 Open! Bathes in Maple Syrup | Dancing Lobster | Moy Pomidor | Seneca's Beard | That Is So Fetch!
Rajan Patil did not run in the Hogwarts corridors. That was undignified. He strode quickly with purpose. Which, at present, was very much the same thing.
The door to the Potions laboratory swung open with a sharp creak, and Rajan slipped inside, his robes wisping around his ankles. The familiar scent of brewed roots, burnt sugar, and metallic tang wrapped around him immediately. Cauldrons still cooled from the last class; faint wisps of steam curled lazily upward like ghosts reluctant to leave.
"Chintu," he called under his breath, voice low but edged with urgency. "Chintu, come out. This isn't funny."
Somewhere, a glass vial ticked as it cooled. A drop of condensation plinked into a basin. Otherwise, silence.
Rajan pushed a curl of hair back from his forehead, brown eyes sweeping the room. Under the worktables. Behind the stacked crates of powdered moonstone. Along the shelves where pickled ingredients floated in murky jars, watching him with many-eyed stillness.
A faint skitter suddenly sounded.
"Chintu," he whispered again, more pleading this time, as he peered beneath the nearest table. "You're a toad, not a Demiguise. Stop causing chaos and come here before someone turns you into a potion ingredient by accident."
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