Four To The End (prev Shifting Lines) - Book One (Marauder Era)

Chapter Four - Onions Don't Go Well With Wolves

Suddenly someone came up next to him and grabbed the handle, picking the cauldron up. Remus looked up in surprise, seeing Black. "Heyo," he said, taking the cauldron over to sit in front of Evans. "If you're in need of muscles again just..." he flexed his arms, "Let me know." He winked at both of them and swept back to sit with Potter.

"What a twit," Evans said as she worked on crushing the snake fangs into powder. "We'll need the onions sliced next." Remus froze at that then slowly got the pungeous onion out from the ingredient kit. He could already smell the onion wafting around from other tables and knew it was going to bad when he started on this one. "All right, there?" Evans asked when she noticed her partner not moving.

No. "Yes." He took in a deep breath and began peeling and slicing the onion. It didn't take long for his eyes to start watering, his nose to start itching, and the smell to be horrifyingly overwhelming. He began gagging a bit, wiping his eyes off on his sleeve. He could hardly breathe and almost felt blinded. He heard Evans say something about adding the onions and he scooped up a handful and dumped them in, knowing he was supposed to measure exactly instead of guessing but not caring. "Just... er... moment." He turned and hurried to the back of the room to wash his hands off, trying to get rid of the smell. He felt like he might vomit. The assault on his nose was one of the worst things he ever experienced. Just get through it. He sucked in some fresh air then returned to the seat. The mixture was boiling away, and looked a little... yellow.

"Is it supposed to be that color?" Evans asked, flipping around in the book. "I think it's supposed to be a bit greener."

Remus peered into the cauldron then jerked back, covering his nose. "It looks... greenish."

Evans frowned but began adding the dried nettles while Remus measured out the flobberworm mucus. The potion did turn greenish after that, a little too green compared to the book. "I don't understand what we're doing wrong... should we ask the professor?" Evans glanced at Remus who shrugged, finding the smell to be getting worse. "Professor!" she raised her hand and Slughorn came over. "I think it's too green."

Slughorn squinted at the bubbling liquid. "What have you just added? The mucus? Yes, it should be a subtler shade of green. That's an indication you've added too much of the mucus and I believe too much onion."

Evans glanced at Remus who began rubbing the back of his head, a slight blush rising in his cheeks. "Is there a way to fix it?"

"An overly enthusiastic amount of either ingredient shan't hurt it too much, just make sure the rest of the ingredients are added properly." He waddled off to another table while Remus mumbled apologies. He hadn't really paid as much attention when adding the mucus as he should have because he didn't want to be too close to the potion.

Just get through it, he thought again as he began stewing the horned slugs in a smaller cauldron to the side. The rest of the potion making went a little better, though that was probably because Remus let Evans add most the ingredients while he just prepared them as well as stirred. Using their partnership like that seemed to work well and Remus actually felt glad Slughorn had made them pair up. If he had done this on his own, it would have ended really bad.

At the end of class Slughorn wandered around and examined each potion, doling out grades and even awarding two Slytherins with five points each for making 'the most perfect brew of this potion I've ever seen from a first-year' according to the teacher (one of them, Snape, looked as smug as Remus had been after Transfiguration). When Slughorn got to Remus and Evans he gave a frown and gave them decent grades, certainly not great. He assigned an essay for everyone to finish by next Thursday, and dismissed class.

"I—I didn't mean to—to—" Remus tried to speak, tried to apologize as he and Evans left class.

"It's all right," she promised, giving him a pleasant smile. "At least it wasn't as bad as Nettle and Struthers... I admit, I rather enjoyed the class. It's a lot like baking. My sister and I used to bake all the—ouch!" she yelped, being knocked into Remus as Potter and Black went running by, laughing. "Goodness, do they have to run everywhere?" Remus pulled his bag up over his shoulder and turned to go. "Wait! Do you want to come to the library with me? I guess I should say find the library. I heard it's massive so it shouldn't be too difficult." She looked at him with rather anxious eyes.