Chapter Five: What Not To Do In Potions

Harry ran full-tilt along the corridor towards McGonagall's office. That Ron, not Hermione, should be the one who wanted to tell McGonagall about him seemed odd, but that's the way it seemed. He skidded round a corner, ignoring a group of first year girls who were staring at him and muttering excitedly among themselves.

Just then a hand grabbed his elbow in a vice-like grip. Harry spun round and almost groaned out loud at the sight of Snape's leering face. "In a hurry, are we, Potter?" he asked, a hint of a cold smile on his face.

Harry caught his breath. "Er, no, Professor," he replied, trying to prise his arm free of Snape's bony fingers.

"Then, Mr. Potter," said Snape, tightening his grip on Harry's elbow. "I would suggest that you do not scurry about the corridors as if you were…" his eyes narrowed darkly "…up to something."

"Okay, Professor," said Harry, trying not to let his irritation show on his face. After a long suspicious stare at Harry, as if trying to find any excuse to give him a detention, Snape let go of Harry and strode off.

As soon as the professor was out of sight, Harry broke into a run again. When he finally arrived outside McGonagall's office he was panting and out of breath, and just as he was wondering whether it was worth knocking, the door opened and McGonagall emerged.

"Can I help, you, Potter?"

"No! Er, that is… have you seen Ron and Hermione?"

McGonagall took out a key and locked the door of her office behind her. "No, I've not seen either today. Is there something the matter?" she asked, seeing Harry's distracted expression.

Harry heaved a sigh of relief. "No, thanks Professor, I'm fine."

Harry immediately hurried to find Ron and Hermione, and soon found them in the Gryffindor common room. "Were you going to tell McGonagall about me?" he burst out as he joined them.

They exchanged a glance. "Harry," said Hermione, "we'd never do anything without talking it over with you first. But we really think-"

Harry cut in impatiently. "We don't need to tell McGonagall anything, I know how I drank the potion. It was in Ron's pumpkin juice."

"What?"

"You asked me to bring your Chudley Cannons flask in for you, remember? And you hadn't touched your pumpkin juice, so I drank it. I forgot about it before, with everything that was going on, but that's got to be it!"

"So you're saying it was… meant for me?" asked Ron in a strangled voice.

"Yeah. How would whoever it was know I was going to drink it?"

Hermione looked funny. "Who'd want to put a love spell on Ron?" she asked, sounding less than pleased.

Ron reddened. "Hey! I'll have you know there are lots of people who find me funny and devilishly good-looking."

"Who thinks Ron's devilish and funny looking?" asked Seamus Finnegan as he passed. Harry laughed.

Hermione waited until Seamus had sat down with Dean and some fifth years on the other side of the room and then turned to Ron. "Like Mena Selari?" she said cuttingly.

Ron went redder still, and mumbled something incoherently.

Harry took Ron's flask from his pocket. "There are a few drops left. I don't know much about it, but this has got to help us, right?"

"We could always go to Snape and ask for an antidote," muttered Ron, who still seemed a little off with him.

"Are you bloody KIDDING?" Harry burst out.

Unusually, Hermione didn't even react to Harry's colourful language. Instead, she was staring at the flask, frowning in that special way she had, which Harry noted was usually followed by the sound of receding footsteps as she hotfooted it to the library. Harry and Ron exchanged a look. 'I'll be… right back,' Hermione said, already on her feet. 'I just need to look something up.'

Hermione didn't rush to the library; instead she hurried to the girls' dormitories and returned a minute later with a heavy volume. "Phantastic Philtres," read Ron from the spine. "Bit of bed-time reading?"

"Yes, actually," said Hermione distantly, missing Ron's wry tone as she leafed through the index. "Now, where was it? Ah, here we go!" She turned to a page near the end of the book. "Indicating Ink," she said briefly, engrossed in the text.

"Er," said Ron intelligently, wondering if he was supposed to know what that was. Harry's thoughts were running along much the same lines.

Hermione looked up hopefully at the two of them. "Indicating Ink. You must remember, surely?"

"Nope," said Ron cheerfully. Harry had a vague memory of the name but couldn't have elaborated further than that.

She sighed exasperatedly. "This is OWL level stuff! Honestly, sometimes I wonder if you two ever listened in Potions."

"No need to wonder, Hermione," said Ron. "You know we didn't."

"So what does it do, this Indicating Ink?" asked Harry quickly, eager to avoid a row between the pair of them.

"It's a potion that's used to work out the composition of a substance, I'm pretty sure we could use it to work out the ingredients that have been added to this pumpkin juice and their proportions. From there I should be able to work back to an antidote." Hermione paused, her eyes shining.

"You get way too excited about work," said Ron.

"But are you sure you can do it?" pressed Harry urgently. "Isn't that sort of thing really hard?"

"It's exactly the sort of thing I'm doing at the moment for my extra potions work. Anyway, we need the Indicating Ink first, and that's pretty easy to make, only some of these ingredients could be tricky to get hold of."

"How tricky?" asked Ron suspiciously.

"They'd only be in Snape's private stores."

Harry's head hit the table. "Not again," he groaned.

Hermione ignored him. "We should do it tonight, so we can start the potion tomorrow. Once we've got all the stuff, it should only take a few days to make," she added anxiously.

"Hey, why don't we make Dobby steal the stuff for us?" suggested Ron. "He'd do anything for you, Harry."

Hermione glowered at him. "Ron Weasley, we're not getting a poor, downtrodden house elf to do our dirty work for us! I'll do it."

"No, I should do it," offered Harry. "You can't go getting caught on my behalf."

Hermione looked stern. "Harry, Snape hates you enough as it is, all he needs is for you to make one false move and he'll probably try and have you expelled."

"But-"

"Hermione's right, Harry, she's in less danger than you. She may look innocent, but she actually pretty sneaky."

Hermione blushed.

"Remember what we said?" whispered Hermione anxiously that Monday morning as she and Harry waited outside the dungeon before their Potions lesson.

"Sit tight and don't act suspicious, I know," said Harry. "But what exactly are you going to do?"

But before Hermione could answer Snape appeared and the class filed silently into the dungeon.

Stealing the ingredients they needed from the stores in Snape's office was going to be a difficult task. Snape kept it locked with unbreakable charms all the time he was not there, so the only time they could reasonably expect to be able to get in was during a lesson. After a long period of silent thought yesterday, Hermione had disappeared for most of the afternoon. Harry and Ron assumed it was something to do with stealing the ingredients from Snape, but she had so far refused to tell them what her plan was. His heart beating hard, Harry walked into the classroom behind Hermione, sure that Snape would take one look at him and just know. Perhaps it was just as well Hermione hadn't told him.

When they sat down, the benches were already set out with cauldrons full of a faintly steaming potion that looked – and smelled – very familiar. Looking into his, Harry realised that they were the Polyjuice potions that the class had been brewing in their Thursday lessons for a month.

"Today," Snape began as soon as he reached the front of the classroom, "we will be finishing our study of the highly advanced Polyjuice potion. As you can see, your potions are now ready, and when you have decanted them I will mark you on both a sample of your solution and…" he paused for maximum effect, "…the result when you ingest it." Neville, whose determination to study Potions at NEWT level amounted to masochism, gulped audibly. "I have, of course, tested your potions for toxicity," the professor added dryly, "… and although I cannot vouch for their effectiveness, I can assure you that none of you will actually die as a result."

"Comforting," Harry muttered under his breath.

"You will all need a partner, whose form you will attempt to duplicate," said Snape, and Harry looked doubtfully at Hermione. He couldn't remember if Polyjuice worked cross-gender, and wasn't sure he wanted to find out. "Don't look so worried, Potter, you'll all get same-sex partners," Snape said dryly. There was a wave of sniggering amongst the Slytherins. "In fact," he continued, "you will each be assigned a partner from your opposite house. And I advise you all that it is in your best interests to be quick…" a sickening little smile crossed Snape's face "…as anyone who has not transformed back by the end of the lesson will be staying behind into the lunch hour."

There was a subdued groan. As Snape reeled off the names, Harry knew without being told that he'd be assigned Draco Malfoy. He did gain some consolation, though, from the horrified expression on Malfoy's face when their names were read out and he realised that he would have to look like Harry Potter for a whole hour. Harry didn't exactly relish the possibility of walking around looking like Malfoy either.

Harry moved his things to the desk next to Malfoy in silence. "Doesn't look like Polyjuice to me, Potter," hissed Malfoy, peering at the sludge-coloured mess in Harry's cauldron. Fighting back the urge to retort, 'how would you know?' Harry ignored him and carefully poured his almost-cool potion into a beaker.

"When you have decanted the solution, add one hair from your partner's head to the beaker," came Snape's cold tones from the front. "Before you test it, fill and label your stoppered flask for me to mark. Then I will ask each of you in turn to drink your beaker."

Not looking forward to the entire class watching as he underwent the painful convulsions of the Polyjuice transformation, Harry unwillingly pulled a hair from his head and dropped it into Malfoy's potion, which went a reddish brown. At least Malfoy would have to do it too. Scowling, Malfoy reached up and plucked out one fine silvery hair, then dropped it into Harry's beaker. The liquid turned a dark grey-black colour, and Malfoy looked like he was about to say something, but then just stopped and glared at him.

There was a loud yelp from behind Harry. When he turned round he saw Hermione's partner, Millicent Bulstrode, grinning and clasping a handful of curly brown hair. Hermione was clutching her head, looking pained and more than a little annoyed.

"Miss Granger, are you ready to test your potion?"

Hermione stopped rubbing her head and picked up her beaker. "Yes, Professor."

"Then you and Miss Bulstrode can be the first. Kindly stand up, push in your stools and drink the entire contents of your beakers."

Only a slight frown betraying her nervousness, Hermione did as Snape had instructed, draining the entire beaker with a grimace. Millicent Bulstrode did the same and Harry could hardly bear to watch as the potion began to take effect. Hermione bent over, clutching her stomach, her face contorting though from pain or the potion Harry couldn't tell. By the time he opened his eyes the transformation was complete and there stood Hermione and Millicent in extremely ill fitting robes. Millicent – who was really Hermione – shot a relieved smile at Harry.

"Perfect transformations from you both," said Snape, sounding unsurprised. "Longbottom and Crawling next."

Few students achieved as good a result as Hermione, though Neville's potion was surprisingly effective. Eventually it came to Harry and Draco's turn, and Harry, ignoring his partner, downed the potion in one long go. Before many moments had passed he began to feel the familiar painful sensations gripping him, as if he was being turned inside out. He felt his knees buckle and the entire class craned their heads to see over the benches as he stumbled forward onto the floor. Eventually the feeling subsided and Harry climbed stiffly to his feet, coming face to face with – himself.

The expression in the green eyes was one of surprise and disgust. Slowly, Malfoy's hand went up to his forehead and felt the scar. He looked revolted. "Great," he hissed, and the voice was Harry's.

"Well, I'm not exactly thrilled either," retorted Harry, slightly startled to find Malfoy's voice coming from his mouth.

Harry looked down at his hands – from their paleness and Malfoy's reaction he could only assume that his potion had worked. Snape made no comment; just looked hard at them both and wrote something in his mark book, his expression inscrutable.

The rest of the lesson was taken up with writing up the process, a painstaking task that was to be finished for homework. Towards the end of the period the first people to take the potion began to change quietly back to their usual appearance as their hour ran out. Harry calculated that from the end of the lesson he'd only have to look like Malfoy for another ten minutes.

There were only about five minutes to go until lunch when Harry became aware of a rustling sound coming from the equipment cupboard at the back of the dungeon. He looked at Hermione, who had returned to her usual appearance, but she was staring studiously at her parchment and didn't seem to have noticed anything. Gradually the rustling, coupled with a faint scratching, became more audible and the class began to look round at each other and back at the cupboard.

Becoming aware of the disturbance, Snape looked up sharply. "Settle down," he said shortly, striding to the back of the room. As Snape flung open the door of the cupboard, Harry caught sight of Hermione's expression – and it was one of studied blankness. Just then there was a great crescendo of rustling, squeaking and flapping as what seemed like a swarm of large insects burst out of the cupboard.

There was instant pandemonium. Harry could barely see what the things were, they were moving so fast, but they were everywhere… and they were angry. The little shapes buzzed furiously around the room like dozens of tiny, irate whirlwinds, upsetting everything in their path. People ducked under the benches as cauldrons were upset, bags were picked up and emptied, and piles of papers flew into the air.

"Don't cower like a group of scared first years, do something to help!" barked Snape over the hubbub, and cast a hex Harry had never heard before on two buzzing shapes, which dropped as if dead to the flagstones. They were instantly familiar to Harry. Cornish pixies!

Steeling himself, Harry drew his wand and, ignoring the pixies buzzing round his head and pulling on his hair, began to fire off spells into the swarm of blue. Before long most of the class had followed his example and the dozens of hexes flying through the air had only added to the commotion. The pixies had upset a box of chalk, and the air was thick with white dust. It's only a matter of time before someone gets hit with a hex, Harry thought, hoping it would be Malfoy. Where was Malfoy, anyway? Harry turned to see if he was cowering under Snape's desk, just in time to see Hermione entering through the dungeon door.

Unfortunately Snape was also turning - another second and he'd see Hermione! Without even stopping to think Harry pointed his wand at the back of Snape's head and cast a Stunning Hex.

A/N: Thanks to all last chapter's kind reviewers, especially the wonderful JamieBell, because the only thing I like better than a good review is multiple good reviews! ;)