Darkening

Moby had been thrilled when Attica informed him that they would be having a guest. After being alone in that house for so long, she couldn't blame him. There were only four bedrooms in the large house. The other rooms on the second floor were filled with books, and therefore could not really be called bedrooms. The room that had once been Attica's nursery and the room that had belonged to her parents had remained untouched. Moby had situated Snape in the guest bedroom at the end of the hall. The novelty of the situation was not lost on Attica as she dressed for the day.

She had incorrectly assumed that she and the Potions Master would immediately set to work. Instead, he had compiled a list of supplies and sent Attica out to retrieve them. He had also asked Moby to visit Spinner's End to retrieve several heavy tomes from his personal library. Apparently several hours of arduous research were necessary before they could move on to actually trying to figure out how to recreate the stone. Attica was frustrated by the obscene amount of texts she had been given to sift through.

The research was tedious and the days dragged on. Snape insisted that they must investigate all theory surrounding the Sorcerer's Stone before they attempted any brewing at all. He had only been in the laboratory long enough to clean the cauldrons properly and scour the countertops. The rest of his time was spent in the study pouring over his research. Attica believed this to be a colossal waste of time, but she bit her tongue and tried to summon every ounce of patience she possessed. Admittedly, that wasn't much.

When the cleaning had been completed by Snape Standards, he divested Attica of her vial. He removed the delicate chain and the emerald stopper and suspended the vial in a small golden cauldron. He poured a strange opalescent liquid into the cauldron and lowered the vial so that it dropped just below the surface of the swirling fluid. Attica placed a hand over the emerald stopper and gently stoked its smooth surface. When she raised her eyes, she realized that Snape had been looking down at her with a strange expression on his face. He motioned for the stopper to be placed in the cauldron alongside the vial. She held the stopper over the cauldron, hesitating. With an encouraging nod from Snape, she reluctantly loosened her grasp and watched as the emerald dropped into the softly churning liquid below her hand. The emerald hovered just below the surface, coming to rest directly beside the vial. She resisted a surprisingly strong impulse to reach into the cauldron and retrieve the emerald.

Attica was startled by the visceral reaction she had experienced upon being parted from the emerald. She didn't understand it and the coldness that had entered her heart when the emerald had broken contact with her skin told her that she didn't want to. She shivered and decided to blame it on nostalgia. There was no doubt that the items evoked strong memories of her grandparents and the last moments she had spent with them. But memories meant so much more to her than items. The emerald was only an object, she reminded herself. So why did she feel so bereft without it?

The sound of Snape tapping his wand on the lip of the cauldron drew her out of her reverie. He began to murmur an incantation. When he finished, he set his wand aside. Without looking up, he answered her silent question. "This potion will strip any residue from the vial, but will leave the samples intact for analysis. It is a very delicate process. I must ask you to keep your temper in check in the meantime. I realize your patience has been running thin as of late, but I cannot possibly conduct the removal as rapidly as you would like. We cannot risk losing anything due to unnecessary haste."

"How long?" she asked.

The answer was brisk, no-nonsense. "Three weeks."

That was that.

~~~

So Attica waited. She spent her waking hours in the freshly polished study. She poured over parchments and books with spines that had frayed long ago. Her materials were spread out on the low coffee table while Snape occupied the desk on the other side of the room. He was perusing some ancient, yellowed tome, searching for the technique that may have been used to create the Stone while Attica was tasked with attempting to compile the most plausible list of ingredients from historical accounts and Potions. So far she had determined the plausibility of aconite, ginger root, powdered amethyst, ginseng, and unicorn blood, among others. The list was long and the reasons behind each ingredient's place on the list were equally extensive. Snape told her that many of the ingredients could be determined from an analysis of the residue, but that there were countless other possible components that would be virtually undetectable. Even if they could figure out every constituent of the Elixir, they would still have to backtrack to determine the makeup of the Stone itself. The Elixir was merely a derivative of the Stone; its composition could be as disparate from that of the Stone as a Slytherin is different from a Hufflepuff.

If Snape was considered to be a difficult professor, he was proving an almost impossibly demanding research partner. He fully immersed himself in the quest, and expected nothing less from Attica.

Even now, having just awoken, she felt stiff from the long days spent bending over scrolls of parchment as they became covered in her small, looping notes and references. The situation was not aided by lack of sleep and the nightmares she suffered from when she did manage to doze off. The dreams had changed again, becoming more vivid, more unrelenting. These visions produced by her subconscious became so consuming that most nights she slept with her candle lit, hoping that the light would prevent her from slipping into too deep a sleep. Her dream self did not feel protected; something was not right. However, she no longer heard Voldemort's voice in her head, so she wasn't going to complain. The Elixir was no longer nestled close to her heart as she slept, and she assumed it was this absence that was causing the feelings of unease and vulnerability. She wanted so badly to go down to the lab and retrieve the chain at the very least, and the emerald from the stopper. These were not essential to the research, and this was the last connection she had to her grandparents, after all.

She looked at herself in the mirror, taking in the bruise-colored circles under her eyes and the greenish pallor that was pervading her features. She sighed and, after pulling on a pair of soft jeans and the white, long-sleeved shirt Moby had set out for her, she walked down the stairs to the kitchen. The house-elf was nowhere to be seen, but there was a large plate of toast on the counter and two large mugs of steaming coffee.

From the kitchen, Attica ventured into the study. When she entered, she set the tray on the end table by the fireplace. Snape barely glanced up as she did so. If he noticed her careworn appearance, he made no mention of it. He was seated in the desk chair as usual, but he had swiveled it so that his right arm lay across the top of the desk. His long, black-clad legs were crossed, one at a right angle to the other, and parchments were strewn across his lap. He scratched a few words on a piece of paper on the desk as she watched. This posture was not new to Attica, but she imagined that many of his former students would have fainted had they witnessed his casual attitude. She had witnessed him reposition himself several times into differing contortions over the past few weeks. He must have been uncomfortable with his legs crammed under the desk. He was not a short man.

Attica then noticed that his normally tightly buttoned wrist cuffs were undone and his sleeves were rolled back to reveal his pale forearms. She saw this in a glance, and then returned her gaze to him and she could not look away. She knew it was only a matter of moments before he would catch her ogling him. But her eyes were glued to the faded gray image on his left forearm. His Dark Mark had paled remarkably. Its edges were almost indiscernible.

"It's faded," she blurted out, lifting her eyes from his ivory arm to gaze into his ebony eyes. His head snapped up and he met her eyes with a sharp look. He nodded slowly, glancing at the Mark.

"Yes, it has. It was much like this the first time he was ... defeated," he said, carefully considering the word before he said it. He looked thoughtful. "With his death, it is only a matter of time before it fades completely, as this last bit of magic disintegrates as well."

Attica nodded curtly. "Will it vanish completely?"

"That is my assumption. It did not disappear wholly the first time because the Dark Lord was not dead. He was severely weakened then, and it began to fade as his magic faded. It came back when he regained power. This time, I believe it will disappear altogether," he continued to gaze at her and she averted her eyes in discomfort.

She gulped and took her seat in the low chair by the fire, aware of his eyes still on her. She searched through the pile of books beside the table until she found the one she was looking for. It was a particularly old volume that contained information about the use of emerald as a life-enhancer. Sadly, it seemed that the gem was currently considered almost useless for that purpose. It was nothing more than an old wives' tale, according the book. She sighed, thinking of all the time wasted with that particular theory and feeling irritation at reaching yet another dead-end. She opened the book and removed the notes she had tucked inside, smoothing out the creases against the mahogany surface. The stack of notes was almost as thick as the book itself; she wanted to make sure she didn't miss a single tidbit of information throughout her research and so had utilized a meticulousness of Hermione Granger caliber in her note taking. Although she hated to compare herself to that insufferable know-it-all, she could not deny her methods.

When she finally looked up, Snape was once again absorbed in his work. It was a long moment before she could wholly focus on the task before her, but not because she was discouraged. No, that wasn't it. She enjoyed Potions immensely, was talented in it even, and the research was interesting, if not fruitful. In fact, the research was providing for her the academic challenge she was never presented with at Hogwarts. It was refreshing, it was work, and it was distraction. But she could only be distracted for so long. Currently, she was perturbed by that vision of the professor's faded Dark Mark.

It made sense that it was becoming less and less visible to the eye. That was not difficult for her to accept. What was fast becoming a cause of distress to her was the knowledge that her own Mark had not faded at all.

She eyed the pure white of the cotton hiding her forearm from view. A sense of dire foreboding threatened to erupt, for the mark beneath the sleeve had only darkened.