CHAPTER 10: Toxic (I hate the chapter title, but I'm desperate)
Much to Lily's dismay James, Remus and Sirius had choosen to join them as they walked to lunch.
"I must say that that was quite a good lesson" Remus said.
"Easy for you to say, you weren't partnered with Malfoy" James mumbled.
"Yeah, well, I had Hermione, she doesn't go down without a fight" Sirius said, smirking at the brunette girl.
"Unless I missed something here I don't go down at all" Hermione teased, sending Sirius a mock glare.
"Yeah well, I suppose being defeated was worth seeing up your skirt for a few sec-" Sirius's setence was suddenly cut short when he mysteriously fell flat on his face.
"Oh my God Sirius! Are you alright?" Hermione said, not being able to hold back a smirk as she heard James burst out laughing.
Sirius rolled onto his back. "Tripping people is not nice Hermione"
"Yeah but it's hilarious" James said, reaching out his hand to help his friend up.
"I'm right James" Sirius declined, "I have the perfect view from down here"
"...View?" Remus asked, a frown forming on his face.
"Yes, view, unless you all forgot, Hermione is wearing a skirt"
Hermione gasped in realisation and stepped back, pulling out her wand and pointing it directly at Sirius.
"Ah...fuck" He muttered, stumbling in his attempt to get up and out of the way of whatever spell she was about to shoot at him.
"Scourgify" Hermione whispered so that only Lily and herself could hear it. Sirius closed his eyes as he was hit with the dark green light.
Opening his eyes he looked straight at James.
"What was that meant to do?" James asked Hermione.
Hermione just smiled and shrugged as she and Lily continued on their way to the great hall.
"Women..." James muttered, shaking his head.
Sirius nodded and just as he opened his mouth to say something masses of foam poured out.
James and Remus burst out laughing. Sirius glared at them both as he 'de-scourgified' his mouth with his wand.
"She is pure evil" He muttered.
"No, She is brilliant!" Remus laughed.
"Oh...you say that now, but I'll get her back right after operation Save-Lily-From-Extremely-Jealous-Chicks" Sirius said, a smirk appearing on his face as he thought of all the possibilities to get Hermione back.
"Pay back or not Padfoot my dear friend, she's still good"
After lunch Hermione and Lily made their way down to the dungeons for potions.
"I've been looking forward to potions all day" Lily exclaimed, it was obvious that this was one of the girl's favourite subjects.
"Yeah...me too" Hermione replied meekly.
Entering the classroom they found it next to empty with only five people in it, this was an unusual suprise to Hermione as she was always used to being earlier then everyone else.
Sirius, James, Remus, Peter and...Snape were all over the same side of the room.
"Not very nice today are we Snivellus?" Sirius sneered as he controlled a mop to hit Snape.
"Stop it!" Lily yelled, sounding annoyed as she stormed over to the boys.
"Ah Lily, please, do take a seat and enjoy the show!" James said, directing her to sit beisde Remus who was reading a book and ignoring the whole situation and Peter who was laughing uncontrollably.
"No Potter stop it now!" Lily yelled, attempting to move toward Sirius and knock his wand out of his hands.
"Oh no you don't!" James laughed, grabbing her around the waist and stopping her from moving any closer to Sirius. Lily, amongst her yelling and struggling sent a pleading look at Hermione.
Almost carelessly Hermione took out her wand flicked it at the mop. It did nothing.
'Clever...' She thought.
"Sirius stop it" Hermione said, walking over to the boy.
"Aww come on Hermione" Sirius whined.
"No Sirius, I said stop it"
"It's just a bit of harmless fun!" Sirius said, continuing to whack a disgruntled Snape over the head who seemed to be trying his best to ignore the mop.
Hermione shook her head angerly and stormed over to the mop and grabbed it. The mop struggled and began trying to hit her, succeeding a few times.
Sirius sent one last glare at Snape before removing the charm on the mop.
"Thanks" Hermione said, placing the mop beside the door.
"Now Snivellus, thank Hermione and Lily" James ordered.
Snape, of course, did no such thing and instead glared hard at both girls before turning his back on all of them.
Sirius began to raise his wand, prepared to force a 'thank you' out of the greasy boy, but Hermione had been quick and had dis-armed him.
"You just don't get it, do you?" Lily yelled, finally breaking away from James.
"It was just a bit of fun Lily..." James said innocently.
Lily shook her head in disbelief and placed her books down on a table which was as far away from the boys as possible.
Potion's started without anymore drama and soon ingrediants were written up on the board.
"Now, I want all of you to be careful while making the Nebula Potion (a/n: Nebula means 'Fog' in Latin)"
Suddenly a hand shot up in the air. Slughorn sighed.
"Yes Mr. Pettigrew?" He asked.
"What does the potion do?"Peter squeaked, glancing at a few girls while he said this.
"Ah, a reasonable question Mr. Pettigrew, tell me, can anyone here tell Mr. Pettigrew what exactly this potion does?" Slughorn said, looking around. He spotter Sirius and James whispering to eachother in the back of the classroom.
"Mr. Black" Slughorn said, "What does this potion do?"
"Shouldn't you already know Sir? I mean, you are the potion's professor" Sirius said with a small smirk.
Much to Hermione's suprise Slughorn just chuckled. "Yes Mr. Black, I do know, I am simply seeing if you know"
"Well, in that case then, it helps you out of sticky situations with the law" Sirius said, winking at James.
"Although that answer sounds as if it is spoken from experience, it was not the answer I had hoped for" Slughorn said with a small smile. "Can anyone else tell Mr. Pettigrew what it does?"
Hermione raised her hand, noticing that Lily's was raised as well.
"I think we will let Ms Granger have this one" Slughorn said, nodding at her as if to tell her that she could start speaking.
"The Nebula potion is made for one simple purpose, to escape. It creates a cloud that surrounds you leaving whomever or whatever you may be trying to escape from unable to see you, leaving you free to make a quick escape by portkey or apparation. The potion is activatated by exposing it to air three days after brewing it. Most wizards or witches prefer to throw it to the ground as the actual potion before it turns to cloud can be very dangerous" Hermione said, smiling at all the shocked faces.
"Terrific! 10 points to Gryffindor" Slughorn boomed happily, only to have his mood ruined as Peter's hand was once again high in the air.
"Yes Mr Pettigrew?" Slughorn sighed.
"I don't get it!" Peter whined.
"What is not to get dear boy?" Slughorn said impatiently.
"If the potion is dangerous then why isn't the smoke?"
Hermione's hand was once again in the air.
"Ms Granger?"
"The fog is only the remains of the potion, for examply, fire can burn you, but smoke cannot, it's the same thing with the potion. If the potion comes in contact with your skin it'll be horrible, it eats at your skin, but the fog does not" Hermione said, cringing at the thought of what it could do.
"Very good Ms Granger, another 10 points" Slughorn said, ignoring the angry calls of the Slytherins who didn't seem very happy about all the points Hermione was gaining for Gryffindor.
"Now, for all of those that are not confident in their ability to not spill any potion on themselves aprons and gloves are available at the front of the room, just remember to return them after class" Slughorn said. "Now get to work"
Hermione and Lily did not join the large percentage of the class that raced to the front of the room for safety gear and instead decided that they'd get a head start on their potions.
So, while Hermione decided to get the ingrediants Lily set up the cauldrons and filled them with boiling water. Hermione soon returned.
Hermione was finding it very irratating watching out for Lily while trying to do the best she possibly could with her potion, but for Lily she would fail this potion without regret.
Some later Hermione had to race back down to the ingrediants cupboard to get a dash more Doxy dust. It was then she saw a Slytherin girl looking back at Lily with a look on her face that clearly thought Lily was not good enough to be sharing the same air as her.
After that Hermione kept a watchful eye on the girl, gasping when at one point she dipped a cloth into her potion.
Finally Hermione finished her potion and was able to keep a proper watch on the girl.
"Have you finished your potion?" Lily asked.
"Huh? Oh, um yeah, I have" Hermione replied, hardly paying attention.
"Cool" Lily said. Hermione was not aware of Lily scooping some of her potion and putting it into a vile before labelling it 'Hermione'.
The next time Hermione turned around Lily was walking to Slughorn's desk to hand in their potions.
"Shit" Hermione muttered, her eyes shifting automatically to the slyhterin girl who was now making her way over to the ingrediants cabinet.
Without thinking Hermione did the same.
"Have you seen the snake scales?" Hermione asked the girl.
"No, and besides, why are you looking for ingrediants, isn't that, like, your potion being handed in?" The girl sneered.
"I need something to do for the nest 10 minutes" Hermione smiled, pretending that the girl had just been as nice as pie to her.
"Whatever" the girl sneered, grabbing a glass of green liquid and standing up.
Hermione stayed down at the cupboard, not wanting to seem to suspicious.
She watched as the the Slytherin strolled towards Slughorn's desk where Lily was trying to escape his rambling, she then watched as the girl stumbled on something that probably didn't exist, spilling the contents of the glass on Lily.
"Oh my God, I am so sorry" the Slytherin girl said, producing the cloth from her apron pocket.
"Here, use this" She then said, holding the cloth at one tip attempting to pass it to Lily.
"Oh ah thanks" Lily said politely.
"Lily, hard to get out of the old muggle way huh?" Hermione said, walking up behind them, and before Lily could even blink Hermione had cleaned the mess with a spell.
"Good as new" Hermione smiled brightly.
"Thanks anyway" Lily said to the Slytherin who stormed off to her desk.
Hermione shrugged at Lily who was confused about the girl's behaviour. Together they walked back to their desk, Lily partly embarrassed.
As soon as they sat down their cauldron's began to wobble like crazy.
"Um...Hermione?" Lily looked over at Hermione to see if she was the cause"
"It's not me" Hermione said, already starting to leave her seat.
Just as Lily was getting up from hers the cauldron began to tip and before Lily even knew what was happening...she was safe and sound.
"What.." She mumbled, looking into James' face.
"Thanks" She muttered, blushing furiously at how close they were.
"Anytime" James smiled, helping her up.
The pair's eye cntact never broke until Slughorn's voice snapped them back to reality.
"WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?"
A/n: You may want to kill me for taking so long to update, but may I just remind you...that...uh...without me...there would be no more updates :D
So yeah, sorry, busy time at school, but, now it's the holidays, so hopefully I won't take too long.
love you all
P2MU xox
Oh, and I don't care about spelling and or grammer mistakes in this chapter.