PP18

## Summary

The Slytherin gang is in the first year dorm, while Rigel tries to use the Medi-minis, getting the attention of her year mates. They explain to her that visualization is important with magic, and she shouldn't "shove" her magic. Finally, understanding how magic works, Rigel fills up all the Medi-minis with ease by *asking* her magic, to the sheer disbelief of her friends.

She goes to Snape's office to show him the Medi-minis, but he's not here. In his place is Alesana Selwyn, the Slytherin prefect. She unwillingly tells him that Snape is in the Lab One and that he has been brewing all week. She goes there and finds Snape, who is exhausted from brewing. Rigel gives him the bag of Medi-minis that he stores in a cabinet. She then proceeds to do the Allergic Relief Potion to prove that she can imbue. She succeeds, and then Madam Pomfrey comes in the Lab, asking Snape for another batch of True Determinant because Neville who just fell sick is allergic to one of the ingredient. She leaves and Rigel asks Snape about the sickness. He explains that it's only targeting the youngest and that they fall into magical coma, but they don't know how to cure it. Rigel wants to help and with some conviction, Snape accepts that she brew Sweat Inducers, insisting that she favors quality over quantity.

Seeing Rigel overworking herself during the week, Draco drags her outside for some flying. Having never see her flying when she's healthy, she scares him with a loop-de-loop. She shows him how to do it, and Draco ends up injuring himself. Rigel heals him, getting Draco impressed. While they go back and she goes to her lab making more Sweat Inducer, she understands why Archie wants to be a Healer and marvel at it.

The Friday morning, Rigel gets two letters from Sirius and Archie. When leaving the Great Hall to read her letters in private, she's stopped by the Weasley Twin. They ask her to become their sounding board because Lee isn't here anymore. They want help with a prank that they want to do to alleviate the tension because of the sickness. She suggests that they include the Headmaster in their prank. They part, and Rigel goes to her Lab to read Sirius' letter. He's thankful that she is in Slytherin if she can get this kind of information, and informs her about the legislation that is in the works against muggleborns. It's essentially a Marriage Law. It prevents muggleborns to marry halfbloods, casting them further away of the wizarding society, and getting halfbloods back into the pureblood society. Then, Sirius asks her as Archie to not do something as reckless as proposing to Harry. Rigel is quite nervous because of the letter during all her Potions class. She feels guilty, but mostly, she finally understands the dangerousness of she and Archie's deception, and that no one can know about their Ruse even once she's a Potion Mistress. She swears to be more careful and that no one else will ever know, deciding she must do something with the loose end that is Flint. Another thing she understands from Sirius' letter is that the sickness is kept a secret outside of Hogwarts.

Later in the day, she reads Archie's letter, in which he explains to her what Legilimency is, and that he will start to learn Occlumency. He then tells her that he never heard of such a sickness, and that she can't fall sick, making the assumption that the sickness was sent to the school. Archie says then that she can always marry him because of the marriage law. Worried by the day, she thinks about how they can change back at the end of the year, but dismiss the idea.

The next day, during lunch, the twin's prank is set in action, transforming Dumbledore in a King, speaking middle-English. All the other members of the staff, one by one, transform to the hilarity of the students. McGonagall in Queen, Flitwick in minstrel, Pomfrey in midwife's uniform, Sinistra in a white-clad damsel gown, Trelawney in a nun, and Snape in a knight in shinny armor. Fred finishes the prank by talking in his middle-English to a girl, and everyone laughs.

The following Thursday, Rigel meditates on her Occlumency by not emptying her minds but by thinking of it as a fortress. Just when she starts to see her mountain ("the shape of something hulking, strong, and forbidding"), Pansy jerks her out of her meditation. Theo fell to the sickness. Pansy is upset about it, so Rigel calms her while they wait for Draco. When he comes, she goes to brew more Sweat Inducers with multiple cauldrons at once. She feels guilty to be here at Hogwarts instead of Archie, whom magical sickness is his specialty, but she's determined to make the universe change its plans.

Two days later, she goes back to Snape's office, where the Professor is still not there. With the conditional help of Selwyn, Rigel transports the 33 crates of 780 beakers of Sweat Inducer to the office. In exchange for Selwyn's help, Rigel must find something from a living magical creature and deliver it to Rookwood and then come back to tell her what she gave him. Rigel comes by her lab to get a phial and a cork and, after a trip to the kitchen to get some food and a dead mouse, goes to the edge of the Forbidden Forest, where she starts calling in parseltongue for a snake to come. She meets Treeslider, a boomslang, who accept to give her his venom in exchange for the mouse and the handkerchief that wrapped it. As people are still eating dinner, she waits in the common room for Rookwood. Rigel shows him the poison, and he snatches it, eager to start what is, in fact, a game between him and Selwyn, in which they have one week to discover from which magical creature the sample comes. Rigel warns him to not directly touch the poison, making him understand that she was the one who collected it. She then goes back to Selwyn to inform her that she delivered the message.

Snape finishes his last Snowhit, and won't admit that he is tired, even though he forgets for a moment that Rigel was the one supposed to brew Sweat Inducers. When he comes back to his office, he thinks he is prepared for what lay within…

## Characters (by order of appearance)

* Theodore Nott
* Rigel Black
* Millicent Bulstrode
* Pansy Parkinson
* Draco Malfoy
* Blaise Zabini
* Alesana Selwyn
* Severus Snape
* Poppy Pomfrey
* Fred Weasley
* George Weasley
* Albus Dumbledore
* Minerva McGonagall
* Filius Flitwick
* Treeslider
* Edmund Rookwood
* Aldon Rosier

## Settings

* First year dorm
* Snape's office
* Lab One (Snape's private lab)
* Quidditch pitch
* Just outside the Great Hall
* Rigel's Lab
* Great Hall
* Edge of the Forbidden Forest
* Slytherin common room

## Potions

* Toenails vanishing potion
* Strengthening Solution
* Weakening Solution
* Wolfsbane
* Allergy Relief Potion
* True Determinant
* Aurora's Breath
* Snowhit Draught
* Sweat Inducer
* Fever Reducer
* Restorative Draught

## Deep foreshadow

* Medi-minis imbued with Rigel's magic (FF15)

## Inconsistencies

When Draco grabs Rigel outside for some flying, it is said "*'You’re coming,' Draco said as he pulled her out of the Library by her elbow, and that was that.*" but Rigel uses a disguise to go to the Library, so he couldn't possibly recognize her. The consensus is that he grabs her **on her way** (before she puts her disguise) to the Library.

## See also

* The Sleeping Sickness
* The Marriage Law