Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 11

When Slughorn gave us the word, we all immediately delved into our books and began to read quickly through the instructions of the potion. From what I could tell, it was a fairly advanced potion, but I felt confident that I could do it - after all, I'd never had a potion before that I couldn't make accurately.

Beside me I could see Hermione frantically going through the ingredients and chopping them up like she was in some sort of race. In a way, I guess that we were, but it didn't really seem to be that big of a deal to me. Maybe it was just Hermione trying to impress the teacher on his first day here, it was hard to tell what exactly her motivation was. Then again, it was Hermione and she did tend to overdo things when it came to her class work.

Hermione was the first to get to work, but I was a close second as I began to go through the first steps of the instructions. It took a moment for everyone else to follow suit, but after some shifting eyes everyone started their potions.

"This is going to be dreadful," Ron mumbled from behind me.

"You're telling me," Harry mumbled. "At least you can read out of your book. Mine has scribbles all over it…"

It seemed to take forever, but my potion eventually began to resemble what it was supposed to in the end. I glanced around nervously to see if Hermione's looked any better than mine, but hers looked more purple than pink like mine did. The only concern that I had with mine was that it wasn't really that pale of a pink like the book suggested it would be. Maybe it was because I hadn't gotten enough juice out of the Sopophorous Bean, but those were known to be difficult with potions, so I tried not to think too much into it.

"Okay - time's up!" Slughorn announced just as I looked up at the clock to see that our time in class was coming to an end.

Hermione let out a sigh and looked over at my cauldron with envy. She knew that my potion was closer, but this didn't give me any relief as Slughorn came over to observe my pink potion that I hardly considered an accomplishment. Never before had I not completed a potion with perfection and this bothered me more than I liked to admit.

"Excellent job, Miss Potter - this one could win," Slughorn praised me.

He smiled at me as he moved to the row behind me where Harry and Ron were sitting. When I turned around, I could tell that Ron's wasn't even remotely close to what the potion should look like, but it didn't really seem to bother him in the slightest. When Slughorn looked down at his cauldron, his eyebrow raised and he only looked at Ron without being able to find words.

"I think I did something wrong," Ron admitted awkwardly.

"I don't believe I'll argue with that statement," Slughorn mumbled as he moved in front of Harry's cauldron.

When I saw the cauldron in front of my brother, I only had a moment of shock to see that Harry's potion matched the color that was described in the book before Slughorn opened his mouth.

"I believe we have a winner," Slughorn smiled. "Congratulations Mr. Potter!"

I don't know whose jaw dropped faster - Hermione's or mine. Harry stared at us both with a smirk on his face and I felt like we were in some sort of alternate universe. Not to sound cocky - even though it really does sound like it - but I had always done so much better than Harry and it had never occurred to me that Harry could have out-brewed Hermione and me.

The entire class watched in disbelief and envy as Slughorn took the small, golden vial from his desk and handed it over to Harry. He had done it - he won the liquid luck.

"How did you do it?" I asked Harry as soon as we stepped out of the room.

"I guess you can say I'm lucky," Harry smirked as he waved his prize in front of my face.

"I'm serious Harry," I said. "You've always been dreadful at Potions - no offense."

"Maybe it wasn't me," Harry said. "Maybe Snape was just a bad teacher and that Slughorn knows what he's doing."

"What are you talking about?" I asked defensively. "Slughorn hasn't even taught us anything!"

Something didn't add up. Harry wasn't good at potions - I wasn't trying to be mean, but it's a fact. This sudden change in his performance couldn't have just been a coincidence...or was it? Had Snape been so negative toward Harry in the past years that it effected his work? It didn't seem right, but what else could have caused a change like this? I didn't know what it was, but there was something odd about the victorious face of my brother as he clutched onto battered potions book and his newest potion.

Before dinner a couple days later, I was sitting in the common room finishing up the last of a short essay for Charms when I heard a pecking on the window outside. Ron jumped up first and walked over the window so he could let in a very odd looking owl that I recognized to be George's - he had just bought it before we went to the burrow. Clutched in the large, brown and white spotted owl's foot was a rolled up letter that Ron pried from him.

"Oh - it's for you," Ron said as he tossed the letter over to where I was sitting.

"Thanks," I said as I opened up the letter with excitement.

Emily,

I thought you said you would write to me! I'm only joking - I don't doubt that you're busy at Hogwarts. How's the old castle holding up anyway? It feels like it's been centuries since I've seen it last. And what about that new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor - Slughorn, I believe you said his name was. Has he sprouted any fangs yet?

Things back home have slowed down a lot now that school is in session. It's kind of depressing that we're able to walk through our shop properly now, but there are still a few people that come in every now and then. I suspect that things will pick up as soon as there's a holiday at Hogwarts.

Oh, I should probably tell you that Fred found out that we had sex - and by found out, I mean that I sort of told him. He kept asking me what was wrong with me because I looked "happier than usual" and I told him what happened. He doesn't believe me though, he said that I probably dreamed it all up. He informed me that I wasn't allowed to have sex before he did because he's under the impression that he's the attractive one (he wishes). Oh, and he's been yelling at me for the past couple of minutes for me to say hi for him - so Fred says hello.

Well, we're about to go over to Mum and Dad's for lunch, so I guess that I should wrap this up before Fred starts eating his desk.

Miss you and love you very much,

George

"Judging by the ridiculous grin on your face, I'm just going to assume that was from George," Harry said.

"Quiet you," I scolded him.

He laughed and handed me some spare parchment that he had so I could respond to his letter. Trying to make sure I didn't have a 'ridiculous grin' on my face, I began writing.

George,

Don't you scold me - school has only been going on for a couple of days! Regardless, it still feels different without you here and I miss you very much too. I can hardly wait for the holidays!

I'm sorry to hear that things have been going so slow at the shop, but you're right in thinking that things will pick right back up when the holidays start. People here absolutely love Weasley Wizard Wheezes - I've already seen a handful of people use your products today (much to Professor McGonagall's annoyance).

On the subject of Slughorn, here's the shock - he isn't our Defense Against the Dark Art professor. Dumbledore didn't tell Harry and me that we were trying to get him to fill the Potions position which means that Snape finally got the job that he's always wanted. To be honest, I'm not really sure I'm going to like this. I don't know why, but I liked Snape as the Potions professor and I feel almost like I'm lost now that he's not there anymore, do you get what I mean? And Harry's already gotten detention from Snape because of the lesson we had today. We were trying to do non-verbal spells and Snape brought me to the front and I wasn't able to block the spell that he sent at me and everyone thinks that he was trying to hurt me on purpose...do you think that's true?

Tell Fred I said hey and it's okay that you told him, just make sure he doesn't talk about around your mother or Harry for that matter - seriously, I think their wrath would kill us. Hermione found out too and she completely guessed. I think she noticed as soon I came back into her bedroom that morning that something was up - I guess I'm just not good at keeping secrets from her.

Much, much love,

Emily

P.S. Oh, and this is to Fred: he's telling the truth.

I rolled up the parchment and handed it over to the owl that I pet before it flew out of the window and off toward Diagon Alley where my boyfriend and his brother awaited the customers that came from all around. When I looked back around at everyone, I noticed what Harry was holding in his hand - it was the small vial of liquid luck that he won earlier that day. When he noticed that I was watching him, a smirk appeared on his face.

"Jealous?" he asked.

"I just don't understand how you did it," I admitted.

"Wow, I'm so glad to hear that my sister has such confidence in me," Harry muttered sarcastically.

"Harry, you know that I don't think you're dumb," I told him. "It's just that you've never really excelled in Potions and now all of a sudden you're the best in class."

"It was just one time," Harry pointed out.

"You have to admit that it's odd," Ron spoke up. "You were dreadful last year when Snape was in charge."

"Maybe this year is my year," he shrugged.

I rolled my eyes and got up to go to the Great Hall with Hermione while Ron and Harry stayed back to talk to a person interested in Quidditch this year. The only thing on my mind at the time was Harry's latest achievement. Although I should be proud of him for doing so well - and I was proud - I just couldn't wrap my head around what happened.

Harry had always been awful in Potions and now I was beginning to question why. Was it really just a coincidence that he made a perfect potion in class now that we had a new teacher or was it just that Snape had been too hard on him before?

As we grew closer to the Great Hall, I found Snape lerking around in the halls of the second floor. Hermione didn't seem to notice as she chatted away about what she think she did wrong with her potion and how she feels about Slughorn's teaching, but my attention was focused on the newly named Defense Against the Dark Arts professor whose dark eyes just met mine. There was a small, hardly noticeable twitch of his eye when he saw me and he quickly went back to pacing around like he had before he saw us.

"Emily - are you listening?" Hermione asked.

"Oh, er - yeah," I said quickly. "You were talking about Slughorn."

"I just don't know if his methods are the best," she continued. "Bribing the students with rewards for completing assignments is not the proper thing to do."

"Hermione, I know for a fact that you wanted that potion just as much as everyone else," I said while my eyes flickered over to Snape again.

"I know," she admitted. "It would have been nice to have won...I just wish that I knew how Harry did it."

"I'm going to get back to you on that," I finally said. "I'll meet you in the Great Hall in a minute."

She raised an eyebrow, but I ignored her curiosity as I walked over to Snape who appeared to be acting as though he couldn't see me approaching him.

"I have to ask you something," I informed him without any sort of introduction.

He turned to me and didn't give a verbal response, but his nearly blank expression suggested that I should continue on with what I came over to him to ask.

"Did you fail Harry on purpose when you taught him?" I asked.

For a moment he just blankly stared at me and then he slowly raised an eyebrow and looked mildly irritated and somewhat amused.

"As much as I would like to take credit in Mr. Potter's misfortune," Snape answered. "I can assure you that he failed my course on his own. Why do you ask?"

"He seems to feel that you were not completely fair while teaching him," I explained. "That and he made a better potion than me a couple days ago..."

Maybe it was wrong that I couldn't get my mind off of the fact that Harry beat me at making a potion, but the thought just wouldn't go away. For a moment, I saw a look of surprise on Snape's face, but he quickly masked it with a blank look.

"Perhaps he discovered how to read instructions this summer," Snape suggested. "Unless of course he decided to cheat."

"How could he have cheated?" I asked.

"It runs in his genes," Snape said bluntly.

"My father didn't cheat," I replied quickly.

"Really, did he tell you that himself?" Snape said coldly.

My heart sank as he stared coldly at me and I had trouble coming up with any sort of retort for a moment. Snape had never thrown my parents' death in my face and this had come out of nowhere.

"You know as well as I do that I never spoke to my parents." I croaked. "But that gives you no right to talk poorly of them."

"I don't believe that you have the authority to tell me what I can and cannot do, Miss Potter," Snape retorted.

"I don't need to have any authority to tell when someone's being a complete ass," I retorted far too quickly.

"Detention - for a week," Snape spat. "Now get out of my sight - I have more important things to do than listen to your complaining, girl."

His eyes were locked on mine with a glare and I felt like he had just smacked me across my face. Never before had Snape spoken down to me in this way and it made my stomach feel like it was in a knot. For a moment, I felt like I could have just burst into tears, but I restrained myself enough to speak a few words.

"Fine," I spoke softly. "If that's how you want it."

I turned around and refused to look back at him. As I turned the corner, I started to hear his footsteps walking in the other direction and I began to have flashes of Snape hitting me with that spell on the first day of class. I felt my throat constricting as I realized that Harry might have been right - maybe Snape really was trying to attack me. But why? What had changed over the summer that made him bitter toward me?

"Emily?"

I jumped and turned around to see Neville walking toward me. When he saw me, he suddenly looked confused and rushed over to me.

"Are you crying - what's wrong?" he asked quickly.

"I-it's nothing," I stammered as I wiped my eyes dry.

"What happened?" he insisted as he sat me down on a bench that sat in the hallway.

"It was Snape," I said as another year rolled down my face.

"What did he do?" Neville asked as he sat next to me.

"Something is wrong Neville," I responded softly. "He's never spoken to me like that."

"What did he say?" he continued.

"It wasn't even what he said as much as how he said it," I murmured. "He was talking to me like I was something that he found in the garbage."

"In other words, he was treating you like every other student at Hogwarts," Neville said with a small laugh.

"You have a point," I laughed as I wiped a few more tears from my cheeks.

"But I guess that is rather odd since you too get on pretty well," Neville shrugged. "I don't know, maybe he's just having a bad day or something."

I nodded and tried to imagine that what he was saying was true. Something told me that there was another issue, but I couldn't tell at the moment and I guess that there wasn't any use in letting it bother me to the point I couldn't think straight.

"Come on, let's go to the Great Hall before Harry finds you like this," Neville said. "I don't think that it would look good to hear that Harry Potter murdered a teacher at Hogwarts for making his sister cry."

I laughed and he helped me stand up as we walked toward the Great Hall where I had been going in the first place. Remembering this, I thought about how Hermione must be wondering what was taking me so long to get there. Just as I suspected, she was sitting at the Gryffindor table looking nervously around the room until she spotted me walking in with Neville.

"There you are," Hermione sighed as we sat down with her. "I was about to go looking for you."

"I just...got caught up with something," I said as I avoided her eyes.

"Are you okay?" Hermione asked. "Your eyes are all puffy - have you been crying? Emily, what happened?"

"Nothing," I bluntly said. "I just don't want to talk about it right now, okay?"

She nodded and attempted to look sympathetic, but as soon as she thought I wasn't looking I noticed her eyeing Neville as if to say he was going to tell her what was going on as soon as possible. She was so nosy...

"Excuse me, have you seen Ron?"

I turned in my seat to see Lavender Brown staring at me intently. It took me a moment to realize that she was asking me this, so she must have thought that I was mental.

"Er - I think he's still in the common room," I answered. "Why, do you need him for something?"

"Oh no," she replied. "I was just wondering."

She walked off to sit with her usual friends and left the three of us staring at her in confusion and, in Hermione's case, hostility.

"What does she want with Ron?" Hermione asked.

"No idea," I shrugged. "But I have a feeling that it isn't to ask him about our Charms lesson..."

Since last year, I couldn't really say that I was a huge fan of Lavender Brown. She was one of the people that stuck to her beliefs that I was a liar and an attention-seeker until the very end and I wasn't just going to forget that happened. Now, as it seemed to be, she felt that she could just casually walk up to us and talk to us like we were buddy-buddy. No. I don't think so.

"Hey," Hermione waved to Ron and Harry who just walked up to sit with us.

"Lavender Brown was just asking for you," I told Ron. "Have you been speaking to her?"

"Lavender?" Ron asked. "Really - why?"

"We don't know," Hermione spoke in with a little anger coming out in her tone. "She just said that she wanted to know where you were - is there a reason for that?"

Harry, Neville, and I just looked from Ron to Hermione with a sort of terror going through us. Although Ron seemed to be oblivious to Hermione's hostility towards Lavender, we all knew that he was the only one that wasn't catching on.

"How should I know why Lavender would want to talk to me?" Ron asked as he picked up a chicken leg and took a large bite out of it.

"You're unbelievable," Hermione muttered under her breath.

"Wub bib I bo?" he asked as he spat chicken everywhere.

"That's classy Ron - would you shut your mouth when you eat?" Harry said irritably and then looked over at me. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine," I said.

Just at that moment I noticed a couple of people walking into the Great Hall - it was Draco followed by Snape. My blood felt like it had just turned into ice when I realized that he had pushed me to the side just so he could talk to Draco. What was that about? Did they talk regularly? And why did Draco look so angry?

"Well isn't that just touching," Harry scoffed.

"What?" Ron asked.

"Looks to me like Snape is getting Malfoy ready to be a Death Eater," Harry said.

"Knock it off, Harry," I snapped. "Neither of them are Death Eaters."

"No need to get so defensive," Harry said as he stabbed a green bean. "I'm just saying that it's likely."

"I can't believe that you would defend him even when you're mad at him," Neville commented.

"Mad at who?" Hermione asked.

"No one," I shot a look at Neville.

"Malfoy?" Ron asked.

"Snape?" Harry suggested.

"It doesn't matter, okay?" I said. "What happened between Snape and I is none of your business."

"So it was Snape," Hermione said.

"What did he do?" Harry asked as he glared over at our former Potions Master.

"Just drop it, would you?" I demanded. "It's none of your business - I can handle it."

Seeing that they weren't getting anywhere they finally decided to leave me to sulk in silence. Maybe what happened in the hallway was just a one time thing, but I couldn't shake the feeling that Snape seemed to be really irritated that I was around him at the time. Was he really up to something with Draco or was I just letting Harry's words get to me? Either way I just wished that things would be normal again.

But then again, when are things ever normal in my life?

Thanks for reading! I meant to have this up earlier, but I've had some things come up randomly and wasn't able to update. As far as the next chapter goes, I should have it up fairly soon with it being Spring Break and all. I hope that you all had a good Easter - or just a regular Sunday if you don't celebrate that - and I'll try to get the next one up as soon as I can.

So what do you think is going to happen with Snape and Emily's relationship? And what about with Draco and whatever the relationship was between him and Emily? Tell me in a comment!

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