(29 : STEAL IMMORTAL BLESSING. . .
FROM HER LIPS)

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      FOR SEVEN DAYS STRAIGHT, JULIET spent every spare moment she had in the library and — unintentionally — distanced herself from James in the process. Instead of meeting up with him, her free periods were consumed with the frantic scribbling of notes about the Philosopher's Stone. The Philosopher's Stone was the only substance known to be able to produce the Elixir of Life and it was meant to be one of a kind. Of course she knew this already and Hogwarts seemed to have little offer when it came to manufacturing immorality.

     On the eighth day of dead ends, the Slytherin opted to resort to desperate measures. Not that she wanted to admit it, but the warning she received from Voldemort had left her spooked and she now resolved to devote all of her time to her task. If the man was willing to kill a half blood that Juliet merely shared one or two conversations with to send a message, what would he do if he found out about her intimate relationship with a known blood traitor?

     "Hi," greeted Juliet, dropping her books in front of Regulus Black. "May I sit?"

     Regulus had been in the library almost as often as Juliet, but she didn't know why. He would sit in the same spot every day — two tables away — and occasionally spare a glance at the redhead between his own urgent scrawling of notes. Although she was still mad at him, she didn't know who else to talk to. Desperate measures, indeed.

Looking up through his lashes, Regulus remained apathetic. "The last time we spoke you told me to go fuck myself."

"I was being rash," excused Juliet, sitting down without permission.

"You're not exactly a rash person," Regulus refuted, slamming his book shut.

"Fine, I meant it. I won't apologise and I'm still mad that you're clearly hiding something from me," acknowledged Juliet, candid as ever. "Now that's been established, I need your help with my task for You-Know-Who. You're the only person I can talk to about this and if you help me then maybe — maybe I could forgive you."

The boy bristled. "You need help with the . . . elixir?"

Juliet deflated. "I've spent all week looking for a way to mimic the properties of the Philosopher's Stone, but it's impossible!" complained the Slytherin, wringing her hands underneath the table. "And there's no record of how to create the Philosopher's Stone. For all I know, it could be a myth. Countless of alchemists, ones that are far more advanced than a seventeen year old, have failed to identify the correct compounds or even replicate the effects."

"First of all, calm down," instructed Regulus, clutching her hands under the table to halt her fidgeting. "You look exhausted and going through the same books won't do you any good. What prompted this sudden obsession with your task? You have time."

     "I don't," argued Juliet, knowing that the dark circles marring her eyes and a couple of sleepless nights were simply the price she must pay. "I — I think he killed my roommate. He sent me a freaking spine, Regulus. Everyone said her family fled to America, but she used to wear these really ugly pearl necklaces and there was one in the box. And blood. There was so much blood. If I fail —"

Even in light of the gory confession, Regulus' face remained unchanged. "You're not going to fail," he cut off her rant. "If we can't recreate the Philosopher's Stone, we'll find something else. Another way to achieve immortality if that's what he wants from you."

Taking a deep breath, Juliet's blue eyes softened. "Thank you, Reg. I — I wouldn't have blamed you if you turned me away when I came over here."

"Oh come on, Juliet," berated Regulus, "save the soppiness for the Hufflepuffs. You don't need to thank me, Slytherins look out for their own, right?"

"Right." The tension between them evaporated. "And I suppose it'd be real hard for you to find a second wife if your first one dropped dead under suspicious circumstances a few days after your wedding."

"That too," Regulus agreed, laughing. "Pass me a book?"

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An hour into research, the two Slytherins were no closer to their answer. Regulus had suggested diving into some darker texts — which both their families would no doubt own — but Juliet shot the idea down. The Philosopher's Stone could be used for nefarious purposes, but it wasn't inherently dark. The hard part was really identifying the compounds as Juliet already knew the four step process to transmute the metals. It was around this point that Regulus proposed a break and Juliet begrudgingly complied when he produced a box of sugar quills from the bottom of his bag.

In an attempt to ease her stress, he challenged her to see who could balance a sugar quill on the tip of their nose the longest. Although she rolled her eyes at the childish game, Juliet agreed with some coaxing and that was how James Potter found the pair a couple of minutes later.

"I'm not interrupting, am I?" asked James, his shadow looming over Juliet.

The lemon sugar quill tumbled from Juliet's nose and the feather tip shattered on impact, pieces of crystallised sugar flying across the floor.

Regulus stiffened, the easygoing person Juliet was accustomed to disappearing in a blink. "Actually —"

"No," Juliet rushed out. "What do you want, Potter?"

"I was hoping we could talk." Then, like an afterthought, he added, "Fawley."

Juliet spared a glance at Regulus, studying his reaction to James approaching her. "I'm a little busy right now. And even if I wasn't, I wouldn't want to talk to you."

     James wasn't deterred. "Juliet —"

     Gritting her teeth, she found her eyes widening at his bold use of her first name. "If you're that bothered about the fact that you can't get a girl to talk to you," she began scathingly, "I suggest you go cry about it in aisle ten, far away from us."

     Once James retreated from sight, Juliet counted her breaths and twisted back around to find Regulus watching her with a tilted head. "Potter has been hanging around you a lot recently," he mentioned casually. "Is he bothering you?"

     "When is he not?" she replied lightly before pouncing to her feet, ruffled. "I should go and grab us a different book. I'll be back in a sec."

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     Navigating her way through the vast library, Juliet was relieved to find James waiting at the bottom of the aisle with a large '10' hanging over it. The Gryffindor stood with his hands in his pockets, pretending to be scanning the shelves for a book.

     "James."

     Hearing his name, he spun around, jaw clenched. "You've been avoiding me."

     The redhead approached him tentatively. "I've been busy."

     "With Regulus?" challenged James. "I thought you weren't friends anymore."

     "James . . ." trailed Juliet, the disappointment clear in her tone. They both knew he was grasping at straws by trying to drag her arranged fiancé into their problems. "Regulus is helping me with something related to You-Know-Who. The only reason I confided in him instead of you is because he's already involved and I don't want to drag your further into my mess."

     The boy searched her face for any sign of dishonesty. "For the past week? If this is about what happened with McGonagall —"

     "We were being stupid!" exploded Juliet before lowering her volume when she recalled where they were. "What happened with McGonagall made me realise that we were tempting fate by parading around corridors and showing up to classes looking thoroughly snogged. Anyone smarter than a First Year would have seen through our excuses in all of two seconds — McGonagall definitely did. I can't afford to be that reckless, neither can you. It's not like we'll get detention if someone finds out about us, we'll get killed and I don't think you truly understand that." Her voice cracked. "I care about you, I really do, but I won't die for you, James. And you can think that means what I feel for you isn't real, or you can pretend you're a better person because I know you would die for me, but I won't be sorry for it."

     His face crumpled. "Is that it then?"

     Juliet stayed quiet for a moment. "Do you want it to be?"

     "No."

     "Neither do I," she confessed, her shoulders relaxing at his answer. "I'm not — I'm not ending things here. I'm telling you that we need to be more careful and we can't keep losing ourselves in the moment. From here on, we'll only meet in the Room of Requirement or if we're sure it's safe after hours." Juliet stepped closer to him, flicking his badge in an effort to brighten the situation. "Plus, you're Head Boy! Maybe you can start scheduling us to do rounds at the same time."

     James tilted her chin up with his hand, ensuring their eyes locked. "This isn't the end?"

     "This isn't the end," she confirmed.

     Checking over her shoulder, Juliet saw nobody was around and quickly pushed up onto her tiptoes, pressing a chaste kiss to the boy's cheek. Her lips hovered there for a moment before she plucked a random book from above James' head and began to make her way back to Regulus.

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     Returning to the table, Juliet noticed her friend's mouth was stretched thin. James Potter always seemed to put him in a bitter mood, likely because James was Sirius' replacement brother to an extent. Not wanting to bring up James, she tossed the book she brought back onto the table with a sigh.

     "Magical Creatures and Their Properties by Ashia Rowan," Regulus read from the book cover, suspicion prominent in his tone. "How is this going to help us with alchemy? If you're not going to take this seriously —"

     "Of course I'm taking it seriously. I brought this over here because, uh, um —" fumbled Juliet as she flipped open the book to a random page. Unicorns. "Unicorn blood! Merlin, that's actually it. Unicorn blood is meant to keep someone alive even if they are within an inch from death —"

     Regulus frowned. "Unicorn blood isn't a metal though. You can't transmute it."

     "Like humans, their blood has traces of metals in, except it's in stronger quantities than we can withstand. With the metallic base, I could infuse it into something that is the equivalent of a stone," explained Juliet, her words getting faster and more excited as she went on. "Something like mercury. In alchemy, mercury can represent the balance of life and death given its easily changeable state of matter. The tricky part would be making sure the mercury is imbued with unicorn blood rather than mixed with it. We would need the mercury to act like —"

     "Like goblin-wrought silver?" Regulus picked up her train of thought. "It imbibes only what strengthens it, so the same could be possible if the goblins forged using mercury instead of iron or silver and the —"

     "The blood would strengthen it, sealing the divide between life and death," she finished, her eyes as wide as saucers. "Everyone knows goblins don't like wizards, so they might be hard to convince. Other than that, I — I think we figured it out. Whilst it isn't quite the Philosopher's Stone, we impress the same principles and it's theoretically sound."

Regulus shot her a close-lipped smile. "I knew you could do it."

"I haven't done anything yet," she insisted, her brain working at a million miles an hour. "Mercury is simple enough, but unicorn blood is forbidden by the Ministry. It could take months to track down, even on the black market."

Noting how she slumped, Regulus quirked an eyebrow. "Unless . . ."

"Unless what?"

"Unless you retrieve the unicorn blood yourself." Regulus leaned across the table and lowered his eyes. "Remember Care of Magical Creatures in Third Year? Kettleburn said unicorns live in the Forbidden Forrest."

Juliet gulped. "You're telling me that I need to kill a unicorn?"

All Regulus could do was nod.

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A.N: This chapter hasn't honestly fried my brain because the Philosopher's Stone (Sorcerer's Stone for all you Americans) is a myth with very little clarity on how one would make it. My entire theory on the unicorn blood and mercury comes from me, but is supported by canonical evidence and the believed properties of mercury within alchemy. Also, did anyone else miss Reg? Because I really did and I wanted to give them a bonding moment. And do we really think Juliet will kill a unicorn?

Question, do you have a favourite myth? This is very vague, so take your pick — Greek, Roman, any era. I really love a lot of Greek myths, but especially Hades and Persephone.