Potion Fumes and Periwinkle

Chapter 5

A/N: So, I MEANT to write some actual potions lessons going on, but then Minerva took over and was like yo how WOULD the students going home for Halloween work? So I basically spent a chapter figuring that out.

Also, yes the Rosier mentioned is Felix from Hogwarts Mystery - I've never played that game, and I don't know anything about the characters, I just honestly googled list of students in the 1982 school year, and he showed up, and as I'd been HOPING for a death eater kid, it worked out. So for anyone who DOES play that game, just consider him an OC borrowing a canon name cause I'm not gonna research a mobile game character's personality for a guilty pleasure fanfic lol.

Turns out Bill Weasley's a first year too, according to the list. So maybe I'll get to play with him a bit. I was originally gonna set some things up then timeskip a bit, but who knows? Certainly not me! This fic is basically slice of life healing from war and trauma fic. So I can do whatever I want and I WILL!

Expect Ms Knightly to make a return as well, she's an OC but I am terribly fond of her. She's not in this chapter tho.

Anyway, I'm not sure how well I've got Minerva's character down. She's one of those people who just really don't get POVs in fanfic much and so I don't have a lot to base my interpretation of her off of, but I figured the staples of no-nonsense and cares about her students (even after they leave the school) is good enough?

Also those meme text posts of her being a little shit and turning into a cat and pushing stuff off tables is something I really enjoy so I dunno aaaaaa-

Anyway, I know it's been ages but hopefully this chapter's still up to par! I re-read the others before I started it, but slice of life is seriously not a genre I've ever written before, so I guess it feels really disjointed to me since it's all about all these different characters and how they live and grow post-war so the POVs and the plot are all over the place depending on who's talking...

I'm thinking a Sirius chapter next, and then some potions lessons after that! I may re-order this fic if I decide to write the very FIRST lesson, or maybe I'll just write A lesson... we'll see!

This chapter takes place on a Saturday - that's fairly clear in context, but figured I'd specify!

Anyway, thanks for reading! Hope you enjoy!

The paperwork is never-ending, and Minerva has half a mind to just turn into a cat and see how long it takes anyone to notice.

Letting students go home for All Hallows' Eve is quite a bit more work than expected - with the holiday falling on Sunday, it's easy enough to get the train to run on Saturday to drop anyone who wants to go off at the platform, but it's getting them back to school that she's struggling with.

The Hogwarts Express takes nearly an entire day to travel from the London station up to Hogsmead, but if they let the students skip class on Monday they'll have to make all sorts of changes to the schedule and even send a formal writ to the ministry to let them know the holiday's being extended and Minerva knows they're swamped, so that could well cause problems of its own - while a student skipping one day of lessons isn't much of a big deal in the grand scheme of things, the school not teaching for a full day is , and the Board of Education and even perhaps the Board of Governors would certainly have fits with it-

But they can hardly open up a floo to the school, nevermind purchase all the floo powder they'd need to transport so many students - the ministry may have de-classified it as a restricted substance with the end of the war, but it's still terribly expensive and Hogwarts has already lost so much funding from the potions they've been providing all through the war, and the ingredients they purchased to make them.