The Potion Class
Hermione Granger was running late, which was unusual for the young witch. She was running through the corridors of the castle at such speed, that even the ghosts roaming around turned on themselves to see where she was headed with such a hurry. She was holding her bag with one hand and trying to fasten her cloak on her shoulders with the other, while trying to keep up her pace. In fact, Hermione was late to class, and that iwass something that never happened to her before. She woke up a few minutes ago, completely unaware that she had missed her alarm clock. She hadn’t had such a good night’s sleep in such a long time and woke up from such a deep slumber, that it didn’t even register to her that everybody else had already left for breakfast ages ago. When she realized that she was the only one left, she took the first school clothes she saw and rushed out of her dormitories to the Great Hall. But as she stepped inside it, only a few students were still lingering there with no hurry to go to class. So Hermione ran, ran like she did when she was in hiding during the war, as if she were chased by the snatchers, towards the potion classroom, as it was with potion class that she was starting her day. Hermione hated being late, had always hated it even as a child. She thought that punctuality was one of the keys in life, for success or respect. Everyone loved someone who was early, being late has always been looked down upon, so she vowed to always be early to everything. That was one of Hermione Granger’s rules. When she finally reached the dungeons of the castle she was well over 20 minutes late. Panting and red in the face, she knocked and was welcomed by Professor Slughorn’s face. As he recognized her, his worried expression turned to relief and a sigh escaped his mouth.
“ Oh Miss Granger, I was worried when you didn’t show up to class. Are you alright my dear ? ” Asked Slughorn, opening the door wider for her to enter.
“I’m so sorry for being late Professor, I …” Started Hermione, but Professor Slughorn interrupted her.
“It’s alright my dear, I’m just happy that you finally made it, go on take a seat we were about to start the potion.”
Hermione entered and noticed an empty seat near the back, but the table was only occupied by her fellow Slytherin classmates. She slowly approached the table and settled on her stool, only nodding her head to them. She took out her quill and a piece of parchment to write some things down, and then tried to concentrate on the black board at the front of the class. It was already full of information on the potion they were going to brew today. “Ius Visionis” otherwise known as The Elixir of Vision. She had heard many things about this potion, it was a very difficult one to make where precision and delicacy were the key to mastering it. It wasn’t normally a potion on the curriculum, but Professor Slughorn thought it to be a nice change for the 8th year students at Hogwarts. After everything they saw and lived, Slughorn deemed it necessary to move a few things around and let the students who fought in the war experience something out of the ordinary. This potion was very special, it was also often referred to as the Insight Liquid, or as The Sacred Eye Elixir. It wasn’t a very commonly used potion, because of what the drinker, or the consumer, will experience following its taking. It wasn’t exactly frowned upon, but it wasn’t one of the most popular potions among the magical community. Everything that had a tie with the theme of time was quite sensible, so a potion showing the consumer a glimpse of his or her potential future was quite a risky thing. But alas, Slughorn wanted to show them how to brew it, and every student who succeeded in brewing it, could have a taste, and a glimpse of what they one day will become.
“Of course, if you don’t want to take the potion, you are completely free to not take it. It is not compulsory, I won’t force anyone, you are free to do what you want with your vial once it is done.” Noted Professor Slughorn as he continued to write down the final steps of the instructions on the board. “Now it is a very tricky potion to make, please be very careful as you proceed, especially be careful with the heat of your cauldron and the amount of stears you are going to make. The elixir is very sensible to that. Now once you are done, the potion should be a light shimmering blue, and to test if it is right, you will just have to drop a flower petal. If the petal starts to shine, it means that it is ready to drink, now if it doesn’t shine, I advise you to not drink it, the consequences might be dreadful.” Continued the Professor handing each student some flower petals.
As Hermione started to work, she couldn’t help but to look around. It still felt very weird to her to attend classes without Harry and Ron. The three of them were given the opportunity to start a new life after the war, to start training to work for the ministry. It really was one of Hermione’s dreams, working at the Ministry of Magic, helping the community to grow from the horrors of the war and to help pass legislations in favor of ostracized and helpless magical creatures, but graduating from Hogwarts was for her the first step in all of this bigger dream. She wanted to complete her education, get her Diploma and only then, start her future career. Harry wanted to become an Auror, so this opportunity was perfect for him. He didn’t have to come back to Hogwarts where he fought and saw many of his friends and classmates die, he could finally get away from all of this trauma and move on to something he was passionate about. Ron never really liked school, what he liked were his friends and the adrenaline that came with adventures and fights, so he also decided to train to become an Auror. Both of them could finally think about something else and focus their energy on their training. Hermione was doing alright alone at Hogwarts. It allowed her to spend more time with other people, getting closer to some students such as Neville Longbottom or Hannah Abbot, and spend her time in the library or on the grounds without having the stress of a deadly adventure. Her 8th year was for a change pretty calm and uneventful, exactly what she had wished. After all, she never did have a quiet year at Hogwarts since she arrived. Not every student came back of course, some were still too scared or others like Harry and Ron were given new opportunities that they took. She was glad that Ginny came back for her 7th year, she didn’t feel so lost and alone with her by her side. Hermione and Ginny had even gotten closer since the beginning of the year, spending a lot of time together every evening, studying or just playing in the common room.
Coming out of her day dreaming, Hermione focused on her cauldron and started to work properly. As Professor Slughorn said, it was a tricky potion and she had to be alert and proceed carefully. Everything was going according to the instructions until she heard a bit of commotion from the other side of the table. The Slytherins were having a quiet argument on their side of the table, but it drew the attention of a few students around. It was Pansy Parkinson and Theodore Nott that were bickering again. These two had started a relationship at the beginning of the year but spent their time arguing over nonsense. Hermione didn’t really care about them, no one really did anymore. After all everyone’s been through, it was decided on common grounds to stop any house feuds and move on from old house prejudices. So every house tried to be nice to Slytherins and Slytherins behaved politely toward the other houses. The Slytherins present during the war became rather silent ever since they came back for their 8th year, they tried to be invisible and didn’t really interact with anyone, except a select few who did try to befriend other houses. Surprisingly, Theodore Nott was one of the first Slytherins to have a respectful and polite conversation with a Gryffindor. One afternoon, Theodore Nott was seen chatting with Neville Longbottom in one of the greenhouses after a herbology class. This was the talk of the school for approximately two weeks. But now Hermione was looking at Pansy and Theodore, hoping they would tune it down. She was trying very hard to maintain the potion at a certain heat, and only a moment of inattention could blow everything up. Then, she met the gaze of Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy had made himself very discreet since he came back. After all, he wasn’t the most welcomed Slytherin at Hogwarts after everything that happened. Most people still hated him, Hermione still very much disliked him, but she was still present during his trial in the summer to defend some of his actions during the war. Surprisingly, a few people defended him, and his 5 years sentence to Azkaban had been lifted, only magical community service was required of him for the next 3 years. When she met his gaze, she only rolled her eyes in the direction of the bickering couple next to him, and he nodded an annoyed look crossing his face when he watched his friends. But the argument continued, voices began to rise, alerting Slughorn. He started to advance toward their table, when Pansy abruptly stood and hit her boiling cauldron. She looked at it, suddenly standing still, scared that something might happen to her potion. Slughorn stopped in the middle of the alley, watching as the cauldron started to dangerously bubble. Everyone stopped what they were doing and watched carefully. Pansy and Theodore started to back away slowly as the potion started to emanate strange fumes, Hermione watched her eyebrows touching the roof of her forehead in anticipation and Draco Malfoy was slowly standing up from his stool, eyeing intently the dangerous cauldron in front of him. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, the potion started to erupt and a great part of it landed on the closest person to it. Draco Malfoy was soaked from head to toe in a nearly finished and well done Elixir of Vision.