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Disclaimer: Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me, otherwise the NejiTen would be canon.
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Enjoy.
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Chapter 5. Potions
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He inhaled deeply and slowly, holding his breath for several seconds before exhaling heavily. He didn't want to do that, but it's not like he had anything better to do either, and that was the only reason he had agreed to be there on a Saturday morning. He inhaled deeply again, he was going to wait a few more minutes and if the person he was waiting for didn't arrive, he was going to leave. Just because he didn't have anything better to do, didn't mean he was going to be waiting for someone who was running late.
He should have said directly that he wasn't interested when the potions professor told him that a student was looking for extra-class advising to improve her a grades, he didn't have the patience to be teaching an unruly first year student, as if the man had read his look, the professor clarified that it was a classmate of his from the same year. That information didn't make his patience increase, but at least it would be someone less restless than the students of the first years, although he hadn't paid much attention to his classmates to get an idea of who it could be.
He clarified that he wasn't sure, also because he didn't want to open the possibility that it meant he was going to spend his free hours tutoring anyone, it was his last year so not only were his normal exams coming up but the N.E.W.T. were just around the corner. And again as if foreseeing that, the professor told him that it would only be for that one student and that if he agreed to do it, the man would exempt him from all the exams in his subject, after all he was the best student in the class.
At that moment he told the professor that he would answer in the next class, it wasn't a decision to take lightly. When he left the classroom he went to his next class and then to the library, he was serious when he said that being his last year this meant that just as in fifth year he presented the O.W.L.s, now it was the N.E.W.T. that awaited him, and he had to create a strategy both of study and of the possible own skills that he had to improve to ensure that his minimum grade in all was an 'Exceeds Expectations', a grade lower than that wouldn't be accepted neither by his uncle nor by himself.
When he had finished his day's reading in the library he went to the stairs, and towards what was his last stop each day before going to the Great Hall for dinner, which was the mirror. The moment he turned into one of the hallways he could see Sasuke and Hidan on the other side, who just looked him up and down before continuing on their way, neither they had greeted him nor he them. That last year he had enough stress in his life to add up to having to put up with his 'friends' on a daily basis and so he had directly opted to start passing them by.
Such a decision had been prompted in large part by what was in store for him that year, such as the reunion that had taken place at the Ōtsutsuki mansion during the vacation at the end of the sixth year. A meeting that he personally would have preferred not to attend, but his uncle told them that it was a very important meeting and that they couldn't miss it, even Hiashi spoke to Hinata to tell her that she would also go and that she had better not make a fool out of him. The three of them, including Hanabi, had kept together most of the time while Hiashi proudly displayed them from side to side, "the future of the Hyūga family!" because Hufflepuff or not Hufflepuff, his older cousin still had the family name.
The Uchiha had also been there, showing off Sasuke and regretting Itachi's absence. Kakashi was there along with the rest of the Hatake, which meant that Hidan was in a bad mood and wasn't behaving according to the expected etiquette. The worst thing was that the worse Hidan behaved, the more the parents of the brothers emphasized to mention the great achievements of the eldest, even saying that at that rate they expected that soon Kakashi would be promoted to Head of one of the houses.
It was literally being in a nest of vipers, and from the way they talked you could almost see the venom running back and forth. There were also the Mitarashi, the Shimura, the Shiranui, the Madoka and the Tsumiki, all surnames of families that still kept their blood pure. Although it wasn't just that, it wasn't a meeting where families that still kept their lineage coincided, it was a conflagration of families that believed in the superiority of having pure blood and intended their family tree to stay that way. Mentioning more than once that the magical world was going down the drain with the number of mudbloods swarming around with impunity and that there were more and more half-bloods in the face of so many unprincipled families who sullied their surnames by allowing their members to wallow with them.
He had disguised his weariness as the hours progressed and the subject never ceased to be the same, personally he thought it was ridiculous to have to be asking someone for their family tree the day he decided to go on a date, if he ever decided to do such a thing. Because yes, that was the other reason why he had decided that he was no longer willing to tolerate Sasuke and Hidan's presence by his side when he was walking around the castle.
The last week of his sixth year he had suffered an ambush, yes, an ambush was a good word to define the fact that his 'friends' decided to take him to the fountain where another classmate from the same house but one-year lower was waiting for him. Sasuke nudged him to get closer to the girl and after that he was left alone, he was about to turn around and leave when he saw that she didn't say anything, but just as he was about to turn around she grabbed the sleeve of his robe and without a word reached out to give him a kiss.
He broke away immediately annoyed, first because of the invasion of his personal space, and second because she hadn't asked him if she could do it. He told her that he wasn't interested and left, meeting again with his supposed friends who had seen the scene and asked him if he had any other preferences for having rejected the young woman. No, he had no other preferences, he simply wasn't interested in that particular girl. Nor any other at that moment of his life to be more exact.
If what he had in store for his seventh year was more talk of blood purity while at school, plus listening to Hidan and Sasuke hiss offensive words at every mudblood they came across in the castle, he'd pass. Worse if it was going to include some new attempt because to make him a similar ambush, simply his patience didn't give more, he was going to explode if he added more pressure to his life and that's why now he kept alone.
He looked for his pocket watch, seeing annoyed that there was only a minute to go before the time he had said he was going to wait for the student he was going to tutor, deciding that he would pick up the notebook with his notes he had brought because maybe it would be useful, along with some ingredients he had previously prepared. He had agreed that from the third Saturday of his seventh year he was going to help that student, whoever she was, but that didn't mean he was going to hang around in that classroom until she deigned to show up. While he was going to have those hours free he preferred to go to the mirror and try to meditate there for a while, to recharge himself as he did without fail every day.
And at that moment the door opened, revealing a student he had seen before, he remembered her because Hidan seemed to have a certain mania for her because of her origin. He also knew who she was because of the classes of Apparition that had taken place the previous year. He remembered perfectly the professor's dumbfounded face when she had suddenly appeared with a plate of chocolate cake, smiling victoriously as she said she had gone all the way to her home in the Muggle world. "And without losing a single eyelash!"
Everyone had been stunned, technically that what she had done was forbidden, yet it had been quite a remarkable feat for her to pull it off, and finally the professor hadn't called her attention to it, she had been the star pupil during that extracurricular class. And now she was there, that was the other thing he vaguely remembered her for, she was a completely clumsy girl with potions and it was quite a miracle that she had never made her cauldron explode, almost as big a miracle as her still being in the class after the O.W.L.s which she had somehow incomprehensibly passed with an 'Acceptable'.
They were both silent, she had stood motionless by the door, her cheeks revealing that she had come running. He for his part just waited for her to come in, thinking that although the professor had told him it was a student with low grades, he hadn't expected it to be her specifically and had never considered what her tutoring would be like. Less so now that he knew who she was and that they would probably have to start with more basic potions than he had thought. He took another deep breath as he waited.
"Are you going to stay there?" he finally asked when he saw that she was still in the same place.
"N-no, sorry," it seemed that the brunette was finally thawing, "good morning, sorry for being late," he nodded in response, no doubt those Saturdays were going to take forever.
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She listened to the Slytherin talking next to her and the only thing going through her mind was the question if maybe hitting him on the head would get him to speak in more understandable words, or at least to stop assuming that she was understanding him at all. Something like when she was a child and had an old radio that had belonged to her grandmother that every now and then she had to tap it, very lightly, to get it to tune in correctly to the station she liked. Or just that old television, also her grandmother's, that didn't even have a remote control, but that the woman insisted on keeping, sending her to change the channel directly on the device or just to hit it when it didn't want to work.
It didn't even have to be a hard hit, just in the right place and everything would work properly again. But she wasn't going to hit him, not because she shouldn't hit people, but because it was him, the man who was supposed to be tutoring her in order to fulfill the promise she had made to her parents the year before about leveling her potions grade. She was supposed to, because at that rate and with the way he was explaining, the truth was that she didn't think she was going to improve, let alone try to take the N.E.W.T. corresponding to that subject.
She didn't want to roll her eyes as she continued to listen to him talk, after all it was her own fault, she herself had asked for such tutoring. She had to clarify that the day she dared to ask the professor, it hadn't crossed her mind that the man would delegate such a task to another student, much less to THAT student specifically. But she should have also foreseen it when the professor made such a clarification, after all the Hyūga was the best student in the class.
She remembered that she had forgotten her assigned tutoring that morning, and that was why she hadn't woken up on time, having to run while getting dressed in a hurry, and then not even stopping for breakfast because it was already time for her to be in the classroom. Whoever it was her tutor should already be waiting for her, and she didn't want to make a bad impression by being late, she wasn't usually unpunctual.
She had frozen the moment she opened the door to discover that it was him, nothing more and nothing less than a Slytherin was going to tutor her. Was it a joke? Would the other vipers that always went with him come out of hiding somewhere? Was it some kind of punishment for him? Leaving aside the fact that she was hungry from skipping breakfast, she couldn't say with complete certainty that for herself it wouldn't be some sort of punishment, even thinking that there were many types of torture in both the magical and Muggle world that could be used and would possibly be less painful for a snake than being next to a mudblood.
"Then..." she began when she heard him stop talking, "It's like following a recipe for cooking, isn't it?" he blinked slowly and didn't answer her, "haven't you ever cooked?"
"No," now she was the one who had to remain silent – how had someone his age never cooked? "at the mansion there are also house elves."
"Well, to cook you also follow a recipe," she clarified.
"Then you could say it's similar to cooking."
"But some people when they cook don't follow any kind of instruction or recipe, they mix ingredients as they like," she seemed to see him inhale deeply.
"No, you can't do that with a potion."
"Why not? You just said that it is similar to cooking."
"Because you won't get the result, potions have exact measurements and times that must be fulfilled or you could end up with a potion that has another effect, or even with a concoction that is useless at all."
"I think that's why I hate this class," she said more to herself, "another question," she commented at once as she noticed that he was going to continue explaining.
"Which one."
"If you only have to follow the directions respecting the amounts and times, does that mean that anyone can make a potion?"
"Theoretically."
"So a Muggle can make potions?"
"No," he answered automatically, "Didn't you pay attention to the first class we had on this subject? That was explained by the professor when we were in first year."
"I think it was clear last lesson that I don't remember much about this class in general," her ironic tone was impossible to conceal.
She had felt somewhat awkward in the first class because he had devoted himself to asking her questions as if it were an exam, both about the name of the implements to use, the ingredients, their classification and places to find them. Not even on her vacation while she was taking her driving course had she felt so lost, it had been difficult for her to understand what the instructor was explaining to her about the mechanics and operation of a car.
"In order to make a potion the most important component is magic, without magic you simply won't get the result."
"So, what would happen if a Muggle tried to make a potion?" now she was curious.
"Nothing, or well, it will have a bad tasting soup. Can I keep explaining or do you want to keep talking about useless things?" she opened her mouth, but finally closed it and nodded her head.
Since her first year she had developed the theory that Slytherins were one way when they were in a group, when they had each other's backs, in those cases they acted like the vipers they were. On the other hand when they were alone they changed, they were no longer so overbearing, much less daring to make their usual venom-laden comments, as if they feared that when alone someone might teach them the lesson they deserved.
That had been something that had also crossed her mind for a second when she had discovered that her tutor would be someone from that house, upon discovering that he was alone she had wandered into the place. Know-it-all or not, he was a Slytherin who was all alone, so she had little to fear and she knew that the viper tongue that characterized almost all of them wouldn't make its presence known, besides she was a Gryffindor and had to live up to the courage that defined her own house. What had surprised her and was now starting to make her curious was that with Neji it wasn't about the fact that he was different, that he wasn't a cowardly snake standing alone and unsupported.
No, now that she could see him without the two companions he was always with, she realized that he really didn't have any of the characteristics of the other snakes she had come across so far. He reminded her a hell of a lot more of the times she had hung out with some Ravenclaw to study.
Had the Sorting Hat gotten the wrong house with him?
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Happy New Year!
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All corrections and comments are always well received, they help me improve a lot.
I hope you like it!
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Regards, Sally K.