Flora And Fawna [HARRY POTTER]

39

Rosie's first day back at Hogwarts for her sixth day turned out to be rather traumatic. Their new Defense Against the Arts professor, the woman hadn't even introduced herself before he had began her lecture, had decided to begin the year by teaching them about the three unforgivable curses. All three of which she had then demonstrated on a baby deer she had found wandering alone in the dark forest.

Watching the poor thing cry and scream, it's young face twisted in a way that made Rosie's hear wrench, had left a sour taste in Rosie's mouth and as such she had forgotten her potions book and walked into her double potions class empty handed. She had been pale and shaking, but Professor Snape had still scowled angrily when he was forced to loan her a book to use for their first lesson.

"Be sure it does not happen again, Miss. Evans," Professor's Snape had seemed particularly nasally, but Rosie hadn't been able to pay it any mind as she took ahold of the book he was offering her to trudge over to her seat. Professor Snape had also given them a seating chart for the term so Rosie had been stuck sitting beside a Gryffindor, a boy she had seen but never spoken to. "Everyone please turn to page three hundred and ninety-four, and read about the wolfsbane potion. You will note that this book is the only edition that has the wolfsbane potion in it. The potions creator, Damocles Belby, spent all summer revising a final recipe and it is this recipe that you will be beginning today, and then writing thirteen inches of parchment on for tomorrow's class."

The rest of the class groaned, but Rosie simply flipped to the correct page and began to prepare her ingredients. She would need munkwood, obviously, and before she even had time to prepare it as her borrowed book instructed her eyes were drawn to the margin where someone had written a different method.

Slice monkswood chiffonade. Makes for better consistency. Longer effects.

Rosie's eyes rose to look at Professor Snape, noting the way his dark eyes scanned over the students, watching for any little mistake they may make so that he can correct them, and then belittle him. Rosie's thoughts went back to the night she had almost drunk herself to death in Hog's head, remembering how the Professor had entered the establishment and sat down beside her. She had begun to remember the events of that night in small flashes and it still astounded her that she hadn't heard a word of it from Dumbledore.

Right before the Professor's scanning eyes could meet hers, Rosie ducked her head and began to work on her potion, following the instructions that her professor had written down.

*******

Rosie had taken a few moments to glance through the rest of the book before she had had to give it back, and had noticed strangely enough that her professor had filled the margins with not only corrections to the potions, but also spells. Some of them, like Sectumsempra, had no indication as to what they did. Others, like Langlock, offered that the spell would work similarly to the Mimblewimble jinx by affixing the victim's tongue to the roof of their mouth and disallowing them to speak. Rosie had never thought about the origins of certain spells, she had just always learned the spells and how to cast them.

But upon looking at new spells, ones that someone she knew created, something stirred in Rosie that she couldn't ignore. She could create a shield charm so powerful it could block an unforgivable curse. She could make a spell that would allow her sister to cast her own simple magic. She could even make a spell so that she could let Harry see his mother again. So that he could know her himself.

Rosie's mind had been set, and finally she had found something that truly excited her in the magical world. She wondered if there was a book on creating spells in the library. Perhaps in the restricted section.

*******

Rosie had gone to the headmaster a week later, and spoken to him about getting access to the restricted session for her research. Dumbledore had, of course, been only too pleased to encourage her pursuits and had given her unrestricted access for the remainder of the year. He only asked that she not get lost in some of the books, as a few of them had the nasty habit of devouring their readers.

Rosie had proceeded with caution.

*******

No one saw a whole lot of Rosie in the following weeks, aside from class. She beautiful girl became rather elusive, disappearing into the restricted section for hours at a time and allowing Madame Prince, the librarian, to chase off all their friends whenever they tried to venture in to fetch her. Rose quite liked it in the restricted section of the Hogwarts library. It was quiet, because there were no other students allowed as far as Rosie noticed. It was quiet, and still, and Rosie had somehow managed to charm some blankets past Madame Prince and had practically built herself a nest. Praise be, neither Filch or a house elf had stumbled upon it yet so it remained untouched whenever Rosie returned to it.

In her first week, Rosie learned the theory. She learned that most spells were based in latin, and learned that theoretically one could make anything happen so long as they had the right combination of latin root words. After that Rosie had moved on to actually learning the latin, something that was proving to take some time. Rosie had learned a bit of french in primary school but she hadn't so much as thought about it since she had begun Hogwarts. She hadn't needed to take any language for her muggle classes so the thought had been put out of her mind.

But as she began to decipher a dead language she found herself wishing that she had paid more attention when she was ten.

She knew it would take a bit of time but she was willing to suffer the wait.