Books, more books, and even more books. The research wasn't Rowena's favorite part, and the small kitten perched on her shoulder had spent the last several minutes batting at her hair beside.

"Boudicca, stop that." Rowena sighed at the kitten and leaned forward onto the desk, knocking back a few small vials of herbs. "Boudicca?" This wasn't working. Something had made Boudicca nervous, and trying to calm her wasn't working at all. "Mum just sent me a few things, don't worry." If she had been more attentive to her own feelings Rowena might have realized that her own worries were affecting her pet, but she was only twelve.

The kitten dug its claws into her shoulder instead. There was the sound of footsteps, and the young Gryffindor turned her head to see who it was. Maybe Lyman was early for studying. They'd sort of arranged it, a bit of review for potions.

 It was indeed Lyman's footsteps that Rowena heard, moving to the table on which Rowena and her pet cat were already sitting. He smiled in greeting and sat down opposite her, dropping his potions textbook, his herbology textbook and relevant notebooks on the desk. "Afternoon, Rowena," he whispered.

 Contrary to Rowena, research was the most interesting part of Potions class for Lyman; making potions simply required a little bit of precision, whereas learning about the ingredients from his textbook and various books from the library was always interesting - almost interesting enough, in fact, to keep his mind off of what he was missing back in the muggle world.

 Rowena's cat - Boudicca, if he remembered correctly - seemed to be anxious for some reason, being more active than it usually was. In fact, it seemed to be digging its claws into Rowena's shoulder for some reason! "Hey there, Boudicca," Lyman whispered, smiling at the cute cat, though he didn't make to pet it, what with its anxiety. "What's with the little thing?" He asked his study partner, even as he opened his potions textbook to a bookmarked page.

"I think she's curious. Mum sent me some herbs." Rowena pointed at the vials on the desk, then sighed and plucked the kitten from her shoulder, moving her to the desk instead. Boudicca batted at her hands, the small claws stinging but not drawing blood.

The young Gryffindor then patted her kitten on the head and looked back to her books. "What did you want to work on? I got distracted reading about sleeping potions. They're interesting, but so many side effects!"

It made her worry a little, those effects. But there were so many other things to read about. "I thought maybe we could test some potions later, see if those herbs make a difference. Should be getting more soon."

((I thought I'd just point out that Lyman's already sitting down.))

 "Herbs, huh?" Lyman stared at the vials for a moment before shaking his head and looking down at his textbook. "Aren't we not allowed to make potions outside of class? I mean, I've heard about some of the side effects; a mismade potion could explode!" He couldn't decide whether to frown or grin as the image of a boy being blown into the air flashed through his mind. "I don't see the point in experimenting without knowing exactly what we're doing, you know?"

 The page he'd bookmarked seemed to have been the wrong one; it was currently on the page on sleeping droughts, and he didn't have much trouble with those. At least, not with their creation; he didn't think he'd ever be able to understand how anything did what it did in potion making. He flipped through the pages, slightly irritated as he searched for the pa-

 "There you go. I'm having trouble with Herbicide. It's easy to make, mind, but I can't really wrap my head around what each ingredient does to create the whole, you know?" Lyman pointed his finger at the page for Rowena to see. "I mean, yeah, the Flobberworm thing thickens it, but why do Lionfish Spine and Horklump Juice create a poisonous potion?"

"Sometimes the Professors will let you practice if you ask. Or at least the old ones did.  And Mum let me make some while I was home, with her watching. Not too much though, break wasn't long enough." She poked her finger at Boudicca's little pink nose and grinned as the kitten batted at it.

Then she peered over at the recipe he'd pointed to, and her forehead wrinkled up in thought. "The healing potions those are in have a lot of other ingredients, right? Maybe it's combining one of those with the Lionfish and Horklump that makes them not poisonous for those. Lionfish are poisonous by themselves, I'm pretty sure."

She looked up to Lyman, studying his impression. Was she helping? "It's like chemistry, I think. You mix things together and end up with something completely different than what you started with. And hopefully none of it goes boom." Boom wouldn't help at all.

 Lyman frowned. "Well, I really don't think that our new professor will let us. She laid down some pretty strict ground rules about not making potiions unsupervised, and I'm too scared to ask her to supervise us." He shivered. "I mean, she threatened detention for anybody who called her miss! What am I supposed to call her; I don't remember her name!" It was only then that he realized how loud he'd been, and lowered his voice.

 "Plus, you don't just throw ingredients into a cauldron and call it testing. The whole point is learning how each ingredient works; if we just do things randomly, we won't learn anything, right?" He frowned, then looked back on his textbook. "Like, science is for finding the limits of... stuff. The rules and stuff. Chemicals have properties because of reasons. I don't see how healing ingredients are used in a poison, or how poisonous ingredients could be used in a healing potion. What are the properties of lionfish spine and the other thing?"

 It took him a moment to calm down a bit. "I guess that's a bit past our level, though. Still," he muttered, "I just wish this stuff was easier to understand. You know?"

"I'd rather upset Professor Di Luca then Mum or Father." Rowena kept her voice soft, and her eyes on the book. Boudicca twisted a claw into her curly red hair. "Father deals with lots of upset important people all the time. The Wizengamot argue a lot."

And sent way too many owls, so far as she could tell. "We could talk to the Herbology Professor, maybe? He could tell use more about what the ingredients mean, and he's my Head of House too. He seems nice enough." She tossed her head, which seemed only to encourage Boudicca's batting.

"Maybe there's a book in here on Lionfish, though?"