Green Eyed Monster | Draco Malfoy

70. Outdated

Beside me, Hermione was nearly giddy as she began her investigative potion to identify the poison within her first vial. "It's a shame that the Prince won't be able to help you much with this, Harry. You have to understand the principles involved this time. No short cuts or cheats!"

That was a lie, of course. I only used short cuts and cheats - by Hermione's standards, at least - but I wasn't about to help my brother out with any of it and I found myself quick to block my work from where his eyes would be looking to find out exactly how Hermione and I were managing our cauldrons. She went the traditional way, of course: using her wand and the proper incantation 'Specialis Revelio' to try to get it to work - she did this wordlessly to ensure that Harry and Ron wouldn't be able to copy her.

I immediately set to work on the anti-venom for the snake poison. There was the slight hiccough that I couldn't tell exactly what kind of snake the venom came from - but that was easy to rectify in the later stages of the potion. Just a few extra cuts of Glumbumble parts and extra drops of pomegranate to see which colour it turned. After that, it would be easy to know how much valerian root and how many daisy stems I should add.

It was truly a waste for me to still be stuck in school.

I moved to add the pomegranate and let out a laugh when I found that where my lumber chips had once been stored now sat a fuzzy green ball of fur. Houdini had come to say hello in class. Hermione looked at me with wide eyes.

"Are you laughing?"

"Yeah," I said quickly, letting Houdini crawl up my arm. "Why?"

"It's just," she shook her head. "You only laugh like that...never mind."

Not really caring about what it was she didn't feel the need to share I added the pomegranate into my cauldron, noticing immediately that the potion started to turn a nauseous looking pink. Not yellow, not orange, not green...pink. It was King Cobra venom. That meant six daisy roots and about twice the amount of valerian root in comparison to the generic anti-venom serum. Easy.

Slughorn came round just as I was finishing up the antidote for the first poison, Hermione was about five minutes behind me in time because she had taken the extra few minutes to ensure that she was working with the same snake venom that I was. She was so careful to make sure that she checked twice. Then she was even going to the extent of diluting the different ingredients into the ten crystal phials of the Golpalott theory, something you only needed to do to ensure you had properly identified your poison. Slughorn gave a pleased nod at my potion, moving to inspect my brother's behind me. All he received in response was a cough.

I tried not to smile, I really did - but how could I not? Harry must not have done anything to his venom, then. Just let it boil in his pewter cauldron. Disgusting...but good.

Again ahead of everyone else, I moved to the other poison I actually could identify - Aconite. Boiled Aconite to be precise. It was easy enough to follow the exact same process; only now the daisy stems were switched with porcupine quills, the pomegranate with cranberry, and of course there was also added tadpole skin; but those things were easy and any moron would know them.

Alright, no they wouldn't, but luckily for me it was easier to get that one finished than the first.

Finally I was down to the poison I couldn't identify - it was a muddied green and gave a harsh stench as soon as I dared to uncork the vial. It was thick as it slid from the glass into my cauldron, a good portion of it clung to the glass after I had dumped it upside down and I shook it a bit to make sure I had gotten as much of it into the cauldron as I could manage. I knew instinctively that I should have known the poison, but it wasn't making sense to me - should I have done it the proper way, like Hermione had told me to, or should I take the time to play around with it?