"Take your seats." Came the stern voice of the potions master, "I'm professor Snape, the Potions Master. This is a class I expect most of you to be utterly hopeless at, but still the effort must be made. Today as your first day you will be doing the most mundane and simple solution. I have a sample of it in front of the class room, who can tell me what it is?"
Lizzney felt a rush of air in front of her as she saw the hand of an extremely ugly bushy haired girl shoot in the air. Snape surveyed the room looking for any other volunteers, but eventually had to call upon the girl. Peering at his roster he said,
"Miss Granger?"
"The dull gray color suggests that leech juice was used, therefore it could be a number of potions, but it is bubbling and hissing at intervals of three beats a second narrowing it down to only two possible potions: a common place health tonic, or the more complex skin softener. But given we're only first years it is common sense that it is the health tonic which only requires five ingredients, and simple to produce."
Snape narrowed his eyes,
"I merely asked for what the potion was, not the whole paragraph on how to classify potions."
The Slytherins all snickered silently, watching Granger slowly sinking back into her seat. The students all began to assemble their ingredients and opened their copies of Beginner's Potion Making. Crystalline scanned the instructions, as she prepped her somewhat graying cauldron. Lizzney stood up her gleaming black cauldron, and turning to Crystalline she said,
"We'll show that Granger up." Crystalline nodded. She measured out her ingredients extremely carefully, and laid them all out before her before beginning the actual potion making. Meanwhile all the other children had already started to make the potion and were adding the ingredients and cutting them up along the way. But Crystalline knew that, that would make the potion sit too long and become weaker. Lizzney was also laying out her ingredients beforehand. Glancing over at Crystalline she smiled,
"I think we're the only ones with any true sense." Crystalline nodded as she filled her cauldron exactly half way with leech juice. It was sticky black, and nauseatingly odorous. The whole room smelled of the foul juice. Then taking ¼ cup of sand grown lemon grass, she dumped into her cauldron in one quick motion. The book read, "The force at which the lemon grass is added, determines the longevity of the potion." She stirred the contents in her cauldron three times clockwise, and a quarter of the way counter clockwise, watching as her potion turned from black to a murky brown. Lizzney grinned at her,
"Look how dull our potions are. Granger's is still light brown." Crystalline felt satisfaction at how well she was doing her potion. Letting a pinch of bowtruckle droppings sprinkle into her potion she said,
"Well, it's a good thing we're here then, because no one else has gotten to a color any shade of brown other than us and Granger." Crystalline was completely honest in saying this, for looking about the room all the students seemed to have stubbornly black potions, except for a chubby faced boy whose potion had turned the color of vomit orange.
"Longbottom." Came the cold drawl of Snape, "Did you not read your instructions? It clearly states that you use sand grown lemon grass, not soil raised. Idiot boy. Ten points from Gryffindor."
Longbottom let out a desperate sigh, he seemed utterly hopeless at potions, for only two minutes after Snape left him, the contents of his potion let out one large hiss and completely dried out coating his whole cauldron in stiff cement like substance.
Observing the proceedings, Crystalline couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt, it wasn't his fault he was so abysmal. Nonetheless she continued by adding her last ingredient: three drops of beetle juice. Her potion began to bubble accordingly as she gave it small jabs with her wand. Finally it began to bubble and hiss at three beats per second, exactly the moment when Lizzney's began. The girls both took out phials and filled them with their potions. They brought them up to the front of the room where Snape stood. Granger also followed suit a few short moments after. Snape took the potions and examined them. Opening Crystalline's phial he put a drop on his finger to feel the thick liquid texture.
"Twenty points to Slytherin for an O potion." He examined Lizzney's next,
"It would appear my Slytherin's have an aptitude for potion making, twenty more points." He then opened Granger's flask, sniffing it gingerly he said,
"It looks more silvery than gray, and liquid than thick. This would indicate you over stirred your potion." There was an outraged muttering amongst the Gryffindor's who felt certain; Granger's potion was practically perfection.
"Silence." Whispered Snape in a dangerous voice, "I grade the potions as I see fit… and I don't see it fit for you to argue this." The Gryffindors turned their mouths down in silent pouts, as the Slytherins smiled.
"You are dismissed, for homework I'd like a summary of the first three chapters of your text books."
Lizzney and Crystalline exited the class giggling,
"We are like the perfect team…. And did you see Granger's ugly face?" Crystalline nodded. She felt so confident, until she ran straight into Goyle. Draco Malfoy turned about and gave Crystalline a look of deep hatred,
"You filthy animal, find another route to class."