Disclaimer: Nothing is mine except the plot and a few OCs! Albus, Rose, Scorpius, and others belong to J. K. Rowling :)

Albus

"Now what, Al?" Scorpius asked as he lowered his wand.

Albus hurriedly scanned Magical Drafts and Potions, which was now opened to the recipe for a Cure for Boils. "We have to wait for about 33 minutes," he relayed from the page. "After that, we put in the horned slugs. Hey, weren't we supposed to have four of those?"

Scorpius glanced at the other slugs on their table, and confirmed to Albus that they were indeed short a slug. "But I don't see it - never mind. It's only over there." He gestured to a small, green creature that was gradually inching away from them. He didn't move to pick it up.

"You're not going to get it? All right then, I'll just put it back with the others -" Albus plucked the slug off the table and dropped it next to the other ones. Immediately, it began to squirm away again, but he prodded it back with his finger. This time, the slug stayed put, although it seemed rather irritated by this treatment towards it.

"So now we just wait?" Scorpius fiddled with a snake fang as he spoke. When it pricked him, he hastily set it down, wincing.

Albus stifled a smirk and answered, "Now we wait."

He bent over their cauldron, then compared its contents to those of his classmates. A few of the cauldrons had liquefied when on the heat; Albus figured a few of them must have forgotten to turn off the heat before putting in the porcupine quills. His godfather, Neville, had told Albus stories from his own personal experience in potion making, many of them ending in similar disasters. When Neville himself had attempted at brewing a cure for boils, his potion had melted his cauldron, along with the shoes of his unsuspecting classmates. His potions had a tendency to behave in this way fairly often; they usually did the exact opposite of their intended purpose. Albus, with satisfaction, realized that his and Scorpius' potion looked exactly how it was supposed to by this point in color and consistency. It was like something he could do well that many people he was close to couldn't. Both his mother and father hadn't been entirely inept at brewing, but Albus had heard tales of their own time in Potions class, which had been taught by a certain greasy-haired man he'd met last night who favored the Slytherins and never gave his father any sympathy or kindness. He had, according to Albus' mother, acted this way to all Gryffindors; he seemed to hold a grudge against them. Now Albus knew this man personally, and wasn't really sure if he'd actually been as brave as his father had said. Not that Albus didn't appreciate the sentiment, but somehow to him it seemed strange that his parents had named him after a person who had been that way towards them for years. There was obviously more to it that his father thought he couldn't understand, because whenever Albus asked, the subject was quickly changed. Albus suspected it had to do with the war, but he didn't know the details of it as his parents were "saving it for when he gets older". Albus wished he could understand now, to see why what happened did happen, to truly get the reason his father was so famous and why others treated him and his family differently because of it. Why were people so interested in him just because of his father? Albus sighed to himself as he stared at the still potion resting peacefully in the potion, feeling as though he could just dissolve into it. Then he conceded that maybe asking Snape himself about the subject would warrant a response to put his mind at ease.

He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he nearly jumped out of his seat when someone poked his shoulder.

"You there? Our cure for boils is done heating. What next?" said Scorpius pointedly with his hands poised above the ingredients in front of him.

"The horned slugs," Albus replied shakily, uncertain of why he suddenly felt so flustered. He took a shallow breath and quickly checked the book to review the recipe once again.

"Horned slugs. Okay," Scorpius repeated, eyeing them distastefully. "Why don't, er, you do that, and I'll watch, to see if you do something wrong?" His voice rose an octave at the end of his sentence.

Albus snickered, taking note of Scorpius's repugnance of the horned creatures. "What, afraid of some slugs?"

"No!" Scorpius responded defensively. "I just...don't like to touch them." He averted his gaze.

"Don't worry, I'll do it," Albus assured him with an amused expression. He made a grab for one of the slugs, but it darted just out of reach. His smile shifted into a puzzled frown. There wasn't much he knew about slugs, but could they really move that quickly? He dismissed it as perhaps a trick of the light and reached for another one. It simply streaked away, leaving a slimy mark on the table. Finally, after many failed attempts, he managed to snag one, but it wriggled between his fingers and slipped. It was only a fleeting stroke of luck that allowed it to drop right into the cauldron. "Great," Albus muttered sourly, "now I just have to hope that happens three more times."

Scorpius sniggered, offering no help whatsoever.

"Thanks." Albus rolled his eyes. "Thanks a lot." Then he scooped up a slug, which then fell right back down through his fingers. Just like all the others had. He came to a conclusion: someone had messed with his slugs. There was no way this was natural.

"Scorpius," Albus nudged his friend, "I think someone's done something to our slugs." He scanned the room for anyone who looked suspicious, especially the Gryffindors, who hated the Slytherins, even though Al had tried in vain to convince himself it wasn't true. Gryffindors and Slytherins were natural rivals, even enemies. So if anyone was messing with their slugs, it would be a Gryffindor. Probably, Albus figured, trying to ensure that none of them would be awarded any points.

"Hmmm?" Scorpius blinked. "Done with those slugs yet?"

Albus ignored him, intent on finding the culprit. He didn't want to mess up on his first potions lesson all because some Gryffindor had caused his slugs to malfunction! Scorpius shrugged and put his head down again.

When Albus' searching gaze found Rose, working contentedly on her potion with a partner who seemed entirely uninterested in helping her, he tried to catch her eye. But Rose didn't notice him and continued talking to herself, most likely reciting the recipe to the potion under her breath. She had memorized many of the potions already; her copy of Magical Drafts and Potions lay unopened next to her. Albus smiled, admiring her enthusiasm and ability to learn quickly. They'd practiced certain spells together before school, and while Albus was decent at performing them, he wasn't as good at the theory and logic behind it. Rose, however, constantly surprised him with her profound understanding of, well, everything. Next to Rose, with her blazing red hair and personality to match, Albus was transparent. But he had become accustomed to it. He was often overlooked, given his parents and his older, louder, braver brother James and his kinder, smart, loving sister Lily. James was the brave one, Lily was the compassionate one, while Al was merely the calm one, forever stuck in the middle.

Yes, that's all very nice, but there's a potion I have to complete, and I can't do that with my slugs bouncing all over the place! Albus impatiently interrupted himself to keep from drifting off into his own thoughts, as he tended to do at the worst possible moments.

Albus moved on to the pair behind his cousin, hoping that no one noticed that he had been staring at her blankly for nearly a minute.

One of the two girls at that table was enthusiastically rattling on about something Albus couldn't hear and didn't really care about. Her partner was nodding in response to whatever she was saying, but Albus noticed with curiosity that every few moments she'd check to see if anyone was watching, then angle her wand from underneath her desk and whisper something. Albus narrowed his eyes as he pieced it together; so this was the person who caused all the slugs to race around the desks like that! He discreetly inclined his wand towards her and cast a spell of his own her way. The girl gasped as her wand was knocked from her grip; Albus saw her nervously glance at the professor, who was currently testing another student's potion. She gave a quick sigh of relief when she saw that she hadn't been caught, then ducked under her table to retrieve her fallen wand. Albus, satisfied that she wasn't going to target anyone else's slugs, turned back to his own potion. It had slightly overheated, but the color didn't look off and he didn't hesitate to finish dropping the slugs in.

"Finally finished with the slugs yet?" Scorpius had evidently fallen asleep. How he had managed to wake himself up so efficiently, Albus didn't know.

"Yes, no thanks to you," said Albus, carefully taking the cauldron off the fire. By the time he reached for the porcupine quills, Scorpius was already there, placing them in. They continued on in this way, finding that they made a pretty good team. It showed too, when Professor Vaughan reached their potion. He gave them a rare smile and two points for their work.

"That wasn't too hard." Scorpius grinned as he began cleaning up their cauldron, pouring its contents in a vial for the professor to grade.

"Well, you're much better at it than I am," Albus laughed as he wiped away the slug tracks. It was true. When they had first begun working, he hardly had any idea of how to prepare even the simple cure for boils. Scorpius, on the other hand, knew exactly how to crush the snake fangs, and taught Albus how, as well. It seemed to come to him with fair ease after that.

Albus couldn't help wondering, though he'd one well this time, if he'd be able to keep up in later classes. Sure, he could make a cure for boils, but what would he do when faced with a harder challenge? He wondered whether his next class, Transfiguration, would prove to be difficult or easy to him.

Albus ran into someone in his rush to find his Transfiguration classroom. He mumbled a quick apology, but then caught sight of the girl's face.

"Hey," he realized, "you're the one who tampered with our slugs!"

"Oh." The girl blushed. "Maybe. Hey!" she added indignantly, "that means you must be the one who disarmed me! I could've gotten caught!"

"But if you hadn't done it, then there wouldn't be anything to get caught for," Albus pointed out, annoyed by her accusing tone. I was only trying to make my potion, no need to turn it into a huge deal.

"Whatever, I wasn't hurting anyone," she huffed. "What's it to you? Now I have to get to Charms. See you." Albus watched, shocked, as she pushed past him. He concluded that he'd never understand exactly why girls acted like they did and took off to Transfiguration, hoping he wasn't already too late.