Wow, I'm so excited that people like my story!! So a couple of my comments I was unable to respond to so I'm going to be answering them here:
Katie Engle -- Thank you so much! Yeah I'm planning in probably the next chapter (as well as a little in this one) to really get inside the girls' lives to give the readers a chance to really get to know them. And oh yes, I have definitely thought of some pairings! **Huge grin**
Someone -- Thanks!! Do you mean their sleeping arrangements? If so, I considered having them with the other girls but then decided it might work better if they had their own room. I see Dumbledore assigning them their own room for some reason. Is that what you meant?
Southern_Belle -- I unfortunately can't write as often as I would like to, so update are pretty random. Sometimes I can crank out chapters in a couple of days, some times it takes me almost two weeks or more. I wish they were more regular but they aren't sadly.
As always, please read and review!!
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Chapter Three:
The room fell silent as Snape made his way to stand in front of Harry's desk. "I'm sorry Mr. Potter, do you care to repeat what you just said?" he asked, his voice oozing out, laced with just a hint of malice.
Harry remained stubbornly silent, obviously thinking of how he should respond to the Potions master. It was quite apparent that Snape had heard what Harry had said but seemed to want to embarrass Harry by having the teen repeat himself. Hermione nudged Harry roughly with her elbow as if to tell him to remain silent. Through a clenched jaw, Harry managed to spit out, "I said that this class was hell."
Hermione groaned and buried her head in her hands, Ron held back a laugh by disguising it with a cough, and the rest of the class held their breath in anticipation. Snape stared down at Harry, his only reaction a slight flare of his nostrils. Finally he replied to the insult with a simple, "Fifty points from Gryffindor and a week's worth of detention. Be here at 8 sharp or two more weeks."
With that, he turned on his heel and went back up to the front of the room, still playing with his wand. Katie, known back home for never taking crap from teachers, couldn't help herself as she burst out. "Seriously? You get detention here if you speak the truth? What happened to freedom of speech? Or is that just in America?"
Any noise that had started up again in the classroom immediately stopped.
Snape froze, his back to the class. He honestly was so surprised about the outburst that he at first didn't know how to respond. Feeling the long wood of his wand between his fingers, he couldn't help but wish he could just hex the transfer student. But the reasonable part of him reminded him that he was a teacher and was not supposed to hex his own students. So choosing the easy way out, he retorted without turning around, "Another fifty points from Gryffindor, and make that two weeks of detention."
Katie sullenly slouched back in her seat, frustrated at the injustice. How dare Snape overreact like that!?
Her internal rant ended though as Snape began to speak to the class as a whole.
"Today we will be taking one of the many advanced steps in potion making. Most of you are used to making potions without the aid of your wands but today's lesson will be teaching the use of using your wand with potions. In case of dire need, a wizard or witch may need a certain potion but they have the wrong one on their person. In this situation, if the wizard or witch is capable enough they are able to change the potion to the one they desire. The spells you will learn can change the affect of the ingredients, or change the ingredients themselves. This is complex magic and not everyone gets it the first time, and some don't ever get it. Great concentration is needed as well as clear diction of the spell and precise wand movement."
After his speech, Snape stared at the class who were all silent with amazement. As he had suspected, none of the of the students seemed to be aware that this was possible. Even know-it-all Granger seemed struck silent.
Lazily he then flicked his wand and instructions appeared on the blackboard. "You first will make the potion, then start the changing process with your wands. We will start with simple potions and slowly work our way up to more complicated potions. You may begin."
Class went on with the students working steadily for once. The prospect of being able to do this type of magic seemed unbelievable and no one wanted to fail at it. Retorts between the Slytherins and Gryffindors were kept to minimum, more mumbled insults than loud sarcastic comebacks.
Hermione was bent over her potion, her brow furrowed in deep concentration. Her already curly hair seemed to have been electrocuted (something that had confused Ron when Indigo had commented on it due to him not really knowing what electricity was) and her robe had been discarded and her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows. Her wand stayed hovered over her cauldron and she seemed to be mouthing the instructions to herself as she worked.
Even Neville Longbottom was as focused as anyone had seen him. His logic was that it was potions that he was bad at, not spell casting. If he could master this lesson then he could master the whole potions class.
Harry kept sliding his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose as they kept slipping down. He also had to occasionally wipe them off because the steam from the potion kept fogging them up. His potion was a murky yellowish brown, not quite the bright fluorescent yellow it should have been. In his confusion he ran his hands through his black hair, increasing its messiness. He wasn't exactly sure where he had screwed up.
Ron's potion was actually relatively close to where it should be in color, but it was emitting huge bubbles and a strange smell close to the smell of burned hair was coming from it. The potion was supposed to be placid and odorless, so Ron was quickly skimming the instructions again to find where he had gone wrong.
Indigo had tied her long hair back with one of the many hair bands she kept on her wrists. Her potion seemed accurate enough but she felt that she was behind some of the other kids because she was taking her time making sure the potion was right.
Next to Indigo, Isabelle was almost done with her potion and it seemed almost perfectly accurate. To her, making potions came naturally to her just as cooking did. After all, the differences between cooking and potions were so slim that to her, the dungeon was just another kitchen. She had borrowed a hair band from Indigo to pull her hair back, and she was currently cursing at herself for not trimming her fingernails the night before.
Katie was done with her potion and at the moment was putting it in the container where she would cast the spells onto it. She was a fast worker, always just going with her gut instinct. Though she wasn't always 100% right, she couldn't force herself to slow done her work process. She felt uncomfortable as the only one reaching the spell casting stage but she brushed it off so she could focus.
Makenzie was around the same stage that Indigo was, also taking her time with the potion. She was unbothered by the quick pace of her partner, and she instead kept to her own pace while singing quietly to herself. Her hands drilled on the table as she scanned the instructions again, keeping beat with the song stuck in her head.
Over on the other side of the smoke filled room, Draco Malfoy was having difficulties with his potion. It had been looking fine until he added the crushed Beetle of Egypt, which somehow turned his entire potion a vibrant plum color. Furious, he had looked at the instructions again and realized that if the beetle had not been thoroughly crushed, the blood of the beetle would change the color of the potion. Growling, he cleared his potion with a wave of his wand and started again. He shot an accusation at Goyle for distracting him with his stupidness, but what Draco didn't want to admit was that he knew that his distraction hadn't been the thuggish teenager next to him. No, he had been more distracted by the way that the lighting of the dungeon reflected off of a certain exchange student's hair. Bloody hell, he groaned to himself as he caught himself from looking to his left again. This was not good.
**
Class finished with about two-thirds of the class achieving the desired completed potion. Snape was impressed to say the least. Some of the kids had gotten close, and only two or three had not gotten it. Snape dismissed them, assigning them a foot long essay on the dangers of messing up the spell casting on the potions.
As the students made their way back up to join the rest of the school, and go to the last class of the day, they discussed the happenings of the potions class. Katie was absolutely furious with Snape and she and Harry got in a heated discussion about the potions master. Hermione had rushed off to get to her Ancient Runes class so the group didn't have to listen to her lecture about respecting teachers.
Indigo and Ron were walking a little behind the group and Indigo was sharing some of her favorite music with him. She always carried her iPod on her and the two were currently bobbing their heads to Attack Attack!'s 'Stick Stickly'.
Makenzie couldn't help but continue to glance over her shoulder at the two. There seemed to be chemistry between the two and she hoped that maybe the two would continue to get to know each other…
Up ahead, Isabelle was talking with Seamus and Dean, drilling them on the shops of Hogsmeade. Her mom had stopped her from packing her suitcase with mostly cooking supplies, and now she really needed to get her hands on some. On the train ride over, she had been reading a new pastry cookbook and was determined to try some out. There had been some super cute Halloween treats and she hoped that maybe Dumbledore would let her include some of them at the Halloween feast. Suddenly she whirled around.
"Kenz! Indigo! Katie! I have an idea!"
"What?" chorused the three girls.
"There should be a Halloween dance! Why should Hogwarts just have a Yuletide one? Why not a Halloween one?" she exclaimed excitedly, jumping up and down a little.
"How about we make it a masquerade ball?" suggested Makenzie, costume ideas already beginning to go through her mind.
"Great idea, but um guys?" Ron spoke up, nervously eyeing the girls. "It's only September and well I doubt the teachers want to plan two balls…"
"We'll plan it, don't worry about it," Katie said quickly.
"Oh my god, this is going to be amazing," gushed Makenzie, looping her arms between Indigo and Katie. Isabelle joined them and the four finished walking to Divination with arms linked, whispering and giggling to each other.