Preparations Are Made, By All Parties

Disclaimer: It's not my world, they aren't my characters, but I can dream, can't I?

Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who's taken time to review. Special thanks to Verity as always!

Chapter 4: Preparations Are Made, By All Parties

Rowan's first class that morning was Transfiguration. She slid into her favorite seat next to her friend Ariadne. When class began, Professor McGonagall walked around the room distributing pincushions from a box in her arms.

"Now, class, you might remember from your fourth year here that you transformed hedgehogs into pincushions. Well, some of you did," said Professor McGonagall, glancing at Rowan and a few others. "Today, we will do the reverse. I want you to turn these pincushions," she indicated the box of round orange-red objects, "into hedgehogs. As you might imagine, turning an inanimate object into an animate creature is considerably more difficult, which is why we save this lesson for N.E.W.T. level class."

Professor McGonagall then put a small handful of raisins and sunflower seeds on the desk next to her own pincushion. This was a tattered-looking tomato-shaped specimen with several dozen tarnished brass pins and a couple of needles stuck into it. The class watched attentively as she raised her wand and demonstrated the spell. As she gave the last complicated twist of her wand and pronounced the spell, "Consutum Erinacesco", the cushion quivered, then turned grayish brown and more oval shaped. The pins lost their heads and became pointed at the end, then filled in to cover the whole surface of the object. It gave a little start, then lifted its head and delicately sniffed the air. It waddled over to the raisins and seeds and began nibbling on them. McGonagall scooped it up and showed it around to the class. "Note the absence of dangling threads and other external signs of its couture origins. The fact that it eats indicates that its internal organs are correct and functioning. All right, class, please begin."

Rowan and Ariadne looked speculatively at their pincushions and referred to the notes on the blackboard. Ariadne waved her wand in the indicated pattern and cast her spell. Her hedgehog was passable, except for the jaunty little emery strawberry still hanging by a green cord from the back of its head. "Not a bad first attempt, Miss Galanis," McGonagall told Ariadne as she passed by, "but you need to keep your wand movement sharper, and 'Erinacesco' has a short 'i'. Keep trying. Full marks if you get it by the end of class."

Rowan tried next, but her mind was wandering again. She hoped neither Ariadne nor Professor McGonagall would notice the suspiciously beaky nose on her hedgehog or the somewhat greasy sheen to the spines. The professor collected all the hedgehogs, pincushions, and spiny something-or-others at the end of class, noted down everyone's grades--Rowan got full marks--then returned each to their original forms.

While Rowan was in classes, Lucius Malfoy was carrying out his own research assignment. Disguising himself by means of PolyJuice Potion as a wizard who had not yet been identified as being associated with Voldemort or his Death Eaters, Malfoy easily entered the Ministry of Magic and gained access to the research library. Ensuring that no one was looking, he murmured a charm and cast it at the card catalog. Five drawers slid open, and in each a card rose up from between its fellows. Malfoy copied down the pertinent information from the cards, then sent them back and shut their drawers with a negligent wand-wave. Strolling through the stacks, Malfoy examined each book on his list. In the last one, a particularly ancient book of Dark spells, was the formula he sought. After carefully copying down the ingredients and instructions, he mis-shelved the slim book inside an extremely boring volume on the care and feeding of Flobberworms.

Snape was seated already at the staff table table as Rowan entered the Great Hall for dinner. His expression remained inscrutable, but his brilliant black eyes followed Rowan as she came in and sat down. He had been watching her covertly for most of this year. The grin she had flashed at him when he accepted her research topic had been astonishing. Students rarely smiled in his class, except to smirk when he criticized another student. Certainly they never smiled at him. Students looked at him with fear, loathing, or if they were Slytherins they toadied up to him.

He realized then that he had in fact been looking forward to Miss Bourne's presence in his classroom with anticipation each day for some time. She did her work well; she was circumspect. She never showed off or drew attention to herself. Of course, that amazing walk did it for her, though he did not think she realized it. She walked with her chin up and shoulders back, not hunched over clutching an armload of books like most of his female students. From what he had overheard of student conversation over the years, it appeared that young witches spent the first twelve or thirteen years of their lives desperately wishing they had breasts, then when they had them, standing as if they wished to hide them. No such pretense here: she did not flaunt them, nor did she wiggle when she walked as so many in her cohort did. She simply moved through the world, on legs that went on forever, as if she knew exactly where she was going and how she was going to get there.

With a bit of a shock, Snape realized that in a few short months, she would no longer be a student. After graduation, he could approach her without blame. Of course, he had no reason to suspect she would take such an idea favorably. On the contrary, she would probably be repelled, he thought with a grimace. Now there was another good reason to wait till the end of term: if she rejected him he would not have to endure the humiliation of her continued presence. Till then, though, she must be treated precisely the same as her classmates; there must be no breath of scandal to touch her. Wizarding society had rather old-fashioned notions regarding young witches, and her future prospects could become limited. She did not deserve that.

Unaware of Snape's musings concerning herself, Rowan chatted with Ariadne and her friends over dinner. They discussed their various plans for the coming Hogsmeade trip. Ariadne was going to Dervish and Banges to have a leak in her cauldron repaired, and Rowan wanted to look into Gladrags Wizardwear. After leaving she would need a wardrobe more suited to an adult witch, and she wanted a chance to peruse the available options. At school, everyone wore academic robes and at home she lived with her Muggle mother; what was a young Muggle-born witch supposed to do anyway? The topic of post-school gowns and hats easily kept the conversation going for the rest of the meal.

Finally finished with dinner, Rowan went back to her dorm room to continue working on her project. She had finished spinning all the yarn. It was time to prepare the loom for weaving. She took half the yarn and measured it out on a warping frame. This was a rectangular wooden frame with sturdy pegs on all sides. Beginning at one side, she wound the thread back and forth across the frame till it was the correct length. She brought it over and under the two pegs at the end, then back the reverse way for the return trip. This made two measured warp threads with a cross in the loops at the far end. Continuing on the same path, Rowan measured all the threads required for the warp, maintaining the cross at the end on each pass. When all the ends were measured, she tied off the yarn at the first peg. She wrapped a length of cord through the cross and tied it firmly, then tied several 'choke points' in the new warp to keep it under control before she slid it off the frame.

Rowan had borrowed a small table loom from a Muggle friend back home before she left for school this year. The Wizarding community only seemed to know about the great floor-standing looms, suitable for weaving wide blankets or many-yard lengths of fabric, but most unsuitable for keeping in a dorm room. This cloth would only be about 6 inches wide and 2 yards long--good for a scarf, except that it would be cut into squares so that she could treat each piece with different potions and spells to test their effects.

Working from the cross at the end, she pulled each thread through a space in the loom's reed--a comb-like device that kept the threads the right distance apart. With another, finer hook, she then pulled each thread through one of the heddles. These were the parts of the loom that caused some warp threads to sink and others to rise. She would weave plain cloth for this project--every thread over one then under the next. When each warp thread had been pulled through a space in the reed and then through a heddle, she fastened the warps, in small bunches, to a rod attached to the back beam of the loom. Turning the beam made all the threads wind onto it at once, till the whole length of each thread was wound onto the back beam in a neat package and only a few inches dangled through the reed at the front end.

Next she tied the front ends of the warp to another rod attached to a beam at the front of the loom and turned the front beam to wind it forward. Happily she examined the newly dressed loom. The threads flowed from front to back through the heddles, smoothly parallel, glinting in the firelight. The thestral fiber had an unearthly sheen. She checked the threading of the heddles by lifting first one harness and then the other. All looked well, with no errors--that would never happen on a larger loom with hundreds and hundreds of threads and a complicated pattern! Her hands itched to finally begin weaving, but this task had taken the whole evening; it was long past time for Rowan to go to bed.

Late that night, after Rowan had fallen asleep, Malfoy returned to his Master with the results of his research. When the Dark Lord had studied the instructions, he became especially pleased. Back at Hogwarts, Harry Potter turned in his sleep as his scar pained him momentarily.

"My compliments on carrying out your task so efficiently," Voldemort said to Malfoy, who smirked as he bowed his acknowledgment. "I find these instructions exceedingly interesting. Have you considered how we might proceed?"

"Yes, Master, and I would be happy to procure the necessary... ingredient."

"Your willingness is commendable, Malfoy, but I have other plans. I think you will find them almost as gratifying as your own. Go now. Snape will be here shortly and I would prefer he did not see you tonight."

Malfoy bowed and kissed the hem of Voldemort's robe. "As you command, Master," he said, and departed.

"Well, Wormtail, have you guessed what I intend to do with this most intriguing recipe?"

"You have told us, Dark Lord: you intend to destroy Dumbledore."

"Of course, when the potion is made. However, I am not certain that I can entirely trust our distinguished Potions master."

"Will you have someone else brew the potion? It does not appear so difficult that you must trust Snape for it."

"I definitely want Snape to have a hand in it ... or some part at least." Voldemort laughed harshly. "If he is loyal, he is an extremely useful agent in the enemy's camp. He is too useful and too well-placed to destroy on mere suspicion. I must know where his loyalties lie."

"How will you do that, Master?"

"I will require Snape to provide the key ingredient, in our presence. He will not be able to counterfeit such an act. If he performs such an act of Dark Magic, he will be truly one of us. If he refuses, I will know how to deal with him."

"My Lord, your subtlety is an example to us always."

"Thank you, Wormtail. Now, I believe Snape has arrived. Please show him in."

Wormtail scurried through the entryway to the small side room where the Death Eaters were wont to Apparate. There he found Snape, who had just appeared.

"The Dark Lord has been expecting you. He wants to see you now."

Snape nodded and followed Wormtail into the larger room.

"You summoned me, my Lord?"

"I have a task for you, my loyal potion-maker. I am certain you will be delighted by this opportunity to prove your worth, and your continued loyalty."

"That is ever my only desire, my Lord," Snape answered silkily.

"Have you heard of a potion named the Aversion Serum?" Voldemort inquired.

"Yes, Master, I know of it. I do not know how to prepare it though; it is not in any book in my own collection."

"That is most unfortunate, Snape. You know that much of your use to me is in your potion-making ability. It would be entirely to your ... disinterest ... if you failed me in this."

"I understand you fully, my Lord. May I know to what purpose you wish to put the Serum?"

"When you have brewed me the potion, I will tell you. I think you will find my plan most entertaining. Go now, return to Hogwarts and check the library there. If you cannot find the formula in the school library, I will arrange for you to have access to the library at the Ministry of Magic."

It shall be as you command, Dark Lord." Snape bowed and departed the way he had come.

Author's Notes: I should mention at this point that I'm shamelessly abandoning canon wizard robes for the movie clothes. I am in total love with the "wear what you like from any period in history" effect. Weasleys are pretty modern albiet goofy. Lots of 19th century. Quirrel looks like Italian Rennaissance to me. All in all kind of like SCA but more so. I just love it too much not to use it. Besides, you'll have to pry those buttons from my cold dead fingers ;^)