Sitra Kun Makundo - Chap. 3
By Clare

Jo grimaced as she held the still alive Flumpey Slug in front of her. It looked like a banana slug except it had brown spots and 34 pairs of antennae, each getting smaller and smaller as you went down its spine. If it had one. Jo, unlike many of her housemates, was not the best at potions. Oh, she wasn't as bad as Neville, but she had to work hard to pull off a decent grade. Yasmin had a bit of a flair for it, she liked to make potions outside of class. Not even Draco Malfoy would do that, but Yasmin could be seen flushing down the remnants of a Icetooth Potion in the toilets at 3:30 in the morning.

In fact, where as Jo and Blythe and everyone else had to exactly measure their powders, Yasmin would just drop in a pinch here, a pinch there, and poof! The perfect potion. As long as she didn't talk about it incessantly, Jo could stand it.

Dropping the Flumpey Slug into the yellowish concoction bubbling away, Jo read the last instruction. "Stir counter clockwise twice, and potion should bubble. Then add Flibsquit leaves and leave to simmer." She read these aloud her partner, Hermione, who had been paired with her, to her annoyance.

Hermione was well aware that Jo festered some sort of resentment against but didn't really care. After all, Hermione was not the one to be bothered with such things. Stirring the potion, she dropped in the Flibsquit leaves exactly into the center of the potion, perfectly, and turned down the heat to simmer using a spell that she had learned from "Potionmaking for the Masters".

"Ugh, you think she would try and be a little bit more normal." Jo whispered to Yasmin, who was working with the Gryffindor Seamus Finnigan, "I mean, I don't care that she gets good grades and all, but she is just so annoying." Yasmin nodded in assent. "I don't like her hair." She criticized along with her. "I just think she should do something to it-its just the same, day after day." Yasmin was a big critic of hair, having experimented with her own so much.

They were able to talk because moments ago, Snape had hurried over to one of the Weasley twins, who had been inexplicably pared with Draco Malfoy, and the latter was now covered in green gloop. Draco was smart enough not to yell or do anything stupid, he just sat there gritting his teeth and tapping his fingers, over and over again. From the corner of the room Jo heard Pansy complain, "Why doesn't he do something!" to the unpitying ear of her Gryffindor partner.

Snape finished cleaning him up, and Jo went back to her potion. She couldn't really fail with Hermione being her partner, but she would get the lower grade of the two. Snape didn't exactly have a soft spot for her.

The gong rang and they headed out; Gryffindor to Charms and Slytherins to Transfiguration. The goop had left stains on Malfoy's hair, and when she commented Malfoy just sneered. It was quite amusing, and Jo - nor the rest of the school - couldn't help but laugh.

The rest of the day went uneventfully, usual until dinner. She sat at the Slytherin table this time, and was talking with Draco. He was still grumbling about the gloop.

"And it stained my hair, and - "

"Come off it, Malfoy! Your a Slytherin."

"Well, of course. What d'you think I wear all this green for, to look like a tree?"

"Whatever. Slytherin equals cunning, sly, mischievous, etc. Must I repeat?"

"Um, no, but what does this have to do with it?"

"Get revenge you ninny! Jeez."

"Ooooh. Now I get it."

"20 minutes later."

Yawning, she turned to Yasmin.

"I'm going to head off to bed, and - joy - my Charms homework."

"Kay."