?"

She trailed off, thinking furiously, only to catch Blaise staring at her, mouth agog.

"What?" Hermione asked, suddenly self-conscious. "What?"

Blaise shook his head.

"Did you spend a long time thinking about how Voldemort would have gotten a new body before now?" he asked her. "Or did you come up with all that on the fly?"

"Um." Hermione blinked. "Just now, I suppose. I—well, it all just makes sense, really—"

"You were panicking over something else, so the answer – the extremely convoluted and magically advanced answer, mind you – just 'came to you' out of nowhere—"

"That doesn't mean it wouldn't work," Hermione said defensively. "Just that—"

"Oh, no, I've got no doubt it would work," Blaise said, shaking his head. He stopped to look at her, arching one eyebrow. "It just never fails to catch me off guard when you pull this stuff out of nowhere."

"Out of nowhere?" Hermione objected. "I went and spoke to Perenelle Flamel, Fleur and I learned all this alchemy—"

"So you're saying the thought of metamorphosizing a dead body just naturally resides in your mind?" Blaise said pointedly. "That you fully understand the magic of Polyjuice potion, despite only taking it once?"

"I—" Hermione faltered. She looked at Blaise, wordless for a long moment, lost, before Blaise slowly shook his head.

"It hardly matters," he dismissed. "What we need is a way to test the Elixir."

"Yes!" Hermione jumped back onto her train of thought with enthusiasm. "So other than testing someone with DNA damage—"

"You said it reforms the telo-whatsits, right?" Blaise cut in. "Out of nowhere?"

"Yes, the telomeres," Hermione said. "It heals the lengths lost in DNA replication, and it can deal other missing parts that have been damaged."

"Can it heal other things then?" Blaise stressed. "Something that's also made out of the same stuff the telomers are?"

"Telomeres," Hermione corrected absently. "And—that's not a bad idea. That's a good idea, really." She gnawed on her lip. "I don't know a lot about biochemistry, though. I don't know what all in the body is made up of nucleic acids other than DNA."

Blaise sighed.

"Tom said pretty much everything in the body was those four things," he pointed out. "Carbon, oxygen… there were two others. Anyway. If the point of the Elixir of Life is to heal you, wouldn't it work for that? No matter what the healing consisted of?"

"Ah… maybe?" Hermione was skeptical. "It's not like we'd be able to heal someone's missing arm, though – even if the Elixir of Life is transmuting your own body, you'd still need the physical material there for it to transmute."

"So we heal something smaller than a missing limb," Blaise said patiently.

"Okay, like what?" Hermione wanted to know. "Because I think even a cut would be ambitious for—"

"Like you."

Hermione paused.

"You damaged your hands," Blaise continued, sloshing the cauldron again, watching the liquid glitter inside. "That first Beltane, at the Wardstone. You burned them. I remember."

"That was a year ago," Hermione said slowly. "I've long since taken the bandages off. The burns healed within a week—"

"Your nerves," Blaise stressed. "You burned your nerves."

"Blaise, that's not possible—"

"I don't know the biochemistry term for whatever it is," Blaise snapped. "But you're still hurting. Don't deny it. You take longer in Charms now than you used to – the finer wand movements make you wince. And your essays are bigger than they used to be now too – you don't try and write very tiny to cram things in anymore, because when you do, your face scrunches up in pain." He glared at her. "So sure, maybe you didn't 'burn' your nerves. But you hurt them. And nerves are small, right? So—" he seemed to suddenly run out of steam, throwing his hands up "—it seemed like it'd be a good thing to try to test."

He slumped down on the floor against the cauldron, looking at Hermione. He shook his head and looked away, sighing. Hermione watched him, not saying anything, as Blaise shifted and made himself comfortable.

"I didn't know it was noticeable," Hermione said quietly.

Blaise glanced over at her. "I notice a lot."

"I know," Hermione said. "But still."

His voice was quieter. "I notice more if it's about you."

Hermione sat down on the floor as well, her back against a stone pillar as she looked at Blaise with open eyes. Blaise glanced up to meet her gaze, sighed, and looked away.

"There's no way to talk about it that won't come across as obsessive or creepy," he muttered. "Let's accept that I'm just uncannily observant and move on, shall we?"

Hermione tilted her head.

"What's my favorite color?" she asked.

"Violet." Blaise rolled his eyes. "Are we really doing this?"

"Favorite food?"

"Either Sugar Quills, or the yellow rice the House Elves make sometimes."

"Saffron rice," Hermione said reflexively. "Favorite subject?"

"Arithmancy." Blaise smirked. "Everyone knows that."

"Oh yeah?" Hermione challenged. "What did I want to be when I grew up?"

"Prime minister or a surgeon," Blaise said promptly, and Hermione's mouth fell open.

"How did you—"

"You dressed up as a muggle doctor with a scalpel as a child," Blaise said. "It's a photo on the wall of your parents' house. And it's you – of course you'd want to be the top political leader. And in the UK for muggles, that's the prime minister." He paused, then nodded, certain. "Before you were old enough to really understand politics, I wouldn't be surprised if you wanted to grow up to be the queen."

She had, actually. Hermione's face colored brilliantly.

"Am I that transparent?" she asked. "Can I really be read so easily?"

Blaise raised an eyebrow. "You don't exactly hide your ambition…"

Hermione flushed. "…well. That's true."

She slumped back against the pillar, looking at Blaise, who looked back at her for a time before looking away.

"Your wand is 10 ¾ inches," he said. "Made of vine wood with a dragon heartstring core. You're thinking of trying magic with a staff instead of a wand to see if it's different, but you've held off because you don't want a dragon to have to die for your experiments."

Hermione's eyes flew to him, wide open and horrified, but Blaise was looking up at the ceiling, almost as if he was talking to himself.

"You're passing Divination, but you hate it," he went on. "You've been thinking about dropping it for ages, but you don't want to feel like a failure." He glanced over at her. "You should drop it, by the way. You have Luna if you ever need any of that done."

Hermione didn't say anything, just goggling at him, while Blaise continued.

"You used to have big front teeth," he said. "It's in your photos at your parents', but also in the way you smile – you instinctively still minimize your front teeth, even though they're normal-sized now. It's only when you laugh and get carried away that your real smile shines through." He smiled faintly. "You laugh the most around me and Tracey and Millie, but you seem more relaxed around the coven."

Hermione wondered how Blaise had noticed these things. Were these normal things to notice about a friend?

"You bite your lip when you're thinking or nervous," Blaise went on. "You fiddle with your wand when you want to interject something to a discussion. You think passwords are a stupid way to provide security to the common rooms, but you're not about to say anything to anyone because you like being able to get inside all four. You hate beets. You only really cry in front of adults, probably because you feel safe to be a child when you're next to a grown-up. You dislike lying, but you're fine with omitting the truth. You're self-conscious about your body and growing up, but you do your best to hide it by wearing robes that make you feel grown up. And you're still in pain from your hands." His eyes met hers, something flickering inside of them. "And this Elixir might help."

Hermione's throat was dry. "Blaise… before, you said… you didn't want me trying…"

"I didn't want you trying it alone," Blaise corrected. "And right now, you're not alone." His eyes were fixed on hers. "And it might help you."

Hermione swallowed hard, and Blaise smiled slightly.

"Hope is hard for you, isn't it?" he said, rhetorically. "Helping others is second nature to you, but helping yourself…?" His lips quirked. "You never seem to think of that. Try the Elixir, Hermione. It might be able to heal your nerves."

Hermione looked away, ashamed.

"But what if it doesn't, Blaise?" her voice was weak. "What if I try and it doesn't help?"

"Then you'll be no worse off than you were before," Blaise said gently. "But you'll never know unless you try."

Blinking rapidly suddenly, Hermione found herself standing, going over to the cauldron of solid gold. She looked down into it, the liquid inside glittering and refracting impossible amounts of light, and Blaise came to stand next to her as well, gently resting his hand on her back.

"I didn't think to bring a ladle," Hermione admitted. "I didn't really quite think this through."

Blaise smirked. "Accio bottle."

One of the glass bottles they'd brought with them to (hopefully) bottle the finished Elixir flew from his pack to his hand, and a few moments later, Hermione had a glass ladle in hand. She held it, biting her lip, before she looked up at Blaise.

"Do you really think I should do this?" she said. "What if it goes wrong?"

"It won't go wrong." A small smile played about his lips. "You're more afraid of it going right."

Hermione turned to look at the cauldron again, dipping the ladle in and pulling it out.

"I don't even know what counts as a 'dose'," she said. She gnawed on her lip. "Is this a dose? Too much? Not enough?"

"Try it," Blaise urged. "Then we'll find out."

Hermione glanced back at him again, but his eyes were firm, and finally, taking a deep breath and summoning her courage, she raised the ladle to her lips and drank.

The Elixir was like nothing she'd ever had before. It was like water, but enhanced, somehow. It was like magical Fizz Wiz, sparks of non-existent magical popping candy going off in her throat and stomach. It tasted clear, unnaturally cold, but it somehow it made her feel a little more awake, a little better about what she was doing right now.

She finished the ladle and looked to Blaise, who nodded encouragingly.

"What does it feel like?" he asked. "Can you feel any difference?"

"It's…" Hermione tried to find the words. "It's like it's carbonated, almost? But not slightly painful, like carbonation is. It feels like electricity, but without harming me."

"Where?" Blaise prompted.

"In my mouth, my throat, and my stomach," Hermione answered. "Although… now…"

Now that she was paying attention, the odd, sparking feeling was dissipating, slowing down and spreading out, sending smaller, less noticeable pops through her body.

"Oh! It's odd," Hermione exclaimed, shivering as she felt a particularly cold spark pop against her spine. "It's—oh, Blaise, I don't know how to describe it. But I think I can feel the magic going through my body?"

"That's a positive sign," Blaise said. He tilted his head. "How long do things take to heal?"

"Err, probably a while," Hermione admitted. "I don't think something that's transforming DNA can be done instantly."

"Then let's take all this with us," Blaise said, gesturing to the cauldron and empty glass bottles. "We'll presume it's working and that we've succeeded. If not, we can dump it out and bring the things back to try again, but if it is, we'll have saved a lot of time."

"Alright."

They took turns pouring Elixir into the bottles they'd brought, one holding the ladle, the other a funnel. When they were done, they had six bottles scattered around them.

"I'm surprised there's not more, to be honest," Blaise said. "I thought we put much more water in the cauldron than this."

"Maybe some of the water was transmuted, too," Hermione offered. "The apple's gone. Maybe some of the water was broken down into hydrogen and oxygen to help make the Elixir, too."

Blaise blinked. "Um. Sure."

They loaded up the flasks in Blaise's bag. They would be safer in his dorm room, he assured her, than they would in hers.

"Your dormmates notice things and are going to want an explanation," he told her. "Mine are going to deliberately not ask questions about mysterious dodgy potions because they don't want to know."

Hermione smirked. "Fair enough."

They headed out of the Chamber of Secrets, ascending the long staircase, with both of them cheating a bit, air elementals helping them glide. When they reached the top, Hermione poked her head out and looked around, before quickly climbing through the sink's hole and helping Blaise climb out.

"While I maintain that poisoning would have been much easier, and an altogether safer route to take," Blaise said as they walked through the dungeons toward the Slytherin common room, "if this helps you, I suppose it won't have been a wasted effort after all."

Hermione glanced over at him, a faint smile on her face. "It'll be useful, right? Knowing how to make it?"

"I can't imagine it being not useful." Blaise grinned a wicked grin. "Still. If I ever figure out who your blackmailer is, they'll be able to count their days."

"There's no need for that," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. "We've almost done it. The whole affair will soon be done."

Blaise snorted, and Hermione shot him a look, but Blaise didn't elaborate further, only smirked the rest of the way back.