Magic Child

The Delicate Art

After a quick dinner, we sneaked out of the Great Hall early so that we could have the common room to ourselves.

"Becoming an animagus is a delicate art, which takes self-discipline and patience. The first step to becoming an Animagus is acquiring a leaf of a mandrake and holding it in one's mouth for a month," I whispered quietly to Sloane. The common room is empty, but this book sets an ominous tone on the task at hand.

"How are we going to do that?" Sloane asks.

"Well... The only way to get a mandrake leaf is to steal it from Professor Longbottom's or Professor Nosferatu's stores." I say hesitantly.

"Which one will be easier, do you think?" Sloane asked.

"Probably Professor Longbottom's. Nosferatu is really creepy and unpredictable. If he caught us... I shudder at the thought.

"Longbottom it is," Sloane states. "So how are we going to get into his office?"

***

"You are dismissed," Professor Longbottom's voice rings through the greenhouse. My things are already packed up, so I race out of the greenhouse. Sloane said that she would buy me five minutes, and I needed every second of it.

I ran to Longbottom's office. Once I got their, I tried the handle, but it was predictably locked. The corridor was deserted, so I whispered quietly, "Alohomora." The door clicked open. That spell was awfully helpful.

I slipped in and closed the door behind me. The office was filled with natural light from the almost floor to ceiling windows. I walked over to a door on the right wall and pushed it open. The walls in the small closet-like room were filled with drawers. Little labels marked in messy handwriting had the names of different plants on them. They were all in alphabetical order, so I started scanning the room.

"Aha!" I exclaimed in a whisper. "Mandrake leaves." I scooped a handful into my pocket. I opened the door quietly, peeking my head out of the small opening to make sure that Longbottom hadn't come back. The office was deserted. I then sneaked out, and right after I closed the door and took a step away did I hear a familiar voice.

"Ray!" Professor Longbottom said, approaching from the end of the hallway.

"Oh, hello. I was just... Going to see you," I explained, since I was still facing his office.

"I wanted to talk to you, too. About how you're doing at Hogwarts. We're practically family, since you're Teddy's kid. How about we have tea? Sunday? How about at two?"

I nodded my head, and scurried down the hall. I felt a knot build in my stomach. Guilt built up because Professor Longbottom was being so nice while I was surreptitiously stealing from him. But this was important, and with all of those different herbs, he would probably never notice his loss.

I walked straight into the girl's dormitory, because that was where Sloane sat, waiting. The dormitory was thankfully empty.

"Did you get them?" She asks.

I reach into my pocket, and then gently lay them on her bed, sitting down on the end. "So how do we do this?" I ask.

"Well, we have to put it in our mouth, and then we have to learn to hold it in the corner of our mouth while we talk and eat," she says.

I hesitantly pick up the leaf, and Sloane and I place it in our mouths at the same time. The taste is like a stinky and skunk spray combined. I immediately spit it out. It looks like Sloane did, too.

"Okay. That was gross, but we need to do this," I coughed. "But we need to do this," I affirm as Sloane  nods. We stick the leaves in our mouth again. It tastes just as nasty as before, but I manage to keep it in my mouth.

The longer I wait, the more used to the odd taste do I get. Eventually, it doesn't even taste bad. I move the leaf to the side of my mouth so that I can talk. "Well, I've gotten used to the taste," I struggle to get the words out.

"You sound like an idiot," Sloane mutters, her voice muffled.

"So do you," I try to reply. I start laughing. "This is going to be hard."

We spend the next hour learning how to talk, eat, and pretend to sleep with the leaves in our mouth. We tease each other light heartedly the entire time. For once, I believe that we may be able to actually go through with this entire plan.