Safe With Me ~ Fred Weasley

Confusion

I nodded quickly and matched her smile as she led us to the seats directly behind Ron and Harry, Bri and Maddie taking two behind us. This couldn't have worked out much better. Hermione was well known to be next to perfect in all subjects, potions included. I was decent as well, but I would use any chance I could get to keep from making the small mistakes Snape was always on the look for.

"Take your seats, pick a partner, I do not care who you pick or where you sit, just sit." Snape's voice shocked us all into silence and I sat up a bit straighter in my chair, looking to the front where he stood behind his desk and waved the door shut without even looking at it.

Hermione and I sat in silence and I peeked at her potions book which already had small notes sticking out of half of the pages. It was times like this I envied Hermione, or any of the other students from wizarding families, imagining how much better I could be if I too got a head start on the materials of every class. Father would be livid if he ever caught me reading one of "those" books, as he liked to refer to them, in his house. The same reason Tommy couldn't have his own broom and that neither of us could ever have an owl.

"Open your books to page eleven, and I hope you have all prepared yourselves for this term. There will be no reviewing from last year. You have learned and passed examinations for that year already and I should hope you've retained that knowledge. We will be making Confusion Concoctions today. Read the warnings and uses on page eleven before retrieving your scurvygrass, lovage and sneezeworts from the cabinets." His eyes fell on Hermione and I and lingered on my face a second too long. I was sure he was about to knock five points from Hufflepuff for a speck of dirt on my nose before I watched his eyes soften slightly. Even Snape pitied me for Tommy. I felt my heart rate quicken thinking of him and dropped my eyes to my hands in my lap, hoping Hermione couldn't hear the thuds in my chest. "Begin." I barely heard Snape speak before Hermione was sliding her stool back to race to the cabinets.

I grabbed her wrist before she could stand and she shot me an instant glare.

"I would pretend to read the instructions again, although I'm sure you've memorized them by now." I glanced at the notes stuck along the page and smiled. "If he sees us getting the ingredients before reading like he told us too..."

She nodded and sat back down next to me, pulling the book closer to us as I read, and she re-read, the pages.

"With you as a partner, I might never lose another point for Gryffindor." She beamed as we finally stood together and started for the supply cabinet. "Are you used to him bullying you too?"

I pulled a handful of the dried grass from the jar as Hermione broke off some long celery resembling lovage. "Yeah, something like that." I whispered, hoping she would drop it.

We worked in near silence, especially after Snape snapped at Justin Finch-Fletchley for his voice being 'much too chipper' and 'giving the entire room a migraine.' Hermione had finished slicing the lovage into equal sized cubes long before I was even half done grinding the scurvy grass.

"May I?" She asked, already reaching for the bowl.

I held back a laugh as I handed it over, knowing Hermione was even more of a perfectionist than I was. "Fine, but don't think I'll let you do all of the work every time, I'll start to feel guilty."

"Oh, please. We're always great partners! You're the only one I can handle studying with, no one else has the stamina." She joked, setting the now powdered scurvy grass back on the table and glancing at the book once more.

After prepping all of our ingredients, the actual making of the potion took us less than ten minutes. Class was nearly finished by the time Harry and Ron had all but given up, their potion not the right color or texture.