Harry Potter: Instant Kill

Christmas passed quickly as the very happy Kreacher fed us until we were lying about in food comas, the elf bounced around giving us our favourite dishes while the new uniform emblazoned with the Black family crest hung from his shoulders. The locket which had been cleansed was tucked under his shirt and the chain glinted every so often in the candlelight.

The rest of the holiday passed in a haze of good food and family time causing the time to return to Hogwarts to loom over us. The steam engine waited to whisk us away to the house of learning while the families gathered to say goodbye to their children and loved ones. 

"Goodbye dear, take care of yourself and make sure to keep the sending of letters to once a week. If you miss a week I will send Bellatrix to deliver the beating I would give." Walburga said in a joky tone while hugging me before giving me a once over and flattening any wrinkles in my clothes that were made by the hug. 

After saying goodbye and waving to Lord and Lady Greengrass while Daphne made her way to me, we made our way to an empty compartment and settled in for the long train journey. "Did we have any homework for over the break?" I asked before placing my school books on the table.

Daphne took a contemplative pose before replying, "We got an essay on the effects of dittany from Proffessor Sprout and a large essay from Snape on the differing effects of chopping or crushing ingredients."

"Those shouldn't be too hard to do," I say while getting the required writing utensils from my bag before starting on the Herbology homework first. "Have you already completed it or do you want some help?" I asked the relaxed-looking Daphne.

"I have already completed the homework so I will be reading, do try not to disturb me." She replied with a large grin on her face which told me how smug she felt about doing it earlier than me. I simply nodded before getting to writing.

The herbology essay only took about an hour to complete as dittany is a very useful plant with many different effects depending on which part of the plant is used and which way the part is prepared. An example is the shredded leaves being used in the wiggenweld potion to heal injuries such as bites or scratches.

The potion essay, however, took far longer to write as the differing effects were vast but also tiny in certain applications for instance when using the stem of the aforementioned dittany plant the effects of cutting versus crushing are non-existent as both ways yield the same effect however when extracting the juices from a sopophorous bean cutting will yield less juice while also making the potion age quicker whereas crushing will yield nearly 3 times the juice while also making the potion last longer.

After spending a total of 4 hours on homework, I decided that I needed a nap so the gracious Daphne allowed me to use her lap as a pillow while I drifted off to sleep. The lovely girl only woke me to tell me we had arrived at Hogwarts, "Thank you, my love." I said as I kissed her cheek and gathered my stuff up before we made our way off the train.

The carriage ride was the same as the one that took us to the train just in the opposite direction. What was distinct however was that the Christmas tree in the entrance hall had been removed along with all the decorations the teachers had placed. "A bit sad to see the decorations go," I said as Daphne and I walked into the hall with arms linked.

The term progressed much the same as the one before Christmas with a lot of boring lessons and naps, there was nothing exciting to break up the time and even the trio of Gryffindors skulking around the library was not interesting enough to catch my interest. That was not true for Grace however as she had cornered Hermione when she was visiting alone to get some answers before promptly reporting what they were looking for.

"They are looking for a person called Flamel. Do either of you know someone with that name?" Grace asked when she returned before she sat down in her chair and looked towards Daph and me. "Flamel as in Nickolas Flamel the famed alchemist?" I said presenting the book I was reading after turning to the appropriate page detailing the many additions to the field of alchemy he had made through his long life.

After looking over the page she nodded before asking, "Can I take this book to show her?" Once she received a nod from me she went over to Heriome who head-butted the bookshelf she was next to while saying "I was looking in the wrong section. How could I be so stupid?" The girl quickly left afterwards almost bumping into the large frame of Hagrid who was searching through the shelves.

It appeared that he wasn't finding what he was looking for and as he came close to our table he noticed Grace who broke out in a large smile on seeing the gentle giant, "Hello there Grace. How is school going for you?" He said pausing his search temporarily to hug the girl.