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Both Lucia and Snape sprinted through the halls, reaching the staircases in record time. The former simply jumped down several stairs at a time, giving herself a heart attack every single time, while the latter slid down the ornate railings. As soon as they reached the dungeons, the marathon sprinting began anew.
Despite Lucia working out more often, Snape was faster, shoving the door to their Potions classroom open before Lucia appeared at the door. The two huffed as oxygen pumped through their bodies. “No one go on the fourth floor—Peeves sent off a Dungbomb—on—the west side,” Lucia huffed as she settled next to Snape and setting her satchel down.
“Thank you for the warning, Ms. Moriarty,” Slughorn accepted their excuse of tardiness. “Today, we’ll be concocting Amortentia. Can anyone tell me—” he trailed off as Snape and Lucia’s hands were raised into the air.
“Snape, and then, Moriarty,” Slughorn allowed, not even bothering to finish his question.
Snape gave a side smirk to his partner that Lucia glared at, vowing to get back at him later. “Amortentia is a love potion distinguished by the mother-of-pearl sheen and the characteristic heart-like smoke spirals,” he detailed, taking it straight from their textbook.
“Excellent!” Slughorn declared. “Anything to add, Ms. Moriarty?”
After giving a subtle kick to Snape, she spoke up. “Amortentia is dangerous not only because it causes obsessive infatuation that needs to be constantly reinforced but because anyone born under the influence of it will be unable to love.”
“Can you back that up?” Slughorn asked, not familiar with the latter information.
Lucia was almost too happy to. “In the cases of Elizabeth Bàthory, Jack the Ripper, and Vlad the Impaler, all can be traced back to illegal uses of opioids that had been spiked with Amortentia. It’s in the 1850s records within the Ministry of Magic. It was one of the misses that we had to cover up,” Lucia declared three examples off the top of her head. And Thomas Riddle, the real name of Voldemort. “Although, there was talk of the Gaunt’s family use within such uses, but that isn’t proven and therefore, speculation.”
At that last statement, Slughorn slightly paled from the historian and hastily awarded the duo points. After the initial explanations and the referenced page books, everyone was busy at their cauldrons, cutting, grinding, and measuring.
“The book says we need more ‘consistency’ with the pearl dust,” Lucia muttered, squinting at the textbook. The text was propped open with a quick charm as Lucia was too lazy to constantly open it every time it closed. “How the everlasting fuck do we do that?” She glanced at the finely crushed dust in the mortar.
Snape glanced over before giving her his ‘are-you-a-dunderhead-or-actually-smart’ look. “You have to mix it with pixie dust to give it consistency,” he answered, showing her his annotations as she copied it down in her textbook.
“Then, why doesn’t it put it in the same step?” Lucia muttered back before adding some pixie dust. “Hey, do you think we add pixie dust because it acts like a stimulant? You know—like drugs.”
“The fact that you are putting that together just now is astounding,” Snape snipped back, already figured that out. “Weren’t you a chemistry student?” He quietly referenced her previous life.
After neatly dumping the measured dust into the cauldron, Lucia gave her best withering glare in his direction. “I failed the introductory class, and besides, that’s more biochemistry than anything.” They mixed it for a while before they added their last ingredient. “I bet you five bucks that Sinistra and Lupin fucked up something.”
Snape glanced over to their friend arguing with the werewolf and back at his partner. “I’m not going to take a bet on something I’m going to lose—also, what would I do with American money?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Buy some American potion ingredients? I dunno,” Lucia answered absentmindedly, the phrase having just slipped out. “You could probably get rattlesnake poison for cheap—perfect substitution for certain poisons.” She began to tap her quill on the table before it incinerated from the heat of the cauldron. “That was my favorite,” she whined.
“Get another one,” Snape replied with no real malice while giving the cauldron another stir. He sniffed the cauldron before stiffening. “We messed up.”
Lucia elbowed him aside at that, peering into the cauldron. “What? Why?” Another hour down the drain was not on her list today much less for bloody potions. When glancing at the cauldron, the pearly sheen and heart-shaped smoke indicated otherwise.
“Because I can’t smell anything different,” Snape pushed her aside gently before taking another whiff. His eyes narrowed as he returned to check over his notes.
She stopped at that before bluescreening for a second. “Wait, let me,” Lucia took a whiff before turning to Snape with her rendition of ‘are-you-stupid’ look. He gave a mildly offended look at that. “What do you smell?” She asked with a deadpan stare.
“Lavender—” Snape uttered, trying to piece together the reason behind her stare.
Unfortunately, Black heard that before exclaiming to his friend, which happened to be across the room. “Oi, Evans! Snivellus still has that crush on you! He mentioned lavender!” His yell attracted the attention of every other student in the classroom, who turned to stare at Snape and Lucia.
Lucia rolled her eyes as she caught Sinistra’s raised eyebrow. Zip it. She gestured while adding a cut neck for good measure. At this point, it would do no good to mention it.
Snape’s mouth snapped shut at that while focusing on the smoke trails left on by their potion.
“Feeling left out, Moriarty?” Potter called out as Lucia turned her icy stare at the Potter. God damn, you are making it so hard to like you, Potter. No wonder Snape hated Harry for like forever—even I want to throttle you right now. “Now that Sni—Snape’s still in love with Evans?”
She rolled her eyes again, and she could see Aurora doing the same. “Please, Potter,” Lucia called out. “At least, I’m not the one frantically staring at Evans, trying to make sure that the potion smells like her. Projecting much?” She twirled her wand in her hand as she stared at the Potter heir. “Perhaps you should mind your own business like you’ve always done when it mattered.” The venom was not missed as she referenced last year’s prank gone wrong.
James paled slightly before turning to his potion quietly. Even Black turned back to the potion at hand.
“So nosy,” she commented, “Professor? We’ve finished.” While calling Professor Slughorn over, Lucia turned back to Snape, who had an odd expression. “Hey—Cato—”
“Brilliant as usual!” Slughorn beamed, easily won over by the color and the swirls emitted from the cauldron. “Full marks to the both of you, and once you’ve finished cleaning up, you may leave.”
The two nodded and moved to start cleaning their station up. As Lucia began to organize the unused ingredients, Snape stopped her. “What did you smell?”
Lucia raised an eyebrow. “Peppermint and ash,” she murmured, stating the two most prominent scents. “I’m going to let you figure that out.” With that, she walked over to dispose of the contaminated ingredients, leaving Snape to pack up.
The potion merely confirmed what Lucia had already known since last year. It would be the perfect moment for the ‘Denial is a river in Egypt’ audio that she vaguely remembered from her freshman year of college if she were act otherwise. Although, she could most likely use it on Snape at dinner if he continued to act like this.
She waved bye to Sinistra as Snape and her left the classroom; both of them heading back to the library to finish the essay for McGonagall that they couldn’t finish before class.