Chapter Six

The lesson had begun normally enough, for a certain definition of normal when it came to Snape's lessons. He had asked a question to a Hufflepuff. The Hufflepuff hadn't answered. He had thus asked a question to a Ravenclaw, and the Ravenclaw had answered.

I was that Ravenclaw, and I had answered as fully as I was able to, because I did not doubt Snape would punish the Ravenclaws if I forgot to mention a possible use of the Dried Nettles. Thus, with Hufflepuff having lost twenty points, and us having received none, we began to work on our potion.

It was the Cure for Boils. It was an easy enough potion to make, at least on paper. The book was open in front of me, and as I diligently worked on it, I dimly realized I was the odd one out. It seemed to be some kind of calculated move, because the Hufflepuffs were odd in numbers too. Thus, I ended up sharing my cauldron with a Hufflepuff.

"Shade," I said as nicely as I could in a whisper-like voice. "If you'll crush the snake fangs, I'll slice the pungous onions," I offered as a gesture to get things going.

"Emma," the Hufflepuff girl answered. She had dark raven hair and dark eyes, and looked kind of lost away from her Hufflepuff Hive-Mind. At the same time, she complied dutifully. "How many should I crush?" she asked, grabbing hold of the mortar and pestle.

"Recipe says six," I whispered back. Thus, we got to work amiably. By the time we were halfway through the potion, I reckoned I had started to loosen up a bit. Everything was looking fine. The potion was bubbling away happily at low heat, the wand had been waved in front of it, and now we just had to wait for everything to work out properly.

As I would later realize, true foes do not come only in the human variety. Peeves, the Poltergeist, made his appearance with a cackle from the wall side, much to Snape's annoyance.

"Itsy bitsy firsties!" he cackled in his shining, ghostly form. I had noticed the ghosts some times float up and down the castle, or walk past us as if we weren't really there, but this was the first time I had met with Peeves. It was usually an unspoken agreement that Potions would not be disturbed by the Poltergeist. The Bloody Baron would deal with the ghost, scare him off, or do something to grant us the peace needed to properly concentrate on our potions.

This time, apparently, the Bloody Baron hadn't come in time to stop him.

Professor Snape did whip out his wand and something greenish left it, slamming into the ghost like some kind of powerful glue and making it recoil away. However, it wasn't fast enough to keep him from throwing some kind of small, crimson globes in the air. They looked ready to pop, like fireworks, but Snape's second swish of the wand came fast, deadly, and silent. The globes all froze in mid-air within tiny cubes of ice, and fell on the ground. Thankfully, they fell far from the cauldrons themselves.

"Boilsboilsboils! They're so nice and scratchy, why would you not want boils!?" Peeve screamed in offense as he was literally flung against, and past, the wall by the greenish ooze.

With a sigh of relief, and a swish of the wand, Professor Snape summoned the globes to his desk.

The Peeves incident behind us, I returned to the potion and glanced at the knocked down hour-glass. I pulled it back up, made a quick calculation of just how many minutes off the entire thing could have been set, and then hoped for the best.

Somewhere in the distance, when the time came to add the porcupine quills, someone forgot to remove their cauldrons from the fire.

The cauldron, as was apparently made obvious by Professor Snape's curses, melted.

The students both hissed and moved away from it as fast as they could, and in the chaos that ensued -and which didn't last long thanks to Professor Snape's swift intervention- I realized dimly I had lost count of the counter-clockwise stirs I had been giving to my potion.

Had I stopped at three, or four? These were the true questions a true student shouldn't be asking himself while holding a ticking time bomb in his hands, but apparently yes, it had happened. I now stood in front of a potion which needed to be completed, and I had forgotten the amount of stirs.

I gave it another, and noticed no change. I gave it another, and nothing changed. Now, I didn't know if I was done, or if I had to add one more stir just to be sure.

Would exceeding or going below the number of stirs actually change the potion's effect? Would...would something bad happen if I made a mistake at the final end of the potion?

I looked at Emma, who seemed puzzled by my hesitation to finish the potion. "I forgot the number of stirs," I awkwardly said.

Her eyes widened briefly. "Oh," she said. "Maybe...I should get the professor?" she winced as she said that, realizing that Snape hadn't yet finished berating the dunderheads who hadn't been capable of reading simple Queen's English and understanding basic concepts.

"Just, I'd rather you scuttled away a bit," I said with a grimace. "I don't know if it's going to blow or not, but..."

Emma looked torn. "It's a joint effort," she said in the end, "Let's finish it now." She lifted her wand, waved it while I still held the stirring spoon in my hands, and then tapped the side of the cauldron.

Pink smoke rose from the cauldron.

We both sighed in relief.

We bottled the results, labelled them with our name, and I found out that my potion partner's full name was Emma Vane. I furrowed my brows. I vaguely recalled a Vane somewhere, but in Gryffindor rather than in Hufflepuff.

I shrugged it off. It wasn't important, and I doubted we'd stick for long. She'd probably get a friendly Hufflepuff to help her next time around, and I'd get someone else or be left to brew by myself while three Hufflepuffs would work on a single cauldron.

It would be no skin off my teeth.

Now, with the free afternoon in front of me, I had a clear task ahead.

After lunch was over, I once more assaulted the gargoyle with my list of sweets.

Finally, there was a hiss and the gargoyle leaped aside.

Jelly Slugs.

The password was Jelly Slugs.

Now, it was time to end this once and for all.

I would do that which no self-respecting main protagonist would ever do.

I would let the wise, smart, intelligent Merlin-like character do his thing after delivering him all of the knowledge he needed. Like where the Horcruxes were, how cursed they were, how badly cursed they were and that no, he shouldn't put a cursed ring on his finger. Then I'd enjoy school life doing random things with magic and without having to worry about much more than flipping dung-bombs back at their original throwers.

Yes, I'd do that. The Weasley Twins would rue the day they set themselves against the likes of me. I'd Dung-Bomb them back into oblivion!

Thus I stepped right up the stairs and straight into Dumbledore's massive office.

The old, grey-bearded man was expecting me...

...but he was underestimating my power.