CHAPTER SEVEN
ADELE P.O.V.
I woke up to the harsh sound of the dormitory door banging shut. I peeled my eyes open, and looked around blearily, shifting my weight and immediately regretting it. My body was sore, Snape had me scrub the entirety of the dungeon floor thrice over, after which he had a little surprise for me- Argus Filch!
The stupid caretaker made me rinse out pots that had previously been used for storing Salazar knows what in Herbology, and by the time I was finished it was already late, and I had had barely enough time to wash my pus-filled hands before crawling into bed and embracing the sweet oblivion of sleep.
I guess I couldn't complain, I had rendered two of my classmates unconscious.
There was nothing more I wanted than to turn over and go back to sleep, but there was a nagging feeling at the back of my mind that I just couldn't ignore. Cursing myself, I rolled over on my side and glanced at my alarm clock. If I had the energy to use my vocal chords, I would've screamed. Fortunately, my throat was sore, and all that came out of me was a pitiful croak- I was already five minutes late for Potions! My dear dorm mates had carefully left me here alone to rot, and I did not appreciate that. They would pay, sooner or later. But it was in my best interest to get out of bed first and not get killed by an angry Potions Master before I got the chance to torture Pansy Parkinson and her crew.
I leapt out of bed with the grace of a gazelle, to promptly trip over an opportune shoe and tumble to the ground. I picked myself of the wretched ground, and ran in and out of the bathroom in record time. I was never much of a hurried dresser, so I took a painfully long time in the bathroom, even then, with half my routine incomplete.
No doubt I looked a mess, but there was no time to ponder over such frivolities. I grabbed my satchel and ran out of the dorm, into the common room and up the stairs, out into the hallway. I ran like a madwoman, my cloak billowing behind me, and my hair tangled in the wind. I threw it into a messy braid as I tripped down the steps to the dungeon, throwing the doors open.
Everyone looked up from their cauldrons. Everyone, except Neville Longbottom.
He was peering into his cauldron, his brow furrowed, the smoke steaming out, an uncharacteristic baby pink. I gasped, identifying the steam and realised what it was.
"Everybody get down!" I yelled, scrambling to find shelter. Just as I predicted, the cauldron exploded, leaving globs of smelly magenta behind, and a significantly hairier Millicent Bullstrode, who hadn't the brain cells to comprehend the urgency in my voice.
As the class gazed at her, new tufts of coarse black hair, sprouted out of every visible patch of skin on her body.
Millicent's expression was a cross between horror and rage. I almost felt sorry for her, but she looked so comical I just couldn't help but start giggling.
Before anything rash could happen, Professor Severus Snape emerged from behind a suit of armour, his cape swishing magnificently behind him. Seamus was tasked with transferring Millicent and her rapidly lengthening tufts to the hospital wing. He looked quite disgruntled, but after a look from Snape, he shuffled off without so much as a word, escorting the hairy caterpillar out the door.
Snape turned his attention onto poor Neville, who was shivering behind his desk. Snape cuffed his ear. "Idiot boy! Never have I encountered in all my years of teaching a student whose mind works slower than a slug, incapable of even brewing herbal tea. Had it not been for Miss Zabini's timely interruption, your existence would be slime at the bottom of the desk you cower behind, that I would have had Filch dispose of. Fifty points from Gryffindor!"
He then turned his fury on me. I braced myself, waiting for the inevitable. "Fifty points to Slytherin for Miss Zabini's excellent deduction and prowess at identifying the dangers of the Fog of Ruin, and her opportune warning."
I gazed up, disbelieving. Had I just gotten out of this encounter completely unscathed?
The grumblings of the Gryffindors around me, I pulled myself up, hardly believing that I had gotten away with being late for Potions.
I made my way over to Draco and Blaise, the former looked up at me, the dark circles under his eyes accentuated by his pale skin. Snape had had an extra special punishment for the boys- scrubbing the Great Hall floors with their respective toothbrushes. He opened his mouth to say something, but Snape beat him to it.
"Today, we will not be working at our personal tables, but will be introduced to the concept of teamwork. Students will be divided into pairs...chosen by me. These pairs are to work together until I think it best not to continue with this method of instruction."
Here it was. My retribution.
"Ronald Weasley with Morag McDougall."
"Lavender Brown with Vincent Crabbe."
The names of my classmates soared over my head, and the only thought in my head was of Snape's punishment. He was sure to partner me with Harry.
"Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger." My head whipped around as I caught Draco's expression. As I had speculated, a slight tinge of pink touched his spectacularly high cheekbones, his grey eyes bright. A second later, his face metamorphosed to his regular expression of monotonous stone with a disdain for degenerates.
"Adele Zabini with.." I closed my eyes. I would just have to deal with the awkward tension between Harry and I.
"Dean Thomas."
What?
I looked up at Snape. His face looked like it had been carved out of marble, but I could make out the twitch of his thin lips and his coal black eyes glittering evilly.
"Harry Potter and Pansy Parkinson."
Oh hell no. Over my dead body would that vile seductress be partnered with dear, innocent Harry.
"Places, now. Move."
Gritting my teeth, I made my way over to Dean, lowering myself gingerly onto the seat beside him.
"Hi, Adele," came Dean's simpering voice. I smiled hesitantly at him.
"Today we will be brewing one of the most potent potions ever known to wizardry. Today, your task is to bring to me one phial of perfected Amortentia."
(A/N: I know Amortentia is only introduced later in the story due to the complexity of its nature, but it fit in well with the story over here :D)
I wanted to strangle a goose. Why was it always me?
"Ooh, the Love Potion babe. I think fate meant for us to brew it together, we're made for each other." I didn't even deign to reply.
"You have precisely one hour and forty five minutes. Begin."
I turned around to tell Dean to bring the ingredients, to see him staring at me. My expression must have been rather quizzical, because he felt it necessary to explain the reason for his open ogling. He smirked. "Babe, did you survive the Adava Kedavra curse, because you're drop-dead gorgeous."
I almost gagged. Did Dean Thomas just try hitting on me?
I decided I wanted to be as far away from him as possible, and muttered something unintelligible as I made my way to Snape's stores. I was so intent on getting away from Dean, that I stumbled on a loose floorboard and would have fallen onto the ground again had it not been for the pair of strong hands that clasped me around my waist and saved me from inevitable humiliation. I turned around to thank my saviour, only to meet a pair of brilliant green eyes.
My face turned the colour of my hair. "I'm so sorry," I apologised.
Harry just smiled, and gestured toward the open door of the cupboard that stored the ingredients. Like the gentleman he was, he was letting me go first.
"Oh no, you were here before me. Go ahead," I insisted. He turned around to collect his ingredients and I cursed myself silently for being such a reckless baboon.
Harry paused, looked down at his collection, then back up again. I noticed he had one ingredient missing.
"You need Ashwinder eggs," I whispered. "Here, let me." I reached over his shoulder, grabbing the tiny eggs, and placing them in his arms. I glanced up, and my breath caught in my throat. We were only a few centimetres apart. He was drawing me in, like a moth to a flame, and I couldn't help but watch him, frozen.
"What's taking so long?" Meddling Gryffindor that Lavender was, she had barged her way into the storeroom, impatient for her turn.
Stabbing her in my mind, I painfully turned away from Harry to collect my ingredients.
I walked over to the desk, and set the ingredients down. I turned to look at my book, to discern the exact time the potion had to be boiled for, when Dean Thomas came up to me and whispered in my ear. "I've been whomping my willow thinking about you."
I shuddered and threw him off. "Powder the moonstones. Now."
Dean meekly obeyed, and I could start getting the preparation for the potion started, finally.
It had only been a matter of minutes before he opened his mouth again, no doubt to spew more rubbish.
"Are you using the Confundus charm, or are you just naturally mind-blowing?"
"DEAN!"
"Alright, alright, powdering the moonstone. But.."
"No more, or I will hex you."
Apparently the foolish cow had no regard for my previous threat, as he shuffled toward me, invading all personal boundaries, making to put his arm around me. But this time, I was prepared.
I stabbed him with a rose thorn.
Dean squealed like a rutted pig. Snape was upon me in seconds.
"Miss Zabini! What is it now?"
"I might have accidentally cut him with a thorn, Professor. But its okay sir, if he would like to switch partners with someone, I'd be totally fine with it."
"NO!" Dean screeched, his voice reaching decibels even the Fat Lady could not produce. "I will endure, for the love I bear for her."
I sighed, burrowing my head in my hands. I looked up beseechingly at Snape, begging him to rid me of this torture.
"Very well, Mr. Thomas. You may continue."
I wanted to scream.
I gave a long-suffering moan. Nothing could be done now, we needed to finish the potion. I would not let my Potions grades drop for some maggot.
"Give me your wand, Dean. I'll need to stir the potion with it while reciting the spell."
"Of course my love, I'd let you handle my wand any time," he said, waggling his eyebrows at me.
I grabbed his wand, NOT THAT WAND, rather the nine-inch long wooden instrument he played with. ARGH, NO. I must stop digging myself into this deep, dark hole. I took his magical staff and started twirling it around the potion, intricately twining it within the potion's depths.
A smile wove its way into my face, Potions always managed to cheer me up. The almost-finished Amortentia started bubbling, there were hues of blue and green dancing in the calm red. There were a few more minutes until it gained its soft, mother-of-pearl sheen, and I still had to add the split rose thorns to it. Taking the thorns, I dropped them one by one into my cauldron, watching them fizzle away into the potion's deep mauve.
Finally, my efforts were rewarded, when the potion gave a last bubble, and turned to its characteristic sheen. Almost immediately Snape was next to me, patting me on the back, and praising me for my perfected Amortentia. The steam started rising in spirals from it, as I smiled and took a bow.
My good mood did not last for long, however, as Dean took the Amortentia in a vial, made to take it to Snape's desk, and instead manoeuvred to grab my chin and try to feed me the blasted thing.
Something snapped inside me, I had had enough of Dean Thomas. I was livid now, and nothing anybody said or did could turn me around. I kicked him in the groin, the vial dropping to the ground and shattering into a million crystals. My eyes must have been blazing, for Dean looked terrified, and tried to take a step back.
"You want to feed me love potion?" I growled. Dean shook his head pathetically.
"I'll teach you to want to feed me love potion!" I grabbed a mug lying unused on the cluttered desk, half-filled it with my Amortentia, and splashed the scalding hot liquid onto him.
Dean gasped and spluttered. Unfortunately, he swallowed some Amortentia before falling to the ground in pain. The last creature he viewed before collapsing was an unconcerned slug, nestled at the side of one of the legs of the table.
Immediately, I felt like a good-for-nothing scoundrel. The whole class was cheering, Snape had disappeared. I slowly walked up to the huddled mass of Dean on the floor, terrified of what I might find. "Uhh, Dean?" I poked him. This was apparently the wrong thing to do.
Dean leapt up with a yell, half his face burnt. He clutched his eye with one hand, and with the other he was gesticulating wildly.
"Oh my Salazar, Dean, I'm so so sorry!" I started saying, but he held no regard for me as he fell to the ground again, scrambling around, looking for something. I looked up with a puzzled expression at the whole class rolling around in laughter. Blaise was chortling, Draco was smirking, Hermione had shut her eyes in exasperation and Harry and Ron had fallen on top of each other in an undignified heap, laughing.
Dean had jumped up again, but now he was cradling something in his hand. Something that looked suspiciously like a slug.
"Hi there, my little flower. Henceforth I shall name you Belladonna, Belladonna the Radiant. For nothing can compare to your fair beauty. I must confess, my heart had beat for another, but now, looking upon your magnificence, I cannot help but fall prey to your beauty. Take me, Belladonna, for I am yours forever," he crooned to the slug.
The class roared. I approached him cautiously. "Dean, are you okay?"
He shoved me back. "Hands off! She's mine! I am going to announce it to the world and then no one can ever steal her from me again! I LOVE BELLADONNA.."
He was interrupted by the entrance of a very displeased Professor Snape.
Dean Thomas was carried to the hospital wing by four Hogwarts students, rid of the slug, crying over his broken heart all the way.
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