Damocles looked like he was back on the verge of insanity. And perhaps he was. You would think that the more of this project that he got done, the easier things would get, but it was the opposite. The more he got done, the closer this all got to being a reality, and the more pressure he felt. Especially to have this whole thing work. The closer he got to an actual potion, the more he realised how many things could go wrong. He would check and recheck his final list of ingredients over and over again. So much so that he had begun to recite them in his sleep. Whenever he got sleep.

Jacquie was still coming to check on him. She would drag him home, and then once he was sure she was gone, or she thought he was asleep and went off to busy herself with Orion, he would apparate back into the office. Or he would bring his work home with him. It had well and truly become an obsession. Dam had never thought that he would be so glad Jacquie was sleeping with someone. There was the fact that Orion was a pretty decent guy, and they seemed to make each other happy, but the most important part was that it kept Jacquie off his case.

He was skinnier again than he had been the last time. And his hair was falling to his ears now. He looked decidedly different to the boy who had graduated.

The room had changed again. The countless rolls of parchment had been replaced by one, which was pinned to the wall above the desk. There were even measurements next to the ingredients now, although there were very few that had not been changed atleast twice. A cauldron sat on the desk, and there were potion ingredients everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. Jars and bunches of herbs. Some easily recognisable, and others not.

And Dam was standing over the cauldron, peering at it intently as he started to sprinkle some finely chopped herbs into it. Suddenly, his head was enveloped in a cloud of choking smoke and the cauldron shattered, sending him onto his arse, covered in a yellow coloured goop. "Sodding bastard bollocks arse fuck!!" Wiping some of the goop off of his clothes, he stood up and grabbed his wand, quickly cleaning up the mess and repairing his cauldron. Glaring at the list on the wall, he made a couple of adjustments and turned back to the ingredients.

Time to start again.