Chapter 17 - The Art of Potion Making

Remus awoke early to the gentle snores of his friends. They had all come back from winter break a couple days ago and all was quite well. Except for how they interrogated him about his new scars and scratches. He had told them that his aunt's dog had gotten upset over something and attacked him, but he could tell his friends didn't believe him.

It's only a matter of time before my friends and everyone else figures out my secret… Remus thought darkly, shaking his head to get rid of the bad thoughts.

Since he didn't want to disturb his friends from their peaceful slumber, he slipped out quietly from the dorm room, and headed to the library to get some work done.

He got seated in his customary spot next to the window, setting down a large roll of parchment, a couple of quills, and a book he was reading.

The library was vacant, and the only noise was the silent drizzle of the rain from outside.

Remus unrolled his parchment, and continued on his essay about defensive spells and charms for Defence Against the Dark Arts class. Surprisingly, James and Sirius finished it easily, but Peter needed a little bit of help from him.

"Your essays looking pretty good so far," a voice sounded, and Remus turned to see Lily standing a few feet away from him, her pretty green eyes staring kindly at her.

"Oh… Um… Thanks," Remus stuttered, surprised to see Lily willingly talking to him. What surprised himself even more was when she pulled out one of the chairs and sat down next to him.

"You're an early riser too, huh?" Lily asked, and Remus nodded quickly.

"Normally," he responded simply.

Remus suddenly realized she was staring at the small scars on his hands, and he tucked them in awkwardly, not making eye contact.

Lily took out a small sheet of parchment from her satchel and eyed it, "seems like we have double potions today…"

"Never really been a fan of potions," Remus admitted, he'd never been that good at potions and didn't find himself feeling joyous everytime he walked into the classroom which often reeked of Wolfsbane which made his head throb.

"Oh I love potions! It's so fun to see the end product, it's especially fun with Severus! He's really good at it too!" Remus suddenly realized how fond she was of her friend Severus, and Remus couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy…

They just sat there for a couple of minutes before Lily blurted out, "Your friends treat you fine, don't they…"

Remus was caught slightly off guard by her question. Of course they treat me fine, he thought.

"Of course!" he said, a little bit ruder than he would have liked to, "I mean… Yeah, of course…"

"Ok…" Lily looked down, "It's just, aren't they pressuring you into doing things you don't want to do…"

"No," Remus responded simply, "No…"

Lily shifted her chair a little closer and eyed the book sitting next to Remus.

"To Kill a Mockingbird," she repeated, "I've read that before, it's really good."

Remus was slightly surprised, but then remembered that both of Lily's parents were muggles.

"Yeah it's really good," Remus said, realizing this was probably the longest conversation he had with Lily.

"Lily!" A voice called, and the two of them turned to see Severus standing in the doorway of the library.

"Sev!" Lily exclaimed, standing up and gathering her belongings. "I'll be there in a minute!"

"It was nice talking to you Remus," she said warmly, pushing in her chair, and waving to him as she walked towards Severus.

"You too…" Remus said quietly before she left, sort of wishing she would stay for a bit longer.

"Why were you hanging out with him," Remus heard Severus say quietly as he and Lily exited the room.

"He's not so bad," she responded simply, "He's sweet."

Remus walked into the Potions room, and was greeted by Sirius, "Double potions with the Slitherins today," he grumbled, "Can this day get worse?!"

Remus nodded and sat down. James and Sirius sat down on either side of him, while Peter took a seat next to Sirius.

"Good morning class," Professor Slughorn greeted, closing the door to the classroom.

"Good morning professor!" the rest of the class echoed.

"Today we'll be making the Sleeping Draught potion," the potions professor began, "I'll put all of you into pairs to make the potion…"

Sirius and James quickly walked over to each other and exchanged a mischievous look, but Professor Slughorn shook his head.

"I'll be putting you into groups," he said, and Sirius and James exchanged crestfallen looks.

"Once you get your partners you can find the instructions on page 256…" the potions professor said, walking around the room and putting people into groups.

Sirius was paired with Peter, while Peter seemed quite satisfied with the grouping, Sirius wore a scowl. James was paired up with this pretty girl, who Remus suspected was from Slitherin.

Remus silently hoped that he would be paired up with Lily, but Lily got Severus… After that Remus stopped paying attention to who got paired with who.

"Remus Lupin, and Evan Rosier," Professor Slughorn announced, and Remus turned his head to see a blond haired Slitherin. He had seen Evan a couple of times but never had really interacted with him.

"Erm…" Remus said, edging towards the Slitherin, "how about we sit over there?..." Remus pointed to a small table near the back of the classroom… One reason he decided to sit there was because it was right by all of the ingredients, but it was also close to where Lily was sitting.

Evan just shrugged, flinging his satchel aggressively over his shoulder and walked over to the table.

Page 256, Remus said in his head, quickly fumbling through the pages until he found it. On his right, Evan quickly opened his own book, and surprisingly got onto the right page.

"Your Lupin, right?" Evan said, narrowing his eyes.

"Uh, yeah, I mean, I'm Remus Lupin…"

Evan nodded, extending his hand, "Well, I'm Evan Rosier, though you probably already knew that."

Remus grabbed his hand, and a few seconds later Evan shook it in greeting rather aggressively.

"I know you're in Gryffindor," Evan began with a hateful twinge in his voice, "but I guess we gotta make this potion…"

"Do you know who that is?" Remus asked, pointing at the girl working with James, she resembled Evan slightly.

"Oh her?" Evan said, craning his head, "Oh she's my sister, Pandora…"

"That's a pretty name," Remus noted quietly.

"Yeah," Evan murmured, "We also have a family line of good hair, and good looks…" he began running his long fingers through his blond hair.

He's sort of like James, Remus thought, blinking in amusement.

"Aaannnyyyways, I guess we should make this…" Evan grumbled, and began collecting ingredients from the shelf behind them.

Remus went to go help but was suddenly overcome by a wave of nausea as he noticed the Wolfsbane sitting high upon the shelf, he held onto his chair to steady himself.

"Lupin, are you alright?" Evan said, a bit distracted.

"It's Remus," he corrected quickly, "but yes I'm fine…"

The two of them collected all of the ingredients and then quickly got to work. Evan was sort of a pain to deal with, he didn't seem to know what he was doing, and he wasn't putting much effort into the potion. He kept glancing at his friend Barty from across the room, telling Remus he wished he could be partners with him. I wish I didn't have to be partners with you, Remus almost blurted out when Evan accidentally spilled half of the contents from the cauldron.

"Let's just start all over," Remus grumbled, grabbing a second cauldron and pouring some stuff into it.

Evan took four sprigs of lavender from a pot as the book said, and held them above the cauldron.

Remus cast a glance towards Lily and Severus and noticed how she was cutting up the sprigs before putting them into the cauldron.

"Wait," Remus said, stopping Evan from dumping the sprigs into the cauldron, "Maybe we should cut them up…"

"Why, the book clearly says to dump. Them. in. whole." Evan said, pausing on the last parts.

"Yeah well, um, Lily over there is cutting them up, and she seems to know what she is doing…"

Evan craned his head to see Lily and then shrugged, "You just want to copy her because she's your girlfriend."

"She's not!" Remus exclaimed hotly, his face going red, "I don't even really know her…"

Evan just shrugged, throwing the lavender onto the table and cutting it quickly, throwing it into the concoction.

They continued with the potion, and Remus couldn't help but cast a few sidelong glances towards Lily's table. She and Severus were making their potion with such ease it was hard for Remus to believe that she had once been a beginner at this craft as well.

Finally, Remus and Evan had finished their potion, Remus didn't know if it was good or not… It was slightly steaming and a sour smell came from it…

Professor Slughorn was now walking around the classroom, with a cage full of mice. Everytime he came to someone's table he would remove a mouse from the enclosure, and let it drink a tiny bit of potion, and if it fell asleep a few seconds later, Professor Slughorn would call the potion successful.

What if someone made the potion wrong and something happened to the mouse… Remus thought, a little bit frightened about what would happen to the mouse who drank their potion.

Finally, Professor Slughorn stopped at Lily's table and peered down into her potion. His eyes widened in surprise.

"This looks excellent!" he beamed, his eyes glowing.

Lily shifted self consciously, and Severus did the same, his feet shuffling slightly.

"This is the best one!" Professor Slughorn announced, lifted the cauldron in the air as though it were some sacred treasure. The whole class burst into applause, and Lily's face blushed red at all the sudden attention.

Remus began congratulating her as well but Evan wore a scowl as the class burst into applause.

"He didn't even look at ours…" Evan grumbled, kicking the table which sent some of their concoction flying.

"Well, ours is probably not that good anyways." Remus told him calmly.

"I knew I shouldn't have listened to what you said! You're just like them all! I hate Grifindors!" Evan screeched in a whisper.

Remus didn't know how to respond to that, so he just sighed.

"Ok, class is dismissed," Professor Slughorn called, retreating back to his desk and everyone began to clean up.

"Can you believe it!" Remus heard Evan say and he turned to see him talking to his friend, Barty.

"I know," he responded simply, "He can't do that to my Ev, skip over his potion like that…"

Pandora walked over to the two of them and put one of her hands on Evan's shoulder. "It's fine, you'll feel better once you have some lunch…"

The three of them retreated out the door, and Remus decided to go find his friends. He found them in the back, laughing at something Sirius was saying.

"Hello," Remus greeted quietly, dipping his head to them.

"Rem!" Sirius exclaimed happily, "How was that Slitherin kid… Evan I believe?"

"Yes, that's his name," Remus responded, "And he was… Ok I guess…"

"I don't like Slitherins," Sirius added simply, throwing his satchel over his shoulder.

"Come on let's go to lunch," James said, "I feel like I could eat an entire Hippogriff!"

"Agreed," Peter exclaimed, his belly rumbling quietly, which earned a laugh from Sirius and James.

Before leaving the room, Remus noticed that Lily was eying him from the corner of her eye, and Remus just cast a smile at her before leaving the room.

"Remus," James began, and Remus listened, "I feel like you have been looking at Lily all day… Is that for anything, I don't know, specific…" James narrowed his eyes suspiciously and Remus felt himself shift self consciously.

"What!" he exclaimed, and he felt his face had to have gone a little red, "Of course not! She's just nice, but it isn't anything like that!"

"Ok, good…" James responded, and had to jog a little bit to catch up with Sirius.

Is my liking of Lily a little bit more than just a friendship-ish kind of thing, Remus thought suddenly, No. he decided, Of course not. I barely know her anyway, and I could never actually like, like someone… No one would ever want to be with a werewolf anyway…