Chapter 9: The Bewitched Quill and the Chemistry of Petrification

The Hospital Wing smelled of dittany and something astringent that Holmes had catalogued on his first morning as a probable magical disinfectant — sharper than carbolic, with a faint mineral undercurrent that reminded him, unexpectedly, of the Thames at low tide. He had been awake since before Poppy Reece was moved from her dormitory, which meant he had been awake for approximately twenty-two hours, a figure he considered unremarkable.

The evidence had been gathered into a canvas satchel by a junior Ministry assistant who had clearly not been told what the satchel was for, because several items had been wrapped in the same cloth without separation, and one of Cassia Vane's textbooks had been placed directly on top of her star-chart with the casual disregard of someone who believed the dead had ceased to have preferences. Holmes had signed for it at seven in the morning with a signature that McGonagall would later describe to Hermione as "aggressively illegible" and carried it back to the small office off the Charms corridor that Flitwick had made available for the purpose.

The office was intended for marking essays. It had a narrow desk, three chairs, an inkstand that replenished itself, and a window that looked out onto the courtyard where two second-year students were presently attempting to levitate a frog with results that were, in Holmes's peripheral opinion, instructive about the relationship between confidence and accuracy. He had moved the chairs to the walls, spread a length of brown paper across the desk, and was transferring the satchel's contents to the paper one item at a time when Hermione arrived.