The Boil Cure Potion

1st Year Assignment

Difficulty level: Beginner

Purpose: Cures boils

Final color: Blue

Ingredients:

- Dried nettles

- 6 snake fangs

- 4 horned slugs

- 2 porcupine quills

Rose handed all of the snake fangs to Scorpius and began chatting as he crushed the ingredients in a hefty mortar.

"You're Scorpius, right? My dad mentioned your name at the train station. I'm sorry I couldn't say hi yesterday after the Sorting and in our common room! All my cousins made our first night here more stressful than it had to be, I think. We'd see each other all the time before Hogwarts, so I don't get why they have to bug me so much on our first night. I didn't get to talk to anyone outside of my family. It's good that we have Potions class first thing on Mondays too; otherwise they'd still be attacking me right now. Maybe they're just worried since it's our first year..."

Scorpius glanced at Rose, noting her casual posture. "Um..." He tapped the pestle on the mortar's rim and carefully added one, two measures of the crushed powder into their shared cauldron. "It's okay, Rose. Nice to meet you." He added two more measures to the cauldron.

"Nice to meet you too," she beamed and examined the potion's instructions in her textbook. "I'm glad we get to be paired up together! Maybe we can sit together more in other classes too, now that we've met, because Al already made too many friends before we even got here and it's overwhelming and he won't be in all of our classes because he's not in Ravenclaw anyway and-" Rose paused her rapid speech to flick her wand. She heated the cauldron for 10 seconds while mouthing '10, 9, 8-', waving her wand over the mixture as she rounded her mouth. Scorpius simply watches her with a nervous smile.

"Zero!" Rose triumphantly returns his smile with a wide grin. "But yeah, I came to breakfast pretty early, so no first year Ravenclaws were around, and I told myself: 'Rose, you need to make a new friend today no matter what! I know you're excited and nervous, but do your best to stay calm! Then you'll definitely make one!' And you were the very first Ravenclaw I saw when I came into the classroom, and so here we are!" Her hand grandly presented their work table, knocking over some of their vials. Scorpius helped her straighten the mess. "Thanks, Scorp! Oh, wait! Sorry, I'm sorry, wait. Um, can I call you that? Sorry..." Rose's cheeks flushed with color.

Scorpius smiled and nodded in response, turning his attention back to the potion. In preparation for the next step, he laid the horned slugs next to the cauldron. "Um, well thanks for sitting by me. I didn't think anyone from Ravenclaw would, let alone you." He blushed, eyes avoiding Rose's.

"Hmm? What?" Rose leaned closer to him, lips puckering in confusion, and Scorpius' blush deepened. "What does that mean? Why wouldn't anyone sit next to you?"

"Well... I'm a Malfoy. People still don't like Malfoys very much... especially your family."

"Oh," She leaned back. Even though her lips relaxed, her brows quickly knit together. "Maybe? But I like you already. You're really friendly! Daddy said to beat you at every test, but now that we're in the same house, shouldn't I be supporting a fellow housemate instead? We're like, a team now. I don't really get it... but I guess I'm not a very competitive person to begin with."

"I mean, but the War... my parents..." Scorpius' sentence trailed off. How could he explain his family's dark history without scaring his new friend?

"Mmm yeah, I know a little about the history between our families..." Rose turned her head to observe the now simmering potion. "But mum explained why the War happened. Prejudices - mum taught me that word when she told me about this," Rose glanced back at Scorpius with another smile, proud that she learned such a complex concept. Scorpius returned it with understanding. "Prejudices should be all gone now, right? So... shouldn't it be okay to be friends with you now?" She rested her cheek on her propped-up hand.

Scorpius turned to face her, and his eyes met hers. "Yeah, you're right. As of now, we're officially friends, Rose! And we can sit together in all our classes." He looked away from her growing smile and checked the time, using the brief silence to gather his thoughts. "Since I'm in Ravenclaw now, I have to make friends too. Some of my childhood friends are in Slytherin, but, like you and your cousin, I won't get to see them as much in class..." He cleared his throat. "Um, I actually haven't gotten a lot of really mean stares yet, but still, I already hear them talking about my family. I think they just... don't know how to react to a Malfoy." He frowned at the cauldron and pursed his lips.

Scorpius silently added the horned slugs to the cauldron, and the mixture hissed faintly. When he didn't continue speaking, she broke the silence. "It was a nasty boil in history, but we're fixing it now, right? There's a fix for it after all. It's up to us now! Sounds exciting, right? It's almost like we're this era's heroes. Well, heroes in training." She used both her hands to heave the cauldron off of the fire. She reached for the porcupine quills, dropped them into the cauldron, and pointed at the stirring spoon next to Scorpius. Once he handed it over, she stirred the mixture five times clockwise. Scorpius picked up where she left off and waved his wand over the cauldron. He gasped at the pink smoke steadily rising from their concoction. "Wow, I guess we did it perfectly, Rose."

Rose also gasped. "We made the boil cure!" Her hand shot up in the air to catch their professor's attention, and his nod of approval was their signal to pour their first potion into vials. "I think we make a great team, Scorp! We can cure boils now. I'm sure we could do anything together." She surprised him with a sudden hug, but he responded by hugging back.

"Thanks. Thanks a lot, Rose."

"No, thank you! Really." Loosening her grip, Rose rewarded him a chaste peck on the cheek. Scorpius blushed again, but he held his new friend's gaze.

Harry Potter series owned by J.K. Rowling.