The Potions classroom had been rearranged especially for this detention. After all it was to be Ezia's first, and she had to set an example, as well as a precedent. All the work tables were currently arranged in line with the wall, and in the middle of the room stood the professor's desk. In front of it, three stools at precisely twenty five centimeters apart from each other. The dungeon was cold, drafty and eerily quiet. The rustle of rough paper almost seemed unnatural in the quietness of the room. But from time to time a muffled hiss could be made out, coming from the snake coiled around a stone branch at the corner of the desk.

The first day on the job had Lucrezia rethinking her choices for a couple of moments as soon as she exited her last class of the day. But the second she was back in her private laboratory all doubts flew out the window. If only for the quiet, the lack of of expectations, the lack of human presence—if only for those, it was worth it to endure the complete dullness of the castle and the ridiculously strange specimens it housed. The students ranged from highly obnoxious to almost interesting, the problem however was the ratio of irritating to promising. Which was about 20:1. And the staff... well, they had a confused humanoid lion on the staff. That about said it all.

When the knock on the door came, Ezia waved her wand towards the door, as it creaked open. Deep into her research, the Professor let them wait there for a few minutes as she finished writing down her thoughts. As soon as she was done, she raised her eyes to them, watching over the rim of her glasses with an irritated little huff. "Sit" she motioned towards the stools. Once the students were seated, she lazily took her glasses off and tangled her fingers together over the desk.

"Miss Báthory and Messers Pepper and Todd, yes?" she asked without actually expecting an answer. Truth be told, she barely even remembered why they were here, never mind who they were. "Well then, let's get on with it, shall we?" she asked, a sardonic eyebrow quirked high. Leaning back in her chair, she crossed her legs and moved one hand to the armrest, nails drumming a lazy, mindless beat into the lacquered wood. "How do you think you should spend your detention? To each his own. One at a time, if you please" she smiled invitingly, if a tad creepily, intrigued by the idea. You know what they said: be careful what you wish for...

"How do you think you should spend your detention? To each his own. One at a time, if you please"

Ambrose's face was a grumpy pout, a boy who had sat one too many detentions this year, and in his first with the latest Potions professor who had graced Hogwarts. On the bright side, it was a new face, and a possible variety to his timetable of detentions for blowing things up with his wand, but in honesty he was rather bitter that dropping his text book had earned him this one. And he still had to make up the rest of the lesson's work for following Cyhirae out of the room. Merlin knew what Todd and Bathory had done.

He was almost a bit incredulous that Bathory had got a detention. For goodness sake, he was pretty sure Di Loco (as someone had temporarily dubbed the Professor in the Gryffindor common room) would have been the strict, high standards professor Amara would have adored, but clearly even startlingly perfect Slytherins earned detention places once in a while. If Ambrose was a tad more clever, he might have considered Amara's detention a general warning shot from the Professor to her students in general - that no-one was exempt, but having missed the rest of the lesson he was generally oblivious.

As Ambrose raised his head, he realised that Di Looney was looking his way for an answer. Crap he'd actually have to think of one. In his hurry, his idiotic nature stepped forward with a golden answer, which after it slipped from his lips he instantly regretted.

"In the easiest way possible so I can go and finish the rest of the work you gave us." Then with a pause, he added, "Professor," and lowered his gaze immediately.

Amara turned her head towards Pepper and gave him a look that one might give to the village idiot that somehow just managed to burn the town hall to ashes: a mix of pity, anger and disbelief. That boy really needed to keep his mouth in check if he was planning to survive Potions under Di Luca. It wasn't enough that she, Amara Ecaterina Báthory, had gotten a detention, but she had to serve it with these two? That was... horrible. But also amusing, she supposed.

Amara watched the professor warily, with half squinted eyes. She was suspicious of the question, she was sure it was either a test or a trap. She weighed her options for a moment before clearing her voice and sitting straighter on the highly uncomfortable chair. "Organizing the school cupboard, perhaps?" she finally exhaled unsurely, slightly raising her eyebrow. That was both punishment and a service, wasn't it? She sure hoped so.

But seeing Di Luca smirk almost microscopically at her reply, Amara wasn't so sure anymore. In fact, she rather regretted it completely. She fidgeted anxiously on the chair, as the professor turned her sight to Todd. Something definitely unpleasant was coming their way.

The very first thing Connor noticed upon following his classmates inside, was that it looked like it’d been organized by a serial killer.

The tables had just been pushed to the side, yeah, and it looked like the only things that’d been purposefully arranged were the stools, but—the stools. Merlin, they were a nasty touch. You didn’t have to take out a ruler to know that the stools set up had been exactly whatever-feckin’-inches they were apart, you jes’ knew. It was enough to give a bloke the heebie-jeebies.


Those glasses, though…


As Connor lagged behind, sleepy blue eyes glazed over. Not a lot, obviously, but. A smidge.

Naturally, they glazed over a little bit more as Ezia settled back into her chair. He was the last one to take a seat.

He blinked himself out of it, though, the same way one would wipe the cobwebs from his eyes. And indeed he rubbed at his face vigorously– noisily, even until a low, groaning mwuhhh escaped as his hand dragged down his cheek, giving the rest of his face a rather palsy look. Cripes, he had the best company for detention, didn’t he? Not that Ambrose was an awful sort– far from it, actually; he was pretty cool so long as you took away his ball ‘n chain –but he wasn’t what the Ravenclaw (who was, admittedly, biased, given the inordinate amount of time he spent around the most delinquent of his peers) would call the sharpest tool in the shed, either. And Báthory? Who knew what even went on in there.

Under the Potionsmistress’ judging stare, Connor straightened in his seat. An awful, bright-eyed, innocent smile crept onto those thin-faced features; bashfully, he lowered his eyes to the foot of her desk, lashes fanning over lowered hollow cheeks. “I’d like to clean out your cauldron, miz professor,” he told the ground humbly. Slowly, he lifted his gaze—looking up through those silly lashes of his, the effect of it all on th’ side of coy. “An’ everyone else’s of course, but yours would be an honor.”

She listened to each of the students with various degrees of impassiveness, nodding as each one of them finished talking. At Todd, however, Ezia slowly, ever so slowly raised an eyebrow at the appellative he had so unwisely chosen to use. Never mind his words... A that she sketched a little smile at the corner of her mouth and stopped short of rolling her eyes. The little dunderhead.

"Very well" she finally said calmly after a few moments of deafening silence. "Miss Báthory" she started, with a barely perceptible twitch of her nose. By Morgana, the girl was eerie! "Since you so kindly offered," her face remained stony, except for a slow arch of her brows "you are to organize the school cupboard for the following lesson." She smiled as the girl seemed relieved for a second. She let the girl enjoy herself for a couple of seconds, then smiled tightly at her. "Starting from the entryway to the back. Ingredients of a herbological nature at the front, dry on one shelf, fresh on another and charm or liquid preserved on another. Ingredients of animal origin on the next few shelves, following the same criteria as before. Following next are ingredients of a mineral nature, raw, solid state first, then molten, followed by other forms of processing. Natural chemical and organic compounds are next, shelved by state of matter, starting with solid compounds, liquid, gas and plasma. Lastly, processed products and ingredients will be shelved by their original state. So you'll have Hellebore syrup under vegetable and Petroleum Jelly under organic compound" she said noncommittally, barely sketching a gesture or blinking an eye while she explained. She hoped the disturbing Slytherin had written that down...

"Mister Pepper, you will be helping Miss Báthory in the cupboard. While she shelves and organizes, you are to write labels for the ingredients, the shelves and for the sections of the cupboard, following the criteria I've just explained to your colleague. The writing must be legible, neat and in black standard ink. After you are done with that, you will write another set of labels for just the ingredients and present them to me. Needless to say, spelling errors and illegible writing will result in having to start over" she dictated conversationally, raising her shoulders once. "There, isn't that just the easiest thing you could possibly ask for?" she said sarcastically with a little snort.

"Neither of you is to interfere with the work of the other, you will be sharing the same space, but not the same detention. You will find the itinerary for all the items currently stored, labels, and ink behind the door. As you shelf, and label, both of you are to update said itinerary with the new location of the ingredient. As always, keep in mind that the cupboard is under surveillance and I'll be sending Soma to check in on you once in a while" she smiled fondly at the snake curled atop her desk, that turned her head disinterestedly at hearing her name. She bites, but they didn't need to know that now, did they? "Well?" she said a little louder, raising her hand to pet the snake. "Off to work with you" she waved her hand towards the side door that led to the cupboard.

There was no way they'll be able to finish heir detention in a just a measly few hours, but she had more detentions scheduled for the days to follow. Turning her head to watch the remaining Ravenclaw, she watched him silently for a couple of seconds, finally letting out an amused little huff. "Mister Todd, I'd advise soap for washing that mouth of yours but I rather think it would be futile, so let's instead have five points from Ravenclaw, hmm?" she smiled radiantly and blinked once. Then of course, there were the ethical matters of cleaning a student's mouth with soap... "I clearly remember telling you I am to be called professor or Professor Di Luca in our first lesson together. Or is my memory failing me?" she asked in an airy voice, smile turning into a lopsided smirk. She tilted her head back, chin jutting forward as she leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest, eyeing him intently through narrowed eyes.

"When you get the first O in my class, I will ponder on letting you anywhere near my cauldron" she said slowly, with a tight little smile and am amused quizzical eyebrow arched high. It was an antique after all - sturdy, solid silver gifted by her very first Potions master. Wiping any trace of expression off her face, she raised on her feet and disappeared through the door behind the desk. Only a few moments after she returned with an unlabeled bottle and a rag. She walked to the stool where Connor was seated and stopped right in front, standing there and looking down at him with a little hum. Finally she extended her gloved hand and deposited the object in his arms. "Hydrochloric acid, Mister Todd. I trust you brought your dragon hide gloves" she smirked minutely. With a flick of her wand the two other stools disappeared and with a hushed, muttered spell a long, wooden table filled with three dozens or so filthy cauldrons, slowly levitated to the center of the class. "Best of luck" she said with a smile as she made her way back to her desk.

Could this be over and done with already? Ambrose thought to himself as he waited to find out their fate.

Amara was promptly sent to organise the school potions supplies which seemed innocuous enough until the Professor began to reel off all the different ways. Next thing he knew, he was also helping by writing the labels.

"The writing must be legible, neat and in black standard ink. After you are done with that, you will write another set of labels for just the ingredients and present them to me. Needless to say, spelling errors and illegible writing will result in having to start over."

They were dismissed into the stores, Ambrose trooping behind Amara with sloped shoulders, no idea quite how he'd manage to do all of that as he stared at the lines and height of the shelves in there. Amara had it easily surely, just arranging things, she was clever. Then again, Ambrose only had to write labels for what was already labelled in a way.

"All I did was drop a book." He protested quietly behind Bathory as he rifled through the materials for labels and quill and ink. "Bloody hate her already." He loosened the lid on the ink and got some on his fingers, which he wiped off on a handkerchief while making a face.

"Shall I just start labelling from this end? It won't matter if you move stuff, like, I'll just work my way down the shelves until I reach the back." He shrugged, "But if there's anything heavy, like, I guess I could give you a hand." He meant it well - even though Amara would probably lift things with magic, and he was a liability, he still felt it would be polite to offer.

He turned back to the labels and cleared a little space to write the first, before hopping up on tiptoes to read one of the existing, fading labels better.

When the Potions Mistress started talking, Amara let out a relieved little sigh and almost smiled, thinking this would only take a few moments and then she could be back in the RoR testing out hexes and defensive spells from the family Maleficium. But then the woman kept going and with each new shelf, the young Slytherins expression darkened to the point where by the time Di Luca reached processed ingredients, her face presented a stony, quite murderous glare and magic almost crackled around her.

Her hand went to the hem of her skirt, fingers stretching over the shape of her wand, snugly holstered to her thigh, but the Professor had already moved on to Pepper. Oh joy, she was to share the same space with probably the most inept student in their year. When Di Luca finally dismissed them to their duties, Amara got to her feet briskly, and with a bob of her head towards the professor, she turned on her heels, long silver hair billowing around her as she decidedly made her into the cupboard.

Once Pepper dragged his feet inside, she extracted her wand and pointed it at the door which promptly closed with a loud bang. Glowering over the itinerary, she scanned the list making note of the current setting and deciding which shelf would be easiest to start on when the Gryffindor started muttering next to her and she turned her head slowly to eye him with an unimpressed stare. "Are you daft, as well as incompetent?" she asked in a level voice, actually curious and blinked at him a few times.

"What you did was completely idiotic and pedantic and, frankly, you have it ridiculously easy. You could've vacuumed the powders and then ask the rest of the class for the difference in quantities, because there were many that miscalculated their amount of ingredients, when they entered the cupboard. And then you go and completely undermine her authority by following your girlfriend out in the middle of the class like a pathetic little puppy" she finished with a disgusted scowl, looking him from head to toe, only to turn her attention back to the itinerary.

She pointed her wand at it and levelly, softly said Geminio under her breath. Holding the original between her fingers she extended her hand and offered it to Pepper, keeping the replica for herself. At his next words, she furrowed her eyebrows in confusion and shook her head exasperatedly. "Wouldn't it be wisest to first write the labels following the itinerary and then actually attach them to the recipients?" she arched an eyebrow, her lips a tight line. But how would Ambrose Pepper be able to actually have any logical order in his head? That would be asking too much from his feeble little brain. "And while I appreciate you offering, my wand can do the lifting with less chances for disastrous accidents" she smiled derisively and turned around to the first shelf.

With a cursory look over the ceiling high shelves, she decided she'd best remove anything that wasn't of herbological nature from them first, and then inspect the rest of the shelves for ingredients of a herbological nature and bring them back here. Merlin help her, this would be tedious. With a long sigh, she pointed the wand at her silver hair, which promptly started to braid itself into one mid-thigh French braid.

"Suit yourself." Ambrose retorted. "And have you had a boyfriend? I bet if you had, he wouldn't want to defy you either."

Squinting at the itinerary, he settled down as best he could to try and write the labels out. Some of them were a little difficult to read already, and this frustrated him.

"Some of these don't need new labels I bet." He grumbled, watching Amara begin to rearrange things with one eye.

Spelling had never been a strong point for Ambrose, though he'd been to a Muggle primary school where they'd taught him. Only Muggles didn't have to write Argentum nitricum (silver nitrate) very often, at least not until later on in life when they studied chemistry.

"Is is Argentium or Argentum?" He asked Amara without thinking that he might be further annoying her. "I'm gonna go and get one of the encyclopaedias from the classroom…"

"Oh, I don't know Pepper... I'd quite have a laugh if anyone attempted to defy me" Amara said with a poker face smile, but a rather disturbing gleam in her eyes, subtly hidden by the inventory parchment she was currently analyzing. She raised her eyes from the list, pinning Pepper with her glare for a couple of seconds only to let a cryptic little hum out, mere moments after. "You'd best learn when to keep your mouth shut, Pepper. Or what questions you can or cannot answer" she said apropos to his rather invasive question. "You never know when you'll meet someone with a rather short fuse" she smiled sweetly and returned to the itinerary.

"They wouldn't" she offered absently, as she pointed her wand at the parchment, making all items of a botanical nature glow green. "No one can argue that Di Luca doesn't have a bit of a sadistic streak, however" she continued in a musing tone, forehead scrunching at the sheer number of items she had just highlighted. She didn't trust finishing with the first shelf, let alone the entire cupboard. It was only then that she realized, what she'd said and she quickly turned around to eye the door expectantly for a couple of seconds. It was closed. Thank Circe for small mercies. But she just remembered the professor constantly reminding them that the cupboard was under surveillance... Oh, well.

With her wand high in the air, currently levitating a large jar of dried nettles, Amara frowned at Pepper's question and further idiotic idea. "I believe that not only are you daft, you also have a death wish. It would be amusing to watch, if only your actions couldn't also draw repercussions on my own person" she commented with a perfectly serene tone. "Do you want Di Luca to hex you? Or fail you?" she asked turning her head to eye her classmate, blinking in confusion.

"It doesn't even matter... If it's the chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag you are looking for, it's Argentum. If it's the Latin name for silver, you are looking for—again, Argentum. If it's the patented modified alloy known as Argentium Sterling silver, then Argentium would be your best bet" she explained in her monotonous classroom voice, as she was clearing space on the first shelf.

It wasn't that she had an exceptional hearing, but with her training, Amara had learned to pay closer attention to her other senses, so she supposed that's why at hearing, the tiniest little creak she had the... habit of tensing up. And that's why when the little creak came she froze, and very slowly turned towards the door. Through the crack of the door, she could see the shiny, slithery skin of Di Luca's snake, nonchalantly crawling inside the cupboard. It slithered towards a shelf and curled up around it, forked tongue darting out as it stared rather menacingly at the both of them. "We've got company" she said, relaxing minutely.

After precisely one hour and 45 minutes, Lucrezia raised from her desk and deposited her glasses on the stack of red slashed parchments. Walking around the desk, she waved her wand towards the cupboard and the door opened briskly. She hadn't paid much attention to how the three had managed with their assignments, but there were enough supervision charms to assure her that nothing had gone terribly wrong.

As for examining the accuracy of their tasks, that was a detention for another student and another day. Ezia found some sort of profound satisfaction at knowing students were both victims and executioners. "Your time is up. Clean up after yourselves and leave everything as you've found it, then present to me. You have 10 minutes" she announced in a crisp tone, slightly echoed off the walls of the dungeons. Hopping on her desk, she crossed her legs and waited. Gloved hands drummed a soft beat on the edge of the desk.

As the students shuffled about, Soma slithered out of the cupboard and took her seat on the post at the edge of the desk. Leaning towards her familiar, she gave it a gentle pat and waited for any indication that there had been disturbances with Báthory or Pepper.

"To the front" she instructed once the ten minutes had passed. "Báthory, five points from Slytherin for student misconduct towards a member of the saff" she said with a little smirk. She knew what Ezia was talking about. "Pepper,  five points from Gryffindor for gross lack of knowledge, you should've acquired at your age."

"Your work will be carefully scrutinized, and based on the conclusions, you will either be taxed with more point deduction or have the satisfaction of a job well-done" Ezia continued with a sweet smile. "Well then, you're all dismissed. I trust you will head directly for your dormitories" she dismissed them with a warning, face clear of any expression.

"… you want Di Luca to hex you? Or fail you?" Amara had asked amongst their short interaction. Ambrose decided not to tell Amara that Di Luca would probably fail him whatever he did that year.

It was a long, long time, with the dull thudding and clinking of the glass bottles and different containers of ingredients on the shelves behind him for accompaniment. Ambrose's hand had begun to ache from writing so carefully, and the tip of his tongue quite often poked from the corner of his mouth.

Eventually it was over, and they were given ten minutes to tidy what was left for now. He'd never been so pleased to be told to tidy up, because it meant escape.

"… Pepper, five points from Gryffindor gross lack of knowledge, you should've acquired by your age." His shoulders sank. Not more points. Merlin, he was going to be the world's least popular Gryffindor at this rate.

With the Professor's further statement of the scrutiny of the work, he suspected he might lose some more. Nothing he did for Di Luca was ever up to her standards. But there was little point getting angry at her, she'd only make it worse or give him more detention, or send him to Professor Jowd, or worse Professor Storm. Or perhaps he was better than Di Luca. Ambrose couldn't really tell these days.

Exit Ambrose