Chapter 7

"Perhaps we should have planned this out a bit better," Nell said. "Do you want any more of your egg before we head off for class?"

"We did plan this out. You gave me that extra frog to eat two days ago, and I still wouldn't be hungry now if you hadn't turned me into that crow. It took a lot of my strength out of me, you know," the snake replied. "So, yes, I think I will have another few bites."

Nell extended her sleeved arm over the last scraps of raw egg on her plate, under the pretense of trying to lift a particularly heavy pitcher of maple syrup in the middle of the table. Gash shot his head out and began to messily attempt to snap up as much of the remaining egg yolk he could get.

"Stop looking so nervous, Bennett," said a voice from behind.

Nell's arm hand darted back from the syrup pitcher and she looked up at the person who said those words. For a moment she feared that Gash had slipped from his hiding spot, but she dared not glance down to check.

The prefect's round face was looking down at her with a crooked smirk. "Classes start in twenty minutes," he said, not unkindly. "You'd best get going now, so you won't be late for your first class. First Years are usually the ones who get lost rather easily."

Nell continued to blankly stare right back up at him. The glare between the two lingered, until he looked away and continued on walking, shooing other First Years from breakfast. She used her other hand to shovel the last morsel of food off her plate and into her mouth, syrup-less.

Once Gash settled into the large pocket Nell had sewn to the inside of her robes, she grabbed her books and made her way out of the Great Hall. She made several turns through the halls, and then paused and stepped off to the side, away from the mass of people. "Wait, which class do I have first?" she whispered.

"Potions," Gash replied.

"Which professor?"

"Professor Slughorn, in the dungeons," he said. "And I find it somewhat funny how I've memorized your own schedule better than you have."

She ignored his last comment. Now recalling the location of the classroom, Nell continued onwards.

By the times she reached the entrance to the classroom, the crowds in the corridors leading to it had already thinned out considerably. Only a couple lost students and fellow First Year Potions Class-goers were to be seen here.

Once Nell got her cauldron and books for the class out and completely prepared, it wasn't until another ten minutes had passed before everyone else in the class had finished arriving. Nearing the end of the first five minutes, the rotund and cheery professor Nell recognized as the Head of Slytherin House lumbered in with a large group of nervous-looking First Year Slytherins and a few Hufflepuffs.

"Good morning, students!" he said as soon as he arrived at the front of the classroom. "Welcome to Hogwarts, and your very first class of your education here — Potions! Now, I'm sure some of you out there have heard of me, and if you're lucky then maybe I soon will have heard of you." He gave one of his gleaming eyes a quick wink.

"Good morning, Professor Slughorn," a sparse few murmured in reply.

The professor scanned the new faces in the room with his small, watery eyes. "I hope you all brought all of your supplies, because you'll be brewing a potion today. It's nothing serious—I'll see just how much you all know." The man held up a small glass flask and swished around its greenish blue contents for all to see. "Can anyone tell me what this potion is?"

Nell narrowed her eyes as she concentrated on the teal potion. She racked through her brain on the names of all the potions she could think of. Bulgeye Potion? No, wrong color. Invigoration Draught? No, too advanced. Aging Potion? No, wrong consistency. Exploding Potion? No, the professor certainly wouldn't be sloshing a potion like that around like he was…

Nell felt Gash stir. She cast down a glance just quick enough to see one of his small eyes peering out from under her cloak.

"Is that the Antidote to Common Poisons? Don't you think so?" Gash asked very quietly.

Nell gave a low grunt and small nod in agreement.

To her misfortune, Professor Slughorn heard the sound she had made in the classroom's silence and mistook it for her volunteering an answer. "Ah. You there, from my own Slytherin House, uh, Miss Bennett, am I right? What do you think this is?"

Nell leaned her head to one side and looked again at the flask. Without taking her eyes of the object, she said, "That's the Antidote to Common Poisons, professor."

"Oh! Very good. Five points to Slytherin," he said with a look of pleasant surprise. "Now, I would like each of you to try and brew this on your own. The recipe is on page fifteen of your book. So, go on—you have fifty-three minutes. And there's a little prize in for whoever makes it best."

There was suddenly a rush of black cloaks and a screeching chorus of a couple dozen chairs being pushed back across the stone floor all at once. The others grabbed their books and cauldrons and began to hurry in order to start their potions. Nell, however, remained seated and flipped directly to the recipe. She scanned the recipe: one bezoar, one pinch of ground unicorn horn, two mistletoe berries, two measurements of Standard Ingredient…Nothing too complicated.

Slughorn, casually walking around the room, paused in front of Nell. "About time you got started now, isn't it? You've only fifty minutes."

Nell then nodded slightly and rose to her feet and fetched the required items. She stood in silent boredom as she mindlessly chopped and ground the ingredients and added them to the bubbling cauldron pot. Every so often, she'd snap back into reality to check on the progress of the potion.

"Your potion," the girl next to Nell whispered, "it needs another pinch of unicorn horn."

Nell awoke from her reverie and looked up. "Hmm?"

"You didn't grind up the horn enough, so another pinch of it would help, I think. Your potion is turning a bit too dark."

Nell looked closely at her concoction. It was a bit too dark. She took another small pinch of the unicorn horn and tossed it into the cauldron. The potion began to lighten to the correct shade. "Yeah, thanks," Nell muttered.

Slughorn was looking in on all of the students. He would peek over one person's shoulder and then make sounds of either disappointment or mild satisfaction. As the professor peered at the contents of the cauldrons of a few Slytherin boys across the room, he gave a short nod of approval. He clucked his tongue critically at Kraz's cauldron. He chuckled as one of the Hufflepuff student's potion became a ball of bright purple sludge and crawled out onto the floor. When he came to Nell, he looked passively over her cauldron and then set his eyes past it, at the girl's cauldron next to Nell's.

"Oh, good job! And another one of my Slytherin students," he said, delighted. "And your name?"

"Lucia O'Falley," she said proudly.

"O'Falley, you say?" he said thoughtfully. "Well, keep up with the good work. Everyone else best put a bit more effort into their own cauldrons if they'd still like a chance at winning the prize."

Nell felt a growing frustration. She had studied Potions since she was seven, and yet the girl standing next to her was already doing better than she. The girl, Lucia, was obviously not noticing Nell's mood; she insisted on trying to start up a conversation while they worked.

"I've really been excited to come to Hogwarts for a long time now – what about you? My brother, who's now a Seventh Year, has been preparing me all summer – especially in potions and flying. Slughorn is his favorite teacher…"

Nell would only nod and mutter obligatory words like "yeah," or "I know what you mean," every once in a while as Lucia continued on talking. Although she found Lucia's babble annoying and distracting, Nell managed to keep her jaw clenched and her temper at bay while she worked.

What seemed like hours later, Slughorn moved to center of the room and gathered everyone's attention as he shot colorful sparks from the tip of his wand. "Time is up! Please stop what you're doing and step back from your cauldrons. I'll come around to judge. Whosever potion is the best, I'll give them a prize," he said, smiling.

He made his way around the room with that same stupid smile on his face, glancing at some, stepping quickly away from others, and stopping to examine some further. Upon reaching Nell's cauldron, Slughorn paused and examined the incomplete potion thoroughly.

"Quite good," he murmured. He gave another grunt of approval before moving on.

When he came to Lucia's cauldron, he examined it for only a moment before turning to the class.

"Ah! No need for me to continue my search, I see," Slughorn declared in delight. "I think I've already found the winner of today's little test of your abilities."

Lucia smiled widely.

"Fifteen points to Slytherin," Slughorn continued. "And also as a reward, I extend to you, Ms. O'Falley, a formal invitation to the next meeting of the Slug Club. You'll be the first of the First Years thus far to attend."

"Thank you, sir," Lucia said, blushing slightly.

"It's quite fortunate for most of you that I am not grading your work. For some of you, I'd recommend you to read through your book's chapter on basic potion-making. And I commend a short few of you for your stellar work." His eyes glanced over to a beaming Lucia. "Overall: good job, everyone. Unfortunately, tomorrow when we meet I will be quizzing you on your knowledge of aconites and bezoars. Clean up your cauldrons and then you may leave. Class dismissed!"

The drone of chatter immediately rose from the classroom.

"The Slug Club. What is that? It sounds rather unpleasant," said Gash in a quiet hiss.

Nell occupied herself with cleaning up the ingredients she'd been using. "I overheard some people talking about it earlier. It's an exclusive club that Slughorn runs. It's some sort of social group for those he thinks will be successful one day. He wants to have good connections to powerful people. That's all."

"Mhm. It still sounds awful," Gash said.

"Indeed."

Nell looked down again at her cauldron of failure with disgust. She pointed her wand at it and said, "Scourgify." The spell whipped around the inside of the cauldron, licking up the contents and leaving it entirely clean. Nell made a point to quickly pack her things and leave before anyone else. A toppling of her cauldron and books, however, dashed those hopes.

"Oh, here, let me help you," said Lucia. She swooped down to the floor with Nell and helped her gather all of her things back into a neat pile.

"Um, thanks," Nell said as they both rose to their feet. Immediately following the incident, Nell thought that that was it, but Lucia, soon joined by Lauren Malone, continued to walk with Nell.

"Ugh," Lucia grunted as soon as they had left the musty classroom. "Another five minutes and I could have had a perfect brew of the potion."

"Oh, shut up," Lauren Malone said to Lucia laughingly. "You already won an invitation to Slughorn's Slug Club. What more could you want?"

"Well, I guess you're right,"

As they reached the next intersection, Nell suddenly stopped and put her hands to her pockets, feigning a look of sudden realization on her face. "You know what. Oh, I can't believe it! I forgot my quills and inkpot on my bed in the dormitories. I'll have to go back before I go to Defense Against the Dark Arts class."

"Oh, okay, we can walk with you," Lauren and Lucia quickly volunteered.

"No, no, that's fine. You don't have to," Nell insisted with as much sincerity as she could manage.

"I think that our next class is that way," said Nell, pointing in the wrong direction. "You two go on ahead. I'll meet you there."

As soon as they parted ways, Nell quickly let her smile fade from her face.

"What was that all about?" came a hiss from her pocket. "Your quill and inkpot are right here, in your left pocket."

"I know, Gash. I really couldn't stand walking with them all the way to our next class, so I sent them off in the wrong direction and parted ways."

"Ah, I see," he replied. "But you really should try and make at least a couple friends. That is what normal children do."

"Oh, shut up, Gash," Nell said, "I thought that's why I have you."