Problems with potions
The next few days passed quietly, Sphotanna kept to herself mostly, still struggling to pay attention for a whole lesson and having respective problems with her homework. She spent most of her time outside in the outskirts of the forest, sometimes helping Hagrid with some injured animal or another. She got along very well with the gamekeeper.
She had also made a couple more friends outside the castle walls. A pair of squirrel siblings, Ciripi and Chirilla, had gotten rather taken with Sphotanna, accompanying her wherever she went outside. She had introduced them to Herenair and they had promptly climbed all over him, much to his disgruntled amusement.
Inside the castle it was rather different. In the few days Sphotanna had been at Hogwarts, more rumours had been spread about her than probably the rest of the school put together. Her slightly different appearance had called up thousands of theories about her origins and general personality. There had even been a rumour that she was actually hiding horns in her hair and had scales under her uniform. This was of course absolute nonsense; anyone could see that neither her face nor hands showed any sign of scales, fur or feathers, but this detail tended to be overlooked.
The fact that people had noticed that she spent most of her free time in the Forbidden Forest had not helped. Her frequent visits to the forest and its inhabitants also often led to her being late for class, which very much annoyed the teachers. Her lateness also secured her the place next to the hideous plant in Herbology on Wednesday morning, which at least made her concentrate solely on Professor Sprout again.
Sphotanna tried as best she could, but it didn't help. No matter how often she was reprimanded, once she was outside, she seemed to forget everything else until someone, usually Herenair, reminded her, which sent her tearing off towards the castle. The only positive thing was that she was finding her way around a lot better already.
On Thursday evening Sphotanna went to bed with a raging headache. The castle was so full of people, so many sounds and smells, it was all so confusing. Exciting as it was here, she definitely preferred a slightly more quiet place she thought as she tried to ignore the pounding in her head and get to sleep.
The next morning Sphotana overslept. Bigtime. She woke up as the door slammed behind one of her giggling dorm mates as they left for class. Uncurling from under the covers, she glanced at the alarm clock on Hermione's bedside table.
And leaped out of bed with a yell. Pulling her uniform on in record time, dragging her hairbrush roughly through her hair, she grabbed the black ribbon that was slung haphazardly around her bedpost.
The dark brown schoolbag bounced down the stairs in the girls wake as she pulled the long strands of her hair into a resemblance of the low ponytail she always wore and tried to wrap the ribbon around it.
Halfway down the marble staircase, her hair was finally somewhat tamed. She still looked more like the wild, animalistic child many called her behind her back, but she hoped it wasn't too bad.
Throwing herself onto a bench in the great hall, Sphotanna wolfed down a couple of sandwiches, not actually caring what she was shovelling into her mouth.
Swinging her bag back over her shoulder, she left the hall along with a couple of other stragglers, all of whom were rushing towards their classes.
Consulting her timetable in a corner of the Entrance Hall, Sphotanna saw that she had Potions for the first time today. Thankfully there were rooms listed with each class, though no map on how to find them. Potions seemed to be held in dungeon six.
Sphotanna had not been in the dungeons so far. Looking around the now deserted Entrance Hall she spotted a door to one side. She slipped through and found herself at the top of a dark winding staircase.
Jumping down the dizzying circles to the dark dungeon passage below, she looked down the long passageway that stretched away in both directions and could just see numerous other passages branching away in all directions.
Taking a deep breath through both her nose and mouth, Sphotanna could smell hundreds of different aromas clinging to the walls and floor; residues of students disturbing the otherwise still cold air. Just under the damp and paradoxly dry scent of the overall dungeon hung thousands of strange unknown essences, probably of some unknown potions, that had mingled together to form a powerful odour, that had Sphotanna coughing wildly.
Recovering from her hack-attack, and breathing very shallowly, Sphotanna moved off along the right passage, the one that seemed to be traversed more often, listening carefully for any sign of voices or movement.
Quite soon she heard footsteps and almost ran into someone rushing around the nearest corner. Stumbling backwards Sphotanna glanced quickly up into her assailants face before staring at her shoes, mumbling an apology.
She recognised the boy with dark blond hair from her classes, but couldn't think of his name. He was definitely Gryffindor though. The red and gold tie stated as much.
"I'm sorry!" The boy said with a distinct Irish accent. "You're a Gryffindor too, right? Do you know where the potions classroom is? I think I've gotten lost..." He looked rather sheepish.
Sphotanna shook her head silently, then paused, hearing a distant murmur of voices.
Putting her fingers to her lips to silence the boy now bemoaning the general situation and the trouble they would be in with the strict potions professor everyone talked about, Sphotanna strained to locate the voices echoing faintly down the corridor.
Grabbing hold of the boys hand she hurried down the left passage, towards the voices, the boy spluttering along behind her.
They hurried down the corridor, turned two more corners and found themselves standing in front of a solid wall, yet both of them could now hear the low chatter of voices on the other side as clearly as if they were stand right next to the speakers.
They stared at each other and the wall for a moment, confused. Suddenly Sphotanna remembered their first evening at Hogwarts, how the prefect showing them the way to Gryffindor tower had lead them through a seemingly solid wall much like this one.
Reaching tentatively towards the wall Sphotanna half expected her fingers to scrabble against the stone at any moment, but her hand passed right through the wall as if it wasn't there.
The boy whopped and jumped slightly, hurrying through the wall first. Sphotanna followed him and found herself in a corridor much like the one they had just left, except there was a door in front of them.
Apparently they had turned up a moment too late. The corridor was empty and the voices of their classmates were now coming from behind the closed door.
The boy was already opening the door a crack, waving at Sphotanna to hurry. They slipped inside and paused for a moment, looking around.
Most of the class were still settling down at the many tables, taking out their books and quills, peering into the cauldrons sitting between the desks.
The boy still standing next to Sphotanna waved at a dark skinned boy sitting on the other side of the room, next to the only two vacant seats left. He grinned back, teeth flashing through the gloom of the dungeon. Sphotanna recognised him too, vaguely remembering seeing both boys sitting together in classes and at mealtimes.
They flitted through the rows of desks to the two remaining empty ones and sat down side by side. As their Professor called the class to order with a distinctive snap in his voice the boy muttered, "Thanks" under his breath.
Sphotanna smiled at him shyly, then tried to concentrate on the Professor, who had started taking the register. The pain in her head was mounting again, making even listening to his soft, silky voice very difficult.
Never the less she picked up the name of the boy beside her; Seamus Finnigan, and the name of his friend; Dean Thomas.
When her own name was called Sphotanna barely managed to squeak a reply, which earned her a scathing look from Professor Snape.
He continued on down his list of names until he reached the very end, a certain Blaise Zabini and turned to face them properly, his dark eyes seeming to bore into each and every one of them.
Rubbing her temples in an attempt to ease the pain, Sphotanna tried to listen to Snape quizzing Harry Potter along with everyone else and would have been, even without her headache, unable to answer any of the questions, much like everyone else in the class, except Hermione Granger, who was jumping up and down in her seat in eagerness to answer.
After Harry had been unable to answer the impromptu quiz, Snape lectured them for a moment on each of the reagents mentioned and then snapped at them to copy his words down.
Sphotanna pulled out a roll of parchment, a bottle of dark green ink, her favourite colour, and the wonderful quill Rick Burns had gifted her, taking a moment to stroke the soft, white outer edge.
After writing down the questions and their respective answers, the class was told to spilt into pairs. This wasn't very difficult as everyone was already sitting at a table meant for two and any idea of swapping places was quenched immediately by Professor Snapes icy look.
Professor Snape tapped the black board and the instructions to making a 'simple solution' to cure boils appeared there. Sphotanna thought there was nothing what so ever 'simple' about it.
Seamus, who had paired with Sphotanna, learned within the first two minutes to double and triple check anything Sphotanna tried to prepare or add to their cauldron.
She was having a very hard time. She could hardly concentrate and her head was fit to bursting due to the many different smells and fumes wafting around them. The multiple fires around the room made her very edgy and she was having immense difficulty with the fiddly instructions.
What did it matter if something was cut up or ground or just thrown in the potion whole? Why did the number of stirs and their direction matter? Was it so horrendously bad if a little too much or not quite enough of something was added, as long as it went into the cauldron at all?
Professor Snape did not help matters. His constant stream of criticisms and snide remarks kept distracting her and confusing her even more.
Seamus was poking at the fire under their cauldron to keep it from going out when a loud hissing and copious amounts of acid green smoke billowed out of Neville and Dean's cauldron, which was right next to Sphotanna and Seamus's.
Seamus, startled by the botched potion seeping over his shoes and burning holes right through to his toes, gave their fire a hard jab, which caused the flames to explode outward, shooting towards Sphotanna.
Seamus could only watch in shock as the flames billowed towards his partner, who just stood there, rigid with shock, staring at the oncoming inferno like a deer caught in headlights.
Suddenly she screamed, not a human cry of fear, but an animalistic sound of pure, instinct altering panic. A sound none of the class had ever heard before.
Snape, who had just been sweeping towards a potion drenched Neville, whipped around just in time to see Sphotanna engulfed in angry red flames, still issuing from under their cauldron.
The whole class stared; transfixed with horror at the silhouette wreathed in flickering flames that was Sphotanna.
A moment later there was a blinding flash of grey and gold light and the fire around Sphotanna shot away from her in a great wave.
Everyone shrieked and ducked under tables or behind their cauldrons, everyone except for Professor Snape, who had conjured a momentary shield and was therefore privy to the sight of some sort of a shield made of grey-green energy expanding around the girl, pushing the fire away from her.
Just as Sphotanna collapsed Professor Snape performed several spells in quick succession, quenching the fire still billowing around the room, emptying all cauldrons still standing, cleaning the floor of spilled potion and mending several of the small holes in robes and shoes caused by said potion.
Dismissing the still very frightened class, most of whom scurried out of the dungeon in a rush, Snape dispatched Neville to the hospital wing with Dean to accompany him, then swept over to where a very disconcerted looking Seamus was crouching next to the unconscious Sphotanna.
Docking several points from Gryffindor for dawdling, which sent Seamus hurrying out of the door, Snape conjured a stretcher from thin air and levitated Sphotanna onto it, then marched out of his classroom to the adjacent office with the stretcher floating along behind him.
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