Among a sea of mint cauldrons, the smoke and colour of her potion were an incriminating cotton candy pink. Exactly like Scorpius'. Sariah gulped, trying to keep her expression unassuming. Either she and Scorpius had made the same mistake, or they had the only correct instructions. Neither scenario was ideal. Would it be obvious to Professor Zamboni that she'd technically cheated? The instructions weren't exactly her own work; maybe that was why he was glaring so accusingly at her. 

To her left, Romulus glanced over at her workbench, he frowned, paused, and then redoubled his pace.  Within ten minutes, salmon pink smoke was pouring over the lip of his cauldron. Sariah sighed internally. If Romulus thought pink was the antidote's proper colour, she was convinced. By the end of the lesson, five people had pink antidotes. The class shared confused looks with each other.

"I can see there's been some disparity," Professor Zamboni stated, as they each delivered a vial of their potion to his desk. "I'll reveal the correct brewing technique tomorrow, but I advise you to communicate with your classmates to uncover the answer." 

Romulus approached her as she was packing up. "May I see your textbook?"

"Go for it," Sariah said, wiping her workbench down. "Did you forget yours?"

"Of course not." Romulus ran his hand over the cover of her textbook as if he were dating it. 

Infatuation was the only word Sariah could think to describe it. She put her cauldron away, and waited politely, wondering if Romulus had suffered some sort of breakdown. 

"Well that explains it," he said, snapping her book shut and handing it back.

"Find anything useful?" Sariah asked.

"Your book is out of print," he said. "It's the 2010 Phoenix Press edition."

Sariah cradled the book. So what if her book was second hand? It had been a bargain. "And?" she asked defensively.

"It's a good thing actually, apparently the Curriculum edition has a mistake in it."

"And you knew that from looking at my cauldron in class today?"

He snorted. "Yours? No, I knew from looking at Malfoy's. He gets near perfect marks in Potions. Yours was just much more convenient to cross-examine."

"Well thanks, what a compliment," she said.

"You're welcome," he said, not picking up on her sarcasm.

***

The rest of the week felt like treacle going by. Early on Saturday morning,  she navigated out of the Hufflepuff common room, with her broken cauldron lofted in her arms. Her Charms textbook jostled inside it.  It was awkward to carry, and nearly slipped in her gloves as she reached the lake shore. It felt good to just be outside; there had been an odd atmosphere in the castle all week. There were still no leads on the dragon attacks, and yet it seemed like everyone had the same opinion as James Potter:

Mistrust had been flung against Slytherin. It was the topic of common room gossip, and she heard it drifting through the corridors between classes. Sariah knew it was irrational; there was no evidence of it being Slytherin at all. In her theory, the culprits were disgruntled Dragon Sanctuary workers - an inside job. She wend through the trees, the cold air catching at the back of her throat. Still, all the talk was making her paranoid. Yesterday she'd come across a group of Slytherin seventh years by herself, and had to remind herself to breathe normally as she passed them by.

Carrying the cauldron was hard work. She stopped to rest at the Oak Clearing, dropping the heavy load gladly. She sat at her favourite boulder, and was overjoyed to find that she could connect to the internet for the first time in over a week. No sad T-Rex barred her way today. Starved of it for so long, she scrolled through newsfeeds and forums with the passion of an addict in withdrawal. Oh, it was good to be back. She needed to know how the world was taking the dragon attacks. She scrolled though Vice's tribute explaining the Westeros app, now discontinued out of respect for the deceased. The deceased?  That couldn't be right. The tips of her fingers started to sweat despite the cold. 

The Daily Prophet had reported no casualties - that it had been a very lucky close call. She searched, and found that a memorial website had been erected for the inhabitants of two apartment blocks, trapped by the fires. Forty-seven people had lost their lives in the uncontrollable fires. Eight had passed away in hospital, and more were still hospitalized with life threatening burns. Sariah gulped, staring at each of their faces as she scrolled numbly down the page.

She pursed her lips, and kept going, worried what else she might find. On Reddit's r\conspiracy, a picture of the impossible Wi-Fi icebergs drew her attention. The post had a surprising amount of votes and comments. It was titled Wi-Fi Terrorists strike again?  Someone had commented on it, supposedly with a satellite image of the weather patterns above London on the morning of the "gas leak". In it, black clouds contorted into unmistakable curving black lines, scalloping out from one another over regular grey clouds. Sariah gulped, they were unmistakably Wi-Fi bars. She zoomed in, unable to believe her eyes. Arguments ignited beneath the photo, denouncing it, claiming it was second-rate Photoshop. In response, the accused user posted another image of the same mark over a Russian Oilfield, where unstoppable fires now raged below the ground. She hoped it was Photoshop, but her gut was telling her otherwise.

A few disturbing scrolls later, she put her phone back on Aeroplane mode, and continued out to the Anglia. There was only so much bad news she could take in one day. Jerome still hadn't read any of her messages. Everything she'd sent since September was a void wall of ignored text. She wrapped her scarf tighter around her neck, and stumbled on a tree root, nearly sending the cauldron rolling down the slope.

When she made it through to the clearing, arms burning with the effort, Scorpius was skulking some distance from the Anglia's shelter. He seemed dumbfounded by the cauldron. "If you wanted to work on potions, we could have staked out one of the classrooms instead, you know."

"It's busted," Sariah said, dropping the cauldron with a satisfying thunk to the wet forest floor. "Luckily, it's not for brewing things. I'm going to use it to fix the Anglia."

He eyed the holes in the bottom of the cauldron disbelievingly. "By what? Nursing it back to health some hot chicken soup, with mandrake essence?"

She rolled her eyes. "By using it as scrap metal. How exactly I'll join them together, I'm not sure. That's what this is for-" she pulled her Charms book out of the cauldron.

She was so excited by her own acquisition, she didn't notice that Scorpius had brought something too: two red cans of petrol were on the ground next to him. She rushed over to them and twisted one of the caps gently. It smelt like home -her parent's garage, and petrol stations - with hot pies and ice blocks behind the counter. She twisted the cap shut.

"Nicely done," she told him. Scorpius looked better than last week, he seemed less on edge.

She filled him what she'd learned at the clearing. He seemed just as shocked as she'd been. "You have access to Wi-Fi?"

"That's the part you're phased by, Scorpius? My internet access? Fifty-five people died! Plus there's Wi-Fi links to an Oil Field disaster too. The Prophet didn't even mention it."

"Yes they did," he said. "It was near the back of the Prophet the other day, alongside the advice commons. Muggles are always blowing things up, it's nothing new. Tell me about the Wi-Fi."

"Well, it wouldn't be a LAN cable, would it?" she said sarcastically. "It's not even Wi-Fi, really; the signal comes from a Scottish cellphone tower. I have no clue how it's boosted all the way out here," she looked at him sharply. "You can't tell anyone about it," she warned. "Promise you won't."

"I won't, I'm just surprised about the revelation: you have more Wi-Fi links than I do."

"Yeah, that's really funny." She pulled her phone from her pocket, and presented it to him. "This is my phone. It's how I get online."

He reminded her of Grandpa Raglan, with the awkward, egg shell way he cradled it.

"If you didn't know about the Oak clearing, what did you think I was doing the first day we met then? Meditating in the Forbidden Forest? Collecting fungi samples?"

He shrugged. "Hufflepuff's like plants. I never really thought about it. This thing isn't even half a wand-length long; I can't believe you can use the Wi-Fi with it," he said again. He turned the device around in his hand gingerly. He hadn't even powered the screen on.

"I told you, it's not Wi-Fi. It's just internet," she said as she took the phone back. She was pretty sure he flinched when she used it to check the time, before returning it to her pocket.

"What do you use it for?"

"Watching TV shows, calling my parents, Facebook, I don't know, internet things?" She lugged the petrol cans into the safety of the shelter. She held the petrol can out to the Anglia as if presenting it with an expensive wine. "How's this?" she asked. "Time to fill you up?"

The car flicked its lights, a grumbling sound came from the tanks, as it popped its cap. Scorpius hung back from the car.

"What were you doing that day?" she asked Scorpius idly, as she filled the car's tank. "When you came running through the clearing. You nearly got us both caught, you know."

There was no response. Nothing but the sound of glugging petrol.

"Come on, what were you doing?"

"I thought the Caterwauling charm around the forest was a rumour. Supposedly, it's 50 points from your house if you get caught by a Prefect, but I didn't think the charm was actually in place." He shrugged. "You know the rest."

"But- everyone knows about the Caterwauling charm," she said disbelievingly. "It's in the Headmistress McGonagall's opening speech every year."

"Being told about about something isn't the same as believing it." He crossed his arms.

Fine, don't tell me then. She wanted to say to him. Instead of frowning, she nodded, and returned her attention to the red petrol can.

  When the tank was full, Sariah stepped into the Anglia with her Charms textbook in hand. Scorpius followed her in hesitantly. He still seemed anxious being around the car. She felt a surge of excitement, today they'd work out how to weld the cauldron in place. They'd be that much closer to driving the Anglia. She wondered absentmindedly how far they could get in a day. To the paved roads of Scotland? To Birmingham, to see her parents? It'd be worth it, even if she could only see them for an hour before driving back.