Seeing the Past, Present, and Future

Halloween

"Double potions? With the Slytherins? AGAIN!"

"Certainly seems that way, Ron," the Boy-Who-Lived spoke, an expression of slight disgust on his face.

"Why do they insist on ruining Halloween like this?" the red-haired boy rhetorically asked. Harry pushed the frame of his glasses up and shrugged before continuing his meal. "Just the thing to ruin my lunch," Ron said before setting down his schedule and eating just as voraciously as he had before.

Hermione glanced at Ron shoveling food onto his plate and rolled her eyes. Boys, she exasperatedly thought. "Well, I'm going to start walking towards the dungeons. Last thing I want to do is tick off Snape in a day where he'll have twice as long to take revenge."

"She has a point," Ron said gesturing with his fork.

"Yeah," Harry said, pausing from his eating for a moment.

"Hey, Hermione! Wait for me!" Ron said, clambering out of his seat and running towards the bushy-haired girl.

"Augh, wait, don't leave me behind!" Harry said, realizing that of their trio he would be the only one late to potions, if it was indeed late enough for that to happen.

Soon the three of them were walking speedily to the dungeon where potions was held.

"Hey, where was, um, what's-her-name today?" Ron asked Hermione en route.

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Who?" she asked in slight disbelief.

"Um," Ron's ears had a slight pink tinge to them now. "You know, that, that girl. Really short, brown hair. Been with us since Grimmauld Place."

"You don't know her name?" Hermione asked with a bit of anger seeping into her tone.

"I was, um," Harry noticed that Ron's ears were turning redder. "She never told me her name!" he finally exclaimed.

"Yes she did!"

"No she didn't!"

"How do I know it then? Huh?"

Ron stammered. "How should I know? You know everything! Of course you know her name!"

Hermione looked rather taken aback but Harry knew it was not because she was insulted, but rather because she was flattered at being told she knew everything (even if she knew it wasn't true; there were still quite a few books she still had to get her hands on).

"Well," Hermione started, actually at a lose for words. "Try asking her what her name is next time," she finally stated, regaining her composure.

Ron nodded and knew that she didn't want to fight anymore. "Alright, I'll try that," he stated quietly.

"Where should we sit?" Harry asked upon their arrival at the potions classroom. Normally they sat in the middle as a compromise between Harry and Ron wanting to sit in the very back and Hermione wanting to sit in the very front but Harry always asked the question anyway.

"Middle," Ron said.

"Middle," Hermione agreed.

They had just taken their seats when Snape swept in, cloak billowing menacingly as always. The class stopped its quiet murmuring instantly. "Today we are going to be brewing a very complicated potion that can become deadly with the slightest mistake." Here Neville released a high-pitched squeak which caused Snape to glare at him, terrifying the poor Gryffindor more. "It is the weakest of the truth serums but it can still be quite effective if brewed correctly. If someone," Snape swept his eyes around the class, "brews this potion incorrectly or is having behavioral issues they will be forced to sample it in front of the class. Happy brewing." Snape tapped his wand on a black board and instructions appeared.

"Wow," Hermione whispered. "Look at everything this requires," she trailed off, scanning the list.

Harry looked at his empty cauldron and couldn't help but feel slightly sick. He knew he'd have to sample the potion and the idea of doing that in front of all his classmates wasn't very appealing.

One hour later, Harry wasn't feeling any better. He wasn't sure whether he'd stirred it three times or four times after he'd added the aconite and his potion was a slightly different shade of teal than Hermione's. But whatever Harry's problems were, he always knew Neville would have worse ones, although this time Neville seemed to be doing better than usual. His potion was only green instead of teal, but that didn't seem to be close enough. "You're testing your truth serum at the end of class, Longbottom," the malevolent potions teacher spoke, leaving Neville looking at his potion with the utmost horror.

Harry glanced nervously at his potion and hoped Snape wouldn't exam it.

"Time's up, class. Bottle a small amount of your potion but don't vanish the contents of your cauldron yet. And don't touch your potion, Longbottom." Neville nervously backed away from his cauldron. In the past hour two more people (both Gryffindors, of course) had forcibly joined Neville in having to sample their potion. Lavender, for talking to Parvati, and Harry because, officially, his potion was the wrong shade of teal.

"Now, class, I want to show you what happens if you don't pay attention to the instructions," Snape said, standing by Neville's potion. Using a wooden ladle, Snape scooped up part of the green potion and held it in the air for a few moments while the class watched.

"What are we waiti—" Ron started before he turned in shock to see what had happened. The green potion had completely dissolved the ladle and was now making sizzling sounds on the dungeon floor, as if it was trying to eat through that too.

"And that," Snape said, vanishing the rest of Neville's potion, "is why you can't make stupid mistakes." The whole class looked with wide eyes and Neville seemed terrified to have brewed such an acidic potion. "Whose next to try their potion? Ah, yes, Potter." Harry was not particularly eager about this, especially considering how horribly Neville's had gone wrong. "Let's see if this potion is brewed correctly," Snape said while the Slytherins laughed.

Harry grabbed the cup and looked at it. It seemed rather innocent, but one never knew. Even if it was brewed correctly it was still a truth serum, a problem within itself.

"Ah, Professor Snape, could I speak with you?"

The whole class looked towards the open door. "What is it, Sullivan," Snape answered rather irritably. The Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher entered the classroom and walked towards Snape.

"I have to speak with you, in private," Sullivan barely clarified.

"Now isn't the best time," Snape spoke, obviously rather annoyed at having his class interrupted.

"It'll be fast," the other professor promised.

"Can it wait?" the potions professor asked.

"No."

"Fine. Potter, don't drink your potion until I get back."

With the click of the door Harry released a huge breath of air and started laughing. "That was close!" he said to his friends.

"Well you'll still have to take the potion," Hermione reproachfully stated. "Snape isn't going to let you get out of it."

"Yeah, I know," Harry replied, "But I'll take this procrastination of events! Say, how long until class ends? If Sullivan takes too long then maybe I can get out of taking the potion entirely."

Ron shrugged. "I hope it's soon though; I've been in this classroom long enough."

"Agreed," Harry said, stretching. "I should thank Sullivan for getting me out of this, even if only temporarily."

Ron laughed. "This event with everything else makes him one of the best DADA teachers yet!"

Harry smiled. "I still think Lupin was the best professor we've had yet."

"Oh, wow, I'd kinda forgotten about that. It seems so long ago. Time flies, huh?" Harry's red-haired friend philosophized.

"Yeah. Say, where's everyone going?" Harry asked, realizing people were walking out of the door.

The girl closest, Parvati, shrugged and replied. "Class is officially over. We're not waiting for Snape but if you want to, be my guest."

"Get out of potions without taking my potion? I'll take that opportunity!" Harry said, smiling and leaping out of his seat.

"But what if we get in trouble?" Hermione asked, also collecting her belongings.

"Don't worry. We won't," Ron replied, leading the way to the door.

The trio of friends exited the classroom and couldn't help but smile. "Hey, you want to run?" Harry asked, rather happy and energetic now.

"I'll take you on!" Ron yelled, already running.

"Wait for me!" Hermione said, running after them but also smiling.

Five minutes later the trio had reached the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. "That was fun," Harry said, smiling and panting heavily.

"It's hard to run up all these stairs, though," Ron added.

"Especially with all these books," Hermione finished.

Harry smiled towards his two friends. These events were the type of thing that helped take the weight of the world off his shoulders. It was hard to think about Voldemort when you were busy having fun.

"Pumpkin pie," Harry stated the password and entered the tower, Ron and Hermione close behind him.

"Hello, Harry," their first-year friend spoke.

"Oh, hi. Where were you at lunch today?" he inquired of the brown-haired girl.

"I was busy," she stated rather briskly. It was at this point Harry realized something was wrong. It looked like she was trying to keep tears out of here eyes and in her right hand she was gripping a piece of paper so tightly her knuckles were turning white.

"Hey, are you okay?" the Boy-Who-Lived asked. "You…don't look so good," he finished.

"I'm fine. Do you know what today's date is?"

"The thirty-first of October," Harry slowly said. Why was she asking what the date was?

The young girl nodded before handing him the piece of paper clenched in her right hand. She looked deep into his eyes and spoke in a quiet, deliberate voice. "I want you to look at this tonight, long and hard. And then I want you to read the newspaper tomorrow morning," she paused and swallowed. "I want you to read the newspaper tomorrow morning and connect the two."

"Okay," Harry stated, not exactly sure what was happening.

The young girl nodded and turned away. Harry shrugged to his friends to assure them that he was lost as well.

That night, at the Halloween feast, they had great fun. They stayed up late listening to the band which had been hired and woke up late the next morning, content and sleepy. When Harry finally walked down to the Great Hall it was almost eleven and rather quiet. Sun was streaming through the windows and for once it was warm enough to not need a cloak. Harry reached the Gryffindor table and started happily eating before he saw the headline adorning the top of the Daily Prophet:

30 KILLED IN DEATH EATER MASSACRE

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or his world.

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