Sentimental Reasons

53. Amortentia

Professor Slughorn barged into his classroom awkwardly as he realised he was, yet again, late. Blaise and Malfoy stood in front of their desk at the other end of the classroom while I was beside Hermione. 

"Sorry, children. My watch has been playing games with me recently. Apologies." He awkwardly laughed to mute the silence. I looked at Harry and spied a little smile tugging on his lips. Slughorn suddenly clapped his hands together, making me jump back into focus. "Amortentia." He looked over each student in his classroom. He was waiting for something, though none of us knew what. He gasped in surprise, "Well, don't all raise your hands at once." 

Hermione and I looked at each other, near an explosive laugh from his outburst. Hermione raised her hand slowly. As soon as Slughorn saw the movement, he picked her to answer. 

"Amortentia is a love potion. The most powerful one in existence." She answered. 

"And yet, it doesn't create love. Trust me, I've tried." He admitted with a crooked smile. "Anyway," He quickly tried to diverse the attention. "Can anyone tell me the main ingredient used in this potion?" 

This time, I raised my hand, confident in my response. He pointed at me, "Pearl Dust." 

"Correct! Very well done, Miss Bardot. Now, I want you all to complete this concoction without harming anyone else. It is a hard potion to brew, so be careful with yourselves." As he finished his sentence, all the students started scammering around. I followed Hermione to one of the shelves as we picked up our cauldrons. 

From the corner of my eyes, I could spot some girls giggling as they watched every boy in the classroom. "Mione'," I grabbed her attention, and she looked back, "Look there, you were right. Romilda looks determined to learn the potion." 

"That's pathetic if you ask me. Amortentia is only manipulation." She sneered and looked back at the shelf before her, grabbing her cauldron. "Harry would never be interested in her." 

"You're right, he's too interested in Ginny." I chuckled as I grabbed my cauldron. "Has there been any progress, by the way?" 

We reached our table and plopped our cauldrons on it. Before replying, she looked around, ensuring no one else was listening. "Ginny told me something about Harry tying her shoes in the middle of the night." 

I waited patiently for something else, but nothing came out of her mouth, "That's it?" I furrowed my eyebrows at the disappointment. 

"Yeah, weird, I know." We reached another shelf, and we grabbed the ingredients we needed. 

"Grab the drops of Liquid Silver," I said as she passed them. She grabbed them silently before I continued, "Anyway, how was your Christmas?" 

She took a deep breath as she reached under some spider webs to grab some tears of a Siren's Songbird. Once the vial was safely in her hand, she admitted, "Eventful." I looked at her for a moment longer, wondering if she would explain. She returned to our table, and I followed closely, "We're all a bit scared." Once we were back at our table, far from the other students, she explained, "Harry was attacked at the Burrows, the Weasley's house, which... eventually burned down to the ground." 

My mouth was open from the shock, "Merlin, I- I'm sorry," was all I could think of saying. 

"Yeah, they're already trying to fix it. It's okay. Though all the memories-" She shook her head in dismay. "I wouldn't wish something like that to happen to anyone." 

"It must've been horrible. I'm sorry." It didn't help, but it was all I could think of saying. 

"It's okay, you didn't know. Pass me the Pearl Dust, please." She said, clearly wanting to change the topic. I handed her the Pearl Dust and stayed quiet. "What about you? What did you do?"