Chapter Text
Anne Shirley-Cuthbert doesn’t mind patrolling the halls of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
In fact, she finds that there’s something a bit peaceful about roaming the castle in the darkness of night with nothing but your own thoughts for company. And if she ever does get lonely, the ghosts and portraits make for some rather interesting conversationalists.
Anne can’t, however, say she feels quite as enthused when it comes to patrolling the dungeons. It’s a task she must endure as a Gryffindor prefect though, so she grits her teeth and bares it whenever her turn comes around once a month. She’s about to call it for the night when she hears them— a trio of voices whispering up ahead in the darkness.
She draws her wand in front of her and follows where they lead, the conversation getting clearer the closer she gets…
“Come on, Josie— I said I’d come with you, but you’ve already got what you came to buy— let’s go before someone finds us!”
“Are you sure I can’t tempt you lovely ladies with anything else? What about something like this?”
“Oooh! Look at the color— I’ve never seen anything like it!”
“It is rather pretty…what does it do?”
Anne’s not surprised to see Mundungus Fletcher when she rounds the corner. The Ravenclaw boy is fairly well known at Hogwarts for being a purveyor of anything from dungbombs to acid pops. She’s never heard of him dealing in draughts or potions though. Then again Anne also never thought she’d ever catch Josie Pye and Ruby Gillis buying anything off of Mundungus either, so all in all it seems as though tonight is a night of surprises in more ways than one.
“What are you doing here?” Josie Pye sneers when she catches sight of Anne.
“Funny, I was about to ask you the same question— aren’t you supposed to be in the Slytherin dormitory?” Anne shoots back.
“Oh, Anne— you won’t tell will you? We’ll go to bed straight away, I promise!” Ruby pleads as her hands twist the fabric of her Hufflepuff robes in worry.
“Save your breath, Ruby— Anne here is such a teacher’s pet, I’ll bet you anything she’s already sounded the alarm,” Josie says callously.
“I won’t tell…” Anne says glaring at the blonde Slytherin in question. “As long as Mundungus hands over whatever it is that he’s holding.”
Anne’s still not even sure what it is, but the way the liquid in the ornate bottle almost shines in the darkness is enough to raise her suspicions.
“Where’d you get it anyway? That doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen at Zonko’s Joke Shop,” she asks, curiosity getting the better of her.
Mundungus mutters something through a cough and Anne narrows her eyes at him, trying to mimic that steely glare Marilla gives her when she knows there’s more to the story than Anne’s letting on.
“I won it off of some wizard at the Hog’s Head, alright?” He confesses.
“All the more reason to confiscate it then,” Anne says matter-of-factly, knowing full well that the pub in question has a reputation for attracting rather unique clientele. “Merlin knows what’s actually in there— it could be dangerous.”
For a moment, Anne thinks Mundungus means to make a run for it as he cradles the bottle close to his chest and darts his eyes around shiftily. His shoulders quickly shrug in defeat however, when he realizes that Anne’s blocking the only entrance out of the alcove he, Josie, and Ruby had chosen to meet in.
“Ugh!” Josie exclaims in disgust as she reachers toward him. “Just give her the damned thing so we can go already!”
She tosses the bottle carelessly in Anne’s direction once she’s pried it out of Mundungus’ hands, and Anne has to lunge to catch it. She’s vaguely aware of Mundungus high-tailing it past her once she moves. Josie is quick to follow, pushing Ruby up ahead of her and in the direction of a staircase that leads up to the Hufflepuff common room near the kitchens.
Anne’s not that bothered by their quick getaway— she meant what she said when she’d told her fellow students that she wouldn’t turn any of them in so long as she could confiscate the item currently in her hands.
She jumps in shock when she turns to find Josie Pye hasn’t gone far, and Anne has just enough time to see the girl before her narrow her eyes as she raises her wand.
“STUPEFY!’
A flash of red erupts from the tip of Josie’s wand and Anne dodges it haphazardly, the toe of her boot getting caught between the cobblestone floor of the dungeons in the process. A sharp pain shoots up her legs as her knees connect hard with the unforgiving stone of the castle— but pain isn’t Anne’s primary concern. She’s much too focused on fumbling with the potion bottle that slips between her hands. And then, as if by slow motion, Anne watches as it tumbles from her fingertips and shatters right in front of her face.
She squeezes her eyes shut, covers her face, and waits for an explosion of some sort to follow, thinking that there’s no possible way a potion with mysterious origins can be anything but dangerous. When nothing happens, Anne slowly pries her eyelids open and comes face to face with the remnants of whatever it was that Mundungus Fletcher was trying to pawn off on poor, innocent Ruby Gillis.
Her first thought as she inspects the spill before her is that the potion is actually quite lovely. She can hardly tear her eyes away from the way the mother of pearl sheen dances across the surface as it slips into the cracks of the stone floor. The wondrous color comes coupled with the most unique tendrils of steam she’s ever seen. She feels almost hypnotized as she lies there on the floor where she’d fallen and watches the steam spiral upward. And then it hits her— the most incredibly seductive scent Anne has ever had the pleasure of experiencing.
A scent that somehow smells of old books, freshly harvested honey, apple blossoms, and a warm fire on a winter’s day all rolled into one. There’s something else hidden in there too— something that smells earthy, woody, and incredibly familiar. Whatever it is, Anne can’t get enough of it. She breathes the aroma in slow and deep, letting the intoxicating scent wrap itself around her in a way that leaves her feeling punch-drunk.
The sound of footsteps running in her direction is enough to break the spell, and Anne has the good sense to clean the spill with a quick flick of her wand just as Professor Phillips and Mr. Pringle, the Hogwarts caretaker, round the corner.
Anne resists the urge to groan at her misfortune. Professor Phillips (who teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts) has had it out for Anne ever since her first year at school, and Mr. Pringle hates most students. Anne hasn’t done anything wrong, but she still feels as though she’s about to walk on incredibly thin ice.
“What are you doing out of bed past curfew?” Mr. Pringle accuses, eyes narrowing in Anne’s direction.
“I’m supposed to be out of bed,” Anne says, picking herself up off the floor. “It’s my night to patrol the dungeons.”
She hears Pringle grumble as his eyes flick down to the prefect’s badge attached to her chest.
“Mr. Pringle said he heard voices down here,” Professor Phillips says suspiciously. “multiple voices.”
For a moment Anne considers turning Josie Pye and Mundungus in. But then she realizes in doing so, she’d also have to tell them about Ruby’s involvement, and she doesn’t think the poor Hufflepuff could survive detention with Mr. Pringle.
“That was me as well,” Anne supplies, thinking quick on her toes. “Patrolling the dungeons doesn’t offer much scope for the imagination I’m afraid. So sometimes I like to tell myself stories when I’m down here. I even do all the voices— would you like to hear one?”
“That won’t be necessary, Miss Cuthbert,” says Professor Phillips coldly. “And might I also remind you that it is a privilege to be chosen as a prefect for your house— you’d do well not to indulge in such frivolity while seeing to your duties. Ten points from Gryffindor.”
“But Sir!—“ Anne protests.
“Not another word or it’ll be twenty!”
Anne bites her lip furiously to keep from losing any more house points. She stomps all the way back up to the Gryffindor common room once Phillips and Pringle dismiss her, thinking that perhaps she would have been better off turning Josie, Mundungus, and Ruby in after all.
And as Anne finally crawls into her four poster bed and slips into sleep, her dreams are filled with visions of old books, honey bees, crackling fires, and apple blossom petals. She chases them through the forest back home in Avonlea as they float in front of her, carrying that all too familiar woodsy scent she can’t quite place…
“You were right to be cautious, Anne— it is a rather dangerous potion,” Cole whispers to both her and Diana the next morning over breakfast in the Great Hall.
Cole’s in Ravenclaw, but it’s not uncommon for him to take his breakfast at the Gryffindor table with the both of them. Today, however, they’ve opted to sit with him at the far end of his house table, where it was much quieter and Anne could tell both of her best friends about what she’d experienced without worry of being interrupted or overheard.
“What was it?” She asks curiously.
“Amortentia— the most powerful love potion in all the world,” Cole supplies. “I read about it in a book once.”
“A love potion? That doesn’t sound too dangerous,” Diana says as she spreads some preserves over a piece of toast. “You speak as if it could kill someone.”
Secretly, Anne agrees, thinking that there must be far worse things in the wizarding world one might have the misfortune of ingesting.
“I think the word love is a bit of a technicality here— you can’t really bottle love— it’s more like an incredibly intense infatuation,” he explains. When Cole looks up from his plate to see twin expectant expressions gracing both of his friends’ faces, he continues.
“Imagine completely losing your free will because you’re blinded by your undying obsession for the person who coerced you into drinking it,” he says. “So obsessed in fact that you’d do anything for them. You might not be a threat to the person who made you drink…but to others? To yourself? You’d be dangerously unstable.”
Cole’s words send a chill down Anne’s spine and suddenly, she finds herself counting her blessings that the potion had ended up spilling all over the dungeon floor the night before.
“I can’t believe he almost sold something so dangerous to Ruby of all people!” Diana seethes, glaring over at the other Ravenclaw. “And Ruby’s so love-struck and innocent in general— she’d probably find the idea of a love potion to be ever so romantic.”
“Do you think Mundungus knew what it was he was even offering?” Anne asks, sliding her gaze subtly over to where the boy in question was currently taking his own breakfast at the other end of the table.
“I think Mundungus is smart enough to know a valuable thing when he sees it,” Cole says as he stands from the table and picks up his text books. “But I don’t think he knew exactly what it was he had in his possession when he offered to sell it to Ruby. If he had, he would have picked a buyer with much deeper pockets.”
Anne and Diana follow Cole’s lead and together, they make their way up to the North Tower for Divination.
“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” Anne says as they climb yet another flight of stairs. “The scent. It’s just so…so…”
“Wonderful?” Cole supplies through a grin that he shoots over one shoulder.
“Yes!” Anne exclaims. “How does the brewer know what to put in there to make it smell so alluring?”
“Well, that has less to do with the brewer and more to do with you,” Cole explains. “Amortentia smells differently to everyone. Its aroma is meant to remind you of everything you find most attractive— even if you’re unaware of what, or who it is you’re attracted to.”
“But…I don’t even like honey all that much,” Anne says quizzically.
“Clearly your subconscious is saying otherwise,” Cole teases. “Perhaps the object of your affection is right in front of your nose and you’re just too blind to see it.”
Anne scoffs, shoving Cole good-naturedly as he reaches up to open the circular trapdoor which leads up to their classroom.
They pick a table close to the open window and Cole immediately takes out a small sketchbook from his cloak pocket and begins to draw the view. Meanwhile, Diana tells Anne about her mother’s latest plight to get her to transfer to Beauxbaton, the wizarding school out in France.
The trapdoor opens again a few moments later and Billy Andrews, Josie Pye, and a handful of other Slytherins enter the classroom. Anne glares daggers at Josie, who smirks in return, clearly pleased that she’d managed to catch Anne off guard with the stunning spell she’d shot at her the night before. Meanwhile, Billy makes a beeline for Cole and before they know it, he’s snatched the sketchbook right out from under his pencil.
“What’s this you got here?” Billy asks, roughly flipping through the sketchbook’s pages.
“Stop!” Cole cries, as he makes to take his drawings back.
He’s not quick enough though, and Billy easily holds it out of reach.
“But I’m not done looking through it yet,” he sneers.
“Just give it back, Billy— it’s not yours!” Diana cries.
“You didn’t say please…” Billy leers at Cole.
Anne watches as Cole steels himself, fists clenching at his sides as he lets out a rattled breath.
“Please can I have my sketchbook back?” He asks, voice slightly quivering in frustration.
“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it, MacKenzie?” Billy smirks. “Here, catch!”
Before any of them can process what’s really happening, Billy’s throwing Cole’s sketchbook straight past him and out the open window.
Anne’s at the window right alongside Cole as soon as she gets over the shock of what Billy’s done. She breathes a sigh of relief when she spies her friend’s book where its miraculously landed atop the ridge beam just below.
“Don’t worry, Cole— I’ll get it back for you,” Anne assures him.
She pulls her wand out, thinking that a carefully cast levitation charm is all it’ll take to float the book back up through the window. Anne’s just about to cast Wingardium Leviosa when Billy plucks her wand out of her grip.
“Oh no you don’t, Fido!”
“Billy Andrews, I swear to god if you don’t give me back my wand right now—“ Anne seethes.
“You’ll what?” Billy asks sweetly. “Not so tough without magic are you, Fido? How you gonna get your friend’s precious book back now?”
Anne takes another peek out the window, grinning when she notices the awning of another window just below their classroom. From there, it does’t seem like too far of a drop onto the ridge beam.
“Oh, I don’t need magic to do that,” Anne shoots back just as sweetly.
She turns to Cole and Diana then, “Watch my wand— the both of you. If he even jokes about trying to snap it in half, I implore you to do your worst, my beloved kindred spirits.”
“Anne…” Diana starts, voice tinged with worry as she watches Anne approach the window. “Anne what are you doing?”
“I’m doing exactly what I said I was going to do— I’m going to get Cole’s sketches back,” Anne says confidently.
It takes a moment for both of her friends to realize what she’s on about, but as soon as they see Anne begin to hoist one leg up onto the window sill, there’s no doubt in Anne’s mind that they’ve caught on.
If the sounds of incredulous laughter provided by Billy and his cronies are anything to go by, it’s clear the Slytherin students have caught on as well.
“Anne, don’t— it’s not worth it— they’re just drawings!” Cole says suddenly. “I can make more."
“Don’t worry— it’ll be fine!” Anne promises. “I knew a girl in Marysville who could walk the ridgepole of a roof, and a ridge beam is much easier than that. It’s flat on the top, you see?”
“You’re going to walk the ridge beam? You wouldn’t dare— you couldn’t,” Josie says flatly.
“Couldn’t I?”Anne fires back, raising a single eyebrow at Josie, calling the blonde girl’s bluff.
And before anyone can say any more on the matter, Anne hoists herself up onto the window sill and swings her legs over so they’re dangling out. It’s a bit higher up than it looked from inside the classroom, but Anne shoves the worry away.
Anne takes a moment to muster all of the Gryffindor courage she possesses and very carefully lowers herself out, feet blindly searching for the awning below as she dangles fully out of the North Tower window.