Leo smiled, his smile almost as bright as all the candles that were suspended above us. "I think I'd like that a lot." As though he had never been pouting at all, he picked up his fork and started devouring the food on the plate in front of him.
*
The potion in front of us bubbled, changing colors every few seconds. First a mucky shade of green, then the same chocolate brown as Leo's eyes, then red like Gryffindor's emblem, finally resting on a dark shade of violet, none of the colors quite matched the silver color of our Professor's example potion.
"Professor," Leo yelled, his hand shooting up into the air behind him. "I don't think that mine and Christopher's potion is quite right."
Our Professor, a tall woman whose body seemed to entirely consist of right angles, walked over to us, a scowl affixed on her face as though she was born with it. The clicking of her heels on the floor was intimidating as a first year, but now, in our third year, it hardly perturbed us at all. In fact, some of the more troublesome Gryffindors liked her for being so loud, since it warned them about when she was coming.
"Do either of you have any idea of when your potion might have gone awry?" she asked. When we were younger, we might have mistaken her calmness for boredom, but now, every word only reminded us that she was indeed the Head of Ravenclaw.
"I guess we might have done something wrong, but I'm not sure what it was." I said softly. It was a miracle that she was able to hear me at all over the general havoc of the classroom.
Pushing her glasses back on her long, angular nose, she looked over our shoulders, maybe only to look at the color of the potion inside of our cauldron. Leo and I shared a glance, although I wasn't sure quite what it communicated. "I believe that I see what the problem is," she said, her voice almost completely flat. "The heat on your cauldron is much too high, so the potion has effectively been spoiled."
"Well what does it do?" Leo asked eagerly. Although I hadn't understood it when I first met him, I now understood why the Sorting Hat had taken so long to sort him into a house: he had the traits of all the houses. His eagerness matched that of a Slytherin's, his loudness a Gryffindor's, his wit a Ravenclaw's, and his kindness a Hufflepuff's. Why the Hat had decided to place him in Hufflepuff instead of Gryffindor, as per his request, was still unknown to me.
"Would you like to see?" she asked. For the first time in my life, I saw our Professor smile, a sort of knowing grin. She definitely knew what was about to happen. With a wave of her wand, she took some of the potion out of the cauldron, hovering it in front of Leo's face
With a slurp, he sucked in the purple potion, his face contorting as he tasted the bitter mixture. Then, he lifted from his seat like a big, human bubble. He smiled, even wider than I'd ever seen him smile before, and giggled.
I couldn't help but laugh too, not because he was slowly drifting towards the top of the classroom, but because he was laughing. I still didn't know why, but whenever Leo was happy, I was happy. No explanation was necessary.
*
Sitting on my bed, I could hear Leo finishing getting ready behind me. He was always loud, much louder than I was, and maybe that was why we were so good for each other. We balanced each other out like nobody else could. Gripping my wand so tightly I thought I might break it, I looked in the mirror, at Leo's reflection. I wasn't really sure what it was about him that I was looking at, just that I was looking at him.
Taking in a deep breath to prepare myself, I cast a spell under my breath. "Orchideous," I said softly, and a bundle of carnations appeared in my empty hand. Half of them bright yellow, and half a soft shade of orange, they were perfect, although I couldn't quite figure out why. Maybe it was because, in winter, nothing like this would be in bloom. Magic did really great things sometimes
Task One: Where the End Begins - HOGWARTS ENTRIES
Start from the beginning
