A/N: This is my first attempt at fan fiction... It's about James, having trouble in his first potions class.
James was in trouble. He looked down into the murky, gloopy depths of his cauldron, caught a whiff of the smell rising from it, and shuddered. It didn't look as if it would cure anything, let alone boils.
He looked around at the clutter of debris on his desk and wondered what he'd been doing wrong. The cauldron next to his was filled with a pale green mixture that was simmering gently.
Why wasn't his potion doing that?
The boy next to James sniffed, gagged, and moved his cauldron carefully away from James's. James grimaced, stuck up, snooty, what a git. Or not. The boy leant back over and whispered "Porcupine quills, not dried billywig fangs." And, with a slight grin on his face, he winked.
"Thanks" James muttered back, already searching through the clutter for the quills. He found them and plopped a couple into his cauldron. Looking over at the boy beside him, he picked up the glass stirrer and began stirring clockwise. No wait, counter-clockwise, one, two, three...
James stopped stirring, the colour of the potion had changed slightly, from murky brown to a slightly greener colour. Hmmm.
He picked up his potion book and thumbed through it to the back. There! Just what he needed, he looked down the table, to neutralise dried billywig stings you needed... Flobberworm mucus. He had that, didn't he?
No. He looked down at the splintered vial that had fallen off his desk at the start of the lesson, no flobberworm mucus. What now? Well he couldn't make it any worse.
James picked up a bottle of newt's eyes and tipped a couple into the cauldron. Plip, plip, plip.
The cauldron started hissing, and steam started boiling up in frantic clouds. The boy beside James moved even further away. James grabbed the stirrer and plunged it back in. Counter-clockwise, one, two, three, four, five...
The cauldron stopped hissing. James peered into the cauldron. Well, the potion wasn't a hideous brown anymore, no, now it was orange, that had to be better, didn't it?
He looked though his ingredients again. Peppermint, that was good for your teeth wasn't it? Would it be good for boils as well? James shredded a few leaves and threw them in. The orange became brighter.
At the front of the class old Professor Slughorn stood up. "That's your time for this lesson. Let me just check on how you've done then I'll let you be on your way."
James watched with trepidation as the Professor moved around the class, moving closer and closer to him and his cauldron. The pale green potion of the boy beside him earned an approving nod from Slughorn "Ahh yes, well done, well done, now what have we here?"
Slughorn peered down into James's cauldron, and, to everyone's surprise, let out a great, booming, belly-laugh "James, James, I said brew me a cure for boils, not a cure for baldness, still, it looks quite good for a first attempt..." His thick hand swooped up to rub the large expanse of clear scalp on top of his head "A very good attempt actually, I don't suppose, would you mind if I took some of your potion-" He realised what his hand was doing and pulled it away from his head "-for purely academic reasons, of course?"
James stifled a giggle. "Course not Professor."
"Excellent, excellent" mumbled Slughorn as he poured some of the mixture into a rather large vial he had removed from one of his pockets "A very good attempt my boy, I think you've earned yourself a good ten points for Gryffindor!"