PURIFY : Fred Weasley

12: Debased

Professor Snape has been gone a lot longer than he said he would be. He just needed a quick trip to the loo, he claimed, but it's been thirty minutes and no sign of him.

Today I'm starting what is hopefully my final version of the Veritaserum potion. I'm busy adjusting the heat, trying to get a feel to make sure it's the exact right temperature when I hear a crash outside.

I run out to the storage cupboard. With my wand pulled out, I open the door. Inside, I see Silas with a cauldron, trying to collect half a dozen frog's eyes off the ground.

"Merlin's beard, you scared me," he tells me. He hands me the cauldron. "Help me clean up."

I don't do as he says. Instead, while he scrambles on the ground, I shift through the ingredients. Dog's tongue, frog's eye, gingerroot, among several other ingredients.

"What are you doing, making Amortentia?" I ask, leaning in closer.

Silas stops moving. He throws the rest of the frog's eyes in a container and grabs my arm. He pulls me out of the closet, and while he begins to pull me towards the Dungeons, I shrug out of his grip and head back to Professor Snape's classroom. Finally, Silas follows after me.

Professor Snape is still gone, thankfully. Holding the cauldron, I debate dumping its contents into the garbage, but Professor Snape will notice them there. He'll think I've been stealing it, and using it for whatever my purposes are.

"Why do you have this?" I ask, putting down the cauldron across from my own. I cross my arms over my chest. "Who are you bewitching?"

"No one," he says. "Would you please just give it back?"

He takes a step closer and I snatch it back off the desk. I juggle it between my arms, trying to find the best way to keep it in case he tries to charm it out of my hands, while still holding my wand. I look at him and see my reflection in his eyes. He is entirely unfamiliar to me.

Maybe he's the same person who has been stealing the Polyjuice potion. Maybe it's not even Silas. I raise my wand at him. "Who did I see you kiss?"

"Have you gone mad?" he asks me.

"Someone's been stealing the ingredients to Polyjuice potion," I tell him. "I'm dead serious."

"You saw me kiss your date," Silas seethes. He reaches forward to snap the cauldron out of my hands. I raise my wand at him, and he puts his hands up in defence.

It's either him or Ander Ander, but my money is on Silas. It's his mannerisms I'm seeing. His tone, his surprise. Even if all of this is unfamiliar. "Who are you bewitching? Are you using it on Bronwyn? On Ander Ander?"

"No, good heavens," he sighs. Silas plops down on the seat opposite me. He runs a hand through his slicked-back hair, causing it to stand up on end. "No, I've been controlling myself?"

I put the cauldron down on the opposite table. Then, I approach him and sit opposite him. "I beg your pardon?"

He rolls up his sleeves and drops his arms against the table. Silas bites the inside of his cheek and puts his head against the table for a second. His breath comes out in shudders. I put a hand upon his shoulder, but he pushes me away.

The cauldron in front of me, mine, is bubbling. Great, another potion ruined. Professor Snape will be most impressed with me today.

He looks up at me with wet eyes. "You know exactly what I'm trying to do."

I can't believe it. No, I won't. It's crazy, and it wouldn't work anyway. "Explain anyway. How long?"

"Since we got back from break," he tells me. "It hasn't been working though."

"That's because she has to administer it," I explain. "It won't work unless Bronwyn gives it to you. I... I can't believe I'm entertaining this. Why? Just why?"

He grabs my hand and pulls me in close to him. "You know exactly why. You know who I like, what I'm like. You know that that isn't okay."

I know. It's obviously not the same, but I know that there are certain expectations of us. Well, one specifically. The Selwyns are close family friends with my family, closer than the Flints. Before Marcus Flint, my father suggested that Silas and I would produce a good heir.

I was thirteen.

It's not my place to tell him how to live his life. Really, it isn't.

"You need to start buying the supplies from Hogsmeade since the Professor is catching on," I tell him, leaning in and whispering. "But... but it's not going to work unless Bronwyn knows."

"She can't know," Silas reiterates. "The whole point is so that I'm in love with her. It would break her if she discovered."

The silence on my behalf would break her harder; I'm sure of it.

"Silas, you need to do this for Bronwyn," I tell him. "She still has some time to find someone who can love her. She won't if you wait until you're done Hogwarts. Are you planning on marrying her?"

"Yes," he snaps back. He lowers his shoulders and shakes his head. "Sorry, but I am. We will never find as good of a match for each other. My parents would be content to see us marry other families. Not the Yaxley's though. Bronwyn has told me as much. They might accept her marrying your brother or Flint, but those are her three options. She needs me as much as I need her."

While my brother is interested in Bronwyn, I wouldn't wish him upon my worst enemy. In a way, I come to understand him. I try to get a good look at him. A real look. From the soft slope of his nose to his tired dark brown eyes. His hands are shaking. He's made up his mind, of that much I'm sure. There's no use in arguing with Silas.

"I might be able to make it work," I tell him, sighing. "You'll need a rose, red wine, and lavender. Those are her smells. If you ferment them in firewhisky, and then add extra gingerroot, it might work."

Silas gets up. He walks around the table and pulls me into a tight embrace. I relax into his grip and put my head on his shoulder.

Silas pulls backwards. He puts a hand up against my cheek. "Thank you, Larkin. Thank you so much."

I grimace. This is really something that isn't worth thanking me. Still, it feels nice to see the tension fading in his forehead, and to see him wiping tears out of his eyes, rather than beginning to sob. Silas is, for all intents and purposes, my best and only real friend.

"You need to get out of here before Professor Snape gets back," I tell him, not letting us mull over the events of today for too long.

"Thank you," he says it again.

Finally, I don't owe him. He owes me though, and he knows it. Both for keeping his secret about Ander Ander and for helping him here. I hate keeping tally, but it just comes so naturally.

When Silas leaves, I plop back down at the desk. I chuck the ingredients down the sink in the back of the classroom and get all the components I need to begin once more. If I am here all night, then so be it.

Maybe I am better at potions than I give myself credit for being. Maybe I'm a better friend than I think I am. Equally as likely, maybe I'm a worse friend.

~~~~~

I know this is shorter, but it's the length that it needed to be. This story is already 30 000 words (what I've written, not what's published) so I'm okay if a few chapters here and there are shorter than they are supposed to be.

Anyway, thank you for sticking with me on this journey. Would you have done what Larkin is doing for Silas?