From the day in the library onwards, Harry became very secretive and detached from his friends. Ron had become completely engrossed in his new 'girlfriend'- which he was persuaded to think just because she consented to have him carry truckloads of her books around the school for her. Hermione was literally married to her books, and had even conducted a small ceremony in which she made an oath to devote herself completely to them. And so, as a result, Hermione and Ron didn't notice that Harry had spent a lot of his time elsewhere.
Harry stirred the contents of his cauldron. It was very strenuous work, and perspiration drenched his robes.
"Almost done," he kept saying to himself. He looked briefly at a rather battered library book. He added a spatula of dragon dung and stirred some more.
"Yep, that should be it."
Moaning Murtle was looking at him admiringly from the top of a broken sink, swinging her ghost-like spindly legs, which she thought was irresistibly seductive.
Then, there was a large crackling noise and the mixture turned orange.
"It's done!" This was the moment he had dreamed of for weeks. It had taken him so long to get this far...
He took out a tube, dipped it in the mixture until it was three-quarters full and downed it. It tasted like a mixture of earwax and frogspawn. While he drank it he built up a picture in his head about what he would most like to look. No spots...no dandruff...no-
What was he thinking! NOOOOOOO!!!! Suddenly he began to feel excruciating pain all over his body. His whole body seemed to be shrinking and then blowing up again. He heard Murtle scream as she whizzed above his head...
After about 5 seconds the pain stopped. He looked into the mirror, and to his disbelief, a different face stared back at him. He blinked, convinced that he was having some kind of wayward hallucination about Harriet again. He ran his fingers over his body to make sure and when he reached his chest he felt something that he knew shouldn't have been there...
"Oh Merlin!" His fingers travelled unconsciously downwards and then he got the shock of his life. Although there had never been much to feel anyway, he was positive that something was missing. "Oh Merlin Merlin Merlin!!!!!!!!" Then with a horrible realisation, the words he had read in the book came back to him. 'The drinker of the potion, after swallowing about three quarters of one test tube, must then visualize their ideal image.' He had only intended to visualise himself without spots and dandruff and beautiful sleek hair- not as a woman!!! But if he had automatically visualised himself as a woman, was this what he really wanted?