Finished her detailed explanation, Professor Mortimer's face becomes solemn for the first time. "No, my Slytherins if there is nothing else that you may recall from my lesson, it is this. All it takes is a single occurrence for a female to become pregnant, and it will not be the wizard, who shall bear the shame, but the witch. It is we, who will be called whores and pointed at by polite society." All the girls including the transfer girls nod gravely back in understanding, they had all in their lifetime borne witness to such events.
"There are several manners in which to never become pregnant. The first is typically potions used for abortion or the sterilization of one, who no longer wishes to bear children. These types of potions cannot be used lightly for they carry serious side-effects," Professor Mortimer firmly stressed. "The other two options are a magical forged charm to prevent pregnancy and it is at no small cost to create such a magically forged object."
"The second is the most commonly used spell which I must stress emphatically MUST BE cast each time PRIOR to being intimate," Professor Mortimer deliberately accentuated. "Remember it is we, who bear the young, and the male need not to take responsibility for spreading so carelessly his seed. It is we, who bear the brunt of the sin."
The girls all fall silent in contemplation, before Professor Mortimer says, "Now, watch carefully. I shall cast the spell thrice. Nullus Praegnatio!" A faint mist-like glow emerges from the wand and falls onto herself in a glittering-like fashion. She repeated to show it carefully and slowly twice more, before saying, "Now, I want to see everyone complete the spell until I am satisfied. Commence." It was not a request, but an order.
Rowan's lips twitched in understanding at Professor Mortimer's actions. Her mind recalls a memory from a few weeks ago. It has been a rare free evening, Rowan and Severus sat in the common room peaceful working on some of their homework, while Sylvia and Tiffany read various wizarding publications, and Bethanie and Terry played a game of wizarding chess.
After a while, Tiffany raises her strawberry bobbed head and sheepishly glances around, before quietly hissing, "Psst, Terry."
"What?" Terry grumbled uninterested in what Tiffany might have to say as it might cost him the wizarding chess match.
"Your cousin, Professor Mortimer," Tiffany's voiced had dropped down to a barely audible whisper.
Terry paused gazing at the wizarding chest board and glanced over at Tiffany. "What about her?" He carefully asked causing Bethanie to glance over at their friend.
"Is it true?" Tiffany quietly asked.
With a gleam of interest in her eyes, Sylvia looks up from Seeker Weekly. "What is?"
Curious by the undertone of the conversation, Rowan and Severus lift their heads from their homework and glance over at Terry with blatant interest. Seeing all four of his friends, which included his courting partner, Terry gestures at the door with his head. "It's a bit crowded," he mumbled under his breath. "We should get a bit of fresh air."
Terry rises closely followed by Sylvia, Tiffany, and Bethanie, while Rowan and Severus somewhat reluctantly trail after them abandoning their homework in a corner of the common room. It was chilly in the dungeon's passageway without their thick fur coats, so they cast a warming charm upon themselves.
Huddled in an empty passageway, Terry double-checks that they are truly alone, before he says, "It happened when I was really young, so my memories aren't that clear on the subject and I only know what I overheard in passing."
More curious than usual perhaps because she was very likely to join the Greengrass family in the future, Sylvia asks, "So just what is it that Tiffany knows that the rest of us don't know?"
Terry sighs and says, "Cousin Eponine didn't always look like she does now. I was very young then, but I still dimly remember her having long, silky hair, and glistening pale skin. She used to love pretty herself up, and she was the most mischievous girl out of my cousins. She was a daydreamer, and the entire family loved her for it. But I remember, she used to worry great-grandmother very much so. Great-grandmother called her naïve, an innocent fool, and she used to say that no good would come of such naivety."
Sensing the somber undertone Sylvia glances at Bethanie before they glance at Tiffany, who shares a sad smile with them. Feeling her heart sink in her chest, Sylvia turns back to ask, "And then what happened."
"She fell in love," Terry bitterly said. "Eponine fell madly in love with a no-good-rotten rake. He charmed her and professed his love for her. She fell for his sweet words and soon lay with him. It did not take more than a couple of times, but our family's natural fertility took its course, and she found herself with child."
Terry's voice dies off for a moment as Sylvia opens her mouth and closes it for a second, before croaking. "Then what happened?"
Terry hissed with old fury, "The blackguard could not cast her aside unlike those previous before her. Cousin Eponine was a pureblood by right and came from an excellent lineage. The blackguard knew he could not deny the unborn babe the right to a name nor that his parents would permit his doing so as they would have forced the two to wed."
Terry paused, before taking a shaky breath. "And so, one night not long after, he whispered words of love and utter devotion to her. The rake asked that they share a romantic meal under the light of the moon. Utterly besotted, Cousin Eponine slipped away to meet her lover. They feasted, they made love, and before the night was up, her lover poured her a cup of wine to drink-."
Terry's voice broke with emotion as Severus placed a hand on his shoulder in comfort. Sylvia, Bethanie, and Tiffany's eyes all share unhidden traces of horror as they can easily guess the ending of this tale. "He placed an abortive potion in the wine," Rowan stiffly interjected.
"Yes," Terry closed his eyes for a moment as Bethanie let out a gasp, while Sylvia pressed her lips tightly together, and Tiffany let out a sad sigh of sympathy.
"The black-hearted villain," Severus rigidly hissed with his teeth bared in anger.
"Indeed," Terry answered as he opened his eyes again. "Cousin Eponine lost the babe that very night, while the blackguard fled across the ocean to the new continent. Cousin Eponine was never the same afterward, she became colder, harsher, and crueler."
"That explains much," Bethanie sympathetically murmured, "the poor woman."
"Mm, well, not all is lost," Terry said with a bit of a predatory gleam in his eyes. "The blackguard thought to outrun us, but we are a particularly large family, and more so, we are Veela's. A Veela cousin residing in the west found him."
"And then what?" Sylvia inquired further.
Terry merely smiled a terrifying smile that sent a dreadful, bone-chilling shiver down their spines. Sensing his friend's unease, Terry tactfully changes the subject. "Anywho, Cousin Eponine fueled by the past and never wanted such a repeat went on to become a Potions Master. She has yet to marry, but my aunt and uncle would never force to marry, nor much less would great-grandmother permit after her harrowing experience."
"The scoundrel," Tiffany semi-bitterly said. "Good riddance, I say. She was better off without him." For she understood better than anyone else, what it was like to be engaged to such an individual. It was painful and tiresome. And even if it had ended as it did, she found that she was the happier for it even with the superstition of being a Death Bride hanging overhead.
Rowan agreed with Tiffany's statement as she muttered to herself, "Love is not always true and often confused for lust," and recalled Terry's cousin, Rosie. No doubt part of the reason Damian Muliciber had tried to force himself upon the younger, female squib was in part due to the rumored past of Eponine Mortimer. A Greengrass female of that branch would seem like easy pickings and would also explain the protectiveness of Terry towards his female cousins especially that of Rosie.
A sharp rap brings Rowan back to the present as Professor Mortimer says, "Now are there any questions?" None of the girls raise their hands as Rowan feels an odd strange of Déjà vu. By Merlin's beard, did she have to do what Prefect Pizarro had done for them?!
With a very blank face, Rowan raises her hand causing a familiar groan to ripple from the younger Slytherin girls in the room. "Yes, Prefect Prince?" Professor Mortimer excitedly asked.
In a monotone voice, Rowan says, "I am certain that the girls are too embarrassed to speak at present, and much like Prefect Pizarro during my own time, I shall ask on their behalf. What if there are issues with monthly cycles or strange painful symptoms in their nether regions? And what of maintaining physical hygiene including deodorant and acne?"
"Excellent question, Prefect Prince," Professor Mortimer practically purred, before delving into the subject.
All the while, Rowan kept a carefully blank face that showed signs of cracks as she too wished the damned lesson would come to an end. The seconds seemed to tick by slowly until at long last Professor Mortimer says, "Well, my fellow Slytherins, you have been educated duly thus, and I except for zero accidents to occur is that understood?" A frosty, predatory gleam glints visibly in her eyes promising a cruel and most unusual punishment for any failings.
The Slytherin second and third years including the transfer students nod their heads fearfully in understanding like terrified baby chicks. "Wonderful, you are dismissed," Professor Mortimer cheerfully said. "Off to dinner you go, I am certain that you are all famished." The Slytherin girls pale further and some look even sickly as the thought of food at present was the furthest things from their minds at present. Their shoes scuff across the stone floor as they scramble out the door as quickly and as far as they can from the assistant Potions Professor.
"Well done, Prefect Prince," Professor Mortimer said with a bit of a teasing twinkle in her eyes, before swishing past Rowan and heading up to the Great Hall.
Rubbing her forehead with one hand, Rowan tiredly follows after feeling as though she had lost her appetite for the evening. However, from experience, she knew she wasn't the only one, and Severus no doubt would be in a worse shape. Which caused her to violently shiver and turn green as she recalled Remus's words. She quickly thought it better to skip dinner that evening and headed back to the common room for a quick lie down. She desperately could use the rest, and she would too.