The Heir Of Gryffindor
Chapter 9 - The Potions Accident

Lily took her seat, smiling brightly when Severus Snape came in, the shutters of the room which had been opened shut with a slam all the way down, leaving them in would be darkness besides for the lit candles which almost went out because of the wind created by it. "Get your textbooks and turn to page two hundred and ninety-four. Today we shall begin reviewing what you have learnt so far. To proceed any further in my class, as you have passed your O.W.L.s, you must be able to prepare a series of potions. At the end of the year, these potions as well as a few others will be on the final - and you will not graduate my class without being able to perform these. Which means those looking to be Aurors," he said, looking straight at Harry and Ron, "and healers will not be able to achieve their hopes." he said, giving a sly look at Lily Luchesi.

She nodded, and smiled up at him before opening her book and focusing on what she needed to do with complete focus. "Once you have studied your potions, come and get these supplies. You will be working on the truth potion, Veritaserum as well as the Draught of Peace. Pay careful attention NOT to add too much of the ingredients, else you will make a concoction that will possibly put a drinker into an unwakeable sleep." he said, staring at Neville. Merlin's beard, thought Severus, why did he have that idiot again?! What was he wanting to be exactly? If he thought he was going to be an auror, he was going to be sadly disappointed - Neville didn't have the guts.

Lily found the two potions she needed to study, then skipped ahead to get the extra ingredients needed that wasn't included in her basic kit. Sadly she didn't have the same things she would have back home.

Severus' eyes widened as he knew one thing about Lily that no one here probably had discovered - she was a horrid clutz. "Miss Luch-Li- walk please. . ." he asked in almost a pleading voice. Eyes were on Professor Snape. Calling a student by their first name was shocking enough, but to get a please that wasn't sarcastic?!

Talk began to go around the room until Severus called out. "Enough. . ." he said and quickly everything stopped. Lily's face was flushed and she sent an apologetic smile to him before getting her supplies quickly, heading back to her desk where Ron was trying to stop himself from laughing. Hermione looked amused as did Harry. The rest of the class lined up and Lily bashfully held her head down as she read the potions ingredients again.

In the mortar and pestle, students could be heard grinding up moonstone. Quickly the class was nearly over and only three students had successfully gotten it right, to the beautiful turquoise color it was supposed to be and five students had gotten the Veretaserum right. Ron's had turned a strange citrus orange for his Drought of Peace, and an opaque white for his Vereteserum. "Bloody hell, I'm rubbish at potions. . ." he declared. Lily nodded - he really was - and she saw why. He had gotten the hellebore syrup mixed up into the Vereteserum, and had added too much powdered moonstone in the Draught of Peace.

"Zero, zero, and zero - ahh, perfect Miss Luchesi. See the color there Potter? Although. . . you seem to have learnt from your last time doing this potion. About time." said Snape with a sneer. "Thank you Professor." said Harry. Snape's brows raised in surprise. A thank you - from Harry Potter? Indeed he had misjudged the boy, but it had been easy to do, when Severus thought back as to how James was. He felt the boy's eyes on his for a moment before writing down notes. Severus studied him for a moment more, then he turned, but Harry could have sworn that there was a thin smile on the corner of his lips when his eyes lit upon seeing the cloak. "That's a nice cloak Potter." he added under his breath so only Harry would hear.

And then the unthinkable happened - Neville had tried everything he could to stop his potion from blowing the perverbrial and quite literal, top. And it did just that! It blew, the gold-orange brew spewed everywhere, drenching poor Severus, who leapt into action, freezing most of it, but missing a spray. He swooned and started to fall until Harry and Lily bounced up to get him. "Sev!" called Lily, catching him but as he was a fully grown man, it took Harry's help to hold him up. With a grunt, they set him down gently, Lily calling for Ron to toss her the coat hanging from her chair. He did so and she caught it, folded it with one hand and slid it under Severus' head, his black hair spilling like trendils over the red coat.

Neville was slowly beginning to freak out. Hermione sighed and got up out of her desk, carefully, trying not to wake Snape as she grabbed hold of Neville's sleeve, pulling him from the room. "Its better if Professor Snape doesn't find you in there - else he could find grounds to expell you." she said, shooing him away. "Go to the common rooms, I'll meet you there before next class if I can." she said with a sigh as she went back in. Professor Snape was still out cold.

Harry was trying to find something - anything - to fight whatever it was that caused this mess - Lily was looking over Neville's still smouldering cauldron, turning it off and placing a lid on it after getting a sample in a test tube. "There we go, there shouldn't be any more danger. But now we have to find out what went in the potion before it exploded. Good thinking getting him out, Sev isn't exactly the nicest person when it comes to waking up or being woken up. . ." said Lily softly.

The trio's eyebrows raised at the nickname. "He's the person I remember most clearly before I moved to America from here. But enough of chitchat - Hermione, mind helping me find out what this mystery potion is?" she asked and Hermione cleared her throat. "Of course." she said importantly and together, they discovered exactly what it was. "I see!" said Hermione, seeing a green scale float up to the top of the potion after a few clockwise and counter-clockwise turns. Hermione immediately knew what it was - Trevor's scale. That blasted frog had caused this. And it hadn't been the first time. . .

"Okay. . . lets see, think Lily - ah! The wiggenweld potion!" said Lily and Hermione at the same time, and both girls laughed at each other before they turned serious. This needed to be done quickly. They both flipped to the page, landing on it just seconds of each other. "Okay boys, looks like we have a few potions to do. . ." said Lily, and Hermione nodded. The potion overspray had hit almost all the Slytherins and Lavender Brown as well as her friend Parvati were passed out. Draco was snoring softly.

"Okay, salamander blood. . . salamander blood. . . lionfish spines, flobberworm mucus, and honeywater." read aloud Hermione and Lily nodded, getting up to go get the ingredients, but slipping onto the still wet stone floor, she bowled into both boys, knocking a jar of flobberworm mucus off the shelf. It teetered and tottered there for a moment and Lily shut her eyes tightly, expecting the disgusting substance to rain down on her when Draco, his robes barely damp now, reached out and grabbed it right before it could crack on her head.

"Well, looky what I have here. . . Potty, Weasel and . . . okay, I'm not even going to try with your name Luchesi - there's nothing that will rea- wait, Loocheesey works!" said Draco and Lily laughed, causing Draco to be surprised and confused. "Haha, that's a good one." she said, both boys struggling to be untangled from the girl, ready to pounce on Malfoy for picking on her, even if she thought it was funny.

"I insult you and you laugh. Your a strange girl." said Draco, his brows going up into his white-silver hair, rolling his gray eyes as he offered her a hand up. As she was under both Ron and Harry somehow after the slip, she was quite grateful. Ron was up first, just as she took his hand and he pulled her up. "Thank you very much." she said with a smile. Draco handed her the container of Flobberworm Mucus. "I think you were looking for this?" he asked. She took it happily, not noticing Ron's glowering. "So what else do you need, Miss Klutz?" he joked.

"Salamander blood, lionfish spines, flobberworm mucus and honeywater. And we have one ingredient." Hermione reminded Lily as she was beaming at Draco. "I don't usually help blood traitors you know. But I suppose, since its for Snape, I'll lend a hand. . ." said Draco, looking uncomfortable. If this got out, he would be sneered at for liking a blood traitor. "Well, we would be happy -" started LIly until Ron interrupted. "We'll be fine." he said snippily. Hermione smirked. "Looks like I'm not the only one who has competition. . . and this could actually work in my favor, if I play my cards right. . ." thought Hermione to herself quietly when there was a soft bang on her desk. Draco placed the salamander blood container on the desk. He was still arguing with Ron.

"I said I was helping and that's that. Quit fussing Weasel. You sound like an old woman." he sneered and heard Lily chuckling. He grinned. Finally someone who got his jokes. Lily brought the flobberworm mucus and Ron slammed the lionfish spines on the desk, causing Hermione to give him a cutting look. Harry shook his head. They would never stop, it seemed. Hermione quickly began working on it. As the three argued and with interrupting laughs from Lily, the potion was done - it was the green it was supposed to be.

"Its done." she said, looking irritatedly at the group. Quickly, she handed a vial to Lily for her to wake her first cousin. "First a little clean up I think." said Lily, who used the scrougify spell to clean his robes before using a drying spell. Then, she made him drink the antidote, and he woke slowly. "Ugh, what happened?" he asked, disoriented.

"Welcome back to the wakened world. A potion went wrong and blew up - we were just fixing the Wiggenweld potion to wake everyone, and we found the trouble - a frog's scale had gotten into the potion, which otherwise would have been perfect." said Lily. Hermione nodded, hoping that he would believe that Neville had been trying - the mentioning of the frog scale would be a dead giveaway for sure. "I see. Apply the potion to the passed out students. Were you the one to add the peppermint Lily?" asked Severus and she nodded.

"Very intuitive. You will make an excellent healer or potions master." he said before writing something in his book. He supervised the handing out of the potions, making sure to measure body weight into the equation. Soon, all the students were coming around. A message to Professor Dumbledore about the incident later, they were released. Malfoy was still yawning. "That was a pretty nice nap - Longbottom should mess up those potions more." he half-joked.

Lily gave him a grin. "Yes, we all heard you snoring away over there." she said, not noticing the faint color on Draco's now not-quite-so-amused face. "Hey! That was pretty low Lucheeeesey." retorted Draco. She batted her lashes at him innocently, but the smirk wouldn't leave her face. "If you think so, Mallary." teased Lily back to see the white-blonde brows disappear into his hair again.

"Well," said a silky voice behind them. "This is most interesting. Flirting already with your ex-betrothed?" asked Severus Snape, wearing his usual smirk. But then it faded as he saw their reactions. Lily and Draco jumped back away from each other, almost perfectly in sync - but their words were perfect. "WHAT?!"

In the corner of the room, Ron gasped for air. "E-ex what?!" he cried, staring at the two. No dammit, he LIKED Lily. That couldn't be. . . Hermione looked scandalized, and Harry was in shock.

Calling her by her first name, for obvious reasons to some, was difficult for Severus, but he cleared his throat to do so. "Lily, you don't remember?" he asked, ignoring the others. "I thought that may be, but I wondered how you would forget Draco." he said, seemingly surprised. Maybe not though - Narcissa was a capable woman who could take care of things - and hadn't she been good in potions at school as well? Of course nowhere on Severus' level, but certainly near enough to do a memory potion. Hadn't she come to borrow herbs before?

"Then again, your mother is quite good at potions if I remember correctly. Its possible that she chose to erase those memories. Perhaps your father also did the same, Luchesi." he explained, and Hermione nodded. "It would make sense, particularly at what they said when they met." she said and Draco nodded. "Yes. . . that makes the most plausable sense." said Draco. Lily nodded - maybe. . . just maybe. "Is there a - wait, nevermind! I'll find it. Ugh, but I want any possible memories I did have back. . . wait! Would -"

"That change who I am right now?" both asked at the same time and then chuckled, not noticing Ron looking darkly at them. And then Severus, holding his head, snapped to his senses. He felt dizzy as he snapped at them. "Get going. Your going to be late for your next class and you will not recieve any passes from me." he snarled, causing Ron to jump and everyone to start moving. "Sorry Professor." said Ron and Harry and they all rushed to leave. Lily almost didn't hear him as she was still in shock over this information and then jerked to after Hermione elbowed her. "Oh! Oh yes, I - yeah, see you later Uncle Sever- I- I mean Professor Snape." said Lily, trying to cover her slip up. She saw him roll his eyes and couldn't stop the chuckle that escaped his lips. Malfoy seemed to not want to go but torn about things.

Soon, classes were done for the day and they headed up to the common room. Lily was glad as she was bloody exhausted. "Ugh. . . jeez. Its crazy, the amount of homework that . . . well, I was taught not to talk bad about people, but really, I think that Divination is a rediculus waste of time." declared Lily. "Glad I'm not the only one who thinks so." said Hermione, looking a little warmer towards thier newest friend. "I'm exhausted." complained Hermione. She said goodbyes to everyone before heading up to bed, pausing to study Lily, wondering whether she would be a good addition to their group or not so good addition. They would find out soon she supposed, and went to her dorm. Lily also yawned and excused herself, but when she arrived, a strange owl was waiting on her - an eagle owl. . .