Chapter 4
"I really don't feel comfortable poisoning you, Professor," I said, feeling it should be an obvious sentiment that needed not be shared, as I held up a handful of bezoar stones.
"Nonsense!" He waved a hand through the air, as if to physically dispel my oh-so-foolish concerns. "Technically, you are actually preventing me from being poisoned."
I gave him a flat look.
Professor Aragon, I decided, was completely insane.
"How else will I know if my potion works?" he asked in a would-be-reasonable tone of voice. "Someone's got to do it."
"Someone really doesn't."
In one fluid motion, he lowered a goblet into the cauldron he'd been slaving over for weeks and brought it up to his lips. Before I could slap it out of his hand, he threw his head back and downed it in one gulp, like he was taking a shot of firewhisky.
"Are you kidding me?" I gasped, scrambling over to his desk from where I had been sitting atop one of the student tables. "Professor? Did it work?"
At first, he merely looked disappointed, but in the next moment, he went rigid, down to the last muscle in his pinky finger. Tremors racked his whole body, and he tumbled off his stool onto the hard tile floor. I watched in abject horror as white foam began frothing at his lips and his eyes rolled back into his head. In front of my very eyes, his rose tinted lips faded into a sickly blueish-purple and the veins at his temple grew thick and pronounced, throbbing sickly.
Cursing him back to his very first ancestors and their ill decision to breed him into existence, I tossed all but one of the bezoar stones out of my hands and placed Professor Aragon's head onto my lap, tilting it back to clear a path to his airway.
"Here goes nothing," I muttered, shoving the stone down his throat as far as I could. "I better at least get an Outstanding in your class after this."
Sure, bezoars could cure most poisons, but what if this wasn't one of them? I doubted I could come up with a counter potion quick enough, nor, I imagined, would I be able to drag his unconscious body down to the school nurse before it was too late.
I waited with baited breath and growing dread, but eventually his shaking subsided and colour returned back to his face. Sighing in relief, I leaned back against the wall, shaking my head. Several tense minutes past before he finally opened his eyes.
"And I was so certain that would work," Professor Aragon lamented sadly, rising unsteadily to his feet.
"When you said my detentions would be fun, this isn't what I had in mind, Professor," I said, glaring up at him from the floor. He didn't notice my ire in the slightest. "In fact, that's possibly among the most un-fun things I've ever had to take part of in my whole life, which is truly saying something."
"Really?" he queried, sounding genuinely surprised. "Personally, I thought it was rather suspenseful and exciting."
Personally, I thought that the professor had a few screws loose, but just shook my head in defeat and let the subject drop. Arguing with him would go nowhere.
I spent the rest of the detention trying — and failing — to convince him not to be the test subject for any more of his concoctions right up until the point when he suggested I test them instead (I thought he was was joking, but one could never be too sure with him). Needless to say, I backed down.
I left him, feeling more than a little frazzled, near midnight that evening after having been forced to shove another bezoar down his throat. It wasn't his intention to be especially cruel by detaining me so late, but, rather, he was so passionate about his work that the concept of time was unfamiliar. He just fell so madly in love with his preoccupations that he lost track of time. I noted, with slight annoyance, that he was utterly without remorse, however.
The next evening's detention was much of the same, the only difference being that while we were secluded to Professor Aragon's office, the rest of the school busied itself with placing their final bets on the champions. Not that I cared, outside of the fact that I hoped Damon would win. A lot of money was riding on him, after all, and I didn't think I could stand it if Altair got chosen. Then again, Damon was so cocky it would serve him right to get taken down a peg, even if I had to lose a few galleons in the process.
"With all due respect Professor, I think I might hate you, just a little bit," I confided after my third time resuscitating him in two days. "A lot, actually."
"If that's really how you feel, then I give it permission to let the poison run its full course next time," Professor Aragon said graciously, discarding the contents of the failed potion to start anew.
"Don't tempt me." I handed him some of the ingredients he'd been using before for him to crush, slice, or powder as he pleased. "But I still believe that you'd be better off with the school nurse aiding you than me."
"Is that so? I think you've been doing admirably, this far, considering I'm still alive." To my surprise, he waved the items off, putting the clean cauldron in the cupboard and dusting off his hands. "Of course, you are my favorite student, so I would expect nothing less."
I narrowed my eyes.
"You tell that to all your students."
"That I do," he admitted, unabashed. "But I mean it every time."
"You should be admitted into St. Mungo's," I decided. "Obviously there's something wrong in your head."
"Hmm, you are certainly not the first to have said that." Aragon strode towards the door, before turning around expectantly. "Are you not coming, Miss Lovett?"
I followed him out into the corridor before giving into my curiosity.
"Professor, where are we going?"
"Why, isn't it obvious?" he wondered, turning around the corner. "I'm letting you off early on good behaviour."
Without warning, he stumbled slightly, his legs giving out beneath him. I rushed forward to catch his arm as he fell.
"The after-effects of the poison," he explained breathlessly. "I'm perfectly well."
His calm words were undercut by the tremors in his limbs as he stood up straight again, bracing himself against the wall.
"Are you sure we shouldn't go to the nurse?"
"No, no. Let's get to the feast. With any luck, we haven't missed the Goblet choosing the champion," said Aragon, pushing forward down the corridor. "It would be a shame for you to miss it."
"I really don't mind skipping, Professor—" I began, concerned about the off-colour shade of his skin, but he waved me off.
"We're almost there, just give me an arm. And a shoulder, preferably."
I rolled my eyes, but placed his arm around my shoulders and my arm around his back. Together we wobbled towards the Great Hall.
"Curious," the professor breathed as we they neared the large oak doors. "It's so quiet. Perhaps we've missed it after all."
"You're not exactly light, Professor," I groaned, reaching to pull open the door with my free hand. "I better not have dragged your bones all the way here for nothing."
I never got the chance to pull the door open. The second my fingers made contact with the bronze handle, the doors swung wide. I stumbled back, nearly collapsing over the Professor in order to avoid a collision.
"What the hell—" I started, just to be cut off by the feeling of hundreds of eyes resting on us as I held the weakened Professor Aragon upright.
My muscles tensed, shifting involuntarily into a fight-or-flight response, forcing me to will calm into my veins. I was at school. They were just staring at me. This wasn't like how it was back then. No one was going to attack me again, at least not here.
But then why were they staring? What was going on?
"Ah, there you are," Headmaster Everard observed, looking us over. "Why don't you put Professor Aragon down and head off into the back to receive further instructions."
It wasn't my place to talk back to the Headmaster, but I couldn't help myself.
"And... Why is that?"
I didn't move. Even though it was entirely irrational, I felt like a cornered animal, and had no idea why. Was I in trouble? When I had been in trouble in the past it was never the Headmaster who assigned my punishments, though, and especially not before the whole school.
The professor, hanging off my shoulder, straightened himself up, still looking quite ill. I allowed him to give me a slight push forward. I didn't trust a great many people, but I trusted him. If he wanted me to do something, it couldn't be that bad, after all.
"Go on, little Champion," he whispered with obvious amusement, giving me one final nudge down the aisle.
Only then, I understood.
"No." I backed right up into Professor Aragon's front. "There's been a mistake."
"My dear, the Goblet makes no mistakes." Everard smiled kindly, mistaking my apprehension for nerves.