Harry Potter and the Levitating Ch'iyun: Part One
By infinitykat
"Suppose I said
I am on my best behavior
And there are times
I lose my weary mind…"
- John Mayer "Not Myself"
Chapter Two: Don't Panic
A/N: This is lovely. Gone one chapter without any reviews at all. Oh well. I'll get the word spread somehow. I'm trying my best to improve the story, if that's the reason for your disregard. Please review so I know what should be improved! Thanks! On to Chapitre Three…
The next day started uneventfully. It was the usual gathering of friends at breakfast sharing their schedules with each other. Breakfast itself was toast, bacon, and eggs; all food that Lizzy had eaten before so the comedic exclamations about upset stomachs were skipped. All through the meal, Harry was yawning and rubbing his eyes. He of course had nightmares and didn't get much sleep.
"I'm really excited for our N.E.W.T. level classes. It's going to be so challenging!" Hermione was saying with true enthusiasm.
"Awesome!" Lizzy said, comparing Hermione's schedule with her own, "We have potions today. I'm really good at that." Everyone around her tried to stifle his or her laughter. Lizzy frowned. "What?"
"I don't think you're going to like potions very much anymore," Harry said with a grin, "Snape makes the class awful even for those who are good at potions." Hermione nodded knowingly.
"Hermione gets in trouble for helping me," Neville said dolefully, "I'm horrible even with her help. Thank God I don't have to take it anymore."
"So the teacher's name is Snape?" Lizzy asked incredulously. Neville nodded slowly with a scared wide-eyed look. "Oh come on now, he can't be that bad, can he?"
"He can," Ron said, pointing to where Snape was eating his eggs with his head down. Lizzy watched him for a moment and then scoffed.
"Piece of cake," she said, and resumed studying her schedule.
"If you say so," Ron replied, looking as though he didn't believe her for one minute.
"We have Defense Against the Dark Arts as well," Hermione said to the others, "I can't wait to see what Turnpike is like." Lizzy snorted.
"I wonder if he's been on the New Jersey Turnpike," she said with a laugh.
No one knew what she was talking about.
Later, the friends joined the short queue for advanced Potions with the select few other students attending. Stares and whispers drifted towards them, and also most obnoxiously, sniggers. Malfoy, along with his dull-eyed henchmen, Crabbe and Goyle, and his puppy-dog (both in actions and looks) girlfriend, Pansy Parkinson, swaggered over to the Gryffindor end of the line. There was still a little fear in his eyes, Lizzy could tell, but he was trying to act as though the events of the day before were completely in the past and had not affected the great Draco Malfoy.
"Are we excited for Potions, today, then?" he asked in a mockingly squeaky tone. "I know I sure am. Professor Snape sure is the nicest teacher at school, isn't he, boys?" Crabbe and Goyle chuckled stupidly. Lizzy replied with a look of pity usually reserved for a naïve little child.
"And I bet you're his very favorite student, aren't you, Malfoy? Or maybe one of your fwends here?" Lizzy cooed back, waggling two fingers back and forth between Crabbe and Goyle, who looked completely confused. Draco grinned mischievously.
"How did they get into this class, anyway?" Harry put in incredulously. Malfoy ignored him and took a step closer to Lizzy.
"You'd be surprised at what I can get away with, Aurore," he said softly. With that threat dealt out, he turned and strutted back to the head of the line. Pansy made an exaggerated arm swing and snapped, poorly imitating the "disgusting" muggles she'd sneered at on her trip to America that summer.
"Oh snap," Lizzy exclaimed, laughing, "Ya got me." This particularly tickled the boys while Hermione just rolled her eyes and prayed for a quiet potions lesson. Which, she should have known, was much too much to ask for with this kind of transfer student.
She looked over at Harry who was recovering from his laughter and had taken off his glasses to rub the tears out of his eyes. Hermione blushed, thinking how handsome he looked without his glasses obscuring his emerald green eyes. Harry replaced his glasses and caught Hermione looking at him. She quickly looked away, blushing harder and cursing herself for feeling this way. Harry smiled a little and looked down, trying not to dare think about that. He had debated it all summer, coming to the conclusion that he could not let himself think about Hermione. If Voldemort were to invade his mind when he was thinking that L word and seeing Hermione…He didn't know what he would do.
Harry was interrupted in his musings by Snape who swept by his students and threw open the dungeon classroom's door. The students flooded into the familiar cold classroom and took their seats with friends. Snape waited with his usual introductory glare. Eventually, the class's flurry of conversation died down to silence.
Seeing Snape up close for the first time since they had returned, Harry noticed that he was looking worse for wear. Instead of his usual sallow, Snape was on the verge of being completely white as death.
"This class is your introductory to the advanced level of work you will be expected to produce in the real world. The Potions N.E.W.T. is the most difficult to obtain, mind you, so today we will discover if you're capable of dealing with the kind of skill required to succeed in this class. Tonight you will be writing a two-foot essay on the effects of mixing Draft Of Peace with a Forgetfulness Potion. You must also discuss its remedy, the Scintillating Solution, which we will be making today. If the potion is not perfect, you will receive a fail. Now," Snape announced, waving his wand, "the directions are on the board. You have an hour. Begin."
The students scrambled to retrieve the correct ingredients from their kits and to light magical fires under their cauldrons. Lizzy followed suit, wondering why everyone looked so worried.
"So," Lizzy said to Ron, who ended up being her table partner, "If you hate Potions so much, why are you in the advanced class?" Ron was squinting at the board when she asked this and didn't answer for a moment, holding up a finger.
"I need to take it," he finally responded, "If I want to be an Auror someday." Ron took out some green powder from his kit and, tongue between his teeth, began to carefully measure some into a small flask.
"Oh." Lizzy paused. "So I guess this dark lord thing is a big deal around here." Ron nodded and was about to reply, but went silent as Snape approached their table. He paused and scrutinized Lizzy with narrowed eyes.
"Are you our new student?" he asked suspiciously. Lizzy smiled broadly and threw out a hand for Snape to shake.
"Yep, that's me!" she replied cheerfully. Snape gingerly shook her hand with a look of disgust.
"Good intentions and pleasantries will not take you far in this class, Miss Aurore. Get back to work." As he walked away, Lizzy gave him a sarcastic two-fingered salute. Ron practically stuffed his hand into his mouth to keep from laughing.
The hour passed by quickly and by the end, Ron was frantically stirring the potion to get it to be a proper burgundy. It was currently a pale orange and Lizzy, having finished her own potion, tapped an extra ingredient into a vile and subtly placed it in Ron's rack. He looked up at her in desperation and she winked and nodded at it. He dumped it into his cauldron and the potion immediately turned acid green. Lizzy put four fingers on the table and twirled her finger in a stirring motion. Ron followed her advice and finally his potion was correct. He breathed a sigh of relief and gave her such a look of admiration as Snape yelled time that Harry, who was watching over his own cauldron, wouldn't have been surprised if Ron reached over and laid a big one on her.
Everyone brought up his or her potion and Snape studied them, announcing pass or fail as they were handed in. Both Ron and Lizzy passed with flying colors, though Snape wasn't about to admit it.
"Remember," he announced sourly as the class gathered their belongings, "Two feet by next class. That is all."
-
"That wasn't too bad," Lizzy was saying as they left the classroom.
"It has been a lot worse," Harry said, then resentfully, "TWO feet of essay and it's only the first day!"
"You are amazing," Ron mumbled in awe. Lizzy smiled at him and his ears went the same color as the potion he just finished.
"That was nice of you," Hermione said with a frown, "But you should have let Ron figure it out on his own." Ron stared at Hermione in disbelief. "You need to learn how to deal, Ron. Maybe you're not cut out for the class after all."
"Don't start guilt tripping me yet, Hermione, it's only the first day!" Ron protested.
"Well, it's perfectly clear…" Hermione and Ron went on bickering and Lizzy took the opportunity to arrange something with Harry.
"How about our first lesson tonight after dinner?" she suggested quietly to Harry. He looked over his shoulder at his two friends were both beginning to be red in the face.
"Sure," replied Harry, "I think it's going to angry silence in the common room tonight anyway."
…to be continued.
Post Note: Another chapter done, finally. I'm kind of in a writer's block right now. Hopefully I'll be breaking through it during the next couple of weeks and get a lot done during winter break. Review please, thanks!