By the time the young Ravenclaws found and then filed themselves down to the dungeons, Lisa was close to tears and close to lashing out to shut Mandy Brockelhurst's big, stupid mouth once and for all.

So what if she couldn't cast a simple color changing charm on a button. So what if she couldn't turn a matchstick into a needle or even change its appearance at all, even while Mandy got a house point for making the matchstick look slightly slimmer on one end and sort of silvery. If you squinted really hard. And turned your head. It's not like she needed matches or needles. She had a box of each in her trunk now- for lighting her candles and mending her robes respectively.

Transfiguration was stupid.

Charms was stupid.

And Mandy Brocklehurst was the most stupid of all!

With these thoughts running through her mind, she stomped into the cold dungeon room, threw herself roughly onto the wooden bench in front of the low table, and buried her face in her arms. The rest of the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuff first years trooped in around her. The Ravenclaws settled in on the left hand side of the room while the more cheerfully chattering Hufflepuffs settled in on the right.

"Um. Do you mind?" Lisa lifted her head and stared at the Boot boy who pointed to the bench next to her. She shook her head and straightened slowly, pushing her hair away from her shoulders in an effort to master her emotions. Boot, she thought his first name was Terry, settled in and began setting up his supplies.

First ,his cauldron was placed carefully on the small stand that sat in front of each student. Then, he pulled out a leather bound box which, upon opening the lid, revealed a collection of glass phials and boxes filled with all manner of strange things. Were those tongues? And tiny mushrooms? And eyeballs? Lisa glanced around the room and saw that the other Ravenclaws were also assembling their things and each of them also had a box filled with strange supplies. Some boxes were a more basic wood, others, like Padma's, looked like they were made of inlaid mother of pearl. Her stomach sank somewhere in the vicinity of her knees.

Wonderful, she thought, another thing she didn't have.

As though psychic, though Lisa was positive she wasn't, Mandy turned around at her thought and cast a dismissive eye over Lisa's empty table space. She gave Lisa a tight smirk.

"What's the matter Lisa, didn't you know you were supposed to have a cauldron for potions? Or is that another thing your mother does differently." She sniggered unpleasantly and looked towards Padma for a reaction. The dark haired girl gave her a reserved smile and went back to reading her potions book. Miffed, Mandy turned further in her chair towards Lisa.

"What? Does she just close her eyes and chant and suddenly find Felix Felicis in her tea pot?"

Lisa hadn't the faintest idea of what Felix Felicis was, but she promised that she would look it up as soon as possible. She considered Mandy with faintly narrowed eyes and debated counting to ten in her head. But she had had enough of Mandy's barbs for one day.

Leaning forward she fixed her eyes on the stupid girl's glasses and said in her gentlest voice, "You should shut your mouth before I shut it for you." Then sat back down with her sweetest smile. It was a technique she had seen her mother use on a rowdy passenger on the bus. Lisa hadn't heard what her mother leaned forward to whisper to the man exactly, but the man had been terrified when she leaned back and smiled at him. He got off at the next stop.

Her words didn't have quite the same effect. Mandy sneered a little uncertainly and glanced over at Padma, who was ignoring them, and Boot, who was watching the interaction a little warily. Any audience apparently was enough for Mandy.

"Big words for a witch without a cauldron."

"You mean like this?" Lisa pulled her cauldron out of her bag with a little effort. It was heavy, but, at least to her eye, looked the same as all the others. Thank you Mother Goddess for this small favor. Mandy apparently couldn't tell the difference between her mother's cauldron and the other either because she immediately switched tactics.

"And you Potions Supply Kit?"

"I left it in my room," Lisa lied smoothly. There hadn't been a Potions Supply Kit on the acceptance letter. She was positive of it! How did everyone else have one? Still, if it had been necessary, it would have been on the form. Though Lisa's faith in the school's bureaucracy decreased each hour.

All further thoughts were suspended as the hook nosed man swept into the room. His voice demanded your immediate and undivided attention, though he spoke softly. Lisa leaned forward to soak up his every word.

Bottle fame? Brew glory? This was what magic was about! Forget teaching pineapples to tap dance or turning a desk into a pig- could she really learn how to stopper death? What did that even mean?

When Professor Snape snapped at them to open their books and begin brewing, Lisa was a convert. There were stars in her eyes and she was dancing on clouds as she pulled her library book out of her bag and turned to page 13- a boil cure. Lisa immediately thought of Donna, one of their next door neighbors who smelled of mothballs and would often complain to Celestia of her boils over tea. It was worth learning this potion just to free up some of her mum's afternoons!

Flasks appeared on the corner of each of the student's desks and filled with clear water. No doubt the fresh spring water required from the text. Lisa, following Terry's actions, poured the water into the cauldron and watched, amazed, as the flask refilled to about half its previous contents. She glanced down and saw that step 7 required adding half again as much water as she started with. Lisa's eyebrows rose. Now, this was a useful bit of magic.

"Um." She was distracted from her appreciation by Boot who had unpacked his supply box, "You can share supplies with me, Turpin." He offered, "Since you left your kit in your room."

Lisa smiled at him and accepted. When it turned out that they required three cubes of fresh dandelion the size and shape of a baby's molar, she went to the front to collect enough dandelion for the both of them. And, when it turned out that Boot was rubbish at dicing or slicing or knives of any sort, she cut up enough dandelion root and honey suckle for them both. It wasn't that different from chopping vegetables for dinner.

Ingredients prepared, she turned back to the text and hesitated. The book called for the lacewings to be added to the cold water and then brought to a boil with a level two heat. Lisa, glancing under her cauldron for a gas jet or candle or something to create fire, was stumped.

"Merlin Turpin, are you that dumb?"

Lisa glanced up to see Mandy sneering at her- a happy little flame burning under her cauldron. It looked like it came from the small brick located under each of the stands.

"It's a standard burner," Mandy continued, "Haven't you seen one before? You just tap it with your wand. Or," Her sneer grew a bit wider, "Maybe you don't even have enough magic to do something as simple as that."

Professor Snape looked up from where he was examining a sweating Hufflepuff's dicing work and Mandy was suddenly very interested in examining her potion. Lisa's cheeks were burning as she looked down at her own wand. Just tap it on the brick, Mandy said. What if it didn't light, just like it didn't turn buttons from black to blue or a match into a needle?

Suddenly, a wand reached out and tapped the brick in front of her twice. A small flame jumped up and began burn. Lisa glanced over to Boot and saw that a similar flame was burning under his cauldron. He glanced over to where Snape was looking back at the Hufflepuff and then bent his head.

"Tap it once for level one heat, twice for level two up to five levels- for a standard brick," He muttered to her, "Double tap to decrease one level and hold your wand on it to extinguish the flame. You have brewed potions before right?" He didn't ask in a mean way, more in a cautious manner as though nervous to be sitting next to her if she hadn't.

Thinking back to all the balms, tinctures, and teas she and her mother had made over the years, Lisa nodded. "Of course I have." Then, catching his glance to the brick, added. "We usually do it over an open flame though."

"Oh," Boot seemed to think about this for a bit and then asked hesitantly, "Your family's very traditional, aren't they?"

Lisa latched onto the word immediately. "Oh yes. Very traditional. But besides the fire, it's not that different. The most important think is intent, you know. Extending your will into the potion." At least that is what Marie always told her. Intent made the medicine. You could cure someone with nothing strong than a cup of tea, the right prayers, and a strong will. Lisa wasn't sure who exactly she should pray to for a boil cure, but the basic idea seemed about right.

Boot accepted this explanation with a nod and they both turned back to their potion making. The potion was far more specific than any salve or tincture she had ever made with her mum. Step four took seven minutes, but step five, adding the dandelion cubes, had to be completed in thirty seconds. It took all of her concentration and, despite feeling stressed and nervous about each of the steps, Lisa found her anger banked and almost began to enjoy herself. Enjoy herself, that was until-

"Why are you so dumb, Turpin?" Mandy had come to the slow wait of the potion making, about a step behind Lisa, she noted viciously. "Don't you know that your potion is supposed to be orange now instead of brown? You can't even make a potion properly can you?"

"Shut up, Mandy!" Lisa's temper which, until now had been settled, suddenly roared into life. She glanced at the directions and saw to her dismay that her potion was supposed to be orange and instead was a very muddy looking brown instead. Even this? Even real magic that didn't require a wand? She couldn't even do this?

"Or what?" Of course Mandy's potion was a perfect orange and she knew it, "Going to hex me? You can't even light a fire brick."

Lisa slammed her hand on the table, causing the knives to clatter. Across the room, Snape rose slowly and approached them. Her cauldron, as though noticing her rage, began to bubble rapidly into a roiling boil.

"Open your mouth one more time, Brocklehurst," Lisa said, brandishing her cutting knife at the girl, "and I will make you regret it."

Brocklehurst opened her mouth to reply when Lisa's potion gave out a sound like a high pitched wail and her cauldron exploded. Viscous brown liquid spattered everywhere, but the force of the blast was hurled towards Mandy who immediately began screaming as the boiling liquid filled her mouth. Under Lisa's amazed eyes, Brocklehurst began to sport red, angry boils wherever the liquid touched her skin.

"What is the meaning of this!" Snape loomed over them, lips white with fury. He glanced at Mandy, who was beginning to look less and less like a girl and more like a monster from a Lovecraft novel. He took a phial from his pocket and poured it down the girl's throat. Immediately, the boils stopped forming and began to shrink. No one else in the area seemed to have been hit so badly.

"You." He turned to Padma who had flung her text book up reflexively and had protected herself from the worst of the slash. A few stray boils sprouted on her forehead. "Take your housemate to the hospital wing. Now." The girl nodded and hurried Mandy out of the room, still wailing in pain.

"You." Lisa suddenly knew what the mouse felt like standing in front of a snake. Never, ever, had she ever had anyone so angry with her, look down on her with such contempt and fury. She could barely meet Professor Snape's eyes, but didn't dare look away.

"I expect such displays from the Gryffindors, but had hoped the Ravenclaw house might acquit itself better. 10 points from Ravenclaw," her housemates around her gasped in horror, "For misreading the directions and detention with me, this evening, for responding to the provocation of another."

He turned without another word and Lisa sank back onto her bench, staring hard at the ruins of her cauldron, trying not to burst into tears.

A/N: and this is the beginning of the section inspired by the Guest's comments weeks ago! Visits, favs, and follows brighten my day, but reviews are what really make me want to write more! Let me know what you think and have a great day!