Dislcaimer: I don't own Harry Potter

Perfection Potion

Hermione awoke the next morning to a screeching headache and a heart full of weight. She wanted to jump up and down and scream, cursing the world and all its inhabitants. Fuming, she dressed in her robes, trying to fight the fog in her mind. It felt like moths and invaded her brain and eaten away at her intelligence. Just trying to remember where she was seemed to be like trying to contain water in a hand with its fingers spread open.

Slowly, Hermione made her way down the stairs to common room. Sitting in the large armchairs were Harry and Ron. They leaped to their feet when they saw her, but recoiled when they saw here infuriated state.

"What's the matter with you, Hermione?" Harry asked, eying her up and down. She knew the sight of her must be horrific. She hadn't bothered to straighten her clothes and her hair must be scrambled about her head.

"Nothing, Harry," she said rubbing an eye. "Just tired."

Neither of the boys said another word until they had reached the Great Hall for breakfast. In the end, it was Ron who broke the silence.

"Hermione, you've seemed to be a little off lately. What's the matter?"

"Nothing, Ron," Hermione said, keeping her head down. The truth was, she herself didn't even know what was going on.

The three of them sat down at the Gryffindor table, Hermione on one side, Harry and Ron on the other. Ron dived into the food immediately. Harry lingered to watch Hermione for a moment, but then he himself began to eat his breakfast. Hermione, however, found it hard to concentrate on her breakfast with all the events of the previous night running through her head. Desperate to solve the puzzle that lay before her, she reached over to her bag she had placed beside her and pulled out a spare bit of parchment and an instant-ink quill. On the paper she began to write fragments of information she remembered from the previous night.

Artemis and Dumbledore-past.
Loss of memory
Pensieve
Malfoy involvement
Blue ribbon
Scar

She scanned the list, looking for any possibility as to why all that had happened to her last night. The last word on her list startled her. She lifted her shirt slightly to see a long brownish looking scar. She raised an eyebrow and lowered her shirt. She rattled her mind for a minute, trying to remember anything else. Suddenly, she remembered the prophecy. She shivered at the thought a nearly fell to tears. So much had happened in so little time. She felt as if she would fall over any minute now from exhaustion and the heavy weights that she was certain were strapped to her shoulders. She couldn't move, she could barely breathe, and all the while she could think of nothing but Malfoy. Stupid, repulsive, thick, metal-eyed…utterly gorgeous Draco Malfoy. Hermione sighed. Screw him. Screw this all. She had mid-term exams coming up and she wasn't going to let Malfoy and some freaky spirit named Artemis get in the way. With that final thought, Hermione rose to her feet and got dressed, pushing all thoughts of the doom that lay ahead of her aside, if only for a day.

Hermione made it down to breakfast and through the first half of the day without a pause, misstep or trip. The only thing that seemed to be looking down on her was the dreaded potions class.

Hermione, Harry, and Ron walked slowly down to the dungeons, hating every step that brought them closer to the cold class room where the ultimate torture waited. Harry was the first to enter the room. Hermione and Ron followed him towards their usual table at the back of the room. Hermione felt the hairs at the back of her neck rise with a vengeance as she fought to control her urge to run from this room and never come back. Yet her duty to her good grades kept her in place. And not one displeasure would keep her from it.

Speaking of displeasures, Draco Malfoy had just come sauntering into the room, his face a mask of power. A mask, she thought, because Hermione knew that beneath it all he was just a big, ugly ferret. He sat himself down at a table to their right, throwing his bag down on the table with dignity. Hermione wanted to spit on him.

Suddenly, the door Draco had shut behind him burst open to reveal a very angry look8ing Snape. Hermione couldn't help but grin at his angry face as he cast her and her friends and loathsome look. They were used to it by now.

"Ms. Granger, if you would kindly stop smirking, we're ready to being our lesson," Snape hissed at her. Hermione could have sworn she saw steam coming out of his ears as drops of grease dripped from his head. She shuttered at the thought, but quickly resumed silence.

"Good," Snape said with a grin, his lips curling sinisterly at the corner of his lips. "Now, today we're going to be making the perfection potion. It allows the maker to turn the drinker into their idea of perfect for 1 hour. You will need the following ingredients."

Snape turned his back to the class as he began to write out the instructions in his stiff, illegible handwriting. Hermione started as she heard a voice hiss her name. Hermione looked to her right to see Malfoy leaning over to them, a small smile on his lips.

"How's your scar doing, Granger?" he asked, his lips drawn back into a visible smirk.

"Where are Crabbe and Goyle? Get lost along the way?" Ron hissed.

"They're in the hospital wing. Got drunk on fire whiskey. They're stomachs caught on fire," Draco said with a frown. "Dumb brutes."

Ron gave a cackled and took hold of Hermione's shoulder, pulling her attention back to the board. Hermione squinted at it, trying to make it out. When she did, she raised an eyebrow at the strange combination.

3 fire seeds
2 graphorns
4 chizpurfle carapaces
9 billywigs
7 fairy wings
2 firefly thoraxes
5 dragon scales
1 vial of toadstool extract
2 leaves of octopus skin
3 jars of hippogriff blood.

Put 3 jars of hippogriff blood in cauldron and hold cauldron over flame until boiling.
Add 1 graphorn, 2 fire seeds, 5 dragon scales, 2 firefly thorazes, and 1 leaf of octopus skin in that order.
Stir for 5 minutes or until ingredients dissolve.
Add chizpurfle carapaces, billywigs, fairy wings, and toadstool extract. Remove cauldron from flame.
On one roll of parchment write the qualities the person should receive from the potion. Burn over the flame and let the ashes fall into the potion.
Put cauldron back on the flame and add remaining ingredients. When all ingredients are dissolved, removed from the cauldron from the flame and let the potion cool.

Hermione shook her head, attempting to dislodge all doubts from her mind. She quickly moved from her seat and went to the ingredients cabinets. When she returned to her seat her arms were full of the necessary ingredients and a head over-laden from what had happened last night and the task that lay at hand.

Everything went smoothly until Hermione reached the part where she was supposed to write down the qualities she wanted the person to have. Hermione looked around the room for inspiration of some sort. She found nothing. What had see expected, an angel with a roll of parchment containing everything see needed? Hermione quickly scribbled down some words and brunt the parchment, letting the ashes settle into the potion. Hermione quickly finished the potion, only pausing when she burnt her finger on the cauldron. Soon her cauldron joined the others around her, cooling until they were ready to be used.

When everyone was done, Snape instructed the class the fill a vial with the potion and give it to a class mate. Quickly, everyone scrambled to find a partner. Harry and Ron, as usual, handed each other their vials and downed them with security. Before Hermione's eyes, she saw Harry change into Ron and Ron change into Harry. They buffoons both pointed to each other and laughed. Hermione rolled her eyes but had the grace to smile at them and join in at their laughter, only no quiet as strongly.

Draco Malfoy went slaughtering by, a small smile on his face. He was obviously heading towards Pansy. Ron, now Harry, held out a foot and tripped him. Draco did, indeed, trip on Ron's foot and ended up colliding with Hermione. Hermione let out a squeak as Draco's potion spilled on her, a decent about ending up in her mouth. Hermione's own potion had the same fate upon Draco. Ron watched in horror as his doppelganger Harry watched in horror as well. Hermione half expected to turn into some horrible, ugly pureblood type person with a horrible zit on her face, but nothing happened. The same applied for Malfoy.

"What was that?" he asked a blushing Ron, his front dripping with Hermione's potion. Hermione couldn't help but glare at Ron as well.

"Ron! You're ruined my potion!" she said in an exasperated tone.

"You've got plenty more in the cauldron," Ron said meekly. However, Snape was standing over Hermione's empty cauldron, wand at hand.

"I'm afraid not, Mr. Weasley. I've already emptied Hermione's cauldron. But perhaps she'll give you a more proper punishment for you absurd behavior than I can." He said this all with a grin, as if Hermione getting an F was funny. She supposed it was to him.

Draco returned to his cauldron with a smirk and an empty vial, only to let out a yelp of anger. Apparently his cauldron was empty too. He glared at Ron, who was too busy muttering quick apologies to Hermione. She brushed him aside, saying it was okay.

"What really bothers me is that nothing happened to Malfoy," Hermione said, her eyebrows wrinkled. "I'm certain I did it right."

"Maybe Malfoy's just to horid to be made perfect. He's beyond repair," said Harry, who's red hair was already beginning to turn a shade of black and grow fairly messy.

"Maybe," Hermione said softly, her head deep in thought.

"Come on," said Ron, who's brilliant red hair was beginning to shine through. "We've got charms next and that's on the second floor. We'd better get moving."

Hermione nodded and followed Ron and Harry up the grand staircase, the bubble of worry in her chest growing another 3 seizes.