Chapter Three

Being Taught A Lesson

Breakfast was soon over and the first lesson of the day was Potions. Double potions with the Slytherins. I sighed as I pushed myself off the bench, ignored Potter and motioned for my friends to join me. We wandered down to the dungeons, chatting lightly.

"So you didn't kill him then." Alice smirked, nudging me in the side gently. I rolled my eyes.

"Only because McGonagall was there, if she wasn't he would have died a painful death." I huffed, crossing my arms over my chest as we came to stand by the door, waiting for Professor Slughorn to open it.

Marlene chuckled as she leant on the wall next to us. "You guys have so much sexual tension it's unbelievable."

I gaped at her. "What? How could you even say that, there is nothing sexual-"

"Hello class!" Slughorn interrupted as he opened the door. I had immediately shut my mouth before anything more embarrassing came out and incriminated me. "Come in, come in." He moved out of the way and motioned for us all to come inside. The three of us took seats in the middle of the room, I didn't want to sit at the front because he always tried to partner me up with Severus and I couldn't deal with that anymore. Not since what happened at the end of fifth year.

I shook my head to get rid of the memories and took out my text book, parchment and inkpot. I didn't notice when Potter and his friends sat behind us.

Slughorn beamed at us all as he looked over us from his place at the front of the class. He stood over a cauldron that was bubbling gently, emitting a soft flowery sent that made me sigh slightly. Alice and Marlene sent me questioning looks but I only motioned towards the potion and they understood.

"Alright class, today we will be brewing the draught of peace, a complex potion which requires complete concentration, so any lollygagging in this class will have you straight in detention, do I make myself clear?" He looked sternly at us, but the effect was ruined when he randomly started chuckling at the end of his sentence, something he did three or four times a class.

When none of us spoke up he continued. "Right, you can work with the person next to you. Good luck, you have the rest of the lesson to complete it. The person with the best draught will not have to complete the essay for homework."

I smiled at Alice, Marlene had turned to work with the Ravenclaw boy who had sat next to her, leaving Alice and I to partner up. "You wanna get the ingredients or shall I?"

Alice stood up. "I will." I nodded and set about to setting up the cauldron, carefully lighting the fire underneath. I found the page with the potion and flipped to it, scanning over the stages and seeing what I could do to improve it.

Alice came back with her arms full, she bent down a bit so that she could carefully place everything on the table without spilling anything. I walked around to help her, taking the top items and putting them near the cauldron.

"I think I've got everything." She murmured, looking down at the table. She then turned to look at me. "What's the first step?"

I hummed as I looked at the book, handing her some moonshine for her to crush and powder. "First is powdered moonstone, so grind that and I'll grind up these porcupine quills." We both got to it and soon enough I was adding the powdered moonstone to the cauldron until the potion turned green. I stirred it anti clockwise, handing over the porcupine quills to Alice, who continued to crush them. I slid over the unicorn horn for her to crush as well.

The potion soon turned blue and I added some more powdered moonstone. I turned the heat up and waited two minutes for the potion to change colour again. I reached for the purple bottle labelled Syrup of Hellebore and took the stopper off of it, adding three drops before stirring again.

We followed the rest of the instructions until Slughorn told us to stop. "Everyone stop brewing, I'll be coming around to have a look at your potions in a moment." I bit my lip as I looked at our potion, it was a creamy shade of white but it could have been pearlier and less creamy in my opinion. I looked around at Marlene's, hers was a grey colour she obviously hadn't gotten around to the last few stages, probably talking with her partner too much.

I looked behind me and was surprised to see Potter and Black had quite a good potion in front of them, I didn't even know they were there; they usually would have done something to disrupt the lesson by now.

Black noticed my staring and sent me a wink before nudging Potter who was frowning down into the cauldron; I looked away before he could catch my eye.

"Hey Evans?" Black whispered, tapping me on the shoulder. I rolled my eyes before turning around and saw that to reach me he had to lean comically over the desk.

I searched for Slughorn and saw that he was on the other side of the classroom before answering. "What do you want Black?"

"I just wanted to say, that I saw you checking me out and I- Ow!" Potter had elbowed his friend in the side and gave him a pretty mean glare. I knew that Black was only joking so I decided to get some revenge.

I took another glance at Slughorn who was too busy helping out one of the Slytherins who had managed to make his potion emit some foul smelling smoke. I bit my lip before getting out of my seat, surprising both boys.

"You're right," I swallowed my pride. "Sirius, I was checking you out." I leant over the desk and looked deep into his eyes, enjoying the way he was blinking rapidly and I could see him swallowing painfully. I licked my lips slightly, noticing the way his eyes were automatically drawn to them and I swear he was about to lean in before we both were interrupted by a loud growl that Potter emitted.

I raised my eyebrows at laughed. "Aww, that's too bad Sirius. You and your boyfriend have fun." I winked and turned back around, almost flinching as I heard a smack behind me. I winced when I realised that Potter had hit Black but at the same time I found it a little amusing.

Slughorn had finally made his way to my side of the room, stopping to sniff at Marlene and the Ravenclaw's potion and smile uncomfortably at them. He stirred it once and leaned closer when it bubbled.

"A good attempt, I suggest next time you work on your timings." He left their potion and turned to mine and Alice's. He looked at it intensely for a second before beaming at us. I let out a silent sigh of relief and smiled at Alice.

"Another O Miss Evans, and you Miss Prewitt. Well done." He nodded before moving on, I was surprised he didn't talk to me for longer but I was relieved all the same. I wondered why he was in a rush but I realised that Potter and Black were behind me and were probably doing something that made Slughorn nervous.

I tuned out his words, already knowing he was going to praise them and I didn't want to be irritated by it. "What do we have next?" I whispered to Alice who was staring off into space.

She snapped out of it and dug into her bag for her timetable, dodging Slughorn's behind as he shuffled to look at the next potion. "It's Charms." I smiled, Charms was my favourite subject and the one I was best at. Our attention was drawn to the front of the room when Slughorn finally managed to squeeze back behind his desk.

"The winning potion goes to Mr Snape and Mr Malfoy." I groaned as did half the class when they realised we had to do the homework. I scowled at the two as I knew that the only reason Malfoy had even paired with Snape was because he knew they were most likely going to win, I bet he didn't even do any work.

Alice nudged me, making me look at her questioningly. "Don't worry, we'll get 'em next time." I smiled at her, she always knew how to cheer me up.

"For the rest of you, I want ten inches of parchment on the properties and uses of the Draught of Peace due in for next lesson. Off you go." I packed up my stuff, vanished the potion and caught up with Alice and Marlene who were talking about the Ravenclaw that Marlene had partnered with.

"He's so nice." She gushed. "His name is Austen and he is so smart and lovely and oh I just wanted to hug him." I laughed, happy she was happy and for once not talking about Black or Potter.

"You should go for it, the worse that can happen is he say's no." I encouraged, obviously not very well as she turned to frown at me as we moved out of the way for some students heading in the opposite direction.

"That in itself is pretty embarrassing, I know that's never happened to you but some of us are actually scared of rejection."

I raised my eyebrows, feeling slightly offended. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

Before she could answer an arm landed on my shoulder, I stumbled a bit before regaining my footing and turning a glare on the arm's owner. I got a glance of Marlene's raised eyebrow that said 'I told you so' and frowned at her.

"So Evans, are you looking forward to Charms? You're pretty good you know, you've already Charmed me." He flashed me a cheesy grin and I spluttered up at him. "I've decided to forgive you for flirting with Sirius, we all know it was you trying to make me jealous. And guess what Evans? It worked." He stopped me in the middle of the corridor.

"Potter you have three seconds to let go of me and I won't hex you into oblivion." My glare must have actually worked this time because he took his arm off my shoulder, slowly of course, Potter couldn't resist the temptation to feel me up a little even if it just was my shoulder and neck. I shuddered as his fingers brushed my neck before leaving me all together.

I was ticklish, and from the look in Potter's eyes, he now knew that.

"Don't worry Evans, I know you love me really." He winked at me. I rolled my eyes and grabbed my friend's arms, dragging them towards the Charms classroom, hoping to get away from him. But of course that wasn't going to happen as we were in the same class. Life really sucked sometimes. We walked into the classroom and took the seats in the middle again, slightly closer this time because Professor Flitwick was so short. I got settled and ignored Potter and his friends as they once again sat behind us. I smiled at Remus however because he was the nicest one.

He was also a werewolf, but let's not focus on that right now.

Charms was amazing as always, Flitwick allowed us to get started on the Disillusionment Charm. I was a little annoyed that Potter and Black were learning this as they were probably going to use it in one of their pranks and they were bad enough when you could see them, let alone when you couldn't. I sat my desk and stared down at my hands. Flitwick had us starting small, trying to make our fingers disappear and it was really difficult. I was very good at Charms but this was seventh year, N.E.W.T year, it was time to step up.

I got it half way through the lesson, my fingers started going transparent and I almost jumped as Flitwick's squeaky voice sounded next to me. "Oh yes, look everyone Miss Evan's done it!" He smiled at me, lifting my hands up, it looked like a stump and was quite comical, but if you looked hard enough you could just about see the outline of my fingers. He gave me my hand back and smiled at me again before going off to help Pettigrew, who I had no idea how he got into N.E.W.T level Charms. Let's just say he wasn't the brightest bulb in the box.

"Lily." I turned around to see Marlene looking at me with puppy dog eyes and sat next to her, helping her with her wrist movement and sure enough after many, many attempts she got it. She squealed in excitement and hugged me with her stumpy looking hand. I laughed and set about to making my fingers appear again. It was actually harder than making them disappear and just when I thought I'd have an invisible hand forever, my fingers started to appear.

I sighed in relief and wiggled my fingers. I placed my wand down and looked around the room. It was nearing the end of the lesson and everyone apart from a few had managed it on at least one of their fingers. I turned around after hearing laughed and saw that Potter and Black were amusing themselves with making various bits of Peter's clothing disappear. I grimaced, hoping they weren't going to go too far, Peter wasn't the best thing to look at.

If only they were doing it to each other.

I could have slapped myself for that thought.

I shook my head and turned to Marlene who still hadn't made her fingers re-appear. "Marls, let me help you." She beamed at me, she got it just as the bell rang. Alice had managed fine by herself so I didn't feel too bad.

"What do you have next?" Alice asked me.

I fished out my timetable and groaned. "Arithmacy." The two of them winced.

"I don't know why you decided to take that Lils, my brain would melt." Marlene shuddered at the thought.

I laughed. "Of course yours would." I smirked at her outraged scowl and ducked when she tried to hit me. "I'm going, I'm going." I jogged a little ahead of the two of them, as they went of in separate directions. Alice had a free period whereas Marlene had Divination. I felt sorry for her.