Potions Homework

Potions Homework

1. Incident Number One

"Double Potions with Slytherin, again," groaned Ron Weasley. He looked morosely at the schedule in his hands. "That's the third time this month. And first thing in the morning too."

"Buck up," said Hermione Granger briskly. She speared a strawberry with her fork and popped it into her mouth. Chewing and swallowing quickly, she added, "I heard Snape is teaching us about love potions."

Next to her, Harry Potter grinned, his green eyes twinkling. "Snape's going to be apoplectic. He hates anything to do with love."

Ron stuffed his schedule back in his bag and sighed. "He'll probably take fifty points from Gryffindor just because he's in a bad mood. Bloody prat," he grumbled, finishing off his orange juice.

The three sixth-year students were situated at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, enjoying breakfast before a long day of classes. Between a tall, lean boy with unruly black hair and an even taller and lankier boy with a shock of flaming red hair, a petite girl with a riot of golden-brown curls sat eating her blueberry scone. The students around them, though friendly, were somewhat distanced from what they had termed "the dream team." The three had been best of friends since their first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and had remained thus throughout five years of harrowing adventure and near death [which only seemed to strengthen their bond].

"Let's go," Hermione said, standing and picking up her bag. "We don't want to be late."

Harry and Ron gathered their things too, and as they stood, their plates vanished from the table. Hermione glared at the area that had, only a moment before, been occupied by gold dishes littered with leftover crumbs and jelly. "I still can't believe Hogwarts has the most house-elves in all of Britain!" she exclaimed angrily. Her brown eyes flashed. "That is utterly cruel and--"

"Don't you get it Hermione?" asked Ron in a weary tone that implied he had had this conversation before. "They like serving people. They like not getting paid. It's--"

"Demoralizing!" Hermione marched away self-righteously, leaving Ron and Harry to trail after her, shaking their heads bemusedly at each other. While they understood her passion, they would never understand how the brightest girl in their class couldn't comprehend that house-elves liked to serve. S.P.E.W., apparently, was still going strong as ever, propelled onwards by its president alone.

After catching up with their friend, house-elves were no longer mentioned as they discussed the weather (it was uncommonly cold for mid-October), the upcoming Potions class (this subject was quickly abandoned as Ron didn't like dwelling on Snape), and Quidditch. Harry, now captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, enthusiastically went over possible strategies and techniques to put into play at the next practice with Ron, the new Chaser. Hermione offered whatever she could about the plays she'd observed in last week's Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff match.

They reached the dungeons where Professor Severus Snape, head of Slytherin House, bane of the dream team's existence, and home of greasy hair and black looks, held his Advanced Potions class. Many of their fellow Gryffindor students were already seated, as well as most of the Slytherins, lounging in their black robes with the Slytherin crest, smirking and looking all around gleefully evil.

"Well, if it isn't Potty and his sidekicks, Weasel and Mudblood," drawled a mocking voice as they took their seats.

Three pairs of eyes aimed glares in Draco Malfoy's general direction. "Sod off, Malfoy," Ron snapped.

"Ouch, I'm hurt," Draco replied, raising a scornful brow. "Is that the best you can do?"

"Ignore him," Hermione said stiffly, taking her books out. The sixth-year Slytherin had been the bane of their existence, short only of Professor Snape, Voldemort, and all his fellow Death-Eater minions, since their first year. Now that Voldemort had been defeated [by Harry of course] last June in a nightmarish event in which hundreds of lives had been lost and Harry had almost been taken himself, Draco had moved higher up on Hermione's list of People I Really Wouldn't Want To Spend The Summer Holidays With.

A few minutes later, the bell rang and Snape stalked in from his office, a small room off the classroom. His black robes swirled around his legs as he made his way to the front of the room. He surveyed the students, his sallow face reflecting dislike as his eyes passed over the Gryffindors and utter loathing as it settled on Harry, Hermione, and Ron.

"Today, we will be learning about," he paused, "love potions." His voice reflected his obvious feelings on the subject--disgust. "Now, all love potions are illegal, as they are considered a type of Imperious curse, so I don't suggest you try any on Mr. Potter, Ms. Granger." He sneered in Hermione's direction, apparently recollecting Rita Skeeter's article in Witch Weekly about her supposed use of a love potion on Viktor Krum. She flushed angrily but kept her mouth shut.

"There are two types of love potions," Snape snapped, pacing as he lectured. "The Amoura, where the drinker falls in love another person, and the Amour, where others fall in love with the drinker. The Amour is considered more powerful because it affects random subjects, forcing them to fall in love with the drinker, and thus subjecting more unwilling souls to its will. It is extremely dangerous and its use will send you straight into Azkaban for life. Are you taking notes?"

Quills were picked up and quickly dipped into ink and the scratching of points against parchment filled the dungeon. Observing them with a watchful eye, Snape said coldly, "I will not be showing you how to brew these potions, as even the densest of you must have concluded," here, a derisive look at Neville Longbottom, "but Professor Dumbledore wishes me to show you what each potion looks like to better prepare yourselves if ever you should encounter one." He made the notion of anyone ever wanting to give these students a love potion sound preposterous.

As Snape turned his back to search his shelves for the potions, Ron whispered, "It's a shame love potions are illegal. If they weren't, maybe Snape would get himself a woman, get married, and leave Hogwarts forever!" His eyes went unfocused as he fantasized about a life without Snape.

Harry snorted softly. "Could you imagine the wedding night?"

Hermione and Ron choked, stifling laughter and disgusted looks. Fortunately for them, their muffled snickers went unheard as Snape turned and glared at the class. In his right hand, he held a glass bottle full of lavender liquid brimming with bubbles which, upon closer inspection, turned out to be heart-shaped. "This is the Amoura Potion," Snape announced, holding it up for the class to see. "Slight differences in ingredients can alter the properties of the potion. It can be made for the drinker to fall in love with someone specifically, and can be changed in what activates it--the drinker's name, the first person he or she sees, etcetera. Yes, Mr. Malfoy?"

"So what are the properties for this Amoura Potion?"

Snape looked slightly ill that his favored student could be taking interest in such a frivolous potion. "It has been brewed so that the drinker will fall in love with the first person they hear to say a certain word." He looked quite ready to move on to the Amour Potion but was once again interrupted.

"And what word is that, Professor Snape?" Draco asked curiously.

Looking irritated, Snape snapped, "Hugz-o-palooza."

The class erupted with disbelieving laughter. "He's j-joking," gasped Ron, his face turning red as he guffawed. "That's...ut--utter--ly ridiculous!"

"That will be enough, thank you." Snape looked beyond irritated. "And that's five points from Gryffindor for disrupting class."

"What?" Ron stopped laughing abruptly. His blue eyes flashed angrily. "The Slytherins were--"

"Ron!" Hermione glared at him. Provoking Snape in this mood was not a wise choice.

"Moving on." Snape glowered in Ron's direction. "The Amour Potion." He set the bottle of lavender liquid on his desk and retrieved a bottle of bubbly pink liquid. "This is the Amour Potion; it is very distinctive, due to its unusual color. The only other potion in the world that is pink is the Kissing Potion, which is a variation of the Amour Potion. We will not get into that today. Another frivolous potion," he muttered under his breath. He returned to the subject on hand and went on to discuss the attributes of the potion. The students studiously took notes. When he finally, finished, he set the bottle on his desk beside the Amoura Potion.

"Now," he said, a smile--or what passed for a smile for Snape, which was more of a twist between a sneer and a smirk--creeping across his face, "we will brew some potions. What this class is all about." He looked ready to rub his hands together in glee. "What, Ms. Granger?"

Hermione had raised her hand. "Professor Snape, you said that love potions are normally consumed by drinking them, but isn't it true that they only have to be in the bloodstream to take effect?"

"That's correct," Snape admitted reluctantly. He gave her a cold look. "I assume you picked that up from a book, Ms. Granger?"

"Actually," she answered promptly, "it was from the Potions homework you assigned last class." She smiled sweetly at him.

He looked nonplussed for a second, then recovered and snapped out the instructions for their next potion. "You will be working in pairs. I have already divided you up." He pulled out a roll of parchment and rattled off the first names on the list, "Brown and Zabini." Lavender sent a wide-eyed look at the Slytherin girl slouched in her seat, arms folded across her chest in defiant anger.

"Finnigan and Longbottom." Seamus didn't know whether to look relieved that he'd gotten a Gryffindor or alarmed that it was Neville.

"Granger and Goyle." Hermione looked up, horrified. Not that big lump with half a brain cell! She cast him a cursory glance and it confirmed her worst fears. A Slytherin, Malfoy's lumbering crony, and the brains of a gnat. Wonderful.

"Nott and Parkinson." Pansy looked disappointed that she hadn't gotten Draco.

"Potter and Patil." The pretty, if slightly air-headed, Gryffindor gave Harry a big smile. And giggled. He tried to return the smile and managed a grimace.

"Thomas and Crabbe." Dean turned as pale as a black boy could get.

"Weasley and Malfoy." Ron buried his head in his hands.

"You've got to be kidding me." He glared at the smirking blonde sitting by Crabbe and Goyle, looking unrepentantly smug and not the least distraught at having to work with Ron. The better to taunt him, apparently.

The class divided and moved to their cauldrons. Ron reluctantly picked up his books and made his way to Draco's table as the Slytherin had made no attempt to move. "Too lazy to pick up your rich arse and walk?" Ron snarled at him as he set his books down.

Draco merely smirked at him. "Treating your second-hand books with care, hmm, Weasley? With their condition, I don't blame you." He watched Ron's face turn red with anger and remarked, "Don't worry, Weasley, it's not a crime to be dirt poor." His gaze flicked over Ron's robes. "Doesn't do much for the wardrobe, though, does it?" He sniggered and stood, deliberately turning his back on Ron to arrange the ingredients for the potion. He never knew what hit him--actually, he probably had a fair idea later--when Ron yelled something incoherent and Draco went flying over the table, crashing into a collection of people and cauldrons before sliding over the end of a table and crashing to the floor. Landing headfirst, he blacked out.

Ron stood by the table, red-faced and furious, his wand drawn and waving about the air. The cauldrons skittered off the tables, knocking off books and potion ingredients, and crashed to the floor, literally shaking the ground. There was general chaos as Lavender and Pansy shrieked, Hermione shouted for Ron to stop and put his wand down, Nott cursed as his toe was almost squashed, Snape barked orders angrily, and fragile bottles, shaken by the mini-earthquake of raining cauldrons, rattled on their shelves and toppled against the glass cases that held them in.

There were, however, two bottles that weren't protected by glass cases. The Amour and Amoura Potions fell from their precarious placement on Snape's desk and were shattered against the cold dungeon stone, slivers of glass flying across the room, the potions spilling out to splatter against both students and furniture.

"Close your eyes and mouth," bellowed Snape. "And Weasley, for God's sake, put that wand down!"

Shocked, everyone complied and a few minutes later, when it was ascertained that illegal love potions were no longer flying through the air, the students straightened and glanced around the disordered classroom. Books, parchments, quills, cauldrons, and various types of magic weeds and bat parts were scattered across the dungeon floor. More noticeably, so was...

"Draco!" Pansy gasped, her eyes widening as she caught sight of him lying, prostrate, on the ground.

Snape hurried over. Kneeling, he checked the boy over. "He's unconscious but alive," he announced. He glared at Ron. "No thanks to you, Mr. Weasley." His gaze dropped again and he hefted Draco's still body into his arms. "I'll have to take him to Madame Pomfrey, to see what damage you've done." His eyes flickered over the scratches and bruises covering Draco's skin. "Good job, Mr. Weasley," he sneered as he made his way towards the door of the classroom. "That will be twenty points from Gryffindor and a month's detention for you." He stomped out.

Neither he, nor any of the wide-eyed students he left in the dungeon, noticed the small sliver of glass embedded in Draco's left forearm. A tiny bead of lavender liquid released its tenuous grip on the glass and slid slowly into the cut.

"...they only have to be in the bloodstream to take effect."

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