Her mind racing, she threw her supplies back into the bucket, leaving them inside the car as she sprinted back toward the castle. Air whipped past her ears as she broke from the forest line, splashed through the lake and began the trying, uphill ascent to the castle. Nothing existed but her ragged breaths and the burning in her limbs as she staggered up the steep green lawns.

The clock tower still hadn't sounded as she ran past it. That pushed her on, and she stumbled up the cobbled steps into the castle. Wiping the sweat from her face, Sariah ducked down a narrow spiral staircase. Her footsteps echoed jarringly around the stone walls. She was going to make it. Her hair swished heavily behind her as she flung herself around the final corner, and heaved the door open by its cold iron handle.

A few students acknowledged her entrance. Professor Zamboni wasn't there yet, so the class murmured quietly above the bubbling of cauldrons.  Long, stone workbenches rested in vertical lines on the alabaster floor. Her legs threatened to collapse under her. Sariah took the seat closest to the door, trying slow her pounding heart with deep breaths of the potion-tainted air. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had to run anywhere. Sweat glued her shirt onto her back. She glanced up to the varnished platform, at the front of the room. Professor Zamboni often carried out demonstrations of potion-making there, or put student concoctions to the test. The rounded wall behind it was swathed in a mixture of fabric and snake skin. She wiped the sweat off her face with the arm of her robe.

Professor Zamboni entered the class mere moments after she arrived. His heavily textured robe flowed behind him in emerald waves. Unlike Sariah's, it was free of tears, burns, abrasions and holes. The big brute of a man limped to the front of the class. He favoured any and all Quidditch players. Rumour had it, he'd been a chaser for a major team (no one was quite sure which one) before a rare double bludger collision ended his career. His three missing toes and fused ankle were the only reminders, and they caused his uneven limp. A proud black beard framed his face, which was usually defaulted in an expression of vanity or disdain.

"Bring your assignments to the front of the class, open your books to Chapter Eight, and begin gathering your ingredients," he commanded.

Sariah's mind flicked back to her assignment, and her stomach clenched like she'd been punched. It was inside her satchel. Back in the dormitory. Zamboni had on multiple occasions accused her of being a lazy and unapplied student of the liquid arts. She hated to prove him right, but today she was miserably prepared, with only her wand and a cellphone that would be destroyed if it was discovered in her pocket. Zamboni paced across the platform, a frown pulling at his mouth. Since there was little sense in publicly broadcasting her shortcomings to the rest of the class, Sariah resolved on talking to him afterward.

After dusting off a spare textbook from the cupboard, she paired off with Romulus, a taciturn Ravenclaw who had the misfortune of sitting nearest to her back in September. She and Romulus had long settled into a suitable routine. She prepared the ingredients -- dissecting flobberworms, locating bile ducts, and braving the jars of eyeballs that winked at you from the Professor's desk -- in return, Romulus stirred their brewing concoctions, tended to the flames, and performed every meticulous wand wave. During these duties, his dark eyes acquired a stare intense enough to move things telekinetically. He was like a method actor convinced upon the solemn silence needed to make potions.

Her grade in potions would have plummeted long ago if it weren't for him; when they brewed potions individually she was lucky not to burn herself. Because of this, she overlooked the fact that Romulus reweighed and remeasured everything she passed him. Sariah began shredding newts' tails, as gossip about holiday romances quickly drifted over the room amongst the quiet working chatter. Fires gnawed insatiably at the bases of cauldrons. Soon the windows that lined the top of the classroom had misted over with condensation.

After crumbling apart a particularly foul smelling mushroom, she looked up, and noticed Scorpius working at the front of the room. His annoyingly pale, blonde head invaded the edges of her vision for the rest of the class, distracting her every time he moved. Romulus' wand work outpaced the rest of the student pairs. As the bell struck, he charmed the cauldron to stir itself until their next lesson and stole out of the room.

No one else was even near to leaving. The rows of stone workbenches were swarming with her classmates. They were still fussing over their concoctions, and scraping newt out from under their fingernails. They were all so absorbed, that Sariah was willing to bet all the galleons she owned - not even enough to buy a broomstick, admittedly - that she could rush back to her room and return with her assignment before anyone would be the wiser. Leaving her textbook open on the desk to indicate she was still around, she had barely begun her retreat when Professor Zamboni noticed her. He swooped down upon her like an aggressive (though with his limp, apparently intoxicated) emerald bat.

"Miss Brooks, I notice you've denied me of your assignment again," he said.

"I actually did it this time," she asserted.

"How interesting that it isn't with your classmate's assignments. Do you suppose that nargles stole it?"

"Nar-what? No. I'm sorry, but I just forgot to bring it. If you let me get it from-"

He dismissed her with a wave. "Don't worry yourself. You can finish it tonight and bring it to me, completed, mind you, tomorrow evening after dinner as part of your detention."

She frowned and held her tongue in protest. She'd spent hours on that assignment. But the last time she'd argued with him, the punishment had been extended for a fortnight. Harvesting flobberworms was one of the single most disgusting things she'd ever done.

After an average astronomy lesson later that night, she crept back into the dorm, trying not to wake Britta.

"Another detention already, huh?" Britta said, pulling her quilt around her with a satisfied yawn.

"Just astronomy, I'm saving detention for tomorrow night," she replied bitterly.

"Oh no, that's the worst! Has Professor Weatherby talked to you about your career path yet?"

"Not yet." She couldn't think of a single thing she wanted to do after Hogwarts, except become a mechanic. If only brooms were that simple. They were made of sticks and twigs, what made them so complicated? Vast, incalculable amounts of magic, she thought bitterly. The obscure fear that she might be obliviated and expelled resurfaced again as she brushed her teeth that night.