Hoo boy! Many things have been going on in my life, mostly my grandfather being moved to hospice. I love you, Grandpa!
Enjoy!
Chapter 10
Shrinking Solution
Please report to Professor Dumbledore's office this evening at five o' clock.
Rin's stomach dropped all the way down to the dungeons after reading the note that was delivered to him at breakfast Thursday morning. What did he do? It was only the first week of term. He hadn't gotten into a fight with anyone yet.
Harry and Ron stared at the note over Rin's shoulder in horror. Hermione gaped at him in disbelief. Neville, Seamus, and Dean Thomas were also shocked.
"What could Dumbledore want with you, Rin?" Dean asked.
"It's only the first week. He hasn't even broken anyone's noses yet," Neville murmured. Remarkably, Rin didn't have anything to say to that.
"He tripped Goyle at dinner last night," Seamus recalled.
"That's not enough to be sent to Dumbledore's office!" Hermione argued.
Harry stared at the note. "I know where Dumbledore's office is. I'll take you there," he offered. Rin nodded numbly.
Ron waved his hand in front of his friend's face. He didn't even blink. "I think he's broken, mates," he said.
Harry looked around and saw Yukio and his Ravenclaw friends enter the Great Hall. He waved him over while Seamus tried snapping his fingers in Rin's face.
"What's going on? You guys don't normally gather this closely together," Yukio noted.
Hermione gently pried the note out of Rin's hands. It was like he was Petrified. "He got a note saying to go to Professor Dumbledore's office this evening," she explained, giving it to Yukio.
"HE WHAT?!" Yukio yelled loud enough for everyone in the Great Hall to turn their heads in their direction. He read the note and looked at his brother. "Rin, what the hell did you do?" Rin sat frozen in his seat, unresponsive. Yukio rolled his eyes and smacked his twin upside the head.
"Ow!" Rin exclaimed as he rubbed his head. "What the hell, Yukio?"
"That's my line!" Yukio shot back. "What did you do to get summoned to Dumbledore's office?"
"How the hell should I know? I haven't even gotten into a fight with Malfoy yet!"
Ron nodded. "It's true. If Buckbeak hadn't attacked him, Rin would have beaten him up by now," he confirmed.
Neville sweatdropped. "That's not very helpful, Ron."
"Well, whatever Dumbledore wants with Rin, it must be serious," said Hermione.
"The problem is Rin hasn't done anything yet to get summoned to Dumbledore's office," said Harry.
"Yeah, it's only the first week of the term. Hardly any time to get into a lot of trouble," said Dean.
Yukio glared at Rin. "If you somehow got yourself expelled, so help me…" he growled. Rin shrank at the way his brother was looking at him. He recognized that tone and that look. Yukio meant business when he spoke like that.
~0~0~0~
For the past three years Gryffindors and Slytherins were always paired up in several classes, most notably Demonology and Potions. While Professor Shura did not tolerate any nonsense from her students, no matter what house they're from, Professor Severus Snape was the exact opposite. It was no secret that as head of Slytherin House, he generally favored his own students above the rest of the student body.
The students were making a new potion today, a Shrinking Solution. Malfoy set up his cauldron next to Harry and Ron's, so that they were preparing their ingredients on the same table.
"Sir," Malfoy called, "sir, I'll need help cutting up these daisy roots, because of my arm…"
"Weasley, cut up Malfoy's roots for him," Snape said without looking up from his desk.
Ron went brick red. "There's nothing wrong with your arm," he hissed at Malfoy.
Malfoy smirked across the table. "You heard Professor Snape; cut up these roots."
Ron seized his knife, pulled Malfoy's roots toward him, and began to chop them up roughly, so that they were different sizes.
"Professor," Malfoy drawled, "Weasley's mutilating my roots, sir."
"See what I mean? Milking it," Shima whispered to Rin and Hermione from his table.
"No kidding," Rin and Hermione said simultaneously.
Snape approached Harry and Ron's table, stared down his hooked nose at the roots, then gave Ron an unpleasant smile from underneath his greasy black hair.
"Change your roots with Malfoy, Weasley."
"But, sir…"
"Now," Snape said in his most dangerous tone of voice.
Ron had spent the last quarter of an hour carefully shredding his own roots into equal parts. He looked enviously at Rin's roots that he'd shredded in half that time, maybe even less. Ron and Harry wished that they had Rin's skills with cooking utensils, whether for the kitchen or potion making.
Ron shoved his perfectly cut roots at Malfoy then took up the knife again.
"And, sir, I'll need this shrivelfig skinned," said Malfoy, trying his best to keep his malicious laughter under control.
"Potter, you can skin Malfoy's shrivelfig," said Snape, giving Harry the look of loathing reserved only for him.
Harry took Malfoy's shrivelfig as Ron began trying to repair the damage to the roots he now had to use. Harry skinned the shrivelfig as fast as he could and flung it back across the table at Malfoy without speaking.
"Psst…"
Ron looked up from doctoring his roots and saw Rin slyly handing him his own.
"The damage doesn't look too bad," Rin whispered, eyeing the mutilated roots. "Take these. I can even those roots out."
Ron lifted an eyebrow. "You sure?"
"I've fixed worse in the kitchen. Trust me."
Ron looked up to make sure Snape wasn't looking and the two swapped roots. In the corner of Ron's eye, he saw Hermoine stare in awe at how swiftly Rin was already fixing the roots. Luckily Malfoy didn't notice.
"Seen your pal Hagrid lately?" Malfoy asked Harry and Ron quietly.
"None of your business," Ron answered jerkily.
"I'm afraid he won't be a teacher for much longer," Malfoy said in a tone of mock sorrow. "Father's not very happy about my injury -"
"Keep talking, Malfoy, and I'll give you a real injury," Ron snarled. "Or maybe Rin will do it instead."
"-he's complained to the school governors. And to the Ministry of Magic. Father's got a lot of influence, you know. And a lasting injury like this -" he gave a huge, fake sigh. "- who knows if my arm'll ever be the same again."
"So that's why you're putting it on," Harry said, accidentally beheading a dead caterpillar because his hand was shaking in anger. "To try and get Hagrid fired."
"Well," Malfoy said, lowering his voice to a whisper, "partly, Potter. But there are other benefits too. Weasley, slice my caterpillars for me."
Meanwhile, a few cauldrons away, Neville was in trouble. He regularly fell apart in Potions class; it was his worst subject, and his great fear of Professor Snape made things even worse. His potion, which was supposed to be a bright, acid green, had turned -
"Orange, Longbottom," Snape said, ladling some up and allowing it to splash back into the cauldron, so everyone could see. "Orange. Tell me, boy, does anything penetrate that thick skull of yours? Didn't you hear me say, quite clearly, that only one rat spleen was needed? Didn't I plainly state that a dash of leech juice would suffice? What do I have to do to make you understand, Longbottom?"
Neville was pink and trembling. He looked like he was on the verge of tears.
"Please, sir," said Hermione, "Rin and I could help Neville put it right -"
"I don't remember asking you two to show off, Miss Granger," Snape said coldly and Hermione went as pink as Neville. Rin scowled at Snape.
As soon as Snape's back was turned, Neville looked pleadingly at Rin and Hermione. "Help me!" he moaned to them.
Hermione nodded. "We will. Rin will go clean our stuff. Meanwhile, I will tell you how to make the solution properly while I put our things away. That way Snape will think we're not helping you."
Snape called out, "You should have finished adding ingredients by now; this potion needs to stew before it can be drunk, so clear away while it simmers and then we'll test Longbottom's…"
Rin gathered both his and Hermione's supplies and took them to the stone basin where a gargoyle's mouth was pouring water into it.
Crabbe and Goyle laughed openly, watching Neville sweat as he stirred his potion feverishly. Hermione was muttering instructions to him out of the corner of her mouth, so Snape wouldn't see. Harry and Ron packed away their unused ingredients and joined Rin at the stone basin.
"What did Malfoy mean?" Harry muttered to Ron as he stuck his hands under the icy jet of water that poured from the gargoyle's mouth. "Why would I want revenge on Black? He hasn't done anything to me… yet."
"What's going on?" Rin asked. "Malfoy causing trouble again?"
"Malfoy said that he'd seek revenge on Sirius Black whatever reason," Ron explained. "He's probably making it up. He's trying to make Harry look stupid."
With the end of the lesson in sight, Snape zoned in on Neville, who was cowering by his cauldron.
"Everyone gather around," said Snape, his black eyes glittering, "and watch what happens to Longbottom's toad. If he has managed to produce a Shrinking Solution, it will shrink into a tadpole. If, as I don't doubt, he has done it wrong, his toad will likely be poisoned."
The Gryffindors watched fearfully while the Slytherins looked excited. Snape picked up Trevor the toad in his left hand and dipped a small spoon into Neville's potion, which was now green. He trickled a few drops down the amphibian's throat. There was a moment of hushed silence, in which Trevor gulped the potion down. Then there was a small pop, and Trevor the tadpole was squiggling in Snape's palm.
The Gryffindors burst into applause. Rin and Hermione shared a subtle high five. Snape, looking sour and robbed of his fun, pulled a small bottle from the pocket of his robe, poured a few drops on Trevor, and he suddenly reappeared, fully grown.
"Five points from Gryffindor," said Snape, which wiped the smiles from every face. "I told you not to help him, Miss Granger. Class dismissed."
Rin opened his mouth to argue, but Ron and Harry both elbowed him in the chest to shut him up. The four of them climbed up the stairs to the entrance hall. Harry was still thinking about what Malfoy said while Rin and Ron were seething about Snape.
"Five points from Gryffindor because the potion was right! Why didn't you lie, Hermoine? You should have said Neville made it all by himself," Ron ranted.
Rin looked around. "Where is she? She was with us a moment ago."
The boys looked around. They were at the top of the stairs, watching the rest of the class pass them, heading for the Great Hall for lunch. Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle passed them, smirking at Harry as they went.
"There she is," said Harry.
Hermione panted slightly, hurrying up the stairs; one hand clutching her bag, the other shoving something down the front of her robes.
"How did you do that?" asked Ron.
"Do what?" asked Hermione, joining them.
"One minute you were behind us, the next moment, you were back at the bottom of the stairs again."
"What?" Hermione asked again. "Oh - I had to go back for something. Oh no!"
A seam split on Hermione's bag. Harry wasn't surprised; he could see that it was crammed with at least a dozen large and heavy books.
"Why are you carrying all these around with you?" asked Ron.
"Did you check out every book in the library?" asked Rin.
"You know how many subjects I'm taking," Hermione said breathlessly. "Couldn't hold these for me, could you?"
"But…" Ron looked at the books she had handed him, looking at the covers. "You haven't got any of these subjects today. It's only Defense Against the Dark Arts this afternoon."
"Oh, yes," Hermione said vaguely, but she somehow packed all of her books back into her bag. "I hope there's something good for lunch. I'm starving." She then hurried to the Great Hall. The three boys stared blankly.
"Am I the only one who thinks Hermione is hiding something from us?" Rin asked his friends.
Harry shook his head. "You're not the only one," he answered.
Due to my grandfather's declining health, I may have to go on hiatus until... the inevitable happens. Rest assured, I will still be working on the next chapter when I have the time.
Please review! If you want to make fanart, let me know! My username there is the same here.