Chapter 10: A Chilly Day in March

Over the next month or so, Padma would go down to Greenhouse One with Kevin and he would teach her more about the practical aspects of Herbology. On the first Friday he'd gone through the basics, teaching her how to re-pot plants, prune them and how to use fertilizer properly. There were a couple of accidents though. Padma once dropped a Creeping Vine on the floor and Kevin had to go and get Professor Sprout in order to stop it taking root on the stone floor.

By the beginning of March, Padma had improved dramatically. She was now more confident and had less of a tendency to drop things. One Thursday morning at breakfast, Padma sat eating an apple and reading the Daily Prophet. Lisa and Michael walked over to the Ravenclaw table, the former looking furious. She sat down next to Padma and grabbed some toast. Michael seemed as though he wanted to say something but Lisa's stony expression clearly made him think twice and he sat in silence.

"What's wrong?" Padma asked Lisa.

"You should ask Corner," Lisa said huffily. "He should know why."

Padma looked over to Michael who shrugged, looking confused.

"I have no idea," he said. "And Lisa won't tell me what I've supposedly done!"

"There's no supposedly about it!" Lisa hissed. "He ruined my Potions notes and my best quill! How you didn't realise is a mystery to me!"

"Is that it?" Terry asked innocently.

Lisa looked scandalous.

"I spent hours on those notes and my quill cost me seven Sickles! I try to be nice, lending them to Corner, and he manages to spill Butterbeer all over them!"

"Where did you get Butterbeer from?" Anthony asked.

"A couple of fifth years brought them back from Hogsmede at Christmas," Michael explained.

Lisa stood up and grabbed her bag along with a stack of toast.

"That's not the point," she said acidly, and stormed out of the Great Hall.

Padma got to her feet and turned to Michael.

"Maybe you should copy out your notes for Lisa," she suggested. "And make sure that they're neat; she can't stand scruffiness."

Padma hurried after Lisa. She spotted her blonde hair disappearing around a corner and she eventually caught up. Lisa stood outside Quirrel's classroom and was eating a slice of toast, glaring at the opposite wall.

"Are you alright?" Padma ventured.

Lisa looked around. She smiled weakly at Padma and offered her a slice of toast.

"It wasn't really the fact that he ruined my notes," she explained. "It was that Corner wouldn't even apologise when he knew he'd done something wrong."

"He's just an insensitive wart," Padma said with a grin. "Merlin knows he needs a good dose of Personality Potion to make him nicer!"

Lisa sniggered and smiled at Padma.

"That's true enough."

The two Ravenclaw girls turned as Professor Quirrel emerged from his classroom. He smiled weakly at them and adjusted his oversized turban that, as usual, smelt strongly of garlic.

"N-no sense in standing r-round outside, is there g-girls?" he asked in his stammering voice. "C-come inside and sit d-down."

Padma and Lisa entered the classroom and sat down at the front desk. The Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom was fairly gloomy as Quirrel insisted on hanging black nets over the window to keep out Dark creatures, and he had all sorts of books lining shelves in the room. There were skeletons of several unusual creatures and a dragon head above the blackboard that seemed to watch everyone in the room. Padma took out her copy of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection.

When the rest of the Ravenclaws came into the class, Lisa turned around in her seat and glared at Michael before pulling out her parchment and a spare quill from her bag.

"Today we w-will be continuing our w-work on d-d-dragons," Quirrel said. He waved his wand and waved it, making diagrams of different breeds appear on the blackboard. "The Hebridean B-black is the only other d-dragon native to Britain a-aside f-from the Common Welsh G-green. The wizard c-clan McFusty has traditionally t-taken responsibility for t-their m-management…"

Padma set about making notes and by the end of the lesson she had several scrolls about British dragons.

"For h-homework I want you all t-to write two f-feet on M-muggle viewings of d-dragons."

Professor Quirrel gave one last, frightened look at the Ravenclaws and hurried out of the classroom. After a quick dinner, when Lisa was still refusing to talk to Michael, the Ravenclaw first years headed down to the cool, dimly lit dungeons for Potions with the Hufflepuffs.

Even though the weather outside was warmer, Snape's dungeon remained cool and Padma shivered slightly as she took her seat at the desk that she shared with Lisa, Terry and Anthony. As Snape walked into the classroom, his black robes billowing around him, Lisa took the opportunity to glare at Michael one more time.

"Do you think we could steal some Personality Potion," she whispered to Padma.

Padma stifled a giggle with her hand as Snape looked around the dungeon.

"Today you will be working on a Cooling Potion," he said, tapping the board so that the instructions appeared there. "You will find the ingredients in the cupboard…" the door flew open with a bang "…so get on with it then."

Padma lit a flame under her cauldron with her wand and set about shredding ragwort leaves. It was a fairly complicated potion, having to be stirred a certain number of times clockwise and all of the ingredients had to be added in the right order. By the end it was meant to be a light blue with white fumes hovering over the surface. Padma's was a little darker than it should be, but at least hers wasn't thick and black like Terry's.

Snape swept about the dungeon scrutinising their potions. He came to a Hufflepuff called Justin Finch-Fletchly and stared at his cauldron.

"You incompetent child!" Snape snapped. "A cooling potion isn't meant to be red!" He walked over to the Ravenclaws and studied Padma's potion. "You forgot to stir anti-clockwise on the third step," he said icily.

Padma glared at her near-perfect potion.

"And what on earth is this meant to be, Mr Boot?"

Terry had paled considerably.

"A Cooling Potion, sir."

Snape sneered.

"We'd best see if it works then. If it does, the drinker should feel pleasantly cooled. If not…well, we'll see, won't we. Any volunteers?"

Nobody, quite obviously, wanted to try Terry's appalling potion. Snape looked around the dungeon, his black eyes eventually settling on Padma. She felt her stomach squirm uncomfortably.

"Maybe one of your fellow Ravenclaws, Mr Boot," Snape said with a smile. "Miss Patil; if you would step up here. Quickly now."

Padma got up and walked over to Terry's cauldron. Terry looked pale and concerned as Snape poured some of the tar-like potion into a goblet. He handed it to Padma.

"Drink up, Miss Patil."

Taking the goblet in trembling hands, Padma looked at Terry. He was biting his lower lip. Padma gulped down the potion. It suddenly felt as though as her stomach had been filled with ice and the sensation spread throughout her body, clutching at her throat and her head. She shivered uncontrollably and slipped down to the floor, her vision blacking around the edges. The last thing she heard before she lost consciousness was Snape's voice.

"Seems as though that wasn't a Cooling Potion then, Mr Boot."

o0o

When Padma woke she found herself in what was probably the Hospital Wing, tucked up in bed with a blue and bronze scarf wrapped about her neck. Her head was pounding, her throat sore and her nose was streaming. She sneezed loudly. It seemed as though Terry's botched potion had given her a bad cold. She looked up and found a single, hunched figure at the foot of her bed.

"Is that you, Terry?"

He turned, his face a mixture of relief and embarrassment, and got up to sit on the bed next to Padma.

"I'm so sorry!" he said. "It's all my fault…"

"I've told you before, Mr Boot, it's not your fault." The speaker was a motherly looking woman who held two bottles and a spoon in her hands. "You mustn't blame yourself. Professor Snape should have known not to give a poorly made potion to a student." She turned to Padma. "I'm Madam Pomfrey, Miss Patil; now a dose of Pepper-Up Potion should make you feel better after I give you the antidote."

Padma swallowed down a spoonful of each potion, the second one burning her throat slightly. She felt her head clear considerably and her nose stopped running.

"Thank you," she said to Madam Pomfrey, finding her throat still sore.

"I'm going to keep you here overnight," Madam Pomfrey said. "Just to make sure that you're perfectly well before you go back to lessons."

Padma watched as she disappeared through a door.

"Why aren't you in Charms?" she asked Terry.

"I was excused because of the…incident," Terry said bashfully. "Oh, and I brought you a present, just to say that I'm sorry."

"You didn't have to," Padma said croakily.

"I did," Terry said firmly. "It's my fault that you're in here. I just want to say that I'm sorry." He handed her a package wrapped in a page of the Daily Prophet. "I was going to save it for your birthday but this seemed more important."

Padma smiled genuinely and unwrapped the present, finding it to be a framed photograph of the two of them out in the snow at Christmas. The moving figures were smiling and laughing, damp with snow, and they waved merrily out at Padma.

"Morag took it," Terry said. "Do you remember?"

Padma nodded and she felt her stomach warm as though she'd had another dose of Pepper-Up Potion. She hugged Terry tightly, unable to stop smiling.

"It was almost worth drinking that potion for this."

Terry smiled.

"I'd better get going. I'll see you at breakfast tomorrow."

Padma settled back into her bed and watched as he walked out of the Hospital Wing. That night, for no reason that she could put her finger on, she fell asleep with the photograph hugged close to her chest.