She was focusing on keeping her hand level and watching the tea as it poured, so she didn't see the handle crack. She didn't notice anything about it at all until the pot was falling to the table, and she didn't have time to react before it hit the surface and shattered. It was porcelain, fine and thin; a fall like that had done it in for good. The jagged pieces knocked over Imperatrix's teacup and saucer. The remaining tea came out like an ocean wave and soaked through everything, leaving a cloud of steam as it went. The tablecloth stained immediately. The sugar cubes in the bowl melted into a syrupy puddle. Peri looked from the absolute chaos the tea table had become up to her mother, eyes wide as dinner plates. She looked to Nurse, panicked, but the woman seemed to have frozen in shock. She was on her own. She felt quite certain that if this was a special test, she had failed it.

She looked back to her mother, eyes still wide and still clutching the handle of the destroyed teapot in her hand. Was it possible that she was somehow responsible for that? She'd heard stories from her cousins about people using magic by accident before they went to school; there was a rumor that Cousin Regina had destroyed the whole park in Hogsmeade. But she hadn't wanted to do that — she'd been trying so hard to keep her hand level. She'd wanted this to go well; she couldn't have been the cause of this mess.

"It must not have been a very good tea set," she said quietly. "For all that it was pretty."

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