Stellarlune

His brilliant green eyes seemed dull, lifeless. My heart gave a pang. What I wouldn't give to see that smile of his one more time…

Those eyes that now stared from behind the too big glasses set on the sunken face, filled with pallor.

Slughorn peered into his potion, bending over and inhaling the fumes slightly. He stumbled a bit, as if shaken, but recovered quickly from the potion.

Even from all the way here, I could see that it perfectly matched the color described in the book.

A flyaway hair withered up and crumbled to ash with a faint sizzle as soon as it touched the surface of the opaque liquid.

"Ah, we have a winner!" He announced delightedly. "Look, class, how wonderfully Mr. Potter has followed the book's instructions! To the ‘t’!"

I watched him somewhat warily. My friend would have cheered. My best friend would have been happy at this one small accomplishment.

This Harry simply gazed dully at his Potions Master. But I didn't know who he was anymore. It wasn't fair to judge. Maybe he didn't either.

"That's not fair! You haven't even checked the others yet!" Somebody complained from the back of the class.

"Yes, yes, I shall." Slughorn agreed, "However, since Mr. Potter has already set the standard for the best potion, I will only be stopping at a potion with equal potency and accuracy."

There was a grumbled murmur of agreement.

He swept from potion to potion, occasionally looking at one or two closely, but never stopping. Mine didn't even earn a glance, colored as it was. I ignored the scathing look he gave me at the complete waste of ingredients.

The class slowly drew to a close. Only ten minutes until the bell.

He was almost done with all of the students, anyway. I leant back in my seat, rocking back my chair on its two back legs. Just two were left.

Slughorn walked past Luna. "Very good." He nodded appreciatively, face twisting in sympathy. "But not as good as Mr. Potter's."

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Harry measuring out his potion into a vial for grading, features expressionless and heart-wrenchingly blank. He had learned how to disguise vulnerabilities a bit too well.

Slughorn was bending over Malfoy's, obscuring my view. What color was it? I tilted my neck slightly to catch a glimpse.

"We have another winner!" He straightened up, striding to the front of the class, a clear vial in his hand; smile as fresh as a newborn babe's.

Didn't the war affect him at all?

Or maybe he was trying to be strong for our benefit. To put on a brave face for others. He certainly didn't look like it.

Collecting the vial from Harry, he held both out to the students. I looked from one to the other. Both were identical, the same smell of the fumes, even the same level of transparency. Who was going to get that tiny bottle of Felix?

Harry was scowling a little, his clear dislike for Malfoy showing on his face, while Malfoy had set his jaw decidedly, determinedly.

Almost the whole class was staring at Malfoy in incredulous fascination.

I think I was supposed to be the contender instead of Malfoy. But then again, I had always been shite at Potions then, hadn't I? 

I brought my attention back to Slughorn.

"Since the potions are so alike, we will have to test it on a practical subject. The potion which causes the greatest effect will receive the bottle of Felix Felicis."

I looked at Slughorn in amazement. Surely, he wasn't as heartless as to subject a living thing to whatever Star Glass was? Even after explicitly telling us how fatal it could be?

Apparently so. He carefully took out two tarantulas from a glass jar on the shelf, and placed them on the table. They skittered about, waving their hairy legs with nervousness, until he placed a temporary Immobilius charm on them.

I watched, half in fascination, half in horror, as two drops formed on the lips of the tilted vials, falling onto the tarantulas with a splash. They twitched and shuddered, finally succumbing to the potion's effects. I looked closer. The one on my left had fought quite valiantly before showing any effects of the potion. That was Harry's potion. Slower to take effect. Which meant…

"Mr. Malfoy here is the winner!"

He shuffled up to receive the vial, steps wary and hesitant, much to my chagrin. My teeth gnashing didn't have much effect either.

He didn't deserve that vial. Nobody looked toward the now still tarantulas on the desk. They weren't asleep. They were dead. Slughorn had overdosed them, and for what? For Malfoy to get his prize?  They were living things, capable of living their own lives without our interference, thank you very much.

The class ended, and the rest of my day was spent seething at the injustice.

The weeks passed in a blur, class after class after class and test after test to catch up on the vast amount of syllabus we all had missed. Through no fault of ours, might I add.

Quidditch was temporarily put on hold, and the uproar that had risen had been quickly stifled under the sheer pressure the teachers were putting the students under.

Dumbing us down.

That was the only term I could come up with for it.

I went through the day almost like a robot. And if that was me, I wonder what had become of Harry and Ron. They barely appeared in the Common room anymore, not even to ask me for help.

I gazed around at the now empty space, save for a few Second years in the far corner talking quietly, with its empty tables and empty sofas and couches.

I swiveled my eyes around one more time, catching wisps of memories that my imagination brought to life, shadows of people that had laughed, and lived, and loved, here.

The sight of Harry playing and tossing his new stolen snitch in the air, lazily throwing an arm out to catch it at the last second, stealing predictable and very obvious glances at the pouty ginger laughing with Angelina by the couches. And Ron, Ron playing with his chess pieces, frown present in place with a concentration uncannily similar to Arthur's.

Fred and George, huddled in the center of an ever growing group of first and second years surging around them to catch a glimpse of the new pranking material clutched tightly in Fred's hand, both twins winking and flirting and coaxing the students to test them out.

Katie Bell, curled around Lee like a giant boa constrictor in front of the fireplace, half whispering sweet nothings into his ear as she nuzzled his dark skin gently, fingers lovingly wound into his curly hair…

The memories abruptly vanished as I spotted someone leaning against the doorway.

"Hi, Hermione."

"Hey yourself."

"It's been a long time since we talked, hasn't it?"

"I'm not really in the mood for talking these days, Ginny."

The scar on her face rippled in the firelight as she started towards me, her red hair falling across her face. It was a cruel scar, winding down diagonally from her eyebrow, across her eye, all the way till her earlobe.

Harry had given it to her.

During the war.

He had used his wand to haphazardly cut the rotting skin off her face before the necrosis spell got to her brain, tears streaming down his cheeks as he sobbed and cried and begged Ginny to be okay.

As he cut into her skin with shaking hands, as he held her close, as he collapsed with her to his knees.

I'd had to patch her up. And as grateful as she was to me for saving her life, she never really forgave me for lacking the skill to do a better job of it. Lacking the skill to leave a lesser scar on her face.

Harry hadn't been able to look her in the eyes since.

"I can help," she tried,

I just shook my head, backing away and running out of the portrait hole. Fuck all this.

It was a few hours before rational thought chose to grace me with its presence.

'Look at the coveted Golden Girl,' I thought bitterly, 'moping and wallowing in her self-pity. Look at her…. running away."