Chapter 13: Potions Disaster

I returned back to Hogwarts at the end of the holidays eager to see my friends. I was shocked at how things had taken such a turn while I'd been home. Before coming to Hogwarts, my parents had been my best friends, my confidants. I'd been able to go to them with all my problems. Now, they didn't want to hear about any of it.

But, for the first time, I had friends. Before, I'd needed my parents to be my friends because I hadn't had any. Now, I had Harry and Ron to confide in, to spend time with, to have fun with. So really, I didn't need my parents in the same way that I'd used to. Maybe it was a good thing. Maybe this is just what growing up looks like. After all, it's not like all kids are best friends with their parents. Children and parents are supposed to grow apart.

I'd spent the entire second half of the holidays studying up on chess strategy and was very excited to play Ron again come the start of second term. I was convinced that I would finally be able to best him.

We wagered the same as last time, this time going with a month's worth of astronomy assignments. Ron had wanted to go with potions again, but I told him that we had to choose a subject we hadn't already done, to ensure that he didn't fall too far behind in one class.

To my dismay, Ron beat me with ease, triumphing over my defeat. My brand-new chess pieces were rather grumpy with me, having never won a game, but I assured them that I was going to get better. My queen was especially offended that she now had a noticeable crack in her crown, but I reminded her that she was a magical chess piece and could mend the crack if she wanted to. She was just being a drama queen, looking for attention.

Classes started up again and started to get a little more challenging. Not that any of the material was difficult – not for me at least – but it was definitely more intellectually stimulating. First term had been a lot of introductions to the various subjects, as well as foundations and basics. Now that it was the second term, we were really starting to delve into the material.

The search for Nicolas Flamel also got shifted onto the backburner. It wasn't that I didn't still think it was important to figure out who he was and what was going on, but I'd exhausted all the books I could think of to look for him in, and I had other things to worry about with my classes, and Ron's astronomy assignments on top of it.

I still made some time to skim through various books I'd borrowed from the library at the end of each day before bed. At first, I'd been doing it on my bed in plain sight, but my dormmates had made fun of me for flipping through the pages so fast, saying that I must have super-reading powers to read that fast. Instead of explaining to them that I wasn't reading but skimming, I started closing the curtains around me before getting my book out. It was less ideal, since I didn't have access to my bedside table once the curtains were shut, but it was worth it for the privacy.

Everything was going just fine, right up until Professor Snape decided that he was going to assign us our partners for the next potion brewing assignment. We were making an herbicide potion, and it was extremely important that we get it right, because we were going to be using them in our herbology class the following week. Neville and I had already agreed to work together, and we'd agreed that I would be in charge of the potion while he would be in charge of collecting ingredients from the cupboard and washing our equipment as needed.

Unfortunately, when we arrived in class Friday morning, Professor Snape immediately set to work separating us from our usual partners and pairing us up with the worst people he could manage. Harry got paired with Draco Malfoy, no surprise there. Ron got paired with Crabbe, and Neville with Goyle. And to my absolute and utter horror, I got paired with Lavender Brown.

"Okay, can we just agree that I'm better equipped to be in charge of brewing this potion?" I asked as soon as the class began.

"Oh, so what, I'm an idiot or something because I don't study as much as you?" Lavender challenged me.

"No," I shook my head. "You're not an idiot. You're just less prepared."

"I'm prepared!" Lavender cried in outrage.

I sighed heavily. This was not going as I'd intended it.

"Okay look," I said reluctantly. "You can chop up and grind the ingredients, and I'll heat and stir the potion. Fair?"

"I don't think so!" Lavender insisted. "Just because you get top grades doesn't mean you get to boss me around."

"Fine!" I cried in exasperation. "What do you want to do?"

Lavender made a face. "Well obviously I don't want to do anything," she said in a tone that had me expecting a 'duh' to be tacked on to the end of the sentence. "You're the one who's obsessed with school."

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "I'm going to get our supplies," I muttered in frustration.

I walked into the store cupboard and started rifling through the various jars and tins for what I would need. I heard the door open and shut behind me and turned to find Harry and Ron.

"I can't believe I'm stuck working with Crabbe," Ron groaned as he grabbed some lionfish spines.

"Still better than what I got stuck with," Harry said. "I've got Malfoy. He's going to spend this entire period making my life miserable."

"He makes your life miserable anyway," Ron pointed out.

"Yeah, but we're in class, so I can't walk away," Harry declared.

"At least you lucked out, Hermione," Ron said.

"Excuse me?" I demanded, whirling around and spilling some of my horklump juice on the floor of the closet.

"Well you at least got a Gryffindor," Ron replied. "Lavender's alright."

"I don't think so. Lavender hates me! She's going to make this lesson torture," I replied. To be perfectly honest, I'd have preferred to work with Crabbe or Goyle, or even Malfoy if it meant not having to work with Lavender.

"You'll be fine," Harry muttered, grabbing his supplies and heading for the door. "It's not like she's going to try to kill you. I wouldn't put it past Malfoy to try something with me."

He left, and Ron left right after him. I was frustrated that they didn't understand that Lavender was just as bad a partner as Crabbe or Malfoy, but then again, Lavender and the girls were always so nice to Harry and Ron. They didn't experience them the way I did up in the dorm when they would either make fun of me, or else outright ignore me.

I replenished the spilled horklump juice and returned to my desk, where Lavender was inspecting her nails.

"Are you going to help at all?" I demanded, dumping our supplies and starting to organize them.

"Nope," Lavender shook her head, leaning back in her seat. "You going to do anything about it?"

I shook my head. To be perfectly honest, it was probably better that Lavender stay out of the way. It was annoying that I was going to have to do all the work myself, but at least I'd know it was getting done right.

I spent the entire double period measuring and chopping, crushing and mixing, heating and stirring ever so precisely, until my potion turned the exact perfect shade of green that the textbook indicated it should.

"There," I said proudly, standing back and taking a moment to silently celebrate my accomplishment. I'd done all the work myself and still produced a better potion than the rest of the class.

"You call that a potion?" Lavender asked, peering over the top of the cauldron with a judgemental expression.

"It's perfect," I informed her, confused. "What's your problem?"

"I guess I'm just wondering why you just automatically think your potion is perfect," Lavender said. "Just because you're always studying doesn't mean you know everything."

"No," I agreed. It was true that I didn't know everything. Not yet anyway. I was only twelve, and there was a lot of knowledge to be learned. "But I'm pretty confident about this potion."

Lavender crossed her arms and made a face, but I just rolled my eyes. Lavender was just being difficult for no reason. I needed to just ignore her and get on with things. Once we were finished here, we had lunch, and then the afternoon free.

"I'm going to go and get an empty vial," I declared, walking away and up towards Professor Snape's desk. Once we'd bottled our potion, we could get rid of the rest and clean up our station, and then I'd be free of Lavender.

I grabbed the nearest vial I could reach and hurried back to our desk. To my horror, my perfect green potion was now a violent shade of orange and was bubbling like mad.

"What did you do?" I demanded furiously.

"I didn't do anything," Lavender declared. "It just started doing that. I guess you're not as perfect as you think."

"Lavender, whatever you did, tell me, and maybe I can reverse it. This is both our grades we're talking about here!" I cried.

Lavender smirked and shrugged her shoulders. "If you're so smart, then figure it out."

I grit my teeth and tried not to murder Lavender as I frantically tried to figure out what could cause my potion to act like this. The bubbles indicated that the potion was boiling, but there was no fire underneath since I'd extinguished it not long before. That meant that whatever Lavender had done had created its own heat.

The potion had also changed color, so whatever Lavender had added had created a chemical change, not just a physical one.

I desperately searched my mind for anything I could think of that could do this but came up short.

"Please Lavender, just tell me what you did," I pleaded.

"Not so smart now, are you, bookworm?" Lavender mocked me.

"Lavender, what's wrong with you?" I cried, tears springing to my eyes, I was so mad. "If I fail, you fail too."

"So?" Lavender said, not seeming to care. "I've failed other assignments before. It's not the end of the world."

"Ugh!" I cried.

It was at that exact moment that Professor Snape arrived at our desk and took a look inside our cauldron.

"Shameful," Professor Snape said, shaking his head. "And I suppose you thought it would be clever to add more horklump juice after the potion had already been completed?"

"Horklump juice?" I frowned, trying to figure out why that would cause the reaction I was seeing.

"Don't play dumb," Professor Snape snapped. He waved his wand and the entire potion disappeared. "Zeros for the both of you. And five points from Gryffindor, Miss Granger, for having the audacity to think you know better than the inventor of this potion."

"But I didn't even – "

"Silence!" Professor Snape interrupted me.

He stalked off to the next table without another word, and I spun around to face Lavender angrily. "What was the point of that?" I demanded.

Lavender had to stifle a laugh, which only made me angrier.

"Wow Hermione, your first zero. How does it feel?" she asked.

"What are you talking about?" I demanded.

"How does it feel, to be brought down a peg?" Lavender asked. "Now you're just like the rest of us."

"You did this on purpose?" I cried in shock. "You sabotaged our potion so that I would get a zero?"

Lavender didn't respond, instead just cocking her head to the side and then looking away.

I was seething. My potion had been perfect, and Lavender had ruined it. Why? Because she was threatened by me. Her and all those other Gryffindor girls. They were threatened by my brains. They didn't like that I was smarter than them, that I got better grades than them. They used to take pleasure in the fact that I didn't have any friends, but ever since befriending Harry and Ron, I knew they'd been looking to knock me down a peg. And now Lavender had.

I had received a zero. It was my first zero ever. In fact, it was my first failing grade ever. In fact, it was my first not-perfect grade ever. It was a stain on my record, a blemish on an otherwise flawless academic history. I'd never be able to recover from this. No matter how much extra credit work I did, no matter how well I did on every assignment from now until the end of time, I would never have a perfect overall score again. I would always and forever be a point, or a half a point, or a small fraction of a point away from perfection. And it was all Lavender's fault.