2 – Puffskeins
Waking up and seeing the others already left, Louis stumbles out of bed and tries not to loose his balance for a few seconds.
Winning against the fuzzyness, he quickly makes himself look presentable and grabs his books to run to the kitchen where he kindly asks one of the house elves to give him a sandwich.
With that he makes his way to the potions classroom because being late on the first day isn’t something, Snape would approve.
Arriving at his seat next to Zayn and being completely out of breath, Louis takes his seat and smiles at his neighbour.
He must have been there just in time because when he turns his head to the front of the room he finds Snape starting to speak and giving him a slight side eye.
“Welcome to your sixth year of learning the art of brewing potions. Since you have had the last five years to work with your choice of partners, I think we should raise the difficulty a little.
That’s why you won’t be sitting where you are now. I expect you to prove that you can work professionally with each other. I will not tolerate any sort of complaints.”
Giving Zayn a quick sad look, Louis stands up and leaves to find his new place.
Arriving there, he nearly gets knocked over because of the person trying to sit down at the seat next to him.
Looking up in green eyes, he finds himself in that awkward position where he doesn’t know what to do and when the Gryffindor says “Oops!”, everything Louis can think of is a small “Hi?” which came out more like a question.
Blushing Louis sits down and tries to concentrate on the lesson without looking at the apparently very curly and kind of cute boy next to him.
He is really cute. And clumsy too. And curly.
Right, and hisnew potions partner.
Luckily at least his new potions partner paid attention and knows, they have to brew Amortentia which is quite a weird one for the first lesson of the year with Snape.
Louis even manages to speak normally with him which helps very much because at the end of the lesson Snape used their result as the example how the potion should look.
Apparently Amortentia smells different to every person so Louis is a bit curious about it.
He takes a discrete little sniff and is confused when he recognizes the aroma of grilled marshmallows and grass.
He can explain the marshmallows because grilling them at a small camp fire is his favourite thing to do with his family but the grass is a bit of a mystery.
Louis leaves as soon as the class is over to get some lunch after just having eaten the small sandwich this morning.
At the entry to the Great Hall he realizes that he forgot to introduce himself to his potions partner and therefore doesn’t know his name.
He must have appearedreally rude not even looking at him if he thinks about it.
Well, shit.Hopefully the “Hi, I’m Louis by the way. Sorry, I totally forgot to say that last time.” won’t be too weird.
^-^-^-^
Having finished his lunch and his inner little panic Louis has a bit more time until transfiguration would start so he decides to unpack his suitcase.
Fortunately he doesn’t have a pet to look after because it would probably be dead by now.
Honestly, how should he be able to take care of a creature when he can’t even organize his own life without nearly missing the first lesson of the year.
He did bring some books though and sits down to read for the thirty minutes he has left until his next class starts.
When he finishes his second chapter he looks at the time and has to leave in a rush again.
This time he can actually stay at his seat next to Zayn. After McGonagalls welcome-to-the-sixth-year-of-Hogwarts-speech they have to turn a frog into a plate and Louis surprisingly succeeds.
Well, his plate is a bit jumpy but it’s a plate. Zayn’s plate is more like a mug filled with god knows what kind of green glibber.
Louis looks in Niall’s direction to see if his hope for a bit of tutoring will be fulfilled and …
it probably won’t.
Considering the ceramic frog at Niall’s table shattering every time it jumps and being put together again afterwards, Louis should maybe tutor Niall, no offence.
Feeling slightly proud Louis continues to practise until the lesson ends.
When Louis is packing his notes, Niall approaches him from the side. “Hey mate! Long time no see.”
“Hey Niall, good to see you too.” Louis answers smiling at the Hufflepuff. “How’s your ceramic frog going?”
“Well, I managed to stop him from jumping and he is a bit more flat than in the beginning but honestly, how did you do so good?”
“I have no clue. I actually thought that you could give me a bit of tutoring this year but yeah, no.”
“Well, that would probably make it even worse. You could join me on my walk later though, I am going to visit Hagrids puffskeins with a few friends. You could bring one too if you want.” Niall suggests.
Louis doesn’t need to think about it and happily agrees. He needs Zayn to come though because he doesn’t want to explain that he is kind of lonely.
When Niall leaves he turns to Zayn and tries his best puppy-eyed look which worked really good at home but the other Slytherin looks a bit irritated by that. Giving up the mask Louis asks if he wants to join them and luckily Zayn agrees.
Walking to their meeting point Louis gives Zayn a short summary of how he met Niall and his destroyed hope for tutoring lessons for both of them after his observations today.
Arriving at the place they agreed to meet, well... Louis blushes. Again. Because of a certain curly boy he forgot to introduce himself to.
“Hey Louis, great that you decided to join us. These two are Liam and Harry.” Harry.
Both of them were Gryffindors and Louis recognized Liam as the team captain of their quidditch team. When he thinks about it, he did see Harry on some of the games too.
“Erm hi, this is Zayn and I’m Louis.” Wow how talented you are with having conversations. Not like Niall just said your name.
Not noticing his struggle or just hiding it well the others smile and they start walking towards Hagrids hut.
The weather is perfect for early September. It’s warm and the blue sky and the green landscape compliment the carefree atmosphere of a school year just having started.
And with Harry gushing about the cuteness of puffskeins Louis can’t not be endeared.
“How do you even know where Hagrid keeps them?” Louis couldn’t help to ask him.
“Oh, I help him with feeding them sometimes. They are so amazing and Hagrid even allowed me to name them.”
“Are they your favourite magical creature?”
“Oh yeah, Harry’s a cuddler, loves to go for the cute ones.” Niall chops in.
At that Harry blushes and refuses to admit his soft spot for the cute little fluffy balls.
“I love all of the creatures. Well, flubber worms are not quite my favourite but I respect them, very much so.”
All of them laugh at that and when they arrive at Hagrids hut, the professor for care of magical creatures greets all of them and it’s obvious that Harry is a regular visitor because he adds “Heya Harry, how’ve you been?”
Leading the group to the puffskeins the two of them exchange a few words about the summer and Harry tells Hagrid about his new pet at home, a knarl named Theodore which Louis finds ridiculous.
“You had the chance to name him Karl the knarl and you chose Theodore? That’s so disappointing.”
“It’s a totally appropriate name for a knarl, besides, I already have a niffler named Karl.”
“You do own a zoo at home, don’t you?” Louis asks.
“What’s a zoo?” is the answer of Harry and Niall.
“It’s the place where muggles go to watch animals.” Zayn replies.
“That’s so cool, like Newt Scamander’s suitcase.” Harry replied and because Louis doesn’t want to destroy the illusion he probably already painted in his mind, he just nods and smiles.
The puffskeins are kept in a cage at the edge of the forest. “Can you catch?” is Harry’s question directed at Louis and as he nods, there is a fluffy ball of fur flying at him.
He catches it and looks bewildered at Harry when the Gryffindor notices his irritation and explains that the creature likes being thrown around.
Weird stuff, but fluffy indeed.
After playing with them Harry feeds the puffskeins, which Louis learned are named Jeff, Josephine and Jacob, they slowly return into the castle.
Lying in his bed after the long day, Louis thinks about what happened and is quite content with his little new forming group of friends.
Then he remembers how he talked to Harry most of the time and at that thought, he smiles into his pillow.
He’s really a cute person. And nice. And the others are too, nice I mean.