Chapter Nine

Potions with Professor Yewdine

Harry awoke the next morning to the sound of commotion in the common room below. Reaching over to grab his glasses from the nightstand, Harry noticed that Ron had already gotten up and by the sound of it, was in the common room.

The Gryffindor common room, which was usually quiet at this time of the morning, (still an hour before breakfast) was bustling with activity. A few first years ran past Harry as he came down the stairs; he caught words like "exciting" and "competition" as they zoomed up the stairs, most likely to tell their friends about whatever it was they had heard. When he finally did reach the bottom of the stairs, a choir that took quite a bit of effort considering how groggy he still was from yesterday's celebration, he saw a large group of students surrounding the bulletin board.

"Harry, have you heard?" Ron's voice sounded over the crowd, "there's a big event coming up!"

Harry wiped his eyes and groaned as he continued toward his friend.

Ron was obviously still revved up from last night's performance. Harry had to admit that the fire faeries and dragon charmers were something to behold, but he highly doubted that some random organization or whatever they were, would help boost school spirit.

"Look, it's all right here," Dean Thomas exclaimed, stuffing a copy of the pin-up in Harry's arms, "says it's going to be an adventure for all!"

Apparently more people were enthused than Harry had first thought.

Harry glanced over the flyer. Nothing seemed to stand out too much. A large green and yellow emblem embroidered with Faeries and Dragons topped the page. Ever few seconds the acronym M.O.R.A.L.E flashed across the emblem; as if anyone could forget such a stupid name. Who had come up with that anyways?

"Doesn't say much," Harry said as he walked over to his favourite armchair by the fireplace. Hermione, who had just come down the stairs as well, joined Ron, Dean and Seamus around Harry. "It'll probably be some kind of chess tournament or a job fair," Harry sighed, throwing the paper into the fire. This motion resulted in several gasps and someone even muttered "rude" from somewhere behind him.

"Harry's probably right," Hermione said in a sullen tone. She looked rather tired; Harry guessed she had read herself to sleep after the ceremony last night. "It sounds rather mundane."

Ron and the others took a little more offense by this than they probably should have, and made a rather obnoxious exit from the common room.

Harry stood up and motioned for Hermione to lead the way down to the great hall for breakfast. It was at this exact moment that Ginny shuffled up, beaming.

"You lot have heard?" she said excitedly.

"Yes," Harry and Hermione responded rather rudely in unison, and proceeded to glare.
Ginny sank back into the crowd looking rather hurt.

"Maybe that was a little harsh," Harry commented after seeing Ginny's reaction, "Why don't we just-Hermione?"

The common room door stood open and Harry could see Hermione halfway down the stairs; she hadn't even noticed.

Term schedules were handed out after breakfast. Hermione's schedule consisted of almost every sixth year class possible, something that didn't surprise Harry and Ron in the least. Just then, Professor McGonagall handed Harry his schedule.

"Potter, how come you're not signed up for potions?" she asked in a surprised tone, "I thought you were looking to become an auror?"

Harry slumped. He had forgotten that his exceeds expectations mark on his potions O.W.L wasn't a high enough grade to continue on.

"I-I didn't get a high enough mark on my O.W.L," he admitted quietly. Professor McGonagall's thin mouth spread into a grin.

"Have you forgotten about the staff change Potter?" she said quickly, "With Professor Yewdine teaching potions, a grade of exceeds expectations is far more than enough to get you into class."

Harry smiled.

"I'll sign you up then-you too Weasley," she added, taking a look at Ron's schedule. "You'll need to buy books as soon as possible. Professor Snape probably has some extra ones lying around for now."

"Th-thanks professor," Harry stammered, suddenly feeling full of hope. It seemed that his dream of becoming an auror hadn't slipped away after all.

"Oh and Potter," McGonagall added, turning back towards Harry and Ron, who were now looking thoroughly excited, "You'll need to submit your team roster to me by the end of the week. I suggest you begin tryouts as soon as possible."

Harry had somehow forgotten that he had been named captain of the Gryffindor quidditch team. He had felt worried about this before, unsure of how much extra time this would consume, but now he couldn't wait to get back on the pitch.

"I'll have it professor," He called as McGonagall walked away.

Hermione stood up and began gathering her books.

"Lemme guess," Ron said sarcastically as he watched his friend stuff her books back into her bags; she had been reading The Standard Book of Spells: Grade Six throughout breakfast. "Arithimancy or Runes?"

"Herbology actually," Hermione responded, taking off towards the entrance hall, "and if you two don't hurry up, you'll be late as well."

Harry looked down at his schedule. Sure enough, he had Herbology in five minutes. He downed the rest of his orange juice and bolted for the door.

Harry and Ron turned up late for Herbology. The class had already begun transplanting their Fanged Geranium seedlings.

"You two can go without gloves," Professor Sprout said when Harry and Ron walked up to grab their materials. They gave her a wide-eyed stare. "Oh relax, they're only seedlings, can't do any real damage anyhow."

Harry and Ron marched back to their table and began to work on their Fanged Geranium seedlings.

"So," Seamus asked Ron as he parried a snap from his Geranium, "any guesses at what the big event is going to be?"

"Don't tell me you guys are still going on about that," Harry said, narrowly avoiding his plant as well. It had only been three hours since the flyer had been posted on the bulletin board and already the school was acting like the Tri-wizard tournament had come back to Hogwarts.

"Not really," replied Ron rather loudly, jamming his now bleeding finger into his mouth, "but I'll tell you one thing, Professor Sprout definitely hasn't tackled Fanged Geraniums barehanded before."

The three others laughed.

During lunch Harry mentioned to Katie Bell that he would be holding tryouts for the positions that had become vacant since last year.

"You're not going to tryout the whole team?" Katie said in a disappointed tone.

"Well why would I?" Harry said, seeing as he already had a pretty good idea of who was worthy material or not.

"Well I just don't want any special treatment," she stated, "because we're well… friends."

Harry realized that she had a point.

"Fine then, I'll hold tryouts for the entire team," he said sounding rather reluctant, "just make sure to mention it to people. I want to hold them before the end of the week, tomorrow if possible."

"That's not a whole lot of time-"

"I'm sure you can manage it Katie," Harry said, standing up to leave.

"Alright then captain," she said jokingly, "I'll get to it."

"Oh, and Katie," Harry added, turning back to her, "Make sure you live up to my expectations."

That afternoon Harry, Ron and Hermione had their first Potions class. As they approached the dungeon that they related so closely to Snape, they weren't surprised to find the crowd at the door whispering and giving each other looks of skepticism.

"So this class is taught by that little kid, right?" Harry heard Ernie Macmillan ask Dean Thomas as they approached.

"You've met her Harry, haven't you?" Dean said, turning to Harry. "What's she like?"

Harry didn't know what they were talking about. Had the fact that Harry and Dumbledore had visited the weird house out in the countryside over the summer somehow leaked around the school?

"I've met her? I don't know what you're talking about." Harry said quickly, trying to avoid the subject.

"Yes you have," Neville announced, "you met her on the train."

Harry felt relieved. He had seen Professor Yewdine on the train-in fact, if it hadn't been for her, he and Ron would have probably been beating senseless by-

"You could hardly call her a professor."

The familiarly unpleasant voice of Draco Malfoy came from the back of the crowd. Sure enough, the group of students parted so that that Malfoy now stood face to face with Harry and the others.

"I can't believe the governors are making nowadays. If my dad were here-"

"Yeah it's too bad he's locked away in Azkaban," Ron said, giving Malfoy a look of disgust, "I guess that's what you get for being a Death Eater."

"You just wait, Weasley, we're going to-"

"You're going to what Malfoy?" Harry asked, stepping past Ron and getting right in Malfoy's face. "I don't see your cronies around, what happened? Did they get Troll's on their potions O.W.L?"

The Gryffindors roared with laughter. Malfoy contorted his face in anger.

He leaned in closer to Harry so that his mouth was right next to Harry's ear.

"Oh, you'll see Potter. We've got all kinds of surprises waiting for you."

Just then there was a loud cough and everyone turned to see the silver-haired seven year old girl that was Professor Yewdine.

"Is there a problem here Mr. Malfoy?" she asked, sounding ridiculously like a child.

Malfoy backed off with a huff.

Professor Yewdine opened the door to the classroom and led the way in.

The classroom was already full of plumes of smoke and quaint smells that Harry guess were obviously coming from three large cauldrons scattered around the room. Ernie Macmillan took a seat at Harry, Ron and Hermione's table as the Slytherins and Ravenclaws each took their own table. Harry and Ron glanced over at the cauldron next to their table. Harry had no idea was its contents were, but suddenly it didn't matter. Some of the spiraling plumes from the cauldron seeped into Harry's nostrils and he was suddenly met with a scent that induced a slight euphoria. He could definitely smell Treacle Tart and the smell of a freshly polished broomstick. There was also a slight flowery scent accompanying this; something he was sure he had smelled at the burrow. He suddenly found himself grinning stupidly. He turned to Ron only to find that he too had a grin on his face and looked as if he were having a very pleasant day dream.

"Would everyone please take out their scales and materials, as well as their copy of Advanced Potion Making."

"Professor," Harry spoke up, causing everyone to look over at him. "I uh, don't have any materials. Professor McGonagall just signed us up this morning;" He explained pointing at Ron, "What do you-"

"I do remember her mentioning something about this," Professor Yewdine said, putting a hand on her chin and looking rather silly doing so. It was still hard to take a seven year old seriously, even if she was an all-knowing sage. "Professor Snape has a few extra copies of the book over here I believe," she said, and without warning, two copies of Advanced Potion Making were soaring across the room and landed in the hands of Harry and Ron.

"Um… Professor," Malfoy said, showing no attempt to hide the fact that he thought Professor Yewdine shouldn't be a teacher at all, "I… need a copy of the book as well."

Professor Yewdine said nothing. She simply waved her wand and another book flung itself off the shelf and was caught rather clumsily by Malfoy, who had to dive out of his seat for it.

"If you would be so kind as to open your books to page seventy-"

"Professor this book's all scribbled in; I can't use this garbage!" Malfoy complained, cutting Professor Yewdine off.

"You're lucky you have a copy at all Mr. Malfoy, now I suggest you open it to page seventy-six," the girl responded, turning back towards the chalkboard and sounding much fiercer than Harry thought was possible, "Ten points from Slytherin for that outburst."

Malfoy sneered at her.

"And a detention tomorrow evening at eight o'clock for that snide look."

Everyone at the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables giggled quietly. The Slytherin table looked rather confused at the fact that Professor Yewdine hadn't even been looking in their direction. Harry thought he heard someone mention the words "Mad-Eye Moody" in the onslaught of whispery chaos.

When the room became silent again, Professor Yewdine began a slow circle around the students.

"Around you you'll see a mix of different potions you should be able to produce by the time you leave this school next year," she began, sounding more like a teacher. She stopped in front of the cauldron by the Slytherin table that looked liked it simply contained boiling water. "Can anyone tell me what this is?"

Hermione's hand shot up.

"Yes, Ms. Granger?"

"It's Veritaserum Professor, colourless, Odourless and tasteless. One drop will cause the drinker to speak the truth, no matter the circumstances." Hermione said brightly.

"Very good Ms. Granger, nothing less than I expected."

Professor Yewdine continued around the room and asked the students about the contents of the other two large cauldrons. Hermione answered both her questions, stating that the second cauldron contained Polyjuice Potion, which Harry and Ron had recognized, and that the third cauldron contained a love potion called Amortentia. Her response to this question was rather lengthy and involved something about freshly mown grass and new parchment. When she had reached the front of the room again, Professor Yewdine opened up her book again.

"Professor," Ernie Macmillan said suddenly, "What's in that cauldron?"

He was pointing at the smaller cauldron sitting on her desk that looked to be filled with a bubbling, gold coloured substance.

"Oh this," she replied casually, "this is something that will be used as a reward at an event scheduled for later this year. It's a potion called Felix Felicis." She gave Hermione a respectful look. "I'm sure you can tell me what Felix Felicis does Ms. Granger?"

"It's liquid luck," Hermione beamed, "It makes you lucky!"

"Exactly right, ten points to Gryffindor," Professor Yewdine responded happily. "The drinker of this potion will notice that everything he or she does will go perfectly well. That is, until its effects wear off."

The room was suddenly full of conversation. Harry suddenly found himself interested in the bulletin board flyer posted up earlier. Imagine what kind of benefits a potion like that would have in a quidditch match, or in a competition like the Tri-wizard tournament, even for something like finding a date; the possibilities were endless.

"But that's enough about that," Professor Yewdine said, causing the room to go silent again; apparently no one else wanted a detention. "We are on page seventy-six in our books. We will be starting with a much simpler than Felix Felicis called the Draught of Living Death."

She continued talking, but Harry heard nothing. He was lost in a glorious daydream that consisted of Felix Felicis and the quidditch world cup.