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Thorne
Thorne half lay on top of his desk, staring at the teacher with half-closed eyes as they droned on and on about some potion or another. Thorne honestly couldn't care less about potions. In his opinion, the only part of the subjects that was remotely interesting was when he discovered a new combination of ingredients that explode or give off a bad smell.
The potions classroom was in the nicer part of the school dungeons, only one floor below ground level, with all the shackles and cell bars removed and replaced with shelves and doors.
The dungeons themselves went a full five levels below ground level. The lower the level, the worse the dungeon. Thorne had been sent to those dungeons a few times when he did something particularly bad. The lowest he'd ever gotten was the third level, and he didn't plan on going back there ever again. There were no rooms on that floor, only cells with rusted bars coated with grime. Rusty shackles hung from the ceiling and there were notches and mysterious stains all over the walls. The cell Thorne had been put in had had a boggart inside. Thankfully, he'd been allowed to keep his wand and could banish it. Still, it hadn't exactly been a five-star experience.
The shelves lining the walls of the classroom were stocked with jars and bottles of various liquids, plants, and pickling animal parts. A plain brown door in the far-right corner led to the potion's cupboard. Thorne had often stolen stuff from there to engineer his ingenious pranks. At the front of the room was a blackboard, on which the teacher had drawn several labelled potions ingredients Thorne had never heard of and written warnings he couldn't be bothered to read. The teacher himself, Professor Erland, was pacing behind a long table that he'd placed a large cauldron on top of filled with a beautiful potion. It gave off a gorgeous mother-of-pearl sheen and steam rose up from it in strange spirals.
"This," said Professor Erland, gesturing to the potion, "is a potion known as Amortentia. Can any of you tell me what kind of potion Amortentia is?"
Several hands went up, Thorne's not included.
"Miss Darnel?"
Cress lowered her hand and glanced around at the class nervously. "It's, um, a love potion. The most powerful love potion in existence. You can tell by its sheen and the way the steam moves."
Thorne suppressed a smile as the teacher nodded. He'd only know Cress for about a week, but she was clearly a genius. Not once had she answered a question wrong, and Thorne doubted she'd get a wrong answer anytime soon.
"Very good Miss Darnel. Another defining feature of Amortentia is its smell. The smell of Amortentia is made up of several different things and it smells different for each person. The smells are always the one's given off by the things the person finds most attractive, for example, your crush's perfume. I will now call you up one by one to smell the potion in order to experience this for yourselves. Please take note that you may not recognise all of these smells or comprehend what makes them attractive for you. Now, everyone form a line."
Thorne took his time getting into the line. He already had a pretty good idea of what he'll smell: his cologne and maybe his shampoo as well. Really the only reason he would have to get up front would be to make sure no girls were stealing some of the potion to sneak to him, Merlin knows it wouldn't be the first time. But Professor Erland had, like, a sixth sense when it came to students doing stuff they weren't supposed to, and his tall, lanky build certainly did nothing to inhibit his ability to find the culprit.
Cress fiddled with her hair as she sniffed the spiralling fumes. A blissful smile momentarily crossed her face. Though the smile wasn't meant for him, Thorne instinctively grinned in response.
Suddenly, Cress turned strawberry red and rushed back to her desk, immediately picking up a book and hiding behind its crinkled pages and worn leather cover.
Thorne frowned in disappointment as her face vanished behind the book. She looked cute when she blushed.
When it finally came to be his turn, Thorne stuck his head over the potion and breathed in deeply through his nose. A warm, musky scent with just a hint of orange was the first to greet him, quickly followed by a cooler smell, like wind, with a touch of something papery, and the sweet scent of vanilla.
Thorne's thought process all but ground to a halt as the scents seemed to fill him up entirely. It was intoxicating.
He felt slightly dizzy as he practically stumbled to his desk and fell into his chair. He looked longingly at the dancing curls of steam rising from the mother-of-pearl liquid in the cauldron. He only wanted one more smell, one more would satiate his sudden hunger, one more…
Thorne shook his head and even lightly slapped himself to bring the sense back into him. What was wrong with him? It was just a bunch of dumb smells!
He blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes, trying to get his thoughts together. That musky smell was definitely Boots, probably back from another raid on next-door's orange tree if Thorne had to judge. The second was Rampion, fresh back from delivering a letter. She always smelled like the sky. And the vanilla…
The vanilla had Thorne stumped. He liked the smell of vanilla, but it was hardly his favourite scent. Maybe it was the smell of some dessert he liked? But Thorne's favourite dessert was spice cake, with extra cinnamon like his house-elf made it. None of his colognes or soaps were vanilla scented, same went for his hair products. But apparently he found the scent of vanilla "attractive", so it had to come from something important to him. But what?
Thorne was slightly relieved to see he wasn't the only one turned into a romantic idiot from smelling the fumes. Winter nearly fell into the potion before Professor Erland could pull her back.
After everyone had smelled the potion, Professor Erland put a lid over the cauldron, cutting off its spiralling smoke and mother-of-pearl sheen.
He glared at the class, looking almost accusatory. "I'll have you all know that this is the only supply of Amortentia currently in the school, so if any of you steal it, I'll know where to start looking. Amortentia isn't just a love potion. As Miss Darnel has already told us, Amortentia is the most powerful love potion there is, and one of the most dangerous potions in existence because of it. I must remind you that, despite their name, love potions do not cause the drinker to fall in love, only incite an extreme obsession, and an obsession created from Amortentia is all-consuming. So, for the sakes of your crushes, I must ask that you leave this potion well alone! Do I make myself clear?"
Professor Erland turned his glare onto Thorne as he said this, who rolled his eyes in response. As if he needed a love potion to snag a girl.
"Since this potion is so dangerous, and kids your age are about as good at comprehending that as a niffler is with leaving shiny things alone, we won't be preparing this potion for ourselves." Professor Erland continued. "Instead, I want you all to write me two paragraphs: one on the ingredients and unique appearance of Amortentia, and one on its effects and what makes it so dangerous. You can find everything you need to know in your copy of 100 Essential Elixirs, Antidotes and Poisons. You have until the end of the lesson. Anything you don't complete will be your homework for tonight. You may begin."
There was the rustle of paper as the class opened their textbooks to the pages on Amortentia. Thorne skimmed through the paragraphs on rose petals and thorns, pearl dust and Moonstone, only half taking in the information. He wasn't all that interested in Amortentia. He figured he'd pick out a few facts and wing it for the rest of the assigned task, cus' come on, when is he ever going to need to know why rose petals are more effective than rose thorns?
A soft humming drew what little attention he had on his textbook to Cress, who was already writing with her gleaming blue quill. She'd done her hair in a French braid today, which was currently tossed over the back of her chair. A few of the shorter strands had come loose and were just grazing her chin. Thorne could make out the shine of her blue eyes as she stared down at her paper.
Thorne sat back and listened to her hum. It was a pretty tune, one he'd heard her singing a few times as well. Sweet Crescent Moon he thought it was called. It was a sweet, soothing song, like a lullaby (well, for all Thorne knew it really was a lullaby) and it sounded even prettier in Cress's lovely, lilting voice.
Thorne closed his eyes, enjoying the melody. He probably would have stayed like that for the duration of the lesson, had Professor Erland not rapped sharply on his desk with his wand and snapped at him to get to work.
Thorne rolled his eyes behind the teacher's back. What a killjoy.
At the rapping, Cress had stopped her humming, leaving the classroom silent except for the scratching of quills and the occasional sound of a page turning, and those didn't count in Thorne's book.
He smiled and pulled out a small cloth pouch from his pocket. Time for some action.
Thorne may have been mediocre at potions, and had about as much interest in the subject as a hippogriff had with a salad, but he could certainly whip something up if he had the motivation. He'd made smoothies that made people projectile-vomit skunk juice, soups that made people grow all manner of animal features from tails to wings, and the powder contained in the pouch was just another one of his experiments.
He opened the pouch slightly and inspected the softly-glowing orange grains inside. They looked almost like embers. He decided to take that as a good sign.
Holding his breath, he spilled the powder into one hand, shaking the pouch to ensure all of it came out. Then, he raised his hand up to his face, and blew into the powder.
Instantly, a screeching red dragon made of pulsing red light with ravenous yellow eyes flew off his hand. The classroom erupted in screams as students stumbled over each other trying to get away from the beast as it flapped erratically above the desks, only barely missing the jars of potions ingredients on the shelves.
Thorne winced in guilt as Cress ducked underneath her desk, blue eyes wide and filled with terror, but other that that was immensely enjoying himself, watching the dragon shriek and fly about with pride.
Illusion Powder: success!
A couple minutes into the chaos, the dragon dispersed back into powder, though it was now an innocent, unremarkable white.
Professor Erland glared at Thorne, who tried for an innocent smile.
"One hundred points from Gold," Professor Erland said through gritted teeth, "and detention work in the menagerie. For the rest of the week, you'll be cleaning the creature pens, as well as feeding and grooming the creatures themselves. No magic."
Thorne had to fight to keep his smile from widening. Just imagine what he could do with a few nifflers!
A/N: Behold, Thorne, the master of pranks! Yeah, in this story, he's kinda like a flirtatious, charismatic Fred/George Weasley, only he doesn't sell his inventions (well, at least not the working ones). I am going to have so much fun writing new prank devices for Thorne and giving the rest of my characters hell [Cue evil laughter].
So that was Thorne's chapter, and we had some lovely Cresswell feels going on throughout it which is always a bonus. If any of you are wondering why Professor Erland's description in this chapter doesn't quite match his original description, there is a reason for that which you will find out. Several chapters from now.
Now, of our big eight, only one character remains: Jacin! Let's read a chapter through the eyes of our favourite sarcastic bodyguard, shall we?
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