Everyone was at potions on time, for once. Snape stormed in, and regarded the class for a moment. His eyes met Hermione's for a fraction of a second before sweeping on.

"Today, much to my concern, we are starting work on a potion that will take up almost the rest of this entire term." Snape began. He looked at the class again. "This potion counts for just about forty percent of your final grade."

Forty? Bloody hell!

Shut up and listen.

"You'll be sorted into threes by a random process. The headmaster was most concerned that you did not always simply work with your most favourite person and that others werent left out. It is clear he has not looked at the standard of this class recently." Snape paused, then opened one of the desk drawers and pulled out a small bowler hat. "Write your name on a slip of paper and put it in the hat. It will select names randomly in groups of three." He handed the hat to Parvati, who sat on the front row. "Get on with it."

The hat was passed around quickly and names were hastily scribbled on slips and put inside. At the end of fifteen minutes, Snape had the hat back and was pulling names out of it.

Few people were pleased with their pairing. In fact, the only one who was completely happy with it was Hermione, paired with Draco and Harry. Nobody else was particularly pleased by the situation.

"When you've finished moaning and gotten into your groups, I will pass out the assignments." Another ten minutes later, Snape passed out the pieces of parchment telling the groups what they were doing. Hermione caught his eye when he gave her hers and raised an eyebrow questioningly, and he shook his head minimally. Hermione turned her eyes down to her work, at which Harry was sighing dramatically and Draco was rolling his eyes.

'Research and create an alternate to the Veritaserum Potion using the following ingredients.' Listed were about ten seemingly unrelated potions ingrediants, including Dragon's Blood, Unicorn hair and Pheonix fibres.

Amelie snorted. What? Hermione demanded.

I could do that in the next ten minutes. And give you about three others if you really wanted them.

But that's ridiculous. Surely Snape knows that.

He does – he taught me. No…there's something else he's getting at here. Look at the ingredients again. The only thing we're really missing is a basilisk scale and we'd have a rather brilliant, though rather deadly, spell to get rid of a certain Slytherin founder.

How do you know that?

Instinct. Plus the fact I'm a direct descendant. I know these things.

Liar.

Actually, yes and no. I remember Snape mentioning something about it when I was about ten. Purely theoretical, of course. But I think Snape has no intention of getting us to find a veritaserum alternative.

"Miss Granger." Hermione looked up to see Snape standing in front of her.

"Sir?"

"You'll be needing this, I believe." He held out his hand to her and she reached out. He dropped a disk into her palm and she closed her hand around in and nodded, tucking the disk into her inner pocket of her robes and replacing her hand on her lap.

"Thank you sir." He nodded sharply. He turned back to the entire class.

"Since you layabouts have taken up the entire lesson messing around, we're not going to get anything done. I want three roles of parchment on your assignment each by next week. I suggest you get researching. Dismissed."

"That was weird." Harry commented as he and Hermione walked out of the classroom.

"Depends on your standard of weird." Draco said. Hermione glanced over her shoulder with a smile, and he rolled his eyes at Harry.

"Don't start." Hermione said, as Harry opened his mouth to make yet another retort.

"But Hermione-"

"We have to work together for the next term. Lets not start arguing just yet." Hermione said calmly. Draco smirked, and Harry rolled his eyes.

"I gotta go catch Ron. Talk to you later." Harry broke into a jog catching up with his best friend and saying something that made the redhead laugh, looking back at Hermione and Draco.

"You think they're talking about us?" Draco whispered into Hermione's ear.

"You know, that's a real possibility." Hermione whispered back, turning to look at him. He grinned and kissed her quickly. She rolled her eyes.

"What have you got next?"

"Free." He answered with a shrug.

"Same. Do you want to have a look at this in the common room where we can talk about it from a different perspective?" Hermione asked, wafting the parchment at him.

"Like from a bed?" He asked with a smirk.

"No." Hermione rolled her eyes, then shrieked and shrunk away from him as he tickled her. "Draco!"

"Fine." Draco sulked, although his eyes were mischievious.

"You know, I really don't trust that look." Hermione said, backing up quickly.

"Really? I cant think why." Draco said, walking forward as she walked back. She was halted abruptly by the wall, and he paused. "Now. What shall we do with you?"

"Go up to common room, glance at this and then do something else?" Hermione asked with a grin.

"Something else?" Draco asked, bracing himself with his arms on the wall on either side of her head.

"Yeah." She smirked, and winked. "Something else. I'm sure we could find something to amuse ourselves with for the evening."

"Yeah, I suppose we could." Draco said with a thoughful expression.

"Good. See you there, then." Hermione ducked under his arms and ran for the common room, Draco right behind her.

The two of them burst into the common room, laughing crazily. But the sight of Ginny sitting on the couch calmed them down quickly. She looked up from her magazine and regarded them both cooly.

"So let's see this potion then." She said finally. Hermione handed Ginny the parchment, and Ginny scanned it quickly. Then she handed it back. "So do we actually have any idea what we're meant to be doing?"

"Not really, but there is a small glitch in the plan." Draco said, crossing his arms.

"What?" Ginny asked, laying the parchment down in her lap and looking up at him.

"Potter's meant to be working with us on this potion…or rather, the alternative veritaserum. How are we going to manage keeping him out of it?"

"Good point." Hermione nodded. "He might not be exactly totally enthusiastic about schoolwork, but he'll make an effort to participate in this one at least, if only so you cant say he let us do all the work." Hermione nodded at Draco and he shrugged.

"So how are we going to manage this?" Ginny asked. "If he's not going to let us alone…and you guys still need to come up with the alternative veritaserum."

"Amelie can manage that, no problem." Hermione shrugged. "Although coming up with evidence that I researched it might be a little more time consuming."

I'll tell you what books to look in, so all you need are the appropriate quotes and page references. Severus knows you're not going to do the project properly anyway.

Fab. Thanks.

No problem.

"So what's Amelie up to?" Ginny broke Hermione out of her reverie to see Ginny and Draco staring at her.

"Amelie'll find me the books and the quotes so it looks like I researched it."

"So do you actually know the potion you're going to use for the cover-project?" Ginny asked.

"Amelie does." Hermione answered with a shrug. "Snape was her potions teacher when she lived at his sister's, so he taught her it and just about everything we're ever likely to do."

"Fair enough. So now what…library for research?" Ginny asked.

"Not today." Draco commented. "Quidditch practise."

"And we'd suffer so much from your absence." Hermione said with a smile.

"I know. I'm just trying to alleviate your pain. You should be grateful."

"Oh I am. In spades." Hermione grinned, then grabbed Ginny's hand and pulled her to her feet. "We're going to the library, and I can get the 'research' for the veritaserum out of the way."

"Wont it look a little strange if you manage to do an entire term's project in an afternoon?" Draco asked skeptically.

"I'll finish it today and then keep most of it under wraps so I spend lots of time researching. Whether I research veritaserum or Founders is entirely my business." Ginny laughed. Hermione shrugged. "And when Harry actually makes the effort to help, he can research too, and then give me what information he has. I can 'write it up' and all he'll know is that I corrected his grammar."

"And his research?" Draco asked with a smirk.

"I'll entrust it to you, dear. I'm sure you can take care of it for me, can't you?" Hermione said sweetly.

That is evil.

Your influence, dear.

"I'll take good care of it, don't worry." Draco said with a laugh.

"Don't worry, she wont." Ginny said hurriedly, ushering Hermione to the door. "We'll be back later. Have fun playing with your broomstick." Ginny winked as she and Hermione disappeared out the door.

"I'll get you back for that one, Miss Weasley." Draco muttered as he went into his room to get changed.

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