Author's Note: Enjoy, and a Happy Thanksgiving to all who observe the holiday!
This takes place in their third year at Hogwarts. We have jumped forward since the first two chapters, which were setting up the storyline.
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Thank you.
Chapter 3: Obscured and Cleared Sight
Potions. Potions, potions and more potions.
Harry Potter stared down into his caldron waiting for the potion to kick in. He wasn't sure exactly what to do now, the only thing he did know was that the liquid shouldn't be brown it was supposed to be purple.
"Now, you take one cup of your potion and drink it in one gulp." Snape stood stoically in front of the class, like a great stone statue.
"Um, Professor?" Harry raised his shaking hand.
"Potter?" One eyebrow raised, Snape crooked his neck towards Harry.
"What happens if your potion is brown?"
Snape had a small half smile on his face, "Well, Mr. Potter, I guess we'll find out."
The prospect of finding out what he had created gave rise to a lump in his throat.
"It won't be that bad, go on, Harry." Hermione nudged him in the back. Harry waited while the rest of the class gulped down their potion.
Laughter began to ring out, growing larger like a great tide. Before anyone knew it, they could barely contain themselves, the whole potions class rolled onto the floor. Ron was nearly as red as his hair.
Slowly, Harry brought the potion to his lips and drank a hesitant small sip.
Closing his eyes, he waited for the effects to take hold. It was very hard to tell if the class was laughing at him or laughing because of the potion.
"Very good, class. As you can tell, the laughter potion can render an enemy unable to cause you harm, and very physically unable to chase you." Snape's voice became louder. "As for you, Mr. Potter, open your eyes."
Harry did so, but couldn't see past a curtain of brown hair. Parting it with his fingers, he could only see Snape's glare through his fingers.
"It appears the blooming iris you were supposed to gather right at midnight was not cut until sometime after midnight, wouldn't you say, Potter?"
"I had some trouble getting out of bed."
"I see. Well, I hope you've learned your lesson. 10 points from Gryffindor, and go see someone about cutting your hair."
"Yes, Professor." Relief was washing over Harry, for he was not turned into something…….unnatural.
A couple of hours, and two pairs of scissors, later, Harry finally walked into the Gryffindor common room.
"That was some rotten luck today in potions, Harry." Ron said, sitting in the couch by the fire.
"Yeah, could have been worse, though."
"Sure," Hermione said from the other chair, "Snape could have taken away 20 points from Gryffindor."
"Whatever." Harry sat down when Ron began laughing under his breath.
"What?"
Looking confused, Ron realized what Harry was referring to, "Sorry, that laughing potion lasts a long time."
Harry sighed.
Things were better in the Slytherin common room. Goyle was sitting with a present his mum had sent him for his birthday, a floating, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, which he and Malfoy were working on above a table along with far wall of the dungeons.
Malfoy was much farther along with his side. The Slytherin never had problems with figuring things out, be it puzzles or schemes to get certain people who annoyed him.
"Did you see his hair? It looked like he was doing a impression of Hagrid."
"Yeah, that was pretty funny." Goyle sat still holding a piece he had in his hands for the last five minutes.
"Third space on your right," Draco said under his breath, "What was even better was the fact that the laughing potion made everyone laugh at him, whether they wanted to or not." A smirk on his face, Draco rose from the table, one half of it having been completed by him, he decided to find something else to entertain him.
There was one thing that Harry and Draco did do in common, albeit they didn't know about it. They both loved to go out and snoop around Hogwarts after dark. Harry, of course having a much easier time due to his father's invisibility cloak. Draco, however, always had a way of sneaking around in the dark, having had learned how to do it from an early age in the Malfoy Manor. The stakes were higher there, however, he would rather face a thousand Filches than his father.
Harry sat in the large open courtyard in the middle of the grounds. The invisibility cloak over his head he sat reading a magazine of Ron's about the newest flying tricks being developed.
Thinking he saw movement, he shrugged it off as being the result of an overactive imagination.
"Students shouldn't be out after dark, you know. There could be dangerous things lurking in the shadows."
Harry looked over to see a smirking Malfoy leaning against one of the marble pillars.
"There isn't anything dangerous out here, Malfoy, just slimy creatures like you."
Draco chucked, "I'm hurt, oh, how you've insulted me. I guess I should leave you to you magazine so you can dream tonight of flying tricks and", he took a moment to think of the Muggle word he had once heard somewhere, "cotton candy."
He walked over towards the lake.
Harry sneered at his back, when something struck him like a ton of Hippogriffs right on his head.
He had never taken off the invisibility cloak.