Chapter 6: Breakfast and Potions!

Albus wake up! We have exactly 17 minutes to get to the Great Hall for breakfast!" came a voice. It was Scorpius. Then there were footsteps, they became louder and louder. "Albus come on! What's tak—" started Rose. Albus assumed she stopped since she just now noticed Scorpius in the room.

He heard Rose walk over to him, pull off the covers, and scream, "WAKE UP SLEEPYHEAD!"

Albus sat bolt right up. "What in the world?!" he exclaimed alarmed.

Rose frowned, crossed her arms, and shrugged. "You weren't waking up."

Albus ignored her simple and extremely irritating comment and scurried to the bathroom quickly after picking out his Hogwarts robes along with his clothes. Within 6 minutes, he came out of the shower and was getting dressed.

"Come on Albus," Rose mumbled seeing him come out. By her attitude, he guessed that Scorpius must've tried to talk to her. But knowing Rose, she must have just ignored him.

Albus thought back to the dream and decided that he would have to get them to make up. "Guys, I'm not taking sides, but you can't fight over something like this. I'm going to try to look at it from both sides. I will have to get back to you on that though, because right now, we all have exactly 9 minutes to navigate our way to the Great Hall for breakfast!" he exclaimed the last part urging. The 3 of them ran down the stairs, but on one of the bottom steps, Rose slipped down, and Scorpius caught her in his arms immediately. It was something girls would "aww" at if they were watching. She immediately fixed herself up and dashed away from them, but you could see her red cheeks!

"What did I do? I caught her from falling!" snapped Scorpius angrily.

"Well, when she's mad, she can hold a grudge. She must have gotten that from Aunt Hermione," informed Albus.

They walked out of the common room to see Rose waiting with the same prefect that they had already encountered twice.

"You know, I feel like we should know each other's names," said the prefect amusingly. "I'm Emma, Emma Macmillan. My father was at Hogsmeade Station."

"I'm Albus, Albus Potter," greeted Albus. "Scorpius Malfoy," murmured Scorpius.

Albus added quickly, "Don't worry; he won't go around calling people filthy for their blood status or who they associate with. In a few words, he's not a pureblood maniac.

"Okay, good," laughed Emma.

"I'm Rose Weasley," said Rose softly.

"Hey, you 2 are cousins, right?" asked Emma.

"Yep," replied Albus. He assumed that she must know because she's pureblood, therefore, grew up knowing the old Wizarding families.

"Oh my! We'd better go! I'll lead you the shortcut way," exclaimed Emma with a gasp. Rose, Albus, and Scorpius followed. They went through various twists and turns until they reached the Great Hall wide open.

Nearly everyone was there. Now Albus felt sorry for delaying the rest of them.

They walked over to the Gryffindor table and found three empty seats. Emma went off to her friends while the others took a seat.

Albus was too busy thinking about how to get Rose and Scorpius to make up to notice Molly sitting beside him. "Molly?! Are you okay? What happened?!" asked Albus worriedly, hugging his older cousin.

"Okay relax little cuz! I'm okay!" Molly comforted Albus.

"MOLLY?!" yelled Rose. She went and hugged her. After that, Molly told her cousins what happened. "Well, I'm not really sure until I woke up and Madam Macdonald told me that she gave me a Burn Healing paste and two hours later, I woke up."

"Don't worry; Idiot Flint has got 3 detentions! And you know what; I heard that for his first detention, he has to clean the Trophy Room. He has to take down every single trophy and clean it, then put them back in perfect order! Without magic! If he doesn't do exactly that, Filch is going to get him! Man, Filch has worked here for a really long time," said James from behind Molly, as if he just Apparated.

"Oh, I totally did not know you were there!" squealed Molly. She then went on with what she was saying, "They told Uncle Ron, Aunt Hermione, and Uncle Harry, and man were they mad!"

While they were having or listening to this conversation, Albus, Rose, and Scorpius were gobbling up as much food as they could. The right choice, because just then, Neville came around handing everyone their timetables.

When he got to them, Neville tapped his wand to each paper and ink appeared on them. "There you go," he smiled.

Albus looked at his timetable. His first lesson was Potions, at 8:30 AM. Then at 9:30 to 9:40 there was some time to navigate their way through Hogwarts for only the first years. It would most likely be gone in a week when they know how to get to the classes. At 9:40, he had Herbology. Albus was going to see what he had next, but Neville announced, "Okay everyone, off you go to lessons now!"

Rose was the first one to get up. She followed Emma, who was calling the first years to her along with another boy prefect. They were probably assigned the task of taking the first years to their lessons on their first day.

Since each lesson had students from 2 different houses, the prefects were to lead them to their lessons.

"Oh man! I wanted to see Dad and the rest. Well, I guess it's my own fault for being a sleepyhead," shrugged Albus.

"Eh," replied Scorpius.

Rose, who knew Albus well enough, knew that Albus agreed with her, not Scorpius. Still, she was mad at Albus for not telling Scorpius how much more he knew and that Merope was definitely not Lord Voldemort's daughter. That what he was thinking was nothing else but absolutely bizarre nonsense.

So she went up to the front with her dorm mates, (including Merope).

Emma led the Gryffindors and Slytherins over to the dungeons where Potions class was being held. As soon as they entered, the temperature dropped rapidly. Not because of ghosts, but because the dungeons were, well, just cold.

"Wow! If the 'classroom' is like this, I wonder what the teacher is like," sneered Ruby Altice, making quotes with her fingers for the word, 'classroom'.

"Oh no way, it's just that making potions requires this kind of atmosphere. Especially when kids are practicing. The teacher is great," explained Emma coldly, raising her eyebrows at Ruby. "At least if you're not a Slytherin," Emma smirked.

The Slytherins' frowned, confused. Ruby however, ignored the remark, "Nobody asked YOUR opinion Miss I Can't Shut My Mouth!" She folded her arms and raised her eyebrows the same way it was done to her.

Then Emma raised her eyebrows again. "Excuse me? Talk back to a prefect like that again and we'll see how many points are docked from you!"

Ruby smirked. Albus thought she was going to say something, but kept it in because right then, the potions mistress walked in. She had long blond hair flowing back freely and was very pretty. "Professor Clearwater," whispered Emma to Albus and Scorpius before walking off to her own lessons.

Professor Clearwater wore a beautiful smile on her glowing face. Albus thought she must have been really happy about Hogwarts starting again.

"Hello everyone! Welcome to Hogwarts! I believe I am teaching your very first lesson ever, am I not? And I am teaching the Gryffindors and Slytherins right?" Professor Clearwater said cheerfully. Though he knew he was imagining it, he thought he had heard some displeasure in Professor Clearwater's words when she had mentioned 'Slytherin'.

"To those of you who don't know, I'm Professor Clearwater," she went on, "Now today, we will be learning the basics. You won't actually be brewing real potions for 3 lessons."

Professor Clearwater cleared her throat before going on, "Well, you may take your seats now. After that, please take out you Potions notebook and a pencil."

Everybody picked up their bags, and with their friends, went off to find a table.

Albus and Scorpius found an empty table and sat there quietly. Albus desperately wanted to call Rose over, but knew it would do no good. So instead, he searched through his bag for his pencil and notebook. Albus was too busy doing that to notice two other people join him and Scorpius. When he looked up, he was so shocked to see who it was that he dropped his things. He didn't bother picking it up though. In front of them, were Rose and Merope! Rose! Why would Rose come and sit with them?! She was supposed to be mad at them! Not that he would rather have that.

"Hi Albus! I asked the girls if I could come and sit with my cousin and they were okay. Merope wanted to come too, so…" exclaimed Rose.

She seemed to be paying absolutely no attention whatsoever to Scorpius. Albus really felt bad for him. It was not good and he meant not good to be in Rose's bad books.

"Potions seems really interesting!" smiled Merope.

Scorpius looked at her curiously before saying, "So, you grew up knowing about potions?" Albus could tell that he had tried with all his might to try not to sound pureblood prejudice, but felt like he had failed miserably. So he Scorpius added, "Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm not a pureblood fanatic!"

"Oh no, why would I think that?" inquired Merope confused.

Scorpius was about to answer, but Professor Clearwater cleared her throat.

"Okay, well, the basics are but a few things. First, a bezoar can be found in a goat's stomach and is the antidote to most, if not all, poisons. You know, just in case you're in such a position. Next, you will need the basic potions kit which you should already have, but for future reference. This includes various potions ingredients, (I have not the time to name them all), a small cauldron along with a source of heat, a cutting board, different types of knives, a stirring stick, and many other tools," said Professor Clearwater fast. If she was out of breath, she sure didn't show any sign of it.

She then picked up a huge binder and flipped through it as the kids finished taking their notes. Suddenly, she looked up and gasped. "Oh! I'm sorry. I seem to have made a mistake. You have Double Potions the next time you come see me, so you will be brewing your first potion at that time."

"Ugh! We'll probably just do something like Cure for Boils! Come on! A six-year old can brew that," whispered a Slytherin to his friend.

"Mr. Zolke!" snapped Professor Clearwater. Albus wondered how she knew his name. He figured that she must have remembered it from the Sorting. Still, it's not like she had taken the liberty of remembering every Slytherin's name. The odd thought was shook off though as Professor Clearwater went on.

"I am not a mean teacher, but this will not be tolerated in my classroom! Five points from Slytherin! I'm only taking five since it's the beginning of the year. You're very lucky!" she said this very sternly.

"Well everyone, for Mr. Zolke's information, we will be brewing the Cure for Boils potion, but he thinks it's so easy. He can do that today. It will be good for the next lesson if you could see it now. Then you'll know what to do, what not to do, and all that. So Mr. Zolke, if you will, then please find the ingredients in your Potions textbook and gather them from your Potion-Making Kit which I had mentioned earlier. Then you can get to work. If a six-year old can do this, I could only imagine how easy it would be for you!" said Professor Clearwater, raising her eyebrows.

Zolke nearly fell off his seat, but to Albus, he looked like someone who wouldn't want to be defeated. So he pulled out his textbook and Potion-Making Kit. Everyone in the classroom stared at Zolke as he opened up his textbook and looked through it, trying to find the Cure for Boils potion page.

When he stopped flipping through, he read and took out some ingredients from his kit. To Albus, they looked absolutely disgusting!

Slugs and snake fangs and a few other things like porcupine quills and… dried nettles? Eh. It wasn't much to him. For now at least.

Zolke turned on his stove and put his cauldron on it. He then added the various ingredients.

All of a sudden, there was a horrid stink! Everyone seemed to smell it. If Professor Clearwater did, she took no notice.

"It's melting! The cauldron is melting!" exclaimed one of Rose's dorm mates. Katelyn Ingrid.

Suddenly, Zolke yelped! He was now covered in boils! Professor Clearwater sighed inconsiderately, "You added the porcupine quills before you took the cauldron off the stove didn't you?"

By the end of the lesson, it was clear that the Potions Mistress clearly had something against Slytherins!