Start Again [Grey]

[Sienna Aurélie Linslee]

6 February 2026

Sienna knew she should be working but she couldn’t help but linger by the front counter, wide-eyed. After months of internal debate among the shopkeepers at Slug and Jigger’s, they had finally decided to redo the entire organizational system and were now in the middle of the move. Sienna had gotten used to the comfortable familiarity of the apothecary’s layout – she could have her nose buried in a potions magazine and still move around the shop to fetch ingredients off the shelves. Dried beetles in a barrel by the door, dragon scales tucked away in the back near the poisonous herbs. But now it was all changing, and Sienna watched with eyes as round as galleons as a shopkeeper rolled the barrel of beetles to the new dedicated corner for preserved insects.

She supposed it made sense, in a way – their current system didn’t correspond to any form of organization and you could only learn where everything was with time and consistent visits. Looking for crushed emeralds? You wouldn’t necessarily find them by the rubies and sapphires, but perhaps with the dittany and shredded caterpillars. Looking for rose thorns? You wouldn’t find any with the other rose products, but instead grouped with octopus powder and boomslang skin. So, Sienna thought, the reorganization might make sense from a logistical point of view, but she could still mourn the layout of the store as she knew it. Now she was going to need to learn it all again.

The shopkeepers continued to move things throughout the day, and Si made periodic visits to the front to see how customers were receiving the new system. Most didn’t seem to realize anything had changed, since they weren’t frequent enough visitors to notice. They simply wandered the shop until they stumbled onto what they were looking for, or a shopkeeper took a break from moving heavy bottles of potion to assist them. The first real shock came from one of their regulars, a witch who visited often to buy a batch of Cure for Boils for her teenage daughters. She stared blankly at the shelf where the potion used to be stocked, now replaced by a wide variety of healing potions, until Sienna pointed her towards the back. Smiling to herself, Si barely had time to move back to where she had been keeping watch before the next regular wandered in. Most people likely wouldn’t realize what he came here to buy, but any good potioneer would know that he was stocking up on ingredients for love potion antidotes. It was a curious purchase, but he came every week without fail and nobody had ever seemed to ask him about his apparent paranoia – at least not while Sienna was around. He also had moved without thinking to the usual spot for his ingredients, but he wouldn’t find them there anymore. Sienna waited for a beat to see if he would notice before offering, “The Wiggentree twigs are by the door now. Where the beetles used to be.” She tried, and failed, to keep the laughter out of her voice at the observation.

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[grey xavier slater]

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The weekly trip to Slug & Jiggers Apothecary always had him on edge. Grey had never thought of himself as a paranoid individual prior to his seventh year at Hogwarts, but that had changed so, so fast in such a short amount of time. Now he obsessively produced love potion antidote for any meal that wasn’t prepared by himself, afraid that a certain someone would come crawling back to get revenge, or whatever she wanted. His family had never known about it, having carefully dumped it into his own glass of wine at Christmas dinner. After the scene he and Claire had caused – because he refused to take full responsibility for that after she beat him over the head with a gift bag – Christmas night, he doubted they would really care whether he was love potioned in the first place. That was his secret to keep between himself, Ondina, and Irina Krum. That wouldn’t stop Ondina though, and he knew the second that he slipped up and forgot to take the antidote, he would be done for. She had barely done any work to get into his head, and it was still having an effect on him three years later. It baffled him that she could come from a family like the Weasleys. Something was seriously wrong with her. Nobody love potioned unsuspecting people for the hell of it. Except Ondina.

His nemesis aside, the ingredients were easy to buy, no questions asked at the apothecary, and the potion was easy enough to make that despite his poor potion-making skills, he could brew it up in his apartment within a matter of minutes. Having to make it almost weekly to keep his sanity intact meant that he had the system down perfectly. He had even figured out a way to charm all the ingredients to enter when ready, and for the cauldron to self-stir. That, to him, was expert level potion making. Streamlining the entire process meant he had time to do other, more important things. Like writing about Quidditch for work. There was no way he could write if he was doped up on Amortentia or some other love potion.

Today though, Grey was confused. He went for the Wiggentree twigs first, as being a creature of habit, he liked the order he collected the things he needed and how it took him through the shop. One of the employees seemed to be calling out to him as he went in that direction though, and it caused him to stop where he was. “I’m sorry?” he asked, not sure if he had heard her correctly. Looking around him, he realized that everything had changed, and in some areas, was still being changed. Now he really didn’t know what was going on. “Erm…where did the beetles used to be?” he asked the woman, who he sort of recognized as helping him out before, as he stood in the middle of the store and looked around it awkwardly in his sudden thrust into disarray.

Sienna Aurélie Linslee ● 511 ● Song by Artist

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[Sienna Aurélie Linslee]

Strictly speaking, helping customers wasn’t one of Sienna’s responsibilities. The potioneers were mostly expected to keep to the back and brew potions, while the shopkeepers assisted in the front. Still, there was a flaw or two to this system. First, the shopkeepers tended to be young, working a summer job or fresh out of school, and for many it was their first job ever. Some shopkeepers were extremely unmotivated as a result, while the more helpful ones still struggled to answer difficult questions from clients about what they needed. The potioneers were the experts, after all. And second, being a potioneer didn’t keep you occupied every second of the day. Sienna preferred to start multiple projects at once, and even then sometimes found herself with nothing to do while the cauldrons bubbled and the potions stewed. So, in her curiousity and boredom, she tended to drift to the front to help out when she could.

Besides, she liked helping people. It gave her more insight into where exactly her potions went, and she met so many different and interesting people. This particular regular was someone she’d seen in the apothecary every week without fail, and while she’d helped him occasionally, they’d never really spoken. He seemed disoriented at the different organizational system, and stood grounded while his gaze traveled over all the changes the apothecary had undergone. If he seemed surprised that Si knew what he was looking for, he didn’t show it, instead giving her a blank look as she mentioned the barrel of beetles. “Yeah, new system,” she responded with a faint smile, also casting her gaze around until it settled on one of the apothecary’s newest employees struggling to lift a box of weights used to balance scales when weighing ingredients. She watched until he adjusted his grip on the box, then turned back to the familiar customer. “Oh, the beetles were by the door. Except a surprising number of people were pocketing them, you know? So they wanted to put something harder to steal,” Sienna explained, shrugging at the sad reality. As a potioneer, she was used to handling all sorts of odd ingredients that people might otherwise find disgusting, but even she had trouble imagining stuffing dried beetles in the pockets of her robes to save a few knuts.

“Follow me?” she suggested, stepping around the young man to guide him to the front door, then motioning towards the new display of neatly clipped Wiggentree twigs. “Much harder to pocket, no? Most people haven’t noticed the change, to be honest, but I suppose apothecaries aren’t a usual stop for the average wizard.” It had always been one of her favorite stores whenever she’d needed to buy school supplies – Si had loved to analyze with an eagle eye which potions were in stock, and if anything had changed. Occasionally something rare or exotic popped up, and she could badger the potioneers with questions about what it was and how it had been made. Now that she was on the other end of the exchange, being the one preparing the potions, she liked to watch who came regularly. It was a neat little reminder of how far she'd come, and how much had changed. “Can I help you find anything else?” Sienna asked innocently, as if she didn’t know by heart what he came to buy every week. It was only polite to pretend she didn’t know, after all, especially because she could only imagine that someone interested in antidotes was probably  incredibly invested in their privacy.

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[grey xavier slater]

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Putting it all together in his brain took a lot longer than it really should have. There wasn’t a whole lot going on in the shop, but the sudden attention from the employee, the change in inventory, and the grunts of other workers trying to lift a seemingly heavy box (why didn’t they just charm it?), did a number on his work-focused brain. He had always liked being able to pop into the store, grab what he needed, and then go. Very little questions were asked when he knew exactly what he was doing. Now he was going to have to relearn where everything was, and it looked like the woman that was helping him knew exactly what he needed too.

That realization alone had him second guessing if he needed to switch apothecaries now, or even order via owl from several different places. These were all sorts of things that he should have been more aware of, as his brief auror training focused heavily on knowing one’s surroundings. Instead of doing that, he made weekly trips to the same exact shop, buying regular amounts of ingredients that could only be used for one type of antidote, and was probably also frequently observed dumping said antidote into any drink handed to him. And to boot, Ondina knew where he went to for coffee every day. It was starting to look like he was back to the charcoal black coffee that was brewed on his department’s floor every morning by the depressed and sleep-deprived house elf the Prophet had working for them.

He followed her towards the front of the store and to where the Wiggentree twigs were now displayed, and he nodded his head as she explained how it was harder to steal those than beetles were. “Are beetles common ingredients?” he asked flatly as he grabbed the normal amount of twigs from the shelf. He was out of Potions class as fast as he could be, and the last few years of school all of his knowledge on the subject had disappeared. Supposedly at one point NEWT level Potions was required for being an Auror, though that didn’t matter when he was in training. There were plenty of potioneers and other experts out there to fulfill that role now. And the Prophet only required having a brain.

As for anything else he needed, he paused and looked around the shop. There was no way he was going to find the castor oil or Gurdyroot on his own. Weighing his embarrassment with the employee against the potentially horrible fallout anything Ondina could do to him, it was a lot easier to buck up and ask for the help. “Uhh…yeah…” he said with a hint of defeat in his voice. “I guess I’ll need Gurdyroot and castor oil as well.” Grey purposely kept his voice low so that the other employees didn’t hear him, though they still seemed to be occupied with the box they had been working on.

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[Sienna Aurélie Linslee]

A sudden blast of freezing wind swept through the shop as a new customer shuffled through the door and hurriedly shut it again. Sienna gave an involuntary shudder at the rapid drop in temperature, eyes flicking out the door to examine the snowy street before she redirected her attention back towards the Wiggentree twigs. The weather could be frigid in Brussels, there was no doubt about that, but she couldn’t remember it ever being as depressing as it got here. Darkness fell so early in London, and stepping outside the apothecary for even a few moments before Disapparating was such an unpleasant affair. Si casually stepped around the regular as he picked out twigs so that he stood between her and the door, and incidentally the blasts of cold air that occasionally came with the door slamming open and shut. He was so intently focused on the twigs that she wondered if he was afraid they would jump to life and run away.

“Fairly common,” Sienna agreed as he asked about the use of beetles in potions, idly rearranging the twigs on the shelf so the good-looking ones were out in front. The deadpan tone of his voice caused her to peer at him from the corner of her eye, fighting a smile as she asked, “But do you actually care? It’s alright to say so, I don’t find beetles a particularly fascinating subject.” It was hard to read the expression on his face, mostly because there wasn’t much of one at all. He kept his features tightly controlled, and all Si could really see was the discomfort on his face. So he wasn’t the social type, that did happen occasionally. In fact, it wasn’t a difficult conclusion to reach that if he knew where he was going, he wouldn’t bother with the conversation at all. Some customers were the chatty type – Sienna usually found that to be the case with foreigners, especially Americans – but she supposed she could rein in the idle chatter, if only to see if his rigid posture would relax an inch or two.

So he was definitely making a love potion antidote – the list of ingredients confirmed it, as did his lowered tone of voice like he was telling her classified information. Sienna nodded seriously, biting her lip to keep from laughing, as he named Gurdyroot and castor oil. She could keep a secret, after all! Si had been supplying Camila with Polyjuice Potion for ages now, so the celebrity could go out in public without drawing so much attention. And she’d had several visits from Aurors and Interpol agents in the last few months as well, looking to replenish their stock of potions. “Gurdyroots will be with the rest of the magical plants,” Si offered, nodding towards one section of the apothecary that looked like it had been taken over by a wild jungle and beginning to walk towards it. There were packets of dried herbs, potted plants (including one particularly vicious Venomous Tentacula that Si was looking forward to getting rid of), and extracts that were all colors of the rainbow. “And, if I wanted to be impolite, I might suggest peeling the Gurdyroot before cutting it into slices. A lot of people leave the skin on, but it dilutes the potency of the antidote.” Si coughed as she realized she’d forgotten to pretend she didn’t know what he was brewing. “…or whatever else you might be using it for.”

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[grey xavier slater]

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Merlin no, he didn’t find beetles used for brewing potions in the slightest bit interesting. But he was so used to transactional conversation from work that with this minor disruption in his routine, he was thrown off. All day was spent asking critical questions during interviews or crunching statistics for the league. Quidditch players, even the most intelligent of the lot, weren’t always the fastest when it came to detailing their thoughts on matches or how their practices were going. They were more show than tell, which led Grey to getting creative with his words. The fact that he had to do most of the leg work there was what really drained his already perpetually low energy. By the time he made it to this point in the day, his brain was fried and any sort of meaningful talk was absolutely not going to happen.

“Not really, but you said people were pocketing them. I don’t see why though, considering they aren’t expensive…” If there was a beetle bandit going around to apothecaries and absconding with bags of the things, it sounded like it could be an interesting story for the paper. Almost like a reoccurring piece to put into the evening edition just to generate a consistent readership. He could see the headlines already ‘BEETLE BANDIT BOLTS BEFORE BUYING…AGAIN!’ The Prophet strayed from sensational pieces these days, but occasionally one broke through when an editor felt exceptionally cheeky or was getting told to let some shareholder’s child write an article. Thankfully that didn’t happen much in his department, even the story of the previous year (the explosion during the Championship match) had been taken over by the big names. The sports department preferred to dedicate all their time and energy to conducting interviews and informational articles. Anything more than a blurb on the back page of the paper was too much. And he was fine with that.

Magical plants. Right. Thankfully he had the employee to show him the way, though it probably wouldn’t have been too difficult to find it with a little looking. Unlike the barrel of beetles, the plants were obviously out in the open despite being slightly different than they had been before. He quickly recognized the shape of the Gurdyroot and took a few, his reach slowing as he listened to her explain how peeling the root before cutting it would help with potency. Of course it was obvious to someone who dealt with potions and ingredients all day what he was doing. Obviously if he was collecting the materials for a love potion, that would be a lot more telling of who he was as a person, but an antidote was just a preventative cure. “It’s usually diluted by my coffee every morning. But if that helps…” he shrugged. Realistically he probably didn’t need to be taking it in the morning when there was no reason for him to have been poisoned throughout the night, yet he did still out of fear. Nothing would have been worse than to wake up to a ‘Good Morning’ text from Ondina and not know what the fuck had happened. It was better to be drowning in antidote than the alternative again. “And the castor oil is near the counter still?”

Sienna Aurélie Linslee ● 544 ● YYZ by Rush

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[Sienna Aurélie Linslee]

The question of what to do with the barrel of beetles was a longstanding one in the apothecary, and there had been so many staff meetings over the months to discuss it. Sienna never really participated in a meaningful way, since it was a question for the employees at the front of the store rather than her business in the backroom. She could name a million and one ways to use dried beetles in a potion, and all the best ways to grind, powder, or cut them. But where to put the barrel? It didn’t really make her top ten in terms of what she spent her days worrying about. The regular wondered out-loud about the rationale behind pocketing the beetles, since they were only a knut for a scoop anyway. But Si smiled and suggested, “I think you’re giving too much credit to shoplifters. Do they really need a reason?” Besides, dried beetles were one of the easier things to steal here. Maybe the powdered rubies were a better prize, but Sienna would love to see someone try to slip a jug of Syrup of Hellebore or a potted Venomous Tentacula into their pocket.

Every morning. It was a casual admittance on the customer’s part that he prepared an antidote every morning with his coffee, and Si’s lips pulled downward at the thought. Merlin, what had he been through to make him take an antidote so often? She’d seen some veteran Aurors in the apothecary before, grizzled and paranoid after decades of working in the field. They weren’t stingy about buying antidotes to poisons or all sorts of other preventative brews, and she didn't question their motives for being so well-stocked. But love potions were another beast entirely, a hidden danger since they were widely distributed but there was never really a pure intention when it came to using one. Still, she didn’t comment, biting her lip instead as she wondered if he’d been on the wrong end of a love potion once. They weren’t regulated by the Ministry in the same way as poisons, but it had a completely different effect in ruining a life. Instead, she took one of the firm Gurdyroots from his hand and replaced it on the shelf, handing him one that was softer and deeper in color. “You get more juice if they’re overripe,” she said simply, eyes searching his face for a moment before purposefully glancing away. It wasn’t her business to pry about what brought him to the apothecary every week, but Merlin she had a hard time not helping. Even if it wasn’t strictly asked for or wanted.

Anyway, his observation about potions being diluted by the drinks they were poured into was astute, and easy enough to distract Si with. “Oh yeah, the question every potioneer asks themselves at some point. How to boost the effects of a potion so you can take it with a drink. Still working on that one myself,” Si admitted with a soft laugh. Now that she and Rob had finally found the right recipe for Aware Wolf to accomplish everything they wanted to with the potion, they found themselves facing a new challenge. Adding most potions to a drink usually diluted their effects to the point that they became practically useless, which meant they had to be taken on their own. The majority of potioneers learned in school still that it wasn't possible, and not to waste their time trying. But Sienna was convinced that she could find the answer to the dilemma – there had to be some way to break down the ingredients of the potion and drink in question to bond them together. It wasn't as simple as a customer tipping the potion into a drink, but if a mixed potion/drink combo could be prepared by the potioneer and sold already packaged...well, that was the reason the backroom of the apothecary looked like she was starting a bar – Sienna had been trying for a month now to tweak Aware Wolf so Rhys could take it with a shot of whiskey. She was broken out of that thought by the customer’s question, but Si gave a nod. “At least some things don’t change,” she commented as she led him to its usual spot, but Si narrowed her eyes when she spotted the empty shelf. “Hm. Guess it was popular this week.” She contemplated the problem for a moment. “We…might have more in the back?”

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[grey xavier slater]

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The only criminal act Grey had ever committed was trespassing, though even that was light on the breaking the law bit. He also pulled the name of an injured Auror out of his sister while doing that once at St. Mungo’s, but was doubtful that doing his job was ever going to truly get him in trouble unless he was stealing information from the Ministry. Sources were protected and he maintained his journalistic integrity no matter what. It wasn’t his fault that they had figured out Claire was the one to spill the injured Auror’s name. And again, there was nothing illegal about that. Sneaking into the Auror ward of Mungo’s may have been but no one had really tried to stop him or said otherwise. Claiming ignorance was easy enough in that sort of situation. But shoplifting was different. That sort of thing had never crossed his mind before, and especially over something as mundane and silly as beetles that were used for potions. He didn’t know if these ones were specially raised for potions or if they were generic run of the mill beetles that could be found in a common garden, and if that made a difference at the end of the day. Taking a spade to the front garden to pull out worms or insects was just as easy as throwing the coins at the apothecary. Stealing didn’t make any sense to him at that point. “I guess not?” he responded as things had moved onto the Gurdyroot.

Despite the level of potions class he had taken during his final year at Hogwarts, Grey realized that he probably should have paid a little closer attention. Extending the use of his supplies was one of those things that he was sure was covered and he ignored because there was never any reason in his mind that he would have to do that. Hell, he had still needed help brewing the first antidote way back when, mostly because he still thought he was head over heels in love with Ondina, but also because he was inept at potion-making in general. And apparently he still was, because the employee was pulling the Gurdyroot out of his hand and replacing it with one that was riper, in her own words. Once again, that made sense to him, and he slowly nodded his head and took a few more that weren’t nearly as soft but looked like they could be ready in a few days’ time.

Diluted or not by his morning coffee, if he had been poisoned by another love potion over the last two years, he hadn’t felt it at all. Maybe he was being paranoid for no reason now? The thought had crossed his mind a lot over the last few months, only being reinforced whenever he was forced to see Ondina’s stupid wedding articles in the paper. He had no doubt that Goyle had been love potioned by her as well, because no one in their right mind would actively put up with her like that. It was impossible. The only other problem he ever ran into with the damn potion was when an ingredient wasn’t in stock, which according to the woman, it was looking like they were out of castor oil. Grey fidgeted slightly when she said that she might have more in the backroom. There were other stores he could go to, but that was a huge inconvenience… “If you could, that’d be grand. Definitely know I’m out of that.”

Sienna Aurélie Linslee ● 586 ● Satan Prayer by Ghost

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[Sienna Aurélie Linslee]

Sienna was starting to suspect this man was the most closed-off customer she’d ever spoken to. And that included all types of Ministry workers that came here to top off their personal stocks – Aurors about to start another mission and looking to be prepared for all kinds of emergencies, Ministry and Interpol trainees that had been sent to restock their squad’s potion stores after a particularly grueling training exercise. And her roommate worked in the Department of Mysteries, although Heleen was still much more chatty than the customer Sienna was guiding around the store. A growing part of her wanted to take him by the shoulders and ask ’who hurt you’ – but that was a classic case of overstepping on something that was none of her business. And as an apothecary employee, she’d probably be chewed out by the owner for offending one of their most reliable regulars with the same routine every week.

Which was a depressing thought in and of itself, but Sienna still handed him the Gurdyroots without any further comments and began to hunt for the castor oil. The shelf was empty, although Si frowned at the sticky rings left behind by vials that clearly hadn’t been closed right. She was a stickler for a neat workspace, and the clear disarray of the displays made her shiver slightly. So many messes, never enough time to clean it all up. That train of thought was interrupted as one of the front-room employees stopped beside the pair and opened her mouth – maybe to question why Sienna wasn’t by her cauldron, maybe to ask the customer if he needed help. So Sienna quickly interjected with, “I’m taking care of him.” Just to make it clear she knew what she was doing. And as the other employee shrugged and walked away, Si turned back to the guy as he considered the sad lack of castor oil on the shelf.

“You know, we also sell potions here. If you have something specific in mind, we probably stock it.” She couldn’t let herself be too direct – it just wasn’t in her nature to confront other people’s questionable decisions. But she couldn’t help but wonder just how much time this guy invested in his week to find the right ingredients, brew the potion, and then rinse and repeat the whole process. And besides, that was why she worked at the apothecary, because a lot of wizards lacked even simple potionmaking abilities and needed to source their brews from somewhere else. Sienna accompanied her offer with a slight shrug, because there was a clear inefficient process happening here but most people didn’t appreciate strangers judging their choices. “And,” Si added with a slight smile to lighten the mood, “I promise I keep a clean workspace. Roaches only get into my potions if they’re supposed to be there.”

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[grey xavier slater]

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Was the jig actually up? He had been about ninety percent sure that the potioneer knew exactly what he was brewing since she approached him. A discerning eye for what her customers bought frequently, and in his case, extremely often. And now she was offering pre-made potions to him, probably assuming that it would be easier on him that way. Considering how she explained that ingredients could be thinned out and used longer, that was probably a hint that he was wasting his time and money doing everything himself. Knowing his own skills, or lack thereof, in potions, maybe asking the shop to make it would be the best course of action. The only problem with that was that Grey seriously doubted they would make a vat of Love Potion cure on a weekly basis for him. That created more questions than it answered, and he could see how someone would assume he was using Love Potions maliciously and trying to clean up said problems with the antidotes. He wasn't born yesterday, and his brief Auror stint made him just paranoid enough for that line of thinking to stick.

"The only one I need is sort of unconventional..." he admitted quietly. The other employee that had tried butting in a few seconds earlier was already working on something else, but he was still embarrassed to admit what he was making out loud. Did he realistically need to still be taking this thing? Probably not. And this entire encounter was making him second guess that now. Ondina was tricky like that though. If he slipped up and stopped taking the antidote now, that was when she would get him again. She'd revel in that sort of redemption if she got the chance again. "I think maybe just what I have now will be fine. And that castor oil if there's any in the back," he said with a bit of finality. He wasn't ready just yet to give up the antidote.

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[Sienna Aurélie Linslee]

Maybe her curiosity was a sign she’d been doing this too long. Sienna was the most senior employee at Slug and Jigger’s by this point, mostly because the front was a revolving door of seasonal employees and part-time Hogwarts students, and the backroom was just her and Rob. In the first year, Si had barely left her cauldron. It took time for her to adjust to new situations, and this had been her first real job after she’d failed quite spectacularly at freelancing. She hadn’t wanted to rock the boat, and her job description had pretty clearly said ‘potioneer.’ So Sienna hadn’t veered to the front, except to restock her ingredients list as it became necessary, and she certainly never questioned customers on their purchases. She did exactly what she needed to do – no more, no less – and then went to live her life outside the apothecary.

At some point, she’d become comfortable. Enough to start her own side project – even if Aware Wolf had since become its own enterprise and hardly qualified as a ‘hobby’ anymore – and then she’d started to chat with the customers. Ask them what they were looking for, give them little tips and tricks from an experienced potioneer. Si had seen this guy come in every week and make the same trip around the apothecary. She didn’t know his name, or what he did, only that he seemed to have a deathly fear of Love Potions. And now, as he paused after her little hint that the store sold pre-made potions as well, she wondered if she might have overstepped. His quiet admission seemed like a half-confession that he did in fact need help, although wasn’t quite ready to ask for it. Sienna thought of Camila’s unconventional request from last year, and the slightly suspicious nature of it if you didn’t have the right context. Most people hardly used Polyjuice Potion for innocent reasons, after all, but once it became clear that Camila was just a young celebrity looking to avoid unwanted attention…well.

“We process unconventional orders sometimes,” Sienna said, lowering her voice as well to match his tone. She paused, then felt compelled to add, “As long as its for the right reasons.” Camila was her friend, and Si had seen firsthand some of the ugly attention that she got from tabloids or rabid fans. So the request for Polyjuice hadn’t come out of nowhere, and it had reassured Sienna that her potion wasn’t going to be abused. Unfortunately, this regular didn’t have that advantage. At any rate, he pulled back from his half-request and repeated the need for castor oil, so Si nodded and turned to slip into the backroom. She kept her work station neatly organized, and it didn’t take long to rummage through the cabinet and pull out her last vial of castor oil. She sighed a little, but locked the cabinet again and returned to the customer’s side. “See you next week, Mr. Secret-Keeper,” she said lightly, keeping her tone breezy as she handed over the vial. A presumptuous statement, no doubt, but after weeks of watching him do the same thing over and over again with no explanation – well, he’d earned it.

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[grey xavier slater]

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The fact was that he knew he could probably stop taking the antidote. He had zero interaction with Ondina outside of sometimes seeing her in a sea of heads if he had to go to the Ministry for work, and she had probably forgotten he existed aside from when they had run into one another the year prior. There were bigger fish for her to fry and his work within the Prophet and Quidditch was so far removed from what she apparently did for work now that it would be ridiculous for her to target him. But there was still that gnawing worry in the back of his head. He’d been mixing the antidote for years now as a precaution, and he didn’t want to stop and then suddenly get hit with it again. He hated that he was fairly confident in most aspects of his life except this one, and now there were people that were starting to catch on.

“I’ll uhh…I’ll think about it,” he responded as the potioneer explained that she could do what he was looking for as well. Wouldn’t a weekly supply put his name on a list for the antidote to be made? Were such things kept confidential, like with medical visits? When he was making it on his own, the average person wasn’t going to be able to figure it out just from the ingredients alone. Obviously it was a bit different with the potioneer because she was always here when he was getting his supplies. Watching her return with the castor oil, he quickly pulled out the exact amount for all of the ingredients. He knew it well, unfortunately. “I guess so,” Grey stated as he looked down at the things he’d bought once again. “Thanks.” As he left the shop, he started to think of all the ways he could kick the habit. Embarrassment over his secret was certainly a good reason to stop taking it. Another week or two wouldn’t kill him though…

[THE END]

Sienna Aurélie Linslee ● 333 ● Almost Easy by Avenged Sevenfold

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0