With a sense of genuine anticipation that none of them had felt toward Potions in recent memory, Harry, Ron, and Hermione made their way down the steps toward the Potions classroom in the dungeons.
The first-year Ravenclaws they'd run into in the courtyard had held them up for a few extra minutes so by the time the three of them actually reached the classroom, it was already filling steadily with Slytherins and Gryffindors settling into their usual segregated halves of the room.
The room itself was unusually quiet for a first lesson of term.
Harry guessed it was simply because no one had yet gotten any real feel for Professor Slughorn's particular teaching style, which left even the more talkative students a little more reserved and watchful than usual.
Everyone seemed to be privately calculating how this new arrangement might differ from six years of Snape's reign over this dungeon.
One change Harry was immediately, genuinely glad to see: unlike Snape, who had always kept the room in a kind of deliberate gloom, Professor Slughorn had actually drawn back the heavy curtains covering the high, narrow windows, letting in what thin grey daylight the dismal weather outside was willing to offer.
Still, between the persistent dismal weather and the thick haze of steam already rising from several simmering cauldrons at the front of the room, overall visibility remained fairly poor.
Amid that tangle of competing smells, Harry caught, with a small jolt of surprise, that same flowery scent he'd always particularly liked, threading through the dungeon's usual chemical sharpness.
His eyes swept the room searching instinctively for its source, and a moment later landed, unexpectedly, on Draco Malfoy sitting in his usual seat near the Slytherin side, a flicker of visible hesitation showing through his cold expression.
Before Harry could properly puzzle out what might be behind that odd, uncharacteristic look on Draco's face—
"Ahh, our most heavyweight 'guest' has finally arrived!"
Professor Slughorn's voice rang out warmly from somewhere behind the drifting curtain of steam, drawing every single eye in the room directly toward Harry where he stood near the doorway.
Harry froze completely where he stood, momentarily at a genuine loss for how to respond, while Ron and Hermione quite "shamefully," both stepped smoothly away from him at almost the exact same instant and hurried off to claim seats of their own elsewhere in the room.
"Come along, Harry, sit here. There's a perfectly good empty seat right up front—"
Slughorn waved him over with unmistakable, beaming enthusiasm, pointing toward the spot nearest the lectern itself, directly beside the row of simmering cauldrons.
A few snickers rippled audibly through the room, coming predominantly from the Slytherin side who seemed pleased to discover that even under an entirely new professor, Harry Potter remained the centre of special if unwanted attention in this particular classroom.
Harry had no choice but to grit his teeth, walk the short distance to the indicated seat, and sit down alone, fully exposed at the front of the room, under the full beam of Slughorn's evident delight.
"Right, then—I believe everyone's here, more or less—"
Slughorn said, puffing out his chest until it looked, briefly, as though the straining buttons of his waistcoat might genuinely pop free under the pressure.
"Now then, everyone, please take out your scales and your potion kits and don't forget your textbooks, of course. Today we'll be learning about the Draught of Peace, which is a—"
Professor Slughorn turned back toward the lectern and opened his textbook, evidently ready to launch directly into the lesson—
"Professor Slughorn—"
A voice from somewhere behind Harry cut cleanly across his opening sentence. He recognised it immediately as belonging to Parvati Patil.
"Yes, my dear?"
That single reply was enough to make Harry breathe a sigh of relief—Snape would never have called a Gryffindor "my dear," and under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have allowed a Gryffindor to ask a question at all.
"Those cauldrons—"
From the tightness in Patil's voice, it was clear she'd startled even herself somewhat with her own unexpected boldness in speaking up. Still, having committed, she pressed forward with the question.
"Those cauldrons… what's actually in them?"
Patil meant the row of cauldrons arranged in front of Harry's new seat, each one simmering away with a visibly different potion inside.
Harry had already noticed, sitting this close to them, that one in particular was giving off that same distinctive flowery scent he'd caught drifting through the room a moment earlier.
"Ah, you mean these—"
Slughorn said, his eyes crinkling warmly into an immediate smile at the question.
"My first two classes today, you understand, were N.E.W.T. students. I'd prepared this little display specifically to give them something of an eye-opener on their first morning back, you see. I rather thought, given their advanced standing, they'd manage to recognise at least one or two of them without too much trouble."
Slughorn let out a small, genuinely regretful sigh.
"But as it turned out, not a single one of them seemed to have so much as cracked open a textbook over the entire summer holiday. All that trouble I went to, preparing a proper little gift, and not one soul among them could claim it. Rather disappointing, if I'm honest."
Even Harry found himself watching Slughorn now with genuine curiosity, his earlier embarrassment at being singled out was beginning to fade in the face of this show.
The fact that Parvati hadn't been reprimanded in any way for her interruption sent a small ripple of excitement through the Gryffindors who had spent six years learning to keep their heads firmly down and their questions to themselves in this particular classroom.
"What sort of gift, Professor?"
Several Gryffindors near the back rose half out of their chairs, craning their necks for a better look at the row of cauldrons, and it was Lavender who finally voiced the question evidently sitting on everyone's mind at once.
"Hoho—well, let's start with a little test, shall we—"
Slughorn seemed to make up his mind all at once, looking out across the students with infectious enthusiasm.
"If anyone in this room can correctly identify these potions for me, I'll give the whole class a fair chance to win it—the very same surprise I'd originally prepared for my N.E.W.T. students, going entirely unclaimed as things presently stand."
All at once, nearly every head in the room Slytherins very much included turned in unison to look at Hermione whose cheeks flushed a vivid, immediate red at the sudden weight of attention.
"Ah, your eyes have already told me precisely who the star pupil in this room must be. And what should I call you, my dear?"
Slughorn, looking only faintly surprised by the room's unanimous response, followed everyone else's gaze toward her.
"Hermione Granger, sir—"
Hermione took a deep, steadying breath and rose smoothly to her feet, her composure reappeared instantly despite the blush still colouring her cheeks.
"Well then, Miss Granger—would you care to tell us all about the potions currently sitting in these cauldrons?"
"This is Veritaserum—a colourless, odourless potion. Whoever drinks it is compelled to tell the truth, regardless of their own intentions," Hermione said, her voice was clear and immediately confident.
"Ah, very good, very good indeed. Do go on, Miss Granger—"
Slughorn smiled, looking pleased with the answer.
Even Harry himself could recognise the potion sitting in the second cauldron from where he sat, so naturally Hermione had no trouble identifying it either—she had, after all, brewed it herself once before, under rather more complicated circumstances than this classroom demonstration.
By the time Hermione had gone on to correctly identify the Amortentia sitting in the third cauldron, and had carefully explained the specific signs by which she'd recognised it, Professor Slughorn's eyes were practically shining with delight.
"Hermione Granger, you said? Granger…"
Professor Slughorn gave her a warm, genuinely kindly smile, something thoughtful appeared on his expression.
"Any relation to Hector Dagworth-Granger, by chance? Founder of the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers?"
"No, I shouldn't think so, sir. I'm Muggle-born."
Hermione said this calmly, evenly, without any visible self-consciousness, even as a ripple of smothered laughter went quietly around portions of the room.
A moment later, though, a trace of genuine embarrassment did cross her face.
"But I'm not entirely sure about this one, actually…"
She meant the fourth cauldron—a small, black one, where a potion the colour of molten gold spat and sparked with small, intermittent flares of light against the dungeon's dim air.
"Hoho, now that's a marvellous little potion to have stumped you, Miss Granger. Not many people have ever actually witnessed it being brewed in person. But I'd wager good money you've at least heard its name spoken before—Felix Felicis!"
"Liquid Luck!"
Hermione exclaimed, delight breaking across her face at the recognition.
"It brings the drinker good fortune!"
"Quite right, Miss Granger!"
With every eye in the room now firmly on him, Professor Slughorn reached into his robe pocket and drew out a small glass vial, neatly corked with wood, holding it up for the whole class to see clearly.
"This is the very same little prize I'd originally prepared for my N.E.W.T. students this morning though, as I mentioned, not one of them had the wit or the preparation to claim it. But since Miss Granger has just earned the rest of you a fair chance at it—if anyone in this classroom can brew me a Draught of Peace that meets my satisfaction by the end of today's lesson—"
The whole room came alive at once. The Slytherins abandoned their earlier wary, appraising looks toward the new professor and fixed their eyes instead with hunger, on the small vial of golden liquid held high up.
Harry noticed Malfoy hunch low in his seat and slip forward toward the very front of the room, wearing the focused, determined expression like he was going to win this prize at any cost necessary.
"Right, then, Miss Granger—twenty points to Gryffindor, well earned. Now, back to your seat with you, if you please—"
Professor Slughorn made his way back toward the lectern with evident satisfaction.
"The full method is written up on the blackboard behind me. I expect every one of you to follow it faithfully, step by careful step. Of course, I don't expect anything resembling perfection from anyone on a first attempt—just—"
His final instruction was largely swallowed by a sudden, harsh scraping sound filling the entire room as every student simultaneously dragged their cauldrons closer across the stone floor, followed immediately by the metallic clatter of brass weights being set down hastily on dozens of scales at once.
Malfoy looked as though he wanted nothing more in the entire world than to press his face directly up against the blackboard itself in order to study the instructions more closely, an intensity that made Harry's brow furrow slightly in private observation.
He turned his head away after a moment, only to find that Ron who had originally been sharing a table with Neville near the back had also relocated himself wedging his way shamelessly into the seat directly beside Hermione's.
A small bottle of liquid luck.
A faint, unexpected warmth stirred somewhere in Harry's chest at the thought of actually winning it.
For some reason, an image of Ginny in her nightclothes from the previous evening surfaced suddenly and vividly in his mind, and the sweet, distinctive fragrance still rising steadily from the simmering Amortentia cauldron directly in front of him seemed to grow, in that same instant, even more enticing than it had a moment before.
'Which would actually be more useful, in the end—Felix Felicis, or Amortentia?'
Harry startled at the thought that had just popped into his own head.
He gave his head a quick, sharp shake, reining the wandering thoughts back in, and turned his full attention determinedly toward the task actually in front of him.
Not far from the Hogwarts grounds deep within the edges of the Forbidden Forest—
Bryan swept his wand through the damp forest air with intense, focused concentration, and oak planks rose into the air one after another, slotting themselves into place. On a patch of ground that had been carefully cleared beforehand, a two-storey oak cabin with a steep, peaked roof was quickly beginning to take shape against the surrounding trees.
"Honestly, there was no need to go to such considerable trouble, Mr. Watson—"
Behind Bryan, a middle-aged man dressed in a simple beige linen smock and matching trousers watched the entire scene unfold in silence for a moment before finally speaking up.
"I want you to feel Hogwarts's genuine sincerity in this matter, Flomide—"
Bryan kept his full focus fixed on the rising cabin walls, not turning to look back at the man even as he answered him.
The man behind him grew only more visibly uneasy at these words. As the very last plank flew up through the air to settle precisely into place on the roof, he finally couldn't hold himself back any longer, and he asked,
"I know this request is… perhaps too much to ask of you. But is there any way you could save Lady Clidona, Mr. Watson?"
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