Nicki's POV: "Aaaand here they come", whispered Wood as I raised my head and saw Flint and Hatchet coming through the hallway towards us. Hatchet looked me up and down and I could see the smile slipping from her face. I sneered, but then I remembered what I wanted to do. I just couldn't bring myself to actually do it. I mean, thank Hatchet? In what kind of parallel world were we? I leaned back against the cool stone of the wall behind me and groaned.
"I can't do it, Oliver. This is too much." He leaned against the wall next to me.
"Yeah, I know what you mean. You feel like you should but it's impossible. And wrong."
He was right. My gaze flicked from Hatchet to Flint who regarded me with that strange look on his face. I immediately felt hot with rage and I narrowed my eyes. Wood grabbed one of my hands and I realized only then that I had balled them into fists. Again. Flint's eyes flicked to my hands, then he quickly averted them. Hatchet said something to him to which he turned his back on us. Wood let my hand go and shook his head, then softly said: "Don't. There was enough of this to last a year yesterday and look what happened."
I nodded. What happened was something that obligated me to say nice words to Hatchet. Something I had never done since she bested me in Herbology in our first year in Hogwarts. Before I could stop myself, I blurted the words out. "Thanks, Hatchet."
She nodded, a look of mild astonishment on her face. Even Flint turned, his eyes round with surprise before he quickly turned his back on us once more.
"How hard was it to say that?", Wood asked with a little grin and I sighed.
"It was the hardest thing I ever did." Just in that moment, the door to the classroom flew open and we all jerked away from it. Snape was standing in the doorway, watching us all out of his dark, cruel eyes.
"Come in", he said in that typical, sneering tone of his and stepped aside. We all filed in and took place on our tables. I shared mine with Oliver and Angelina, who had just come running in, earning a very stern look from Snape. We unpacked our things and Snape, without any word of welcome, began his lesson.
"Wolfsbane." The word hung in the air. "Does anybody here know what it is?" I raised my hand, but as always, Snape ignored me. Instead, he looked at Hatchet who hadn't even raised hers.
"Miss Hatchet, what is wolfsbane?" She cleared her throat. "It's a potion that helps werewolves stay sane in nights of the full moon. It is incredibly hard to brew and only a few wizards know how to make it and succeed in it", she replied.
"Yes. 5 points to Slytherin", Snape said. "I do not expect any of you to succeed, at least not on this first try. Or even the tenth. But it's something you should know and if you never succeed, at least you have learnt your limits." His dark gaze flicked towards our table at that and I could feel my mood getting worse. What an asshole.
"Begin", he said and we immediately opened our books.

Lexie's POV: I took a deep breath. Alright Lexie, Wolfsbane. Focus. I shoved my thoughts about Shelley and Lupin away and concentrated on my textbook. I had already tried to brew the Wolfsbane potion twice but never succeeded. And since the ingredients were rather expensive and I could always only steal a handful of Snape's without him getting suspicious I haven't had the chance to perfect my skills. I smirked. Finally, a good challenge. I had already scribbled some notes in my textbook from the first few tryouts and started preparing. Once everyone else had gotten their ingredients, I made my way to the storage room, got what I needed and some extra supplies for my next practice session, which I carefully put into my cloak and started working. When I came back two students were already sent to Madam Pomfrey because they handled the quite toxic wolfsbane wrong. Professor Snape however seemed rather pleased with himself. Marcus was about to shove the Wolfsbane into his potion as he caught my gaze.
"Are you sure that you want to do that?" I asked, smirking. He sighed and rolled his eyes.
"Well yeah, that's what the textbook says."
"Yeah but our textbook is like from the 17th hundreds."
"I'm pretty sure Wolfsbane wasn't invented back then," Marcus said. Now I rolled my eyes.
"You get the point. Just a tip, you don't want to throw it in all at once. You have to carefully put piece after piece to make it work."
"Alright, if Miss Best-Student-In-The-World gives you potions advice, I guess you should take it."
"Smart choice. Also applicable for Charms, Transfiguration, DADA,-"
"Okay, I get it."
"-Herbology, Lifestyle questions, girls.." I wiggled my eyebrows.
"Girls?" He interrupted.
"Well since you brought it up. What's going on in your love life? Anyone I should know about?"
"Nope, not really."
"Hm, think really hard. Are you sure there's absolutely no one?"
"Shut it, Hatchet or I'm going to shove this wolfsbane into your mouth instead. Piece. By. Piece." He put on a mischievous smile and I laughed.
"Fine, fine, I give up."
"I didn't even ask you about your detention yet? How was it?"
"Argh, horrible."
"Really?"
"Would I lie to you?"
"Probably, but that's beside the point." Marcus grinned again. "What was your task?"
"Cleaning the tanks and cages of his dark creatures."
Marcus made a disgusting face. "I don't imagine that to be too pleasant."
"Actually, that part was okay. He was so focused on work, he didn't even notice me using magic to clean up."
"To be fair you're getting really good at nonverbal spells."
"Getting? I was born talented."
He smiled and slightly shook his head. "So what was the horrible part then?"
I bit my lip. "Everything else I guess?" I shrugged my shoulder. "Mostly the conversation part."
Snape walked by which silenced our conversation. I looked over the classroom. Two more students left for a visit at Madam Pomfrey, while most other students seemed very close to do the same either because of a mishandling of the toxic ingredients or just a mental breakdown while figuring out how not to mishandle these toxic ingredients. My gaze fell on Shelley who unfortunately was neither poisoning herself nor getting a mental breakdown. Professor Snape however strongly ignored the fact that she did not mess up like other students and came to my side to congratulate me on my good work, which to my pleasure left Shelley with a very red face.
"I, myself, will prepare a Wolfsbane potion later this week. Seeing how the rest of the class has apparently reached their limits, I don't see a point teaching the wolfsbane potion any further. You can come and assist me if you'd like to learn more about it"
I smiled. "It would be my pleasure, Sir."
I winked at Shelley who seemed to get even redder if that was even possible. After class, we made our way to the Great Hall.
"What do you have next?" Marcus asked me in between two bites of his Sandwich. I grinned. "Nothing. I've got the rest of the day for myself. You still have Astronomy, right?"
"Yeah but only this evening." My smile grew bigger. "What do you reckon? Is it still warm enough to make a trip to the lake?"