It had only been a few days since term had started and already the novelty of coming back to Hogwarts was wearing thin. Initially, the joy of being able to use magic again, of seeing friends, of meals taken in the Great Hall and evenings lounging in the common room, had made Harry feel lighter than air. The relief of being back where he belonged, and finally having everyone understand the truth, had been euphoric.
But now that elation had passed and the drag of day-to-day school life was returning in full force. None of the professors were wasting any time in setting long essays and complicated research projects, to be completed by the next day or else, and the thrill of last year's victory had been all but obscured by the rising tide of darkness as Voldemort gained power.
Even so, Harry was glad to be back. Better here at Hogwarts, here amongst friends and magic, within the familiar walls that were his one real home, than back with the Dursley's, minding his manners as best he could and trying to keep in touch by the slow means of Hedwig's regular flights to The Burrow.
Nevertheless, it was with mixed feelings that Harry hurried beside Ron down to the dungeons, all set to be late for his first and unexpected potions lesson. Though being unable to get a N.E.W.T in the subject had rather punctured his intended career path, it hadn't been without relief that Harry had given up on the subject with which he had struggled so painfully for the past five years. It had been nice to know that this year would provide fewer opportunities for humiliating failure.
"Sorry we're late, sir," Harry panted, arriving in the doorway only five minutes after he should have been there. "I didn't know I'd be taking potions this year, you see."
"Harry, my boy!" Professor Slughorn looked up, delighted. "No worries, no worries! Come and take a place. Always good to see you!"
Hermione beamed at the two boys from her otherwise empty table and gestured rapidly. With relief, Harry and Ron walked over to join her, taking up the stations on either side of her.
"You're late," she hissed. "Where were you?"
"Not taking potions, remember?" Harry whispered in reply. "Why didn't you tell me I would be able to carry on this year?"
Hermione rolled her eyes and smiled. "I don't know everything, you know."
At the front of the classroom, Slughorn was pacing up and down, studying his small class of N.E.W.T students with a good-tempered but patronising air.
"No, no, no," he said, jovially, "This won't do! Separating yourselves out into house groups like this! We'll have to mix it up a little."
The students looked blankly at one another. Mix it up? What was he talking about?
"You need to meet some new people," Slughorn smiled. "Make new friends. Encounter new ways of thinking. We can't have you always working with the same partners, can we?"
Hermione raised her hand tentatively.
"Yes!" Slughorn pointed at her. "You have a question?"
"Yes, sir," Hermione looked puzzled. "Isn't the whole point of the house system that we spend time surrounded by like-minded people, sir? Otherwise, why have the Sorting at all?"
"The Sorting is all very well," Slughorn answered, "but this is potions. It's about creativity! About new ideas! About discovering new thoughts! Besides, in times like these, surely inter-house cooperation and friendship is exactly what we should be encouraging. Wouldn't you agree, Miss…?"
"Granger," Hermione supplied. "Hermione Granger."
"Granger, Granger," Slughorn mused. "Any relation to Dagworth-Granger, the famous potioneer?"
"I doubt it," Hermione replied, honestly. "I'm muggle-born, you see."
Harry saw the thin-lipped smiles from the Slytherin table and his hands clenched into fists. No doubt they were expecting Slughorn to express the same preferential treatment to pure-bloods as they had come to expect from Snape. On the contrary, however, Slughorn looked delighted.
"O-ho!" he cried. "Harry, didn't you tell me about your muggle-born friend? The cleverest girl in the year, didn't you say? Is this the friend you spoke of?"
"Yes, sir," Harry said, startled.
"Oh, did you really say that?" Hermione whispered, grinning from ear to ear. "Oh, Harry!"
"Well, why wouldn't he?" Ron muttered, mutinously. "You are the cleverest girl in the year. I'd have said that if he asked me."
But Hermione shushed with a gesture and turned back, smiling, to face Slughorn again.
"No, no," Slughorn sighed, "much as I hate to tear you from your friends, I think it best if we try to overcome our prejudices in this classroom, hmm? So, let's see…Miss Granger…where shall we have you work?"
Harry watched, horrified, as the students were redistributed until, rather than people being conveniently separated into groups of their friends, nobody was at all happy with where they had ended up. Hermione was exiled to the far side of the room with a pretty Ravenclaw girl and a Slytherin boy, who regarded the pair of them with loathing. Ron was trapped with Blaise Zabini, and looking decidedly uncomfortable about it.
"And Mr Malfoy, why don't you come and work with Mr Potter for the time being?" Slughorn said, cheerfully. "Lovely!"
Malfoy – who, until now, had been flicking through his textbook with paying the slightest attention to proceedings – looked up in horror.
"What?" he said, sharply. "What are you talking about?"
"Come and work here," Slughorn repeated, patiently, "next to Mr Potter."
"Oh, no, sir," Harry said, quickly. "It's alright. We can stay where we are. Really…"
"Now, Mr Malfoy," Slughorn said, testily. "Really, Harry, I expected you of all people to appreciate an effort to rally forces inside our hallowed school. You in particular must know the value of cooperation, hmm?"
Harry fumbled helplessly for a suitable argument but there was nothing to say. With an expression that clearly voiced his opinion on the subject, Malfoy gathered up his things and slunk over to the empty station that, until recently, had been Hermione's. Unconsciously, Harry shuffled a few inches away from him, as far as the layout of the workbench would let him go.
"Make my life difficult," Malfoy hissed, "and you'll regret it, Potter."
Harry didn't reply. He was too busy sinking down into a personal spiral of gloom. Potions with Hermione there to help him and Ron beside him to do comparatively worse was a trial in itself. Potions in the constant company of Draco Malfoy who, quite aside from having proved himself unbearable in their years together, possessed an infuriating gift for the subject was likely to be unspeakably awful.
Slughorn was talking again, apparently unaware that his previously eager classroom was now regarding him with deep dislike and an inherent distrust of their neighbours.
"Now, can anybody tell me what this is?"
He gestured to a small cauldron sitting on his desk. If Harry stood on his tiptoes, he could just see the contents: a liquid of the most brilliant gold whose droplets occasionally leapt from the surface like fish before disappearing again. He'd never seen it before, but something about it was mesmerising.
As expected, Hermione's hand was first in the air. "It's Felix Felicis!"
Slughorn nodded approvingly. "Which is?"
"Liquid luck," Hermione said, excitably. "It's the most powerful luck potion known to wizardkind!"
"Precisely," Slughorn smiled. "Precisely. One drop of this and all your endeavours shall be fruitful. Just one drop, and nothing you attempt shall go wrong."
"Then why don't people drink it all the time?" demanded a dark-haired Slytherin girl. "If it's that good, why don't we just brew gallons of it?"
"Legality," Slughorn said, sadly. "It's a highly dangerous substance. Addictive. It'll destroy you if you take too much, have you thinking that you don't need oxygen to breathe, that fire won't burn you, that avada kedavra won't kill you. No, even a small dose has risk enough attached."
"Have you ever taken it?" a Ravenclaw asked, eagerly.
"Three times in my life," Slughorn nodded. "Three spoonfuls, taken with breakfast. Three perfect days."
He stared, misty-eyed, into the distance, as if looking back on some great endeavour that could never be described in words. Whether or not it was real – and Harry highly suspected it wasn't, given Slughorn's penchant for showmanship – the effect was good.
"And this," Slughorn appeared to shake himself from his reverie, "is what I'm offering as a prize in today's lesson. One bottle of Felix Felicis to whoever brews the best potion."
Harry stood up straight and, out of the corner of his eye, saw Malfoy do the same. Around the room, everyone's eyes were suddenly bright and alert. Everybody wanted some liquid luck. Everybody was prepared to fight for it.
"Today, we'll be brewing an Essence of Euphoria," Slughorn announced. "You'll find the recipe in your textbooks. Get going! May the best man win!"
There was a flurry of movement as students raced to unpack their things, flicking through their textbooks to find the relevant page. Harry raised his hand, alone in the chaos.
"Harry, my boy!" Slughorn boomed. "What can I do for you?"
"I didn't know I was taking this class," Harry apologised, "so I don't have any of the equipment."
"No matter," Slughorn waved this aside. "You can borrow whatever you need from my cupboard until you can get your own. There should be a few old copies of textbooks left behind in there too."
Harry gestured to Ron and they met at the supply cupboard. Ron looked disgruntled, shooting angry glances back at his own workbench.
"That bloody Zabini," he muttered. "Posing and twitching and making snide comments. I'll hex him if he's not careful."
"Well, don't do anything too stupid," Harry sighed. "At least you're not stuck with Malfoy."
"Hard luck," Ron patted him on the shoulder. "If he's any trouble, make like Mad-Eye Moody and turn him into a ferret."
For a moment, that familiar image made the two of them smile and the misery of the classes ahead of them seemed less of a problem. Reality returned swiftly when Harry opened the supply cupboard and they saw the two books waiting for them.
"Mine!" Ron shouted, snatching at them before Harry could make a move. "This one's mine!"
Harry groaned as he picked up the dog-eared copy that was left, holding it between finger and thumb. The cover was only half-attached, the binding broken.
"Really?" he complained. "Malfoy and a book that's been around since the sixth century?"
"Life's hard," Ron said, cheerfully. "Can't hang around. I want to win that potion!"
Wondering only vaguely what Ron could so desperately want a luck potion for, Harry carried his supplies and his battered textbook back to the workbench. Malfoy was already hard at work, chopping up roots with an expression of singular focus. Harry pulled a face at his bent head and opened the textbook, flicking through to find the recipe for Essence of Euphoria.
It didn't take him long to find out the true problem with his borrowed book. The previous owner had crammed the pages full of notes in near-illegible handwriting, crossing out the original recipes and scribbling his opinions in the margins. Harry strained his eyes trying to see past them, wishing a fiery death unto whoever had thought overwriting the instructions was a good idea.
"Having trouble, Potter?" Malfoy smirked, as his potion turned a perfect shade of violet. "What a shame."
"Shut up, Malfoy," Harry snapped.
"Touchy," Malfoy gave a relaxed sigh. "Is life getting stressful now for the Boy Who Lived?"
Harry snarled but ignored him, returning to deciphering the layers of ink in his textbook. His own potion bubbled ominously in his cauldron, an entirely different hue from the vibrant pink he was supposed to have achieved by this point. The next step had been scribbled out entirely, so thickly blocked that Harry had no hope of understanding it. Instead, the scribbler had written: Crush roots with flat of blade. Add juice and stir counter-clockwise.
With nothing else to do and no hope at all, Harry did exactly that. To his disbelief, the potion turned fuchsia. The more he stirred, the pinker it became. All his previous ill thoughts about the previous owner evaporated as he bent over, trying to figure out the handwriting.
When Slughorn eventually called for them to stop, Harry could barely hide his excitement. The professor made his slow way around the dungeon, nodding and occasionally making small comments. No potion appeared to more than reluctantly satisfy him until he came to Harry's cauldron. His face broke into a wide smile.
"Harry!" he declared. "This is perfect! The prescribed shade of indigo, the spiralling smoke, and…what's that I smell? Mint? A novel idea but an inspired one! That should counteract some of the nastier side effects. Everybody, take a look at Potter's cauldron, won't you? This is clearly the hallmark of natural talent. Just like your mother, eh, Potter?"
Harry suppressed a smile. "Thank you, sir."
"Well, the winner is clear," Slughorn announced. "Here you go, Harry, as promised. One bottle of Felix Felicis. Strictly banned from all examinations and sporting events, of course. Use it wisely, my boy."
"I will, sir."
Harry grasped the little glass vial tightly, unable to disguise his glee. He saw Ron's look of disbelief and Hermione's narrowed eyes but he didn't mind either of them. Beside him, Malfoy began to pack up with an expression of twisted fury. His own attempt had been rated merely "passable, passable".
"What's the matter, Malfoy?" Harry taunted. "Having trouble?"
Malfoy's lip curled. "How'd you do it, Potter? How'd you cheat?"
Harry laughed. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"We've been in the same potions class for five years," Malfoy snapped, "and you've never once brewed anything more than worthless gunge. So how did you cheat, Potter?"
"Maybe my natural ability suddenly surfaced?" Harry suggested, elated by his first ever potions success.
Malfoy cursed him under his breath and left the dungeon with the usual muttered insults about his family and his heritage. For once, Harry didn't care. Perhaps potions wasn't going to be so bad after all.
