It was day two of the 2007-2008 school year at Ilvermorny and Evergreen Quandary's first class was double Potions with the Horned Serpent seventh graders. The 12-year-old Thunderbirds and Horned Serpents found themselves in the east wing of the castle near to the medical station manned by Healer Desmond Killian. Their professor and spouse of Desmond, Raina Killian had quickly ushered all the students into her classroom.

Professor Killian was a smart-looking witch who had a peachy complexion, short black hair, a slight figure, and lips that were quite full. She was a head shorter than Evergreen this year but that didn't make her any less intimidating. She was wearing robes and a pointed hat that were a dull silver, but it still looked quite dashing.

Indeed, the same animosity that Evergreen had sensed the previous day during their Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson was back with a vengeance in that morning class. That same irritated feeling that Evergreen had previously had also returned, so mixing that with the fact that he wasn't too much of a morning person was the perfect combination to put him in a truly bad mood.

"Good morning and welcome to seventh grade potions!" the professor began. "Like last year, we will begin your first unit getting to know various plants and other ingredients before we get to the intricate art of potion making. So, if you would please scan over the syllabus in front of you, we will begin in five minutes' time."

There were no syllabuses out, so Evergreen and others looked around in confusion. Professor Killian let out a sharp laugh, pulled out a single piece of parchment, pulled her wand from her side holster and said an incantation which multiplied the parchment and made each copy appear before each student. It was a marvelous show of magic! Evergreen had to stop himself from clapping.

He then looked down at his space on the round table he shared with Link and Diva at the syllabus. Their first unit will be to study in detail the proper care for several of the plant ingredients they will be dealing with, and also the animal byproducts, like last year. Then, they were to learn about the hair-raising potion, the girding potion, the strengthening potion, the swelling potion, the fire protection potion, and lastly the wiggenweld potion that was a fairly effective healing potion. It appeared to be a pretty exciting group of potions that year. Link mentioned the hair-raising potion in a joke that Evergreen wasn't really listening to, so he stared straight ahead at Link, vacantly, with no idea what he just said.

Looking across the room, Evergreen saw Valerian, his new acquaintance within the Horned Serpent house. When they saw each other, they smiled back and forth but then went back to their once-over of the syllabus. Thinking to himself, Evergreen figured that if he needed to learn any of those potions down pat, it would likely be the strengthening potion. If he was ever going to go head-to-head with the fully trained Wicked Witch, he would definitely need all the strength he could manage.

"Thank you, students." Professor Killian said after a short time and holding up a vial with a half liquified plant inside, "One of the first things we will look over is the essence of daisyroot. Can anyone tell me what this is?"

Evergreen knew what it was. He had poured over the reference section of their Nicholas Flamel book to help him in the brewing of his reparation potion that summer. Speaking of, he needed to take advantage of that evening to finish said potion. He was so close to completing it, he had to make sure he did it right. Would he do the logical thing and ask for help from someone as experienced as Professor Killian? No, he would not. There was no point in asking for help from her when he would just prove to be a burden to her as well. Plus, he wasn't going to answer her question either, someone else should. He would just prove to bother Professor Killian with the sound of his voice and likely stick his nose in a place it ought not to be.

"Anyone?" Professor Killian called, looking around the room.

Wolf, from the Horned Serpents raised his hand hesitantly.

"Essence of daisyroot is exactly how it sounds. It is the root of a daisy plant boiled in an alkaline water solution until it turns that natural, beige color." Wolf stated, matter-of-factly.

"And can you tell me what it does?" Professor Killian challenged.

"Yes ma'am. It is used for a potions base in some simple potions."

"Precisely. 5 points to Horned Serpent."

With that pronouncement of points to the other house, Evergreen felt a serious sense of internal turmoil. If he spoke, he could be burdening his classmates and his professor with his thoughts and opinions. If he didn't speak, he was pretty much giving points to the other house. It was one of those situations where he was damned if he did and damned if he didn't and it just contributed to his sour mood. He was glad that Seta was standing off near the door because when up close, Seta could really pick up on what Evergreen was feeling and it would be quite irritating if he intruded in the way he sometimes did.

When they all went off to Creature Care, Evergreen was still in a bad mood. Despite his bad mood, he was flabbergasted to see what looked like a Brahman bull, only it was almost three times the size of a regular Brahman bull. The thing could flatten a mini cooper car by just laying on it, he thought. They were meeting in the Creature Care barn which was on the grounds near to the forest. It wasn't really a barn though. The thing was the size of an airplane hangar. Professor Fangholder was patting the massive bull on its nose which it seemed to really appreciate.

"Good morning, Thunderbirds." Professor Fangholder began. "I've got a treat for you all today. This is a Re'em. Now don't act up around this guy, or he could very well kill you with a single nudge from his hoof or swat from his tail. They're truly gentle beasts, but he's huge and is still a prey animal, so he could get spooked quite easily."

"Excuse me Professor." Link asked, "Could one maybe touch him?"

The large wizard scrutinized Link, who had approached just a few yards off. At first, he was apprehensive, then his expression softened.

"Sure. But be careful. Approach from directly in front of him and be slow. I don't want to have to fire call any parents or take anyone to the medical station."

Link nodded his head and Evergreen watched in amazement as Link approached the almost 6000-pound beast with horns longer than Diva was tall. Evergreen was intimidated and he was standing way over against the wall with many others. In no time at all, Link was standing directly below the beast's great maw. It shook its colossal head when it noticed the boy in front of it. His long horns knocked a bucket or something from a tall platform. It fell with a clatter and Evergreen and others nearly jumped out of their skin. Link intrepidly reached up and touched the Re'em's snout. It made a sound that was kind of like a moo, only it was deeper and made Evergreen's teeth chatter. In fact, it was more like a broken foghorn than anything else.

They spent the class looking at the Re'em. Some, like Link, were bold enough to approach. Evergreen was not. He just stuck back with other students and took some notes on the beast and listened to Professor Fangholder's information. The Re'em apparently had fine hairs on its hide that were made from gold that was 24 kerat. How a living beast had metal hair, Evergreen didn't know, and he didn't ask either. Professor Fangholder had this thing where he called out what he called "stupid questions". Evergreen wasn't in the mood to be called out.

Also, if one were to take in the blood of the Re'em either intravenously or orally, they could temporarily have what Evergreen collected to mean super strength. That was pretty neat, but why would anyone want to drink blood? That is, anyone who wasn't Agatha Shadowmend. When Miss Agatha came to mind, Evergreen felt tears suddenly prick at his eyes when he remembered the way she had spoken to him. He blinked his eyes rapidly and pricked himself with his quill to distract his emotional pain with physical pain. It was effective, at least.

After lunch, they had flying class with Coach Ophiar Frost. He was stocky, bronze-skinned, and dressed in robes made for Quidditch or something, Evergreen didn't know. Needless to say, Evergreen was looking forward to the distraction. He and Link got a hold of some brooms and immediately got into doing some exercises that they remembered from that previous year. It was a lot of fun. Diva eventually got up. She wasn't the best at takeoff, but once she was airborne, she was pretty quick on her feet, so to speak. That previous year, she had endured some pretty shocking public humiliation and sexual harassment. It took her a while to come to terms with it, but she did. She was happier and much more confident those days. Evergreen was grateful for that. Despite his relatively sour mood, he smiled when she zoomed up past him.

"Hey Link, I'm gonna show that girl what real broom work looks like." He quipped to his friend.

"Be my guest." Link replied, bowing his head slightly and upturning his hand in Diva's general direction.

Then, Evergreen started speeding through the midst of other students to catch up with Diva. She was zooming around like mad, but Evergreen eventually caught up to her and started zooming literal circles around her. She yelled out in feigned outrage, but she couldn't hold back her laugh. This made Evergreen laugh as well and pretty soon, they were flying around each other, playfully knocking into each other and talking some playful trash. Link ended up joining their roughhousing and it was wonderful. Evergreen really got out of his head during that hour and a half in the sky.

That evening after dinner, Evergreen got his potions supplies, including a generous amount of salt, just in case and went behind the snakewood tree at that evening's moonrise with Seta, of course. Seta recommended getting some help with the potion as he knew that Evergreen struggled quite a bit with potion magic. The young wizard quickly turned down that idea and that was that.

Evergreen got a fire started and placed his cauldron thereon. He uncorked his vial and poured it inside the cauldron. He stirred slightly and repeated the same incantation as he had previously. He added the bay leaf that was required and chanted the incantation again. Everything was going according to plan. The potion was of an olive-green color and it was bubbling just slightly as he stirred it.

Suddenly, however, it turned orangey. Evergreen added some salt, and nothing happened, more salt, and nothing happened. It just got more and more orange until the color started to fade altogether. Evergreen was panicking and didn't know what to do. He watched in horror as the potion had changed to a completely clear substance. According to the notes taken by his mother, if the potion goes clear, one has little more than an 80-proof alcohol.

The potion was ruined. A month's work down the drain. Evergreen sat down quickly and painfully and put his head between his knees. He just let himself feel sad. He didn't cry this time, but he kind of wanted to. He just couldn't believe what happened. He really thought that he could do it. He really thought that his study over the summer would have been enough. He was obviously wrong.

"I'm sorry Evergreen." Seta said at last after a few long moments.

"Me too." Evergreen squeaked, his voice breaking. Stupid puberty.

"This is not just about the potion though, is it?"

"No, it's not." Evergreen replied, looking up to face the bunny who was seated upon a large root of the snakewood tree.

"This is also kind of about Agatha, am I right?"

"Yeah. It is. I just can't believe she doesn't like me anymore. I don't know why I am suddenly such a burden on her."

"I'm sure there's more going on, Evergreen. What is that everyone kept saying last year? 'More than meets the eye?'"

"Maybe." Evergreen said with a dramatic sigh.

"Maybe if you talked to Professor Woods, you'd feel better?" Seta attempted.

"Maybe. But I'd never talk to her about this. I don't want to be a burden on her too."

Seta's face took on a bit of an annoyed expression, but he relaxed after a moment. He breathed in and then looked Evergreen in the eye.

"You'd hate to impose yourself on someone else, right?"

"That's right." Evergreen mumbled.

"Good to know…" Seta finished.

At some point, they got all the materials cleaned up and Evergreen poured the alcohol from his cauldron onto the ground over a gravel path. It may kill some weeds, but that would be most of the damage. They turned back to the castle and started toward it. It may do Evergreen some good to get some rest before his midnight astronomy class.