One thing that could be said of Miss Everett, reflected Harry after the second week of Snape's absence, was that she kept true to her word of giving them increasingly difficult potions. Only Hermione was still thriving, the blue and green streaks from the latest potion looking more like war-paint than the wounds they felt like to Harry. Miss Everett was still greatly preferable to Snape, but it would have been nice to go back to the Fortification potion again, even if it wasn't particularly interesting.

That was something new, he supposed, he was finding the more difficult potions interesting and found himself spacing out far less often as they lessons passed. It seemed as though Miss Everett were pulling the oddest and most unique potions she could think of from her bag of tricks, rather than ones that would be particularly practical in a real world setting, which Harry wasn't complaining about. She reminded him of Luna in a way, in that she seemed unfailingly kind but more than just a little bit odd in the span of a few minutes.

The last potion, for instance, was one that Harry had never heard of before. It was called Tadeas Tardi and its supposed effect was to make drinker of the potion perceive the world as having slowed down considerably. Harry wasn't sure what one would ever use it for besides maybe mid-quidditch game to get a better scan of the arena, or possibly mid-exam to get a bit more thinking time, but its methods of brewing were quite strange. For one, instead of the general few liters of boiling water that most potions started with, Tadeas Tardi began by emptying two bottles of Butterbeer into the cauldron and never letting the mixture get any hotter than a simmer. Additionally, it used a few ingredients that Harry had never used before, including a small berry that looked very similar to a blueberry, but that would bolt as far as it could when touched at all, leaving a bright blue streak behind it wherever it went and a plant that looked a little like a cross between spinach and pea pods that seemed to float about as if enchanted, but was not to be charmed at all lest its properties be marred and needed to be hand-crushed above the potion to release the necessary juices.

No one left the class without blue and green stripes all over their arms and hands, and Neville (who had only needed to stay in the infirmary overnight) and Crabbe both left with considerable blue on their faces as well.

"I'm not sure how much more of this I can take," complained Ron as he sank into one of the chairs before the fire in the Gryffindor common room and running a blue and green hand through his ginger hair.

"Are you saying you'd rather have Snape back?" asked Hermione, stretching out on the couch where Crookshanks, appearing from beneath the couch, promptly jumped upon her and curled up on her stomach.

"Merlin, no," replied Ron, alarmed that she would even say such a thing, "I just wish she'd tone it down a bit, you know. Give us a bit of a break."

"Maybe with the group project coming up, we'll better be able to split the work load," said Hermione.

"Wait, what group project?" asked Harry peering up at her.

"The group project next week," said Hermione, turning towards the boys. She looked from Harry's blank face to Ron's blank face and sighed. "Of course you don't know about the group project, don't either of you ever listen in class?"

"Not really," said Ron with a begrudging smile.

Hermione straightened up, startling Crookshanks from her, and started to explain. Apparently Miss Everett had announced at the end of last week that they were going to have an extended group project where they worked in pairs on a quite difficult and strange potion together. This potion would take several weeks and would require work done outside of class as well. "I do hope I'm paired with one of you two," said Hermione, "Or at least a Gryffindor. I'm not sure how much work I could expect a Slytherin to do on our project, and I don't want to do poorly because of their sour attitudes."

"She's got to pair us within house," said Harry, "Doesn't she?"

"Doubt it," said Ron sullenly, kicking at the air for emphasis, "She'd think it was hilarious to set us up at complete random or divide us all between houses or something."

Harry looked to Hermione for reassurance, but all she did was shrug. Harry always felt twice as nervous when Hermione didn't know the answer to something. He wasn't sure that he'd dislike being paired with a Slytherin as much as he once would have, the image of Malfoy's embarrassed face popping unbidden to his mind, but he also wasn't sure he was ready to completely bury the hatchet just yet. Of course he remembered all of the terrible things that Malfoy and his friends had done to them, remembered all of the terrible things they had called Hermione ...

But he knew that people could change, too.

The next potions classes started with a lot of grumbling as the students looked around the classroom and confirmed that at least they weren't the only ones who hadn't been able to get rid of the blue and green streaks that the ingredients from the Tadeas Tardi had left on them. Draco looked especially put out, though he had only a few blue streaks up his arms and green-stained hands. Any amount of stain upon him was apparently undignified.

"Oh!" exclaimed Miss Everett when she entered the classroom, "Perhaps I should have told you all that a bit of lemon and salted soda water will get those stains right out!"

The classmates looked at each other to commiserate in their teacher's absent minded-ness, Ron pulling a face at Harry, while she continued, "Today's lesson is going to focus on the healing properties of poison, and yes, you heard that correctly. Moonseed poison, in particular has been used in very small doses within other potions, such as the Water-breathing potion and even an earlier version of what's come to be known as Skelegro ... "

Harry's attention drifted and he found himself wishing there were windows in the dungeon that he could look out of. Even with the improvement of Miss Everett's décor, Harry found the dungeon quite boring. He ended up looking at a vase of flowers that was on the table next to his, inspecting the petals. In the center of the bouquet he spotted a pair of violets and Harry's mind went back to Malfoy smelling that violet absently over a week ago now and the soft smile that had played on his lips. He wondered what Malfoy had been thinking about when that small smile crept onto his face.

Ron nudged him and whispered, "What are you smiling about?"

It was only then that Harry realized that his face had molded into the same smile that Malfoy had had when smelling the violet. Harry shook his head quickly, smile dropping from his face but a slight heat raising in his cheeks and whispered, "Nothing."

"Would you two pay attention?" Hermione hissed, leaning towards them.

Ron sighed and turned to the front of the room where Miss Everett was rounding down the lesson. "As a reminder, make sure that you never touch the moonseed poison directly because as concentrated as it is, it will very likely bore a hole straight through you, and I can't really think of anything worse that that! With that in mind, does anyone have any questions before we begin? Okay, then I'd like you all to know that there are some timed bits in the process of this potion and a lot of fiddly little stirs, so I'll be walking around and handing out grades from the last assignment and your paper from last week, but pay attention to the potion first and foremost!" She rapped her wand twice on the bright green board and it turned to the original black that it had been, and then she said, "Begin!"

Harry looked at the blackboard somewhat perplexed, though the instructions were in the same handwriting as usual, they were much more extensive than he had ever seen before.

Ron was reading aloud beside him, "Stir twice counter clockwise, seventeen times clockwise, five times counter clockwise, pause for sixty seconds, and then seven times clockwise with a long-handled wooden spoon... how do you think they even figured out these numbers in the first place? This whole potion looks made up."

Even Hermione looked somewhat perplexed but was lighting the fire beneath her cauldron diligently, "No idea," she said in response to Ron, "But apparently it'll give us the Extended Memory potion, so I suppose we'll have to follow it to the letter." She sighed and plopped a spoonful of ashwinder scales into the potion, which then began to give off soft puffs of red smoke.

Harry got to work brewing his own potion, first adding the ashwinder scales and admiring the red smoke that rose from it, then adding four dried aconite blossoms which turned the potion a deep purple. He began the first strange set of stirs, and as he was keeping careful count, mused that there was something very therapeutic about potion-making when Snape wasn't breathing down his neck. He allowed himself to be lulled by the steady slosh of his potion and the deliberateness in which he was allowed to follow the directions. Harry didn't need to focus on anything else, all he needed to focus on was counting out this bit ... measuring this bit ... timing this bit ...

It was calming, almost, to pour all of his focus into just doing this.

And while that was true, Harry should have been paying perhaps just a bit more attention to what he was doing rather than focusing on the idea of making a potion, because as he reached the last step and grabbed for the tiny bottle of moonseed poison, he bumped it from his work station where it cracked upon the ground. Not thinking, he bent down to scoop it up. Fingers inches from the cracked bottle, globules of poison beading the edges, a hand on his arm pulled him back.

Harry would have expected Ron or Hermione or even Neville to have stopped him from his mistake, but all of them had turned to stare at him in alarm and confusion. Instead of any of them, Draco Malfoy's hand was on his arm. "What in Merlin's name are you doing, Potter?" said Malfoy, sounding alarmed rather than disdainful.

"I was just ..." Harry didn't now how to finish his sentence, though. The actual end of it, "Going to pick up the bottle" was stupid, because he knew now, thinking about it, that had he touched the bottle, the poison would have bored into his skin and he'd have had to spend quite a bit of time in the infirmary. "Thanks," he said quietly, embarrassed.

"Yeah," said Malfoy with a nod. It was then that they both became acutely aware that Malfoy's hands were still gripped tightly around Harry's forearm, where he'd pulled Harry back. His fingers, pale and stained blue and green from the last potion, contrasted oddly against Harry's own sun-tanned skin. Malfoy pulled away quickly and spat, "Be more careful," before turning and continuing on his trek to the cupboard in the corner of the room.

Harry's table was silent for a moment before Ron said, "What do you think's gotten into Malfoy? Do you reckon he wants something?"

"Ron that's terrible!" said Hermione, swatting at him, "He's just saved Harry!"

"Well, yeah," said Ron, "Obviously that's great but ... why'd he do it? I saw him there and figured he was going to push Harry into the poison if anything."

"I mean, it's lucky he did save me, I guess," said Harry running a hand through his hair.

"Even Malfoy's not that much of a prat," said Hermione, bending to put a portion of her potion in a vial for grading. She then added, "At least not anymore."

"You don't think so?" asked Ron.

Harry shook his head, "He seems less ... I don't know, malicious for sure without Snape here."

That seemed to settle the matter, but as Harry carefully finished his potion he couldn't help but remember the feeling of Malfoy's fingers wrapped around his arm, the way Malfoy's skin had felt on his. As they were leaving the classroom some minutes later, he could still feel them there and rubbed the thumb of his opposite hand over the spot, wondering absently why his chest felt so tight.


Look for the next chapter next Saturday and comment on what you think will happen next!