The Potions Master's Daughter (Book Two)

Chapter 3

Finally we pulled into the school's station. Professor Lupin still hadn't come back so we left his stuff in the compartment. Ginny came over and checked to make sure everyone was okay then left to take the boats across the lake with the other first years. We rode by carriage to the school.

Once we got to the Great Hall I went over to the Slytherin table and said hi to Blake. I told him I would talk to him later then went back to the Gryffindor table to watch the sorting. I only paid attention to the sorting enough to watch Ginny get sorted into Gryffindor. Then she came and sat next to us as we ate our beginning of the year feast. Ron still was not there and we were all starting to get a little worried. I looked up at the staff table and saw that my father wasn't there either. That's when I started to get even more worried although I didn't let anyone else know how worried I was.

When everyone was done eating, Dumbledore got up in front of everyone and the room went silent, "Hello and welcome to another year at Hogwarts. As I'm sure some of you are aware of and some of you are not, a prisoner escaped from Azkaban. A man by the name of Sirius Black. No one had ever escaped from Azkaban before, and there are dementors everywhere looking for him. That being said, for the time being there will be dementors posted at every entrance to Hogwarts per the request of the Ministry of Magic. I have been assured that they will not interfere with any of our daily activities but it is a good idea to stay away from them if you see them. Dementors are the foulest of creatures and will hurt you as much as they would Sirius Black, they cannot distinguish between enemy and friend. With that being said let us turn to happier subjects. We have two new professors with us this year. First I would love to introduce Professor Gilderoy Lockhart who will be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Next it is my honor to introduce Professor Remus Lupin who will be teaching a new subject this year; Applied Spell Casting. You will all be given your timetables after dinner by your house prefects and if you have either one of these professors be sure to behave respectfully towards them. You may all leave and settle into your dormitories now, thank you."

We all went upstairs to the Gryffindor common room and sat together on the couch wondering where Ron was. Fred and George had been replaced by Dean Thomas, Seamus and Neville. Ginny was still with us.

About an hour later Ron came into the room looking downtrodden. He came over to us as we pelted him with questions.

"What happened to you? Why weren't you on the train?" Hermione asked worriedly.

"Well I had to go back to the car to get something because I forgot it and when I got back to the platform I had plenty of time but when I ran at the platform I just got stopped as though it was a regular wall. Well then I thought about my dad's car in the parking lot and I decided I could fly that here. But I flew it into the Whomping Willow. I'm okay and stuff but I broke my wand," he said holding up a mangled looking wand, "Then I tried to sneak back in here but Snape caught me trying to sneak in and he got all the heads of houses. I mean he sorta had to. They're calling my parents so I'll get in a lot of trouble with them but I'm just happy they didn't expel me."

"Okay well I'm glad you're here," I replied.

"Me too, I got into Gryffindor," Ginny said.

"Oh that's great Ginny!" Ron said beaming.

Soon after we all went up to bed, ready for the next day.

The next morning I got up and threw on my Hogwarts robes over my normal clothes. Hermione and I walked downstairs to the common room without a word to any of the other girls in our dormitory.

"Hey guys," I greeted as we came downstairs to see Ron and Harry standing next to Neville and Seamus.

"Hi," they all responded.

We all went downstairs to eat breakfast. I waved Blake over to eat with us. After we were full we went to Transfiguration with Professor McGonagall. In Transfiguration we jumped right into the curriculum by working on changing a type of animal into a different animal.

After Transfiguration was over we all headed down to the dungeons for Potions. I agreed on sitting in the back in case Severus decided he didn't want to try to be nice today.

Blake wasn't in this class anymore since he was in the higher level class. There were cauldrons already out in front of us so it was obvious we would already be making a Potion.

Severus stood up from his desk and walked to the middle of the classroom where he addressed the class.

"I want you to make the most difficult potion you think you can create during one class period. It must be done by the end of class and points will be awarded for how difficult the potion was and how accurately brewed your potion is. You may use any ingredients in the bottom three shelves for your potion. Begin now. Oh and there will be no talking today as this is your pre-assessment of sorts."

I thought for a minute about the hardest potion I thought I could brew in one class period. It was hard to think of a good one because all the hardest potions take days to finish brewing. I finally settled on one in my mind and got to work on crushing and cutting my ingredients as I threw them into my cauldron and stirred.

It looked like most of the class was working on one of the potions we had done last year, as they looked at their books. Hermione had gone straight to the hard section of our books and was peering intently at the directions.

I lazily threw in my last ingredients and gave it a final few stirs as I took a ladle and put some in a vial to be graded. Mine was a potion that worked much like the swelling charm. Once consumed the potion would cause the drinker's body to begin to swell.

Severus was pacing around the room looking at everyone's progress. Although he wasn't encouraging anyone, he didn't say anything to the people making some horrific looking potions. I got his attention and he went back to the front of the classroom.

"Once you're done you can just label it using one of these stickers then put it on my desk to be graded. After that you can begin working on your homework; 12 inches on the uses of the Polyjuice Potion. We won't be brewing it this year but it is now standard material for your O.W.L's in a few years. Better to start learning the standard material now rather than later."

I got out a piece of parchment and a quill and got started on my essay. All around me people were finishing up. A glance at the clock told me that there was 5 minutes left in class. I packed up my things and put them in my locker quietly.

Once Severus dismissed us we all got up and soon the classroom erupted with noise. All around kids were complaining about how unfair this assignment was while others were moaning about how awful their potion had turned out.

The next class was Charms class. We all sat together and worked on the charm of the day; changing colors. We were working on changing each other's robes different colors. He let us change anything we wanted so we were changing each other's hair, and skin and other random items in the classroom. Finally he told us we were done for the day and said that he would work on changing everything back now. While he went around the classroom reversing the spell I changed everything back to normal for our group.

Herbology was normal that day. We talked about how we would soon start tending to Mandrakes. Neville was as happy as ever while the rest of us grumbled about dirt under our nails. I wasn't exactly sure how dirt had gotten on me since we hadn't touched anything but whenever I came out of a greenhouse it was sure that there would be dirt everywhere.

After Herbology was over we all left the greenhouse and went back up to the castle for lunch. I was almost done eating when Severus caught my eye. Through a quick mind-reading exchange he told me to meet him in his office now.
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