Traitorous Love

When Professor Sprout had left, Elodie basically took over the lesson, helping anyone who asked. She had taken off her cloak and jumper, and her shirt sleeves were rolled up to her elbows. Her face and hands were coated in dirt, even though they hadn’t been working with much mud, so that was quite strange.

Despite being covered in dirt, and running around germinating so many different seeds, her throat probably feeling sore from saying the spell that many times, and showing people how to do it, she had a huge grin on her face, and looked as though there was nowhere she would rather be.

Ophelia and Adhara, on the other hand, were feeling completely different, trying as hard as they could to not touch anything, whilst chatting idly about their day, and the almost-fight that had just happened.
“That’s two fights in the first two days. And you were in one of them!” Ophelia exclaimed.
“Yeah, I know, it’s crazy. Imagine how exciting the rest of the year will be. Don’t you think he overreacted slightly, though? I mean, yeah the twins shouldn’t have done that, but he seemed overly protective of that other boy.” They both looked over at the boy, who was wrapping up some seeds, then glanced back at each other.

“We should go talk to him.” They said at the exact same time, and then burst out laughing at the coincidence. “Yeah, we should.” Adhara said, and they started to wander over to him.

“Hey. Are you okay? Sorry about the Carrow twins, we just wanted to let you know even though they’re in our house, we don’t think they’re at all nice from what we’ve seen of them.” Ophelia said, whilst Adhara nodded along, completely agreeing with her, and remembering the night before, when they had been flicking peas at people.

“It’s alright, it’s not at all your fault. I’m used to it by now, from primary school. That’s why Ben was so protective. I’m Elijah, by the way.” He said, seeming quite shy.
“I’m Adhara Black.”
“I’m Ophelia.” They were both wondering what a primary school was, but figured it must be a type of muggle school. Despite this meaning he can’t have been a pureblood, Adhara chose to ignore this fact, as it can’t matter that much if she spoke to him just once. It was just being polite.

“You both have very pretty names. I hope Ben won’t be in too much trouble. He’s my best friend.”
“Don’t worry, he probably won’t be. I didn’t get in much trouble after I completely beat up my brother, and I was completely in the wrong there, and it seems to me like Ben is in the right in this instance.” Adhara said, trying to smile comfortingly. She thought the sudden change in subject was strange, but let it lie.

“How did he know that spell? I’ve never heard it before.” Ophelia said.
“I think his brother taught it to him. He’s in fourth year here.” Elijah replied.
“That’s cool. I’d like to have an older sibling.” Ophelia said.
“Yeah. I only have an annoying little sister, back at home.”

Adhara grew bored of their conversation, and started to amble off, walking around the greenhouse. She looked at all the different plants, until one jumped out at her, like a jack-in-a-box, which set her heart off thumping wildly.

She heard an airy laugh behind her, and turned to see a girl with wavy, white-blonde hair reaching down to her waist. “That’s a skakajuca biljka. It’s from Bosnia. I saw them when I was younger. They were great fun to play with.” She said dreamily, blinking at Adhara with too-big blue eyes, tilting her head slightly.

“That’s interesting. When did you visit Bosnia?” Adhara asked politely, not really sure what to make of the girl. “My mother and father were researching the culture and magic there. It is very interesting. Lots of pink auras floating around, which was unusual.”

Adhara was very confused by now, but decided to just go with the girl’s strange words. “What is a more common colour for an aura?”

“It depends a lot on the area, actually. Yours, for example, is quite an interesting mix. A bit of green, but some slightly muddy shades are there too. Lots of blue, actually, and a considerable amount of red and orange. Hmmm, looks like there are a few spots of black there too...” She said, studying Adhara’s face intently. Feeling rather amused by her ‘aura reading,’ Adhara tried to stop the small side smile from appearing on her face

“Well, if I knew how to see them, I would tell you the colours of yours.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I already know mine.” She said smiling faintly, and drifted over to another Ravenclaw, who seemed to be quite frustrated with their seeds.

Everyone was getting on with the work quite well, considering there was no teacher there to control them, although it was quite loud. About 20 minutes after she had left, Professor Sprout came back. Slightly out of breath, she huffed, “Sorry about that first-years. Now, how is everybody getting on?”

There was a chorus of “Good” and “Okay”, and Professor Sprout carried on. “Good good. Now, we have about half an hour left, so just carry on with this, whilst I fill out some of these statements forms.”

After the class finished and they had been dismissed, they made their way back up the hill to the castle and into their dorm so Elodie could clean up a bit before potions. After she had scrubbed the dirt off her of her hands and arms, and changed her uniform, they came out the dorm, and sat in the common room, talking.

A small, elegant clock was sat on the coffee table next to the sofa that Adhara was sat on. She looked over at it, and saw it read 11:10. “We should probably get going. I’m not sure where the potions classrooms are, so we might take a while to find them. We probably should have left earlier actually.”

“Ok, yeah, let’s go.” Ophelia said, standing up, and offering her hand to Elodie. They all walked briskly out of the common room, and towards where they thought the classroom might be. It took them a while to find it, eventually a fifth year prefect directed them, and they were a few minutes late, but still one of the first to arrive.

“Ah, Adhara! How lovely of you to join us.” Professor Slughorn said jovially.
“Sorry we’re late, sir.” Adhara replied, smiling uncomfortably.
“No matter, no matter. I’m going to organize you in the groups of four you will work with for the rest of the year, so just go and stand at the back with the others.”

Adhara stood at the back, leaning against the cold stone wall, waiting for her brother to come in. She hoped they were in a group together, maybe with Elodie and Ophelia, but she doubted her luck was that good.

She was staring at the floor, until she heard two loud, excitable voices fill the corridor outside. One of them sounded distinctly like her idiot brother. He burst in with James, and Peter and Remus were following behind. He looked over at her, grinning widely, and she raised one arching eyebrow at him, but smiled softly back.

It should have been slightly concerning to her that he seemed to have made such good friends with James already, but she was just happy that he had settled in so well. Sirius walked over, and the other three boys followed behind. They started a game of footsie as more and more first years trickled in.

Sirius stamped on her foot, and she pulled it back, along with his foot on top of it, causing his leg to slip forwards, and his body to go crashing back into a desk behind him. Adhara’s hands flew up to her mouth in shock, but once she saw he was ok, they unsuccessfully tried to hide her laughs.

Sirius sat up, glaring, but also trying not to laugh. James was howling, slapping Remus’ arm, who looked a bit concerned, and was trying to edge away from James. Peter was clutching his stomach and silently laughing, which looked quite funny, and made Adhara laugh even harder.

Slughorn waddled over. “What’s all this commotion for? Come on, Mr Black, stand up, and stop being so ridiculous. Do you need to go to the hospital wing?” Sirius silently shook his head, still trying to contain his laughter. “Good. We will start now then I think, it looks as though nearly everyone is here.”

He walked back towards the front, and clapped his hands together. “Right then, I will be splitting you into groups of four that you will work with for the rest of the year. To promote house unity, each group will have at least one Slytherin and one Gryffindor student in each group.” There were some groans in response, but they were ignored.

He turned around to the blackboard behind him, and waved his wand over it. A plan view of the desks in the classrooms appeared, and names started to be scrawled in chalk where he tapped his wand. Once he had finished, he said “Right then, everyone, sit in the spaces I have assigned you.There will be no swapping, mind you.”

The students gathered around the board, as the professor eased himself back into the chair that was sat behind his desk. Adhara moved over, and being rather tall, she could see over most of the other student’s head.

She saw her name next to ‘Noah Brown’, who she was fairly certain was one of the boys in Slytherin. She walked over to her table, and sat in the correct seat. Lily Evans walked over, and beamed at her, sitting in the seat opposite. Adhara wasn’t about to turn around and suddenly start acting like a brat, so she smiled back. Besides, if they were to work together for the rest of the year, she’d have to get used to it.

James Potter dropped into the seat next to her also beamed, and Noah hesitantly walked over, smiling shyly as well. Adhara smiled back at them both, as Professor Slughorn started to talk again. “So, there’s about an hour and a half left of the lesson, so we can start brewing. Today we will be trying to make a Cure for Boils. We will be working on this for a few lessons, as most of you will not be able to brew this very easily.”

Adhara had watched her mother brew lots of potions over the years, and had had to take this one plenty of times before formal events if she had a pimple. Which she usually did, especially recently. Please get out your textbooks, cauldrons and wands. The instructions are on page 8 and 9. The ingredients are all in that cupboard, make sure to keep it nice and tidy. Off you go.”

Adhara sighed, and pushed herself out of her chair. “Right, so I’ll go get the ingredients, and Noah, can you please sort out the fires?” She said, not knowing whether James would know how to do that, as she wasn’t sure of his blood status, and knowing Lily probably could not.

She wandered over to the cupboard, waiting for the majority of the class to get their ingredients first, so it wasn’t too crowded in there. She walked in and crashed straight into Kingsley, who had given her his cloak before the Sorting ceremony. All the ingredients he had been holding fell out of his arms and onto the floor.

They both bent down to retrieve them, crashing their foreheads together. Straightening up, both clutching their heads, they apologized at the same time. “Sorry!” they both laughed, and Adhara felt her cheeks heat up. “I still have your cloak, by the way. Professor McGonagall dried it. I can give it back to you tonight, if you want? I will be going up to Gryffindor tower anyway.”

“Sure,” He said. “Do you want to take these ingredients? I can get more.”
“Oh! Yeah, thank you.” She said, bending down to pick them up before he could see her cheeks blush even redder. He turned around, and started reaching for more ingredients.

She spun around, and walked back towards her table, where all the cauldrons were successfully set up, and James was talked to Noah, whilst Lily read through the textbook’s instructions. They all looked up at Adhara when she came over and dumped the ingredients on the table.

Lily’s eyes narrowed and she looked suspicious of Adhara, who tried to keep her expression emotionless and blank until she looked away. Suddenly, they were all interrupted by a loud snore erupting from the professor, who’s head was rolled back, and his mouth opened slightly. Adhara blinked, shocked for a moment at the complete uselessness of the teacher, but she rolled her eyes and turned back to step one of the instructions.