The dungeon air was so full of smoke that a misty haze lay between every student and their textbook, making it very difficult to read even the simplest of instructions.
"Good heavens, Mr Pettigrew!" Professor Slughorn exclaimed, pausing behind a short boy, who appeared to be sweating profusely over what looked and smelt like a cauldron full of manure. "This is supposed to be the Draught of Living Death?"
The boy sniffed and glanced towards his textbook.
"I don…don't know what happened, sir," Pettigrew hung his head almost tearfully. "I just followed the instructions." Slughorn moved reluctantly closer to smell the foul smoke which the solid mass within the cauldron was emitting. He gave a gasp of horror.
"You didn't add the whole Sopophorous Bean, did you?" Pettigrew's face turned red and he immediately began rifling through his copy of Advanced Potion-Making. Slughorn threw his hands in the air in exasperation.
"Cut it dear boy, CUT it! How you ever managed to achieve an E at OWL will always be beyond me!" Two seats away, James Potter and Sirius Black smirked before turning their attention back to the two steaming cauldrons in front of them.
"How the hell are we supposed to get the juice of this bean?" Sirius complained as he mutilated yet another bean with his silver knife. James shrugged.
"Beats me," he replied as he added one tiny segment of the Sopophorous Bean to his cauldron. The blackcurrent mixture inside did not change colour and James groaned. "Ah well. Who needs a few drops of liquid luck anyway?" A loud bang sounded as the contents of Sirius's cauldron leapt into the air before splashing back down into the pot. Both boys began to laugh as Lupin emerged from the other side of Sirius, splattered with the purple potion.
"Shit, sorry Moony," Sirius laughed as Lupin waved his wand and attempted to clean the mess from his robes.
"How are we doing over here?" Slughorn called, as he made his way over to the other side of the dungeon. "Don't stir too vigorously, Longbottom. Smaller pieces, Miss McKinnon." Two students nodded and hurriedly tried to amend their potions.
In the far corner, one girl sitting at the front bench had the palest potion in the room, the exact shade of violet that the textbook described.
"Lily, how are you doing that?" The boy sitting at the next bench seemed to be very agitated and his greasy dark hair was tangled around his face. Lily glanced at him, blinking her green eyes slowly.
"So it's perfectly alright to speak to me civilly when you need help with potions?" she asked coldly. He looked away, embarrassed and she sighed. "Try crushing the Sopophorous Bean with the flat side of your knife." Within seconds, the boy's potion exactly resembled Lily's.
"Thanks," he muttered awkwardly, before turning to scribble in the margin of his textbook.
By the end of the lesson, most of the smoke in the dungeon had thickened and only a few benches were left breathing relatively fresh air. As Slughorn passed through the rows of ashen-faced students, some poking their cauldrons with their wands and some adding random ingredients to their mixtures to attempt to save their potions, there was an air of defeat amongst most of the Gryffindors and Slytherins. At the far bench however, Slughorn gave a sniff of approval.
"Promising Snape, promising but ideally that Draught of Living Death would have be a little clearer in order to claim the prize. I wonder if Miss Evans…"
Slughorn approached Lily's desk and out of the corner of his eye, Snape saw her add one last clockwise stir. As he consulted Advanced Potion-Making in confusion, Slughorn beamed at Lily as she confirmed his suspicions about which student had produced the best potion.
"The perfect potion!" he exclaimed, clapping his hands together. "That's a true talent you have, Miss Evans, a true talent. Here you are! One bottle of Felix Felicis, as promised. Use it well!"
Lily took the tiny glass bottle and smiled as placed it inside the pocket of her robes. Snape was still scribbling furiously in his textbook as everyone left the dungeon. Just before he stowed the book away in his bag, he wrote one last note at the foot of the page.
Draught of Living Death edited by the Half-Blood Prince & Princess
Snape lifted his wand and waved it over the final sentence until it vanished, invisible but forever present on the page.
Just a quick author's note! This one-shot is not meant to suggest that Lily came up with all the amendments to potions in the Half-Blood Prince's book but I just liked the idea that she might have contributed to one of them. Obviously Snape had already invented a lot of the Prince's stuff (spells etc) by the time he was doing his NEWTs but I thought that it would be great if Lily could inadvertently have given him improvements to a potion which even he had struggled to brew.
Also, I know that Lily isn't half-blood. I just wanted Snape to refer to her as his 'Princess'- just seemed to fit into his world anyway!
Thanks so much for reading and send me a review if you want!
xxx
El Leon Y La Oveja :)