When we align; a Neville Longbottom fanfiction

29. Need for safety

"... But be careful! Add too much Moonstone and you'll be put into a deep sleep!" Horace was giving the fifth-years in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw some final warnings before having them prepare the Draught of Peace.

Cass was not entirely sure what she was doing there. The students were capable of brewing the potion themselves, or so she hoped, and Horace didn't seem to require her help. It was only distracting her from planning her first lesson further.

"Maybe I'll brew some as well, I might need it for this afternoon." She stood from the stool she was sitting on, behind Horace's desk.

He chuckled lightly, thinking she had made a hilarious joke. She took out a cauldron anyway.

"You'll do great, I have no doubts." He said as she added powdered moonstone to her potion.

"Well, I do." She muttered under her breath, concentrating on her work.

The Calming Draught was particularly difficult to make. Cass still remembered that, when she was in her fifth year, Goyle had a ridiculous accident with it, causing his robes to catch fire. Of course, she was now a Potions Mistress, so it should have been easy to make. She had a modification of it in a hidden compartment of her mind, and she reached for it. She thought it best to shove the recipes experiments away before teaching to not confuse the students between the original and her own version, especially because the modifications often resulted in a weaker version of the original.

However, she wasn't teaching, at that moment. She lowered the flame and added all of her powdered moonstone, making the liquid turn pink, blue, orange, and grey in rapid succession. Horace, who was studying her work, whimpered and stepped away from the cauldron at her action, expecting it to explode.

"I haven't added the syrup of hellebore yet, Horace, it's not going to burst into flames." She reassured him as she raised the heat.

"I have never seen it prepared that way." He was inspecting the liquid with a curious glint in his eyes.

"It's not really Draught of Peace," she said as the potion finally turned white, "just something that takes half the time to get ready and has almost the same effects." She scooped it into a vial and dropped two drops on her tongue, immediately feeling the knot in her stomach come undone.

"It really is a pity that I didn't get to teach you," Horace passed an index on the cauldron, the remnants of her potion sticking to it, "but then again, I suppose Ilvermorny was proud to have you." He said with a smile, tasting Cass' concoction.

She reciprocated, waiting to hear his thoughts.

"I see what you mean when you say it's not Draught of Peace," he smacked his tongue, "the taste and smell are quite different, but it does the job."

"Would I have made the Slug Club?" She asked, noticing a couple of heads turning in their direction.

"If you were at that level when you were sixteen, you would have been the president!" He patted her on the back. Cass noticed she was starting to get used to it.

"Not quite, but I was good." She smiled.

When the bell rang, Horace shared some words of encouragement as they collected the students' vials.

Her first lesson was right after lunch. Not an ideal time, as the various bubbling potions she had prepared to make the first-years try were emitting fumes at the smell of which even Cass had started to feel drowsy.

It was, however, a huge success. During her school years, she noticed that the students seldom got to try the potions they were brewing, which was mostly the reason why very few of them were interested in the subject. That and, of course, Snape's disdain for his students.