Paragraph 5 : The Arch Room

All four of them were sitting on the grass, in their usual meeting place near the lake. There had been some rain this Sunday, but they had agreed to go there when the sun would replace the clouds, if at all. Thus, when the sun started dominating the sky, they all set out to the sand-less beach. There, they cast spells drying the once wet grass, and here they were. Ann thought it would be more psychologically skillful for her first to describe to Sigismond how the action had unfolded near and at Flourish & Blotts. She was very intent on giving every detail possible, because for a start, it would probably make her decisive choice more understandable, and additionally, it would postpone the time when she would have to tell Sigismond about the transaction. The three girls had kept the book hidden in the expanding bag, so Sigismond could not know in advance what had been the result. When the narration closed in on the most important part, Ann slowed down, and started casting repeated glances at Sigismond's facial expression. She took a deep breath before telling Sigismond that she had signed the contract, then waited for his reaction. Sigismond didn't react. He was apparently waiting for the rest of the story, since he asked :

And then ?

Ann, relieved, was able to tell the rest of the story much more coolly. Now, she was giving out details, not out of tactical optimisation, but just because she was telling a story for a friend who might find them compelling. She didn't forget to skip the circumstances in which she and Eleanor had discovered Judith on their trip back to Eleanor's house. When Ann signaled that she had nothing more to say, Sigismond asked :

Where is the book, then ?

Ann picked up the expanding bag, rummaged inside of it, and pulled the book before handing it over to Sigismond. He started looking at it, opened it, read bits of it. All three girls were now silent, anxious to know whether Sigismond would deem the acquisition worthwhile, and the consequences of it manageable. He closed the book, raised his eyes towards the sky, which was rather usual, given that he was most of the time out of this world, busy imagining another one. He noticed that something was odd. Usually he was the one being silent, and the others would talk meanwhile. In this case, all four of them were silent. He lowered his gaze. All three girls were looking at him. Ann was impatient to know if she was in trouble. Sure, Sigismond was not mad at her at all, but that didn't mean that he approved of her course of action. Therefore, she asked :

Do you think the book will be useful ? Do you think your parents will agree with my decision ?

Sigismond looked puzzled

The book could be useful. Mum will not make a fuss about 40 Galleons

Ann's instant instinct was that Sigismond was tactless. When her own parents had computed the amount of pounds they needed to purchase all the Hogwarts stuff, they had thought in all likelihood a lot of things, but not that 40 Galleons were making up a low sum. Immediately after, she changed her mind. She was the one who had treated 42 Galleons as a dispensable amount in the first place. She therefore had neither reason nor right to be upset about Sigismond's affluent parents' perspective. Ann thought that all was set, that they were about to brew it, drink it, and they would get to the next step. Judith, though, wondered about something that was not inconsequential. She said that they were now back at Hogwarts, they had already been given detention for breaking rules while trying to find a book about dark magic, so the least they should do was to make absolutely sure that the Intuition Potion was not dark magic. She argued :

That is the problem of using something that doesn't come from Hogwarts. We can be fairly sure that no teacher is going to let us read a book about dark magic, which means that such books will be at least in the Restricted Section. At Flourish & Blotts, Ann visited something that is very much a state-of-the-art Restricted Section, which implies that there could be still darker magic in this book from Flourish & Blotts than in Hogwarts library's own Restricted Section. Add to that the fact that this potion could direct us towards dubious actions and that makes for a lot of potential issues

Ann dismissed Judith's concerns, saying that they were free to choose to follow or not the leads that the potion, if it worked, would give them, and that furthermore, nothing in the potion's description hinted at any hallmark of dark magic. The potion, though more complex than the one a student would be typically tasked to brew, was straightforward to make, at least on paper or rather on parchment, and none of its ingredients was out of the ordinary. Ann concluded that only somebody who was willing to take the risk would drink the potion, and that if Judith considered that risk was significant, she would just have to abstain from drinking it, nobody would force it on her. Eleanor surprised the three others, when at that moment, she said she wanted to try the potion. Judith asked

You mean, drink it yourself ?

Eleanor nodded. Ann reacted immediately

Why not me ?

Eleanor answered, a grin on her face,

Because you already have had a lot of nerve wracking things to do lately

Sigismond, for once, seemed to have a strong opinion on his mind, since he left his passive posture for a brief moment and told Ann directly :

We can't leave all the action to you. That would yield an unbalanced situation. We have to share the risks. You exhibited bravery once, I brought the money for the plan, Judith set the goals and kept us together, Eleanor solved the practical difficulties that were preventing us from getting the book. Now it's time for somebody else to show their courage

Ann, defeated by reason and a majority, tackled then the next issue :

This time, it's not as basic and commonplace as the Aging Potion. How can we brew the new potion while remaining unnoticed ?

Eleanor had something in mind :

We already know that there is at least one classroom gathering dust where hardly anybody sets foot. We should not go back there, because we don't want to be at risk of arising more suspicion. We could however probably find another similar room. Should we get busted once more, it won't be as painful as if it were in the first one, and it will be somewhat less suspicious

They all agreed, and within days of scouring during their free time the rooms which they had no recollection ever visiting, Sigismond had found an acceptable one. It was not clear whether said room had ever been used as a classroom or not. In any case, it was a small one. There were no desks, no benches, no chairs in it. There were extensive cobwebs, sure, but these were located in the top corners. This prompted Ann to tease Judith, when they found themselves there together for the first time :

There were also cobwebs in the first one. I am surprised that, while being afraid of so many things, you seem not to be the least scared of spiders

Judith answered, matter-of-factly :

I am cautious, not a coward

Ann hesitated. Should she find some quip in response ? She opted not to, and ended the exchange saying, as neutrally as possible :

Hmmm. If you say so…Okay

The room was empty, but had three narrow and tall artfully arched windows on the back wall, and these openings obviously brought light and some heat during daytime. Through the windows, one could see the wooden landscape of the Forbidden Forest, with a view in the opposite direction of Hagrid's hut. Eleanor noted that it was curious for a room that had some pleasant features not to have any use. Till now. Eleanor had to Disapparate to Diagon Alley on Saturday to purchase the few ingredients that had not made it to the standard list of ingredients of the average Hogwarts students, plus an extra store of some ingredients that they already had but that would be in short supply once they would have used them for the potion. Eleanor's mother provided the cauldron, and Eleanor herself cast a spell that would make the cauldron look like a stack of broomsticks from the 1950s to everybody save the four of them. They started brewing the potion together, each one of them making sure that they were not making any mistake during the process. They all had their copy of the Intuition Potion recipe, and they would generally, at the end of the preparation time in the Arch Room, insert the corresponding parchment in one of their own books wide enough to hide the presence of the annotated vellum, and bring the hiding book out of the Arch Room. In the meantime, somebody might have noticed that the four same students were repeatedly going to the same place, for a rumour more accurate than before started spreading, a rumour according to which Slytherin's Ann Aves, Gryffindor's Sigismond Candler, Hufflepuff's Judith Parry and Ravenclaw's Eleanor Magarthy had become friends. Some students didn't believe that such an improbable combination of inter-Houses friendship could ever happen. Others did believe the rumour or at least found it believable, and these could be split into three sets. One set was made of students who didn't care about this new team, the second one was made of students who felt this kind of cross-Houses socialisation was twisted, misguided and borderline evil, and the third one was made of students who didn't hide their satisfaction at the fact that the association of these four students mirrored the collaboration that had led to the founding of the school. Among those who saw with contempt or disgust the fraternisation, one could find a number of Slytherin students who believed that no worthy member of their prestigious House should be allowed to become close to people belonging to Houses consisting of what they saw as losers, especially Hufflepuff. You could also find members of the three other Houses who showed reprobation at the amicality between the four on the grounds that it was gross, according to them, to associate oneself with a Slytherin student. The most blatant result of these contradictory stances among students was that whenever one of the four students was present somewhere, there was a possibility that the other students would take a sideway look at her or him, and occasionally mutter something that one could suspect was unfavorable to them. Ann especially was targeted by a few fellow Slytherin students, since she was as far from the Pure-Blood ideal as was possible. Some of her detractors would just ignore her, the others would sneer when she got close to them. Still, quite a number of students were neutral, and found it more productive to focus on their studies than on some bizarre event, and a few others were openly supportive of the four. In general, life was more troublesome than before for them, since they had to worry permanently about what students in the same classroom, or in the Common Room of their House, were thinking about the group. Sometimes they would not perceive any difference in the usual atmosphere, and the rest of the time, an especially telling silence would make the ambience sinister. They even came across students who were scared, thinking that they were intent on becoming dark witches and wizard, as was supposedly demonstrated by their detention and their quest for the book 'How To Become a Dark Wizard'. This led them to some soul-searching. Ann was worried that she was indeed following the path of the archetypal ill-intentioned Slytherin student. Judith was more and more apprehensive, if that was possible, about the choice they had made regarding the Intuition Potion, and spent time thinking about the decisions they had made since their fateful first meeting, attempting to sort them out in a three categories, namely 'right', 'wrong', and 'neutral'. Sigismond and Eleanor were more or less impervious to the implicit criticism of some of the other students. This being said, Sigismond was taken aback, once, when Peter Dormond, a fellow Gryffindor, told him bluntly :

You should let down your Slytherin friend. I try to be tolerant, you know, being friends with a Hufflepuff and a Ravenclaw, why not ? But with a Slytherin on top of that, that's insane

Sigismond didn't know how he was supposed to deal with this kind of brazen statement. He just stood there, like struck by lightning. He was spared the need to defend his view, since Peter Dormond, having delivered this piece of advice that was supposed to smack of universal common sense, turned around and went his way. Eleanor, though being her usual cheerful lively self, saw a few students she had considered her friends turn away from her, essentially because they were jealous of the hitherto never seen dedication that Eleanor had granted to these three nobodies. Eleanor shared with the three others the idea that they would need a means of communication, so as to be able to lay low for as much time as was needed for the popularity of the rumour to fade. After that, they would still have to use this soon-to-be-devised way of conversing, in order not to reignite the passion that accompanied the rumour. The three others thought it would be difficult to find this communication technique, but were of course unanimous about its relevance. In the meantime, a surprise came when Sigismond told them that he had sent an owl to this mother about the spending of the 42 Galleons. Ann braced for what would follow, expecting Sigismond to report to her his mother's dissatisfaction, or even to hand her over a Howler, but Sigismond showed her the brief answer his mother had written :

With that kind of mindset, this girl would have been a worthy daughter. See you in the summer sweetheart

This lifted Ann's spirits, and provided the only ingredient they could be missing. Merriness.