Anne, Apolline and Aranya
were already in the Magical Arts classroom late the next afternoon when
Adelaide joined them with books and papers in her hand. 

"Anyone seen
Rae?" Anne asked as she set down her books neatly and carefully.

"No, I was supposed
to meet her for tea but she never showed up" answered Apolline, eating her
last piece of scone.

"So, what do we do
now?" Adelaide asked.

Luckily, at that moment,
the door creaked open and a very haggard looking Rae staggered in, dark circles
under her eyes. Aranya opened her mouth as if to say something, but Rae
interrupted her before she could get anything out. "Don't ask, " she
mumbled, pulling out a dark container that held the phial of Developing
Solution.

"Ask about
what?" Adelaide asked innocently. 

Rae heaved a great sigh.
"I was up all night dealing with a disaster in the Potions room, and then
I spent all day writing the jelly bean essay."

"You did it, didn't
you?" 

"I should have
listened to Anne. The Developing Solution ate through the flobberworm mucus all
right... and through the floor."

Aranya couldn't help the
laugh that burst out of her mouth before she was able to lift her hands to
cover it up. She slapped her hands across her mouth and gave Rae a slightly
apologetic look before giggling quietly behind her hands. Apolline just gave
her the thumbs up.

"Professor Nivera
didn't notice, did she? Nor Darkstorm?" Adelaide was clearly concerned.

Rae shot her a dark look.
"Both. And Professor Wolfe. I don't even want to talk about it. We're
lucky I managed to get the potion here at all. Let's just develop these
photos."

"You know if you had
asked us, we would have helped you." Aranya said, finally able to keep her
giggles at bay.

Shaking her head, and an
'I told you so' look on her face, Anne pulled the Advanced Potions book out of
her bag and set it on one of the tables. Apolline walked up behind her and
began to read aloud.

"To use the
Developing Solution in order to give magical movement to photographs, you
should first find a room with no access to natural light. Without magic, this
room should be pitch black. However, magical illumination spells such as
'Lumos' will not have any effect on the use of this potion. If at any point
during the process, the potion is exposed to light whilst working on the
photograph, it will instead turn the photograph blank." 

As Apolline read off from
the book, Aranya walked to the other side of the classroom and opened a door.
"This is the room that Professor Aolen uses to develop. I'm sure she
wouldn't mind us using it. I mean, I'm sure we could just convince her we were
practicing for next term or something."

The door revealed a
pitch-black room with long lines of rope stretching the length of it, pins at
various distances all along the rope. On the wall were a few containers of
tools, and at one end of the long table was a stack of bins, all different
sizes. Intrigued, the girls all followed one another into the room, closing the
door tightly behind them. Apolline pulled out her wand, incanting
"Lumos," and a soft yellow light filled the room.

"See, I improved
since last time!" she boasted.

"We need tweezers.
Trust me," Rae said, her voice quieter than normal. "Metal ones. And
gloves. This stuff burns." 

"I have a pair up in
the dorm, but it's so far away. But I did bring my dragonhide gloves,"
Adelaide said.

Apolline reached into her
bag and pulled out a pair of tweezers from a small zippered pocket. "Good
thing I keep these with me! You never know when they will come in handy."

"Fantastic. What
next?" 

"In order to complete
the process you should tip one phial full of the Developing Solution into a
container which is wider than the photograph," Anne read out loud, taking
the book from Apolline. 

"The bins,"
Aranya said as she made her way over to them. She un-stacked them, sliding them
down the table. "What do we do after that?" She asked as she and Rae
tried to find the right bin size for their pictures.  Once found, Adelaide
poured the Developing Solution into the container.

Anne referred back to the
instructions, reading aloud as the other girls followed her directions.
"Using the tweezers you should place the photograph face-down into the
potion and push gently, so that the photograph is pushed fully into the potion.
You should hold the photograph here for 1 minute, to allow the potion to coat
the back of the photograph."

The girls carefully placed
the first photograph into the developing solution - the off-center photo of
Professors Quilmane and Aolen. The hardest part was the 15-minute wait while
the photo sat face down in the potion. Anne thumbed through the Advanced
Potions book while they waited. Aranya and Apolline made shadow puppets using
their wands and tried to create some sort of battle, but the two were giggling
so hard that it looked more like they were dancing than anything. 

"Right, who wants to
get it out?" Aranya asked as the 15-minute wait finally finished.

"Not me," Rae
mumbled sleepily from the corner.

Rolling her eyes at her
friends' antics with their wands, Adelaide put on her pair of dragonhide gloves
and picked up the tweezers. She carefully removed the photograph from the
potion, letting some of the excess potion on it fall back into the cauldron.
She held it over the container, and tapped it lightly with her wand. As the
girls huddled expectantly around the photo, Rae quietly slipped one of the
other photos into the solution.

"So they were
really...Oh ! C'est trop mignon ! The potion took a long time to brew but that
was so worth it!" Apolline commented.

"Oh my god, Aolmane
looks so adorable and cute!" Adelaide fawned over the photo. 

The girls spent the next
fifteen minutes oo-ing and gushing over the photograph, postulating on every
possible dialogue scenario that could take place between the two professors
(all of them quite worthy of the HiH Shipping Club). Suddenly, Apolline
remembered the potion. "Isn't it time to take out the second picture?
Which one did you develop Rae?" she asked.

Rae mumbled something
incoherent about "lollyjay" from the corner she had sunk down into
several minutes earlier. Apolline took the tweezers and drew the photo out of
the solution, turning it over to look at it. Immediately, she let out a shriek.

"Why did you develop
this one?! The eye picture on Prof's Q's wall?! It's awful...and the eye is
even more frightening in the picture than in reality! Why couldn't you choose
another Aolmane picture?!" The Slytherin girl put the eye photograph on
the table and shuddered.

Rae shrugged, slowly
pulling herself up, out of the corner. "I have to go," she said
morosely, sliding the photograph off the table. With the air of a person headed
to the gallows, Rae slipped out the door.

Perplexed as to Rae's
strange and uncharacteristic behavior, but too caught up in the photo to think
on it too heavily, the girls waved good-bye. Finally, though, they had to tear
themselves away.

"Okay girls, I've got
to go too! I just have to tell Ashley about this Aolmane proof! See you
tomorrow." Apolline said before heading to the Slyterin dungeons.

"Yeah, we should
probably all go, before Professor Aolen comes in here," Anne
remarked. 

"Agreed," said
Aranya, "Let's go."

The girls quickly cleaned
up and headed off, still gushing over the Aolmane photo, completely forgetting
about the other photos they had meant to develop. 

--------------------

The next day, after class,
Rae entered  the Curious 'Claws dorm hoping to finally catch up on some
sleep. She had one more essay to write - this time 1500 words for Professor
Wolfe on the dangers of using potions for other than their intended use. As she
settled at one of the many desks in the dorm, something caught her eye. The
photo of the Eye was sitting right in the middle of the desk. It blinked. Rae
let out a shriek and flung herself away from the desk, knocking over her
chair. 

Hearing the commotion,
Aranya, Anne, and Adelaide came running. "What's wrong, Rae?" 

"This! It..."
Rae pointed shakily at the photograph. "I developed it yesterday, but I
didn't have a chance to hang it in Quilmane's office because I had
to..."  she trailed off, leaving the other girls wondering what she'd
had to do the day before. The Eye took most of their attention however, causing
the question to die on their lips. 

"Why did you leave it
on the desk, then?" Aranya asked. "Especially if it scares you that
badly?"

"I didn't leave it on
the desk," Rae explained. "I never even brought it in the dorm. I
changed my mind about hanging it in Professor Quilmane's office - I'm already
in enough trouble as it is. I threw it away last night."

"What?" Adelaide
stared at the photograph, jumping slightly as it blinked at her. "But
then...how did it get there???"

"Seriously, we have
to get rid of that thing! It's so creepy I can't even stand it!" Aranya
stood as far back as she could and reached her hand out, gingerly picked up the
photograph by a single corner. She dropped it back on the desk almost
immediately with a squeak as the Eye followed her movement, blinking. 
From the desk, the Eye moved, fixing its gaze on each of them. Acting quickly
to prevent general panicking from ensuing. Anne calmly picked up the photograph
and  tore it in half before depositing it in the waste bin. 

"I'm sure you just thought
you threw it away, Rae," she said, trying to convince herself as much as
she was the other girls. "Surely you just accidentally brought it back
here. But it's gone now, so it's ok. We just need to keep quiet about all the
eye pictures, ok girls?"

The girls all agreed, and
went back to their various tasks and assignments. With a sigh, Rae settled down
to her essay. Anne pulled out the Advanced Potions book once more, determined
to learn a new potion before dinner. Adelaide and Aranya had a race to see who could
finish their Blood and Moonlight essays first. 

__________________

Later that evening,
Apolline entered the Great Hall, looking frantic. She searched for the others
amongst the Ravenclaw table and ran up to them. Out of breath, she
unceremoniously pushed a small boy out of her way and sat in his place.

"I was going back to
my dorm after class, and I found this on my desk! I am sure I did not take it
with me yesterday, so how did it end up there? Please tell me one of you
thought it would make a great joke..." Apolline explained.

She showed them the
photograph. It had a slight crease in the middle, but other than that it was in
perfect condition. The eye on it kept blinking, indifferent to their
predicament.

"What do we do with
this?" Aranya asked. "Should we take it up to Professor Quilmane's
office?" 

Apolline shuddered.
"I'm more creped out about it staring at me."

"It looks like it's
staring deep into my soul," Anne said, inching away from the
photograph. 

"Yes, let's take it
to Lollyjay's office," Adelaide giggled.