Severus pointed his wand at the pedestal behind the phoenix statue. By the light of Lumos, Pomona could make out the Latin words written on it.
"'To the pure, all things are pure,'" she read aloud in English.
"That line comes from Paul's Epistle to Titus," said Draco Malfoy's godfather. "The moment I saw it, I knew this place was safe."
The Epistle to Titus was one of Paul's letters in the New Testament and was often called one of Paul's "pastoral epistles."
Paul had written to Titus, his fellow worker and longtime companion. After parting ways with Paul, Titus remained on Crete alone. His responsibility was extraordinarily difficult, because the island was said to have once been the dwelling place of the "father of gods and men."
The water was as clean as holy water. Jumping in would definitely have been fine, but Pomona was still furious.
"Why didn't you tell me?" She shoved the old bat hard, then remembered that he was injured. Just as she was about to regret it, Severus looked at the wounds left by the hand crossbow. They had somehow already healed, as though he had never been hurt.
"It seems this water, like phoenix tears, has healing properties," Severus said. He took out an empty potion vial and used his wand to float water from the pool of tears into it.
The bottle might have been enchanted with spatial magic. Pomona watched him keep filling it, until it seemed to hold as much as an oak barrel. Then he poured in a small bottle of golden solution, which quickly dissolved into the clear water and vanished without a trace.
"What is that?"
"Elixir of Eternity. It can prolong the effectiveness of potion ingredients that spoil easily. When making Wolfsbane Juice, I use it