"Get up, you lazy bum," a floaty voice was calling out for me.
My bed was so warm and comfy, so I ignored said voice and tucked the quilt further under my chin.
"You've missed breakfast, so I've brought you toast," the girl continued in a sing song voice, trying to tempt me out of my marshmallow cocoon.
I managed to murmur something inaudible about being too tired.
"We've got Potions in like, 15 minutes. Get up," she ordered.
Potions? But I'm sleeping.
A light hand tugged repeatedly on my foot that was sticking out of the covers.
"Go on without me!" I cry out, still with my eyes shut when the yanking got too annoying.
"Honestly." I peek open an eye to see Lily stood at the foot of my bed with one hand on her hip, the curtains swept back. "You and Sirius complete for biggest drama queen every day."
My face fell and the memories of last night- well, early this morning- come flooding back at the mention of his name. I wiggled down so that my face was hidden under my quilt. I didn't want Lily to read my shameful expression.
"I'm not going."
"Yes you are! As your unwilling but brilliant Potions partner, if we have to work in pairs today, I refuse to end up doing all of the work- again!"
"But Slughorn loves you!" I whine like a child not getting what she wants.
"He'd love you too if you actually tried hard for once. Now get out. I'm not taking no for an answer."
I peek out and give her my best puppy dog eyes. Lily narrows her green eyes and flicks out her wand.
"I will hex you," she chided seriously.
I couldn't have rolled off my bed faster. Landing in a heap on the floor, I ruffled my hair and pouted up at my best friend.
"I'm up, I'm up!" I pleaded, knowing that when Lily threatened to hex you, you did what she said, no questions. She knew some especially nasty ones and I was way too tired to barter with her.
A pile of clothes landed on my unkempt head.
"Get changed. I'll be waiting downstairs with your cold toast."
"Yes, mum," I grumbled as she strode out of earshot.
Five minutes later, I was hurriedly dressed, brushed, made up and munching on toast, but still no happier. Lily walked next to me with a skip in her step, the epitome of a morning person. I must have looked like the Grinch next to her.
"Did you sleep alright after last night?" Lils asked me as we made our way down the many flights of stairs.
"Yup."
"Did you drink the potion?"
"Yup."
"Are you going to be sulking all day?"
"Most likely."
I pushed the heavy door to the dungeons open and let Lily pass through before me.
"You're the worst," She smiled warmly at me, tugging the sleeves of her robes over her hands because of the chill that lingered down here.
"I know," I replied, trying to make a joke. The smile didn't quite reach my eyes.
Reaching the classroom, Lily entered through the ajar door and simpered through, excited for her favourite class. I followed behind, my arms folded and scowl plastered on my face.
The classroom hadn't changed at all, but there was definitely something different in the air. The Slytherin table with Snape on fell silent as I strode past to get to my cauldron. I felt Snape's lingering eyes on us as we passed. I forced my gaze straight ahead, giving myself no reason to hex the life out of him. It was worse when I got to mine and Lily's table that we shared with some of the other Gryffindors – notably all four Marauders. Instead of taking my place in between Lily and Sirius, I grabbed Lily's arm, much to her surprise, and forced her into my usual seat, taking hers for my own. Remus sat on the other side of me. I didn't look at any of them. The thick air was brutal. I wondered if Lily was suspicious yet, and how much of an earful I'll get when we leave class.
Slughorn closed the door behind him as he strolled in merrily, sharpening my attention.
"Morning all! Morning, Prewett! Morning, Evans!" He nodded in our direction with a wide lipped smile. I rolled my eyes habitually.
"Today we'll be trying out a new potion. If you'd like to open your books to page 290, the recipe and instructions will all be there," Slughorn explained, before patiently waiting for the scrabble of pages to stop turning, his arms resting behind his back.
"A laugh-inducing potion?" I heard Mulciber mumble from another table, just as I'd flicked to the right place.
"That's right, Mulciber. Needless to say with winter well upon us, we could all use a bit of a pick me up!"
"Wait, we're expected to drink our potions at the end?" I heard James ask, with a lot of doubt in his voice.
Slughorn nodded his blonde, chubby head, "That's right. Only the ones that I deem are safe, of course, of course. Do well enough and you'll be leaving this class feeling like you haven't laughed so hard in years!"
I raised my eyebrows at the childish delight on the old man's face.
"What if we go wrong?" Lily piped up next to me.
Slughorn's eyes melted at her, as if she was ridiculous to even consider that she would mess up.
"My dear, nothing can do disastrously wrong with this potion, as long as you make sure you stick to the instructions. Remember class, that anti-clockwise turn is important. There's one on step 7, make sure you don't forget it! Ingredients are in the cupboard as usual."
With a flick of his wand, the jar filled cupboard at the back of the room sprang open and Slughorn left us to it, deciding that now would be a good time to sit at his desk and stick his stubby fingers in a packet of crystalized pineapple.
"Lily, I'm super tired. I'm going to mess up," I whispered in her ear as I followed her to the cupboard.
She was reading the ingredients list in the book she had brought with her.
"You'll be fine," She reassured me before glancing at a few jars. "Hold please. And this one." Lily dumped a couple of small vials and a jar of something that resembled red oozing eyeballs into my open hand, and checked the book again before truly looking me in the eye. "By the looks of things, the boys didn't get much rest either and you know what they're like. Any excuse to show off and cause a disaster. As long as you don't decide to join in and be an idiot like last week," She paused, giving me a pointed look, "You'll be fine."
After picking us out a few dry shrivelled beans from a drawer, Lily led us back towards the table.
"Besides, I'm still waiting for an explanation on the sudden seat change," She quipped, and my cheeks flushed.
Luckily, I didn't have to answer, because as soon as we got back to our table, Lily was in full-blown-potions-mode and was focused on nothing other than her own cauldron, probably thankful that we didn't have to work in pairs today. I would have ended up dragging her down a lot...
As I stood desperately trying to read the words in front of me, my eyes blurred with lack of sleep. I rubbed my foggy head and tried to concentrate – well, tried to copy everything Lils was doing anyway.
As I dug one of the gooey red eyeball shapes out of the jar, I wrinkled my nose in disgust. I hated the texture of most potions ingredients. That's why I messed about so much in this class – I just really don't have the temperament or patience to do things that I don't want to do. I hurriedly splashed, what I found out to be a sloths brain, into my cauldron and went back to reading.
"Want the other half of my Valerian root?" A shy voice came from my right.
Shocked, I turned my head and saw Lupin smiling awkwardly at me, knife in hand.
"Oh-" I hesitated, touched and confused by his offer. "Um, sure. Thank you."
I passed over my chopping board and he scraped half of his chopped roots onto it.
"Thanks," I repeated, as he passed it back deliberately.
I tipped them into my cauldron and stirred 4 times clockwise, as instructed. On the fourth time round, my elbow knocked into Lupin's by accident.
"Sorry- sorry," I apologised, attempting a grin.
"No, I'm sorry! It's okay. Not used to having someone other than Lily to your right?" He guessed, lifting his ladle into his pale orange mixture.
My face contorted.
"No." I spoke through gritted teeth, glancing at Sirius for the first time today. He was stirring his potion without a care, one hand under his chin, eyes half closed. Annoyed at the same time as feeling my cheeks flush, I turn back to my potion book.
Unfortunately, Remus was extremely aware of my half a second glance.
"He's really down about last night, you know," I heard him say, only loud enough for me to hear.
I flushed and aggressively reached for a vial of Armadillo bile, pretending to have not heard him.
"Really, Erin. Just talk to him again. You guys were so close. It'd be such a shame to let your friendship go over one argument. I'm sure you can work something out."
I saw red and the vial slipped from in between my fingers. Ignoring the liquid seeping over my foot for a moment, I rotated towards Lupin, who was giving me the most pitiful expression I'd ever seen. It made me sick. How dare he feel sorry for me! What had Sirius told him? That I was some tragic trauma survivor who needed pity to help my pathetically scary nightmares go away?
With my voice louder than I had intended, I growled, "Why don't you keep your nose out of other people's business! Stop nagging me!"
"Hey," James cut in, coming to stand behind Remus. "Everything okay here?"
"Yes! Jeez!" I threw my arms up exasperated and marched to the back of the class to collect some paper towels to mop up the bile mess.
Lupin didn't try to speak to me again for the rest of the class, although I did catch a couple of wide eyed glimpses, as if he was scared of overstepping his boundary again. When Slughorn called time, my potion was a pinky red colour. It was pale in comparison to Lily's next to me, whose potion was a bright, pillar-box red, exactly like the description in the book. Slughorn called us round one of the Slytherin tables and had us inspect each cauldron, examining colour and calling on where the pointers for improvement were. Four Slytherins tasted their potions, each clutching their stomachs in turn, tears appearing in their eyes as they laughed. After a few seconds, Slughorn issued them a remedy and they returned to normal.
We then moved onto our table, where Slughorn called us to move closer to Lily's cauldron to inspect its perfection. I saw Snape slide away towards James and Sirius's side, which I clocked as very out of character, knowing how much he longed to praise Lily on every merit. Next we walked around the table to said boys cauldron. I ended up leaning against the table, almost right in front of it. Sirius's was a bit darker red than Lily's, but nonetheless safe to test.
Just as Slughorn had told Sirius to go ahead, he paused, spoon mid-air as a slimy voice spoke up.
"Sir. Sorry," Snape gave me a glance of pure hatred before nodding at the Professor in a stupidly serious manner,
"I don't want anything bad to happen like last week, but I'm sure I saw Carter slip something in that potion."