"You're distracted," Isobel said to me as I made my way back to the castle two days after the interview with Xenophilius Lovegood.
I just handed some more aquatic herbs to Sprout after another fruitful dive in the Black Lake. I also managed to finally reach the stone slab with the Raven clan logo etched into it... but I didn't figure out the mechanism before the kraken came back, and I had to flee. I found four moving disks cleverly hidden and seemlessly blending into the stone... but their purpose and final allignment were clearly a puzzle that will need time to solve.
"Guess I am. Still not looking to join the others in swimming tomorrow?"
Isobel looked up at the sky for a moment before shaking her head. "It's getting too cold for me. Plus, if you hadn't taught us the umbrella charm, none of us would have stayed with you today except for Luna in this rain. Maybe ask me again at the end of the school year when summer starts?"
Joining her in looking around the rainy meadow between the greenhouses and the castle, I noticed that it was indeed getting colder after the summer held on longer than usual and sighed. I'd need to figure out how to stay warm in the water soon. Maybe get some more inspiration from the muggles in terms of gear if there wasn't a convenient spell available.
"You're off to the library then?" Isobel asked before we reached the courtyard close to the castle walls after we just walked side by side in companionable silence.
"Yep. Time to meet with Lara, Penelope, and Hermione. We're discussing my, well, our plans to become an animagus."
"I'm still hoping you'll be a cute doggie," Isobel quipped with a small smile when I confirmed the purpose of our meeting.
"Well, I'll accept anything that isn't a slug or something equally slow and not universally useful," I said with a shrug. "You're not joining us?"
The raven-haired witch shook her head and denied, "It is not without risks, and I can admit that I am too scared. My dad told me many stories about failed animagi attempts growing up. His grand-uncle apparently lost his mind and started pecking the ground like a chicken..."
"Yeah, uh, I suppose that's a fair argument? Did you hear Luna's reason for her disinterest?" I asked in the hopes of changing the topic. Isobel had warned me many times now to reconsider or at least be mindful not to go ahead when I no longer felt save. I heard about that grand-uncle half a dozen times already, for example.
Isobel looked intrigued but shook her head. I answered my own question, saying, "I didn't offer her a spot since she's just a first year, but Hermione asked and Luna said, and I quote, 'My inner animal is playing hide and seek with me. I don't want to cheat and find it by bringing it out.'"
"That's so Luna," Isobel sighed out with a mirthful yet wry smile.
"Yeah...."
-----
"Alright, Lara managed to get us the chrysalis of those moths we need, and all the ingredients are gathered. Before we do anything else, let's get the Mandrake leaf part on our way. I suggest using a sticking charm on the roof of your mouth or the inside of your cheeks so that you don't accidentally swallow it. Burroughs' book didn't say anything about it, but I read that tip in a footnote of a book in the library," I proposed in a quiet voice as I sat next to Lara, Penelope, and Hermione at a study table in the far back of the Hogwarts library.
I placed a leaf in front of Lara and Penelope and kept one for myself. I had just plucked fresh leaves from the greenhouses just before. Planted and raised mandrakes that I cared for myself... with Sprout's help.
"Any foods we can't eat for the next month?" Lara asked as she scrutinized the green ingredient that was to be kept in our mouths without stop for exactly 28 days before it was added to the potion at the final step of its brewing.
Then, the potion would be stored in total darkness, and we had to drink it during a thunderstorm after observing a whole bunch of other restrictions and guidelines.
"Uh, I'd suggest nothing with a crust so that you can't scrape the leaf off of the place you're holding it?" I suggested as I scratched my nose.
"You're going to stop eating pizza and toast for a month? I don't believe it," Lara quipped with a scoff.
"He's just going to leave the crust on the table like a little mommy's boy," Penelope added with a smirk as she leaned forward in her seat and tried to pat my hand as she cooed mockingly.
"Continue like that, and I'll pretend we're an item in the Great Hall again," I threatened with a smile as I looked at her hand gently touching mine.
"You need someone to keep all the hussies away anyway. Penelope is a good choice for that," Lara observed as she allowed herself to grin a little. Hermione nodded in agreement, almost too eagerly.
"Alright, alright. Hermi and I will start the potion tomorrow. Anyplace you know where we should brew it without it getting disturbed?" Penelope waved away and changed the topic.
"Professor Flitwick surely has an office or storage room we can use?" Hermione asked as she looked around.
Lara shook her head and chimed in, "Sure, he likely has one. But we can do better. Hagrid and I discovered an underground cavern last year during Survival club. We can get the dew untouched by the sun for seven days there, too."
"Brewing it in the wild while having to enter the forbidden forest... I'm not sure about that," Penelope said with a conflicted expression as she looked at Hermione. "Are you okay with that?"
Hermione looked a little caught off-guard. Sure, she knew that it would be safe with Lara and I accompanying her, but there were too many scary stories about the forest out there. Having to wander inside to find a remote cavern that nobody used... she would do it for her friends, but she would love an alternative.
"I can get us a room that nobody would find and that would keep the potion in optimal conditions at all times," I said as I decided to reveal the secret of the Room of Requirements to the girls.
I barely used it unless I wanted to see the hat. And now that the horcrux was more or less dealt with, I didn't mind sharing the wonders of the room after the Room of Lost Things was raided of all I wanted to find. My three new elves found five trunks worth of old books, discarded wands, and other magical curiosities before I stopped them from continuing the search.
"Here in the castle?" Penelope asked.
"Nope. We'll go to Dublin via floo call each time," I scoffed with a roll of my eyes. "Uh, but yeah. No. We'll be on the seventh floor."
Penelope sneakily withdrew her hand that was ready to pinch me for mocking her again and asked, "Seventh floor?"
"Yep, different tower from the Gryffindor's, though," I confirmed with a nod.
I picked up the leaf on my table and looked at it closer. It was longer than my tongue and looked greatly unappetizing. With a sigh, I folded it in half and cast a sticking charm on the leaf and put it on the inside of my right cheek.
I had washed it before, but it still tasted earthen. I deeply hoped that feeling fuzzy feeling on my tongue that I gained almost instantly would fade soon.
Penelope and Lara joined me, and it looked like they didn't enjoy the taste and mouth feeling much either. Just as I wanted to adjourn the meeting and suggest meeting up tomorrow to start the brewing, Professor McGonagall arrived behind me.
"There ye are, Mister Macnair. It's a good thing that ye seem to be so popular these days. Just ask any witch, and they be knowin' ye whereabouts," the transfiguration professor said with a wry smile. I noticed her Scottish accent was stronger when she wasn't officially teaching now that we talked outside of the classroom a few times in these past two weeks.
"What can I do for you, professor?"
Instead of answering, the old witch looked at the other people at the table, greeted them with a friendly nod, and asked, "Is this ye gathering to be animagi?"
Penelope nodded, as did the rest of us, and explained, "Yes, professor. We just started with the mandrake leaves."
"The next few days are important. Remember the chants and be diligent about it," McGonagall advised before she turned to me once more and said, "The board has decided against allowing ye to spend potions with Poppy in the infirmary. But the headmaster managed to find ye a suitable tutor. Ye'll be expected to meet him at the stairs leading down the dungeons during ye next potion lessons."
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to calm down. As much as I wanted to outright deny even meeting someone arranged by Dumbledore, doing that would be a disadvantage for me on more than one front. McGonagall, for example, was at best dismayed at some of Dumbledore's actions regarding Harry and to some small degree me, but she was still firmly in his pocket. Outright refusing the headmaster's 'good will' would not be a good look in her eyes.
"Did the board say why I cannot learn under Madam Pomfrey?"
"Their speaker specifically mentioned they do not need to give ye a reason... but I was present. Pardon my language, but the whole meeting was a bunch o' poppycock. Lord Malfoy mainly did it out o' spite, I'd say," McGonagall argued in clear distaste. "At least the headmaster came through for ye. Yer tutor is uniquely suited for the job, and it took owing the man a favor for him to come back to the school."
'Oh sweet Jesus, don't tell me Slughorn will come back early to the school? All he ever did was increase Dumbledore's paranoia after getting played by Riddle... and he might even be a bigger narcissist than Roger Davies,' I thought as I fought to groan out loud.
"Thank you, professor," I said because McGonagall wasn't at fault. She was just the messenger. Well, she was technically a little at fault because she kept a blind eye to some pretty messed up things over the years... but I didn't help the situation by keeping quiet instead of venting my grievances around people and I would gladly admit that most of my opinions about the matter were colored in my unending dislike for our headmaster.
The cat animagi nodded with a content smile, apparently glad at my polite demeanor, and just as she was about to leave, it seemed that she remembered the bargain I struck with the transfiguration professor.
Turning on her heels, she silently took out one of the chairs at the table and joined us.
"Now, I'm sure ye learned quite a bit from Talion already. He has read many books about it... but here is how I came to find my inner animal," McGonagall started explaining and retold step by step how she became an animagus.
-----
"You look almost as stupid as that tapestry," Penelope joked as she watched me walk back in forth in front of a certain wall on the seventh floor the next day at lunch.
"Yeah, is that man trying to teach trolls how to dance? How come I've never seen this before?" Lara asked with a lifted eyebrow.
"Talion?"
Just as Hermione seemed to want to ask more, a door appeared at the blank wall next to the tapestry and I enjoyed their curious and slightly stupefied looks a little as I finished walking past the wall a third time with my wish.
"Come in. Our very own potion's lab is waiting for us," I invited as I opened the door for them and waved them inside with an exaggerated flourish.
"Wow, you found a hidden potion's room at the school? How is that even possible? Wait, isn't that a silver cauldron? Those are quite expensive, you know," Penelope commented after being the first to run inside.
At it was indeed a silver cauldron. None of the books I read said if such a thing was necessary for any potions or what the material would help if used instead of standard pewter or cast iron cauldrons. It wasn't like I could ask Snape and expect a dignified response.
... and it wasn't like I could take the cauldron out and have it appraised. I tried...
"All that equipment belongs to the school," I explained, "and I do mean that quite literally."
Lara took a curious look around as did the others, but she was merely impressed, not intrigued. Like me, she was a great student but had no passion for potions. Though Snape kept his ridicule mostly to male students and especially Gryffindors, Harry, Neville, and I, the resident potion master didn't have many fans.
When she finished, the muggleborn witch asked, "A hidden potion room so far up? There's more to this room, no?"
I nodded and closed the door behind us.
"Yes, this isn't a potion room at all. Well, it is, but is much, much more. You are inside one of our founder's greatest accomplishments, I'd say," I offered as I took out my pouch to take out the ingredients I had prepared for our three potions that we needed.
"Lady Ravenclaw???" Hermione almost shrieked out but caught herself as she looked around wide-eyed.
"Come on, Talion. Why stop at half the explanation," Penelope gently reprimanded with a sigh as she patted Hermione's shoulder.
"You're inside the Room of Requirement. Rowena Ravenclaw enchanted this room to provide almost anything you could possibly want as long as you walk back and forth three times outside that hideous tapestry. There's a few limitations like complicated magical items, food, books from the restricted section, uh, that's about it? Oh, and yeah... can't take out that silver cauldron... can't take out anything that isn't in the Room of Lost Things," I patiently explained as I sorted the ingredients to the best of my abilities.
"You found this room by yourself? Since when? How?" Lara asked with an impressed nod.
"The how's easy. You people just don't talk to the elves, ghosts, and portraits enough. The when... uh, early last school year?"
"You kept this a secret for an entire year? Monster!" Penelope accused in a mockingly angry tone of voice.
"Yeah, how could you, Talion?" Lara asked equally playfully as she had a betrayed look on her face.
"Well, you're here now, aren't you? I could have just kept the secret. Neither of you are my betrothed or anything," I scoffed as I gave Penelope a pointed look.
After all, I threatened her with pretending we were together. Of course, she was still four years older than me and 19. I doubted she cared what a 15 year old said in this regard. We were more like siblings after Harry and I rescued her from those Slytherin students last year.
"Now, now. This is no way to talk to your big sister Penny," Lara quipped in the prefect's stead and took a seat on a couch I had wished for.
I wasn't going to help in making the potion and screw it up... and just lurking didn't feel right either. So I had the room bring in a couch on an elevated position near the potion's table.
"You know, I read that transformation potions like the polyjuice potion and in turn the animagi potion are of better quality and less prone to brewing accidents if brewed in silver cauldrons... did you know about that, Talion?" Hermione quietly asked as she was the only one to not join in our banter and instead take in everything this room had to offer.
"I didn't. But I wished for a room that would help us make the perfect animagus potion... and, ta-da? I did say this might be one of Lady Ravenclaw's most ingenious inventions," I could only reply with a smile as I scratched my head a little.
"Alright," Penelope said as she clapped her hands and took Hermione's question as the ideal segue to change the topic away from our playful back and forth. "Let's get this started."