Chapter 11 - A Lesson to Forget

As September ended and autumn came into full swing Barney settled into his Hogwart's life. The more hospitable attitude of the Slytherins quickly subsided as the incident in the library was forgotten and Barney was no longer interesting to them. But thankfully there had been no more outbursts from Silvanna though she continued to give him the cold shoulder and laugh when ever he did something wrong in class.

His classes were a mixed bag. He continued to excel at Herbology and did well at Astronomy which was more theory based and didn't rely on magic. In Charms he had mastered the levitation charm and wand lighting and extinguishing charms but was still struggling with the mending charm. His attempts to fix a broken mug in class resulted in it shattering into more pieces than when it started. History of Magic was as boring as ever and in Potions it seemed that he had yet to get a single potions right, which only made him less and less confident and more prone to making mistakes. His confidence wasn't helped by Professor Strange constantly watching over everyone's shoulders as they brewed their mixes.

Transfiguration was another class he was struggling with. Though he'd managed to successfully turn a button into a ring and a marble into a pebble they had now moved onto larger objects, which he couldn't quite get the hang of. When tasked with turning a chair into a ladder all he managed to do was set the chair alight and reduce it to a pile of ash, which in a way was a kind of transformation. Barney wasn't looking forward to when they had to transfigure live animals.

Defence Against the Dark Arts had turned out to be one of his favourite classes. Not because he was particularly any good at it, but Professor Goodwill was fast becoming his favourite teacher and many other students'. She was very kind and caring and patient with students when they struggled, plus her classes were fun. They'd learnt about ghosts, vampires and imps and defensive spells such as the disarming charm and the knockback jinx and Professor Goodwill was always keen for students to practice and get hands on experience. Next week she was bringing in some ice-breathing mammoth lizards for the students to have a go at subduing.

And in Flying he got off the ground, though like Professor McGonagall it hadn't been until his third lesson and he was the last in class to do so. But now one of his favourite times of the week was when he got to take to the skies and fly around like a bird and he could forget about all his cares and enjoy the freedom. But it wasn't all plain sailing and a couple of times he'd got too lost in the experience and had lost his grip on his broom more than once and fallen to the ground. But luckily Madame Hooch was always on hand to bring any falling student down safely and there were no more trips to the hospital wing.

Lunch times and after lessons were general spent hanging out with Thomas and Tabitha in the school grounds. They would play games such as Gobstones and Exploding Snap, the latter was not so much enjoyed by Thomas as it often tested his nerves. Though with the weather beginning to turn colder Barney knew they might not be able to hang out as much as students weren't allowed in each other house's common rooms. Elio Peters had started a sign language club and Professor McGonagall had allowed them to use an empty classroom where they met twice a week so at least he'd be still able to go to that when the weather turned bad. And thankfully no other Slytherins attended even though it was open to everyone.

After his mum had finally got the hang of sending letters by owl, Barney was pleased to be receiving regular updates from home and he would likewise update them on his time at Hogwarts. But he would only mention the good bits and failed to tell them about the tornado in the library as he thought it would have only worried his mother. Furthermore Professor McGonagall nor any of the other teachers had made any progressing in determining who had set the tornado off and it remained a mystery to everyone.

With Halloween just over a week away there was an excitement in the air. Decorations had started to be put up around the school, Hagrid had been growing numerous pumpkins ready for carving and there was to be a special feast to celebrate the occasion.

Barney's Monday morning had been packed as usual with History of Magic, Charms and Transfiguration classes and he had received homework from all of him so he had a busy evening ahead of him. But before that he had double Potions after lunch with Hufflepuff so at least he got to hang out with Thomas and Tabitha.

He arrived in class and immediately found the pair and took his usual seat next to them as Professor Strange sat like a stone statue behind his desk, watching as everyone filed in. Once everyone had taken their seats he stood up and started to walk amongst the desks as he liked to do, like a lion stalking it's prey.

"Without looking at your text books who can tell me any ingredient of the Forgetfulness potion?" inquired Professor Strange in his usual monotone way.

A few hands shot up around the classroom but Strange ignored these. Instead he preferred to pick on students who didn't have their hand up to answer. Barney should have learnt by now to put his hand up anyway even when he didn't know the answer to avoid being picked on. But knowing his luck the one time he did this would be the one time Professor Strange acted like a normal teacher and called upon a student with their hand up to answer. Barney prayed Strange wouldn't pick him as the professor lurked around the room.

"Mr West?"

Barney let out a sigh of despair as everyone else who didn't have their hand up let out a sigh of relief for not being picked.

"Give me one ingredient of the Forgetfulness potion?"

"Erm..." Barney struggled to think. He'd never read about the Forgetfulness potion yet so had no idea what was in it. "Well... erm..."

"I think Barney has already drunk the potion Sir," Silvanna called out and all the Slytherins began to laugh.

"Silence," Strange called out and he immediately got what he asked for. "Well Mr West? We're all waiting."

Barney struggled to think. He thought of all the ingredients he used in other potions and tried to think if any of these potions had any link to one used to make people forget that might share a common ingredient but he could think of none. The silence in the classroom seemed to be going on for a lifetime when Barney noticed Thomas gently tapping the piece of parchment in front of him. He looked down at it and saw Thomas had scribbled two words down.

"Er... Valerian Springs sir?"

"Good guess Mr West," a slightly vexed Strange replied. "Everyone turn to page twenty seven of Magical Draughts and Potions and in pairs brew up one dose of the Forgetfulness Potion."

Barney mouthed a 'thank you' to Thomas as the class began.

There was usually an odd number of students in the class which meant Barney was typically allowed to work with Thomas and Tabitha as a trio when they had to work together. But Slytherin Odette McCoy was in the hospital wing with Toad Fever, which meant he had to pair up with someone else.

"Sir I can work with Barney today," Silvanna suggested with a smirk.

Barney knew this was not good. Silvanna would only be offering to work with him if it allowed her to somehow humiliate him in front of the class. But he knew there was no point in arguing as Professor Strange would only force them to work together anyway so he reluctantly picked up his stuff and moved to a desk with Silvanna.

Barney carefully consulted the text book as he went with Silvanna to collect any additional ingredients they needed from the cupboards that weren't their own supplies. But Silvanna had other ideas and picked up a few additional items that were not on the list.

"We don't need those," Barney protested as they walked back to their desk.

"Relax muggle, I know what I'm doing. I'm just making a few improvements."

"We need to follow the recipe."

"We need to follow the recipe," Silvanna mocked in an insulting tone. "You'll never become a great wizard if you just follow others and don't learn for yourself."

"You can experiment in your own time, lets just do it like the text books says today," Barney said frustratedly.

"What seems to be the problem here?" Professor Strange asked as he walked over having heard the pair arguing.

"Sir Barney wanted to deviate from the recipe. He said he knew better but I told him we needed to follow the recipe exactly."

"She's lying," Barney fumed. "She's the one who wanted to add extra ingredients."

"I hardly believe that," Strange declared. "After all Silvanna is one of the top students in this class and you... well lets say you're barely scrapping by. I think she knows how to follow instructions and make a perfect potion much better than you. Now I want no more disturbances from you. Get on and brew the potion. And make sure you pay close attention to Silvanna. Maybe some of her knowledge will rub off on you."

"Thank you Sir," Silvanna gloated. "I'll try to help him, but some people are just beyond help."

Strange moved on to the next desk, leaving Silvanna with a smug grin on her face as she continued with the potion her way. Barney knew there was nothing he could do about it. He could continue to argue with Silvanna but would only get in more trouble with Professor Strange as he would believe whatever Silvanna told him as she was the star student of Potions. Instead Barney read the textbook carefully and took a theoretical approach to making the potion even if he didn't actually get to make it and left Silvanna to do her own obnoxious thing.

As everyone's potions were fully brewed, Strange began his inspection to see how they all had done.

"The best way to check the success of a Forgetfulness potion is to test it out. Unfortunately the school doesn't allow me to make you test them yourselves, not that some of you have much knowledge to forget in the first place," Strange said with a glance straight at Barney. "Instead we will be using Turkish Imps."

Professor Strange pulled the cover off a cage, which sat on his desk. Inside were over a dozen small reddish creatures, with random tufts of brown hair all over their bodies. They had large black eyes and sharp pointed teeth and most were gnawing at the bars of the cage.

"You can't seriously be testing potions on them?" Gwen from Hufflepuff called out in protest. "That's cruel."

"Miss Monday this is a Potions class, not a social conscience lesson. And rest assured Turkish Imps have a cast iron stomach. You could feed them a bucket of poison and they would have no more than a belly ache for a few minutes. That's why they make perfect guinea pigs for potion testing."

Everybody looked on at the imps as they ferociously bite at the cage and some seemed to be biting each other. Even though they didn't look cute, most of the students felt bad about using them for testing. Well the Hufflepuffs anyway. Most of the Slytherins seemed less concerned with their well being.

Professor Strange cast a subduing charm over the cage to make the imps more docile before he opened the cage door, plucked one out and walked to the first pair of students' cauldron. Strange waved his wand and a tray from his desk followed him to the table where it landed. On the tray were three cups and a strange looking purple berry, like a strawberry but smaller.

"This is a Foolberry, it has no smell. I will place it under one of the three cups in full view of the imp so it knows where it is. We will then give it a draught of your potion and see if it remembers where the berry is."

As Strange placed the berry under one of the upturned cups the imp became more animated and tried to jump out of the professor's hand and get to the fruit.

The first students were Marek and Eustice from Slytherin. Eustice carefully with a ladle poured some of their potion into a vial and handed it to the Professor who proceeded to give the orange liquid to the imp, who seemed to drink it with no reluctance. They then waited a minute and Strange placed the Imp on the tray in front of the cups. The Imp who only a couple of minutes ago had been desperate to get at the cup with the berry under it now sat on the tray dumbstruck and didn't move or attempt to find it.

"Good," Strange said curtly before picking up the imp placing it back in the cage and retrieving another one before moving on to the next desk and repeating the testing process.

Professor Strange made his way around the classroom, giving very little enthusiasm when a potion worked well but belittling students when the imp successfully went for the berry straight away with no hesitation. Barney was pleased Tabitha and Thomas had brewed a successful potion but cringed at the dressing down Roblin and Nora from Hufflepuff got when there potion didn't work. He knew he would be on the receiving end of it soon as Strange neared to their desk as their potion was next to be tested.

Professor Strange looked into the cauldron at the liquid which looked more red than the orange as it should have been.

"Well Mr West it's not going to pour itself."

Barney hesitated before he picked up the ladle and poured some mixture into a vial. He could see it was definitely a different colour to what everyone else's had been. Professor Strange took the vial and momentarily paused and considered before he gave the imp the potion to drink. The imp let out a large belch before it was placed on the tray. After a few seconds it stood up, staggered around like it was drunk before it fell back down. The imp seemed to lose a lot of colour from it's face. Barney was glad that at least the imp hadn't found the berry which meant hopefully the potion would be considered a success and Silvanna's plan to embarrass him had backfired. Just then then the imp started to make some strange gurgling noises and Barney was seriously worried it might be dying before it began to projectile vomit all over the desk. Barney couldn't believe so much had managed to come out of such a tiny creature. The desk was covered in green vomit which stank of rotten veg and putrid fish. The little imp let out another large belch and sat on the table looking content with itself.

"Well done Mr West, that's quite an achievement," Strange remarked dryly. "You've managed to make a Turkish Imp be sick, something I've never ever witnessed before. Detention."

Before Barney had time to protest Silvanna was giggling along with the rest of the Slytherins.

"Both of you," Professor Strange added as he stared at Silvanna.

"But that's not fair, it was his fault," Silvanna cried out.

"Miss Silvas I expect better of you. You should have been keeping a closer eye on your partner to make sure he was doing it right."

Even though Barney had detention, which he was most upset about, he enjoyed his chance to gloat at Silvanna as she finished the class with a face like thunder.

"You'll pay for this muggle," she hissed as she knocked past him as she stormed out the classroom.

Tabitha and Thomas came up to Barney as he was packing away his things in his school bag.

"Sorry about your detention," Tabitha said. "I thought I'd be the first one out the three of us to get one."

"It's fine, I'm more worried about what Silvanna will do to me now."

"You should talk to Professor McGonagall," Thomas suggested as the three of them headed out of the classroom.

"No it will only make things worse."

"Where shall we go hang out?" Tabitha asked changing the subject as she looked out of the window at the rain still pouring down heavily.

"I need to go pick up a book from Professor Goodwill that she said I could borrow," Barney replied.

"We'll come with you," said Thomas as the trio headed off to the second floor.

As they walked along the corridor of the second floor where a few students were milling around Barney spotted Silvanna up ahead with Maximille and Everard at her side. She was heading in their direction and she didn't look happy.

"Great. Really could do without a confrontation right now," he said as Thomas and Tabitha also spotted Silvanna in the distance.

Tabitha turned around to look where they were.

"Quick back this way," she said pulling at Barney's robes to drag him along with her.

The trio headed off as Tabitha led them back round the corner and headed to a wooden door which she pushed open.

"We can't go in there," Thomas protested. "It's a girl's toilets."

"Trust me, no one goes in here," Tabitha replied as Barney and Thomas reluctantly followed her in.

The bathroom was dingy and uninviting. There was a large cracked mirror, chipped sinks and the wooden doors of the stalls were flaking. Everything was in need of repair. No wonder no one used it. As well as the sound of dripping taps there was another sound that almost sounded like someone sobbing.

"This bathroom is disgusting," Thomas commented, not wanting to touch anything.

"What's that sound?" Barney said as he moved towards the stalls to try and figure out where it was coming from.

"Oh that's just Moaning Myrtle," answered Tabitha as she lifted herself up and took a seat on the sinks.

"Shouldn't we check if she's OK?" Barney asked as he hesitantly continued to approach the furthest stall where the sobbing sound was coming from.

"Oh no it's too late for that, she's already dead."

"Dead?!" Thomas exclaimed, almost jumping out his skin at Tabitha's nonchalant remark as Barney stopped in his tracks.

"Oh don't worry. She's been dead for over sixty years."

And with that remark the ghost of Myrtle came shooting over the top of the stall in a rage. She was a squat girl with thick glasses and was still wearing her Hogwart's uniform.

"What are boys doing in my bathroom?" she fumed. "Come to make fun of me?"

Thomas stood frozen in shock as Barney slowly backed away from Myrtle's ghost as it hovered above him.

"Oh pipe down Myrtle," Tabitha yelled at her. "We'll be gone soon."

Myrtle started to circle the trio getting a good look at each of them as Thomas reached into the pocket of his robes and pulled out his inhaler and took a long puff.

"Why were you crying?" Barney asked, trying to calm her down by showing some kindness and concern towards her.

"She's cries at everything," Tabitha interjected. "Just ignore her."

"Ignore me?!" she hollered right in Tabitha's ear as the force of her anger caused Tabitha's hair to stir. "Ignore me?!"

"Please Myrtle. We just need to hide out in here, we're avoiding someone," Barney pleaded.

Myrtle swooped back towards Barney who could tell he was about to get an ear full from her as well from the look of contempt on her face.

"That's all anyone wants is to use my bathroom!" she shouted. "No one just wants to see me!"

"It's not your bathroom," Tabitha noted, barely bothered by Myrtle's rage as the ghost flew back towards her. "Maybe if you weren't so mean and miserable people would come and visit you."

"What did you say?!"

"You heard me."

"You're just as rude as that other girl who was in here with her friends brewing their potion. She thought she was so clever until I threatened to tell on them," she fumed before flying off with a huff back to her stall.

"Wait what girl?" Barney asked as he followed her and stood outside the cubicle she had vanished into but Myrtle didn't reply.

"Just ignore her," said Tabitha. "She doesn't know anything. She's just making it up for attention."

Myrtle burst back up from her stall and once again rushed at Tabitha.

"I'm not lying! She was in here with two boys. They were brewing a potion in one of the stalls!"

"What girl?" Barney asked again.

"I don't know her name," Myrtle replied, her voice still aggressive. "But she was very rude and had silver hair."

"Silvanna," Barney and Tabitha said in unison.

"Maybe they were on their way here when we saw them," Thomas said as he turned and looked at the door, half expecting it to burst open.

"Oh no they've haven't been here in ages." Myrtle said as she soared up and flew around with a smug look on her face. "Not after I threatened to tell on them."

"What were they making?" Barney asked.

"I don't know. They took all their stuff with them before I had chance to find out," she said before flying back into her cubicle.

Barney walked over to Tabitha who was still sat at the sinks.

"You don't think they were making something to do with the tornado do you?" he asked.

"We should tell Professor McGonagall," Thomas suggested as he approached his friends.

"Tell her what?" Tabitha asked. "That Moaning Myrtle saw them brewing something. That's hardly concrete evidence and they'd probably only deny it anyway."

"She's right," Barney added as he considered their options. "We don't know what they were brewing."

"So we just do nothing?"

"No," Tabitha replied with a knowing grin on her face. "We find out for ourselves."