Standard disclaimers still apply. I own nothing. Even my brain is leased.
Chapter 3: Of Potions and Brooms
The new Fifth Years came down to breakfast a little late and were immediately surrounded by other students from all houses. Harry watched with Ron and Hermione from the far end of the Gryffindor table. He grinned, pleased to not be the center of attention for once.
"So what do we have first?" Harry asked.
Hermione checked her schedule. "Double Potions. With the Slytherins, as always."
Ron groaned. "Great. What a way to start the year."
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Harry wished he knew what Snape had been up to over the summer. Whatever it was, it seemed to have left the Potions Master feeling particularly evil. The first thing Snape did when the Gryffindors and Slytherins came into class was to divide them into groups of three. And, claiming that the new Fifth Years -- and most of the old ones as well -- should get to know all their fellow students better, Snape mandated that no group could belong to just one house.
When the students did not move quickly enough, Snape started assigning partners. So Harry found himself working with Malfoy and the dark-haired Japanese student, Yusuke. Ron hadn't faired much better: he was stuck with Goyle and Kuwabara. The larger red-head seemed friendly enough, but was staring at his cauldron like he'd never seen one before. Hermione would be fine in any group -- she was too smart for anything to really go wrong -- but it probably wouldn't be pleasant working with Milicent Bulstrode from Slytherin and the most unfriendly of the new students, Hiei.
A small moan off to the side reminded Harry that they weren't the only three to suffer: Snape had placed Neville in the same group as Crabbe. Neville was shaking as he approached his table, where the oversized Slytherin and the smaller red-headed Japanese student were waiting.
"I don't know who to feel worse for, Neville or the new boy," Hermione whispered to Harry as she gathered up her things to move to her own table.
Harry nodded. Neville was hopeless at Potions under the best of circumstances (which did not include having Crabbe for a partner). And Crabbe, besides being a bully, was rather less intelligent than Neville's toad.
The redhead must not have known this. He smiled at Neville. "Hello. You're also a Gryffindor, aren't you? I'm Shuichi."
"And you're Crabbe, correct?" Kurama turned to the Slytherin, who nodded. "I'm pleased to meet you both. Now, let's see what we're supposed to be doing…"
With smiles and courtesy, Kurama took charge of his table.
Hermione read over the instructions once more, trying to ignore her teammates. Milicent had been insulting her non-stop since they'd started working.
Hiei didn't say a word. There was just something disturbing about the joy he seemed to find in chopping the ingredients into extremely small pieces.
Ron, Goyle, and Kuwabara stared at their cauldron. They looked up to stare at each other.
Stared at the cauldron again. Stared at each other. Cauldron. Other. Cauldron…
Harry sat down at the table and glared at Draco across the cauldron. Yusuke leaned back in his own chair and looked back and forth between the two of them. "So…" Yusuke started, "What's up with this potion thing? Is it like chemistry or something?"
Harry and Draco turned their attention to Yusuke, each looking somewhat bewildered. "Umm... sort of," Harry said cautiously.
Draco snorted and reached for the instructions for their potion, wondering what chemistry was.
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Snape glanced at his hourglass. "All right, that's long enough. If you somehow managed to follow instructions correctly, you should now have a potion for hair-growth -- something quite popular with a number of older wizards, or those that have some small trouble with explosions -- in your cauldron. There is only one way to find out for certain. Each group must test their potion. Don't worry. None of the ingredients are particularly toxic."
Dead silence reigned through the hall, soon to be broken by groans.
Harry, Draco, and Yusuke stood over their cauldron. Their…attempt…had turned a funny shade of green, while most of the other cauldrons were giving off purple smoke. Its smell didn't help their confidence much, either.
"Dare you," Draco hissed to Harry.
"No chance." Harry replied.
Yusuke looked at both of them, shrugged, and grabbed a cup.
BUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!
"I think we did everything right," Hermione said, ladling some of their potion into a cup. "Who wants to test it?"
Milicent looked from Hermione's bushy hair to Hiei's spiky locks and snickered.
The fire demon stared impassively at the Slytherin girl. Then, in a movement too swift for ordinary human eyes, he poured the potion down her throat.
Milicent coughed and sputtered as her hair lengthened by several feet.
"Hn. Worked," Hiei said with a certain amount of satisfaction.
Ron, Goyle, and Kuwabara stared at the bubbling concoction in their cauldron.
"Uh-uh. No way am I drinking that," Ron said.
"Yeah. Me neither," Kuwabara echoed.
Goyle just grunted. The two red-heads looked at him, considering…but Goyle was approximately twice Ron's size, and Kuwabara's honor code forbid actually fighting during a lesson.
"We could feed it to your cat," Ron suggested.
"Eikichi! No way!" Kuwabara looked at the stuff in the cauldron again. It glooped. He gulped. "I'll do it. Hand me the glass."
"Here, drink this," Kurama said as he handed a cup to Crabbe. The Slytherin boy swallowed without thinking. A moment later he blinked as his hair cascaded down into his eyes.
Kurama surveyed his handiwork. "Not bad. Perhaps you should consider leaving it long," he said, fishing an elastic band out of his pocket and handing it to the larger boy. Crabbe looked at him baffledly from beneath yard-long bangs.
For the first time that he could remember, Neville smiled in Potions class.
"So what was this potion supposed to do again, anyway?" Yusuke asked, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.
"It's a hair-growth potion," Harry said, fascinated. He waited for the other boy to collapse, or grow fur, or anything like that.
"Oh. Okay. That's easy enough." The boy grinned and went Toushin.
The dim light of the Potions chamber masked the tattoos that went with the transformation and only highlighted the fact that Yusuke's hair now ended somewhere around his knees.
Malfoy looked at Harry. "It worked? How…?" Harry shrugged.
Yusuke burped again, just for good measure.
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Classes resumed after the judicious application of scissors and hairbrushes, and, in Yusuke's case, large tubes of hair gel.
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"That wasn't so bad," Harry said when he met with Ron and Hermione again on their way to Charms.
"Speak for yourself," Ron replied. "It could have been my hair that turned green."
"Well, the potion sort of worked at least. Kuwabara's hair did get longer."
"Yeah. Good thing we didn't feed it to his cat after all. We'd be cleaning up some nasty hairballs."
Seamus Finnegan (who had been paired with Pansy Parkinson and Botan) had also ended up with bright green hair. But unlike Kuwabara, Seamus refused all attempts to turn it back to normal.
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Madam Hooch had heard that the new Fifth Years did not know how to fly, so immediately after classes she called them out to the practice field to learn. A good portion of Gryffindor house (plus a few Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, and even a Slytherin or two) followed to watch.
"Now hold your hand over the broom and say 'Up!'" Madam Hooch called.
Four voices shouted, "Up!" back at her. Hiei just sort of grunted. The broom leapt into his hand anyway, perhaps because his glare promised scorched bristles if it didn't.
Madam Hooch demonstrated the proper grip for flying, and how to sit on your broomstick without sliding off the end. Then she told them to kick off gently.
They did. They floated. Kuwabara bobbed up and down as if uncertain whether he really wanted to leave the ground while Botan practically vibrated with the desire to fly higher.
Madam Hooch looked them over. "Yes, very good. I think it would be all right if you took a quick practice flight."
Botan had shot up into the sky before the instructor had even finished speaking.
Yusuke grinned evilly and dive-bombed the spectators, nearly falling off his broom in the process. Kuwabara was falling off his broom anyway, without sending the audience running for cover, but Kurama hovered nearby, lending a hand and advice when necessary. Hiei looked bored, if anything…but then, brooms weren't of much interest to someone who could run faster than a Firebolt. Meanwhile, Botan swooped around all of them, as at home on the broom as on her oar.
"Hey, she's not bad," Ron said to Harry, "and the Gryffindor team is short a couple of Chasers this year. Think she plays Quidditch?"
"I don't know. Do they have Quidditch in Japan?" said Harry.
Even Hermione wasn't sure of the answer to that one, but promised to look it up. Further conversation was interrupted by the sudden arrival of Yusuke in the middle of their group…from about fifty feet up.
The Gryffindors dodged out of the way. Hermione had pulled out her wand, trying to think of some spell to help the faller…too late.
Yusuke hit the ground head-first.
He bounced, then jumped up again, cursing.
The broomstick fell out of the sky and clonked him on the head.
"OW!"
Madam Hooch rushed over to check on the fallen boy and found him swearing at the remains of his broom. Yusuke kicked it once more for good measure before stalking off. The crowd parted around him, then turned back to look at the Yusuke-shaped depression in the ground.
"Hagrid'll have a tough job filling that in," Ron observed.
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Later that night, long after the students had left the Quidditch fields for their towers, something dark stirred in the Forbidden Forest.