Glamour

Revelation

Potions was becoming both easier and harder as the weeks went on. Thanks to his new studying habits, Harry was finding the work to be much more manageable. He understood the instructions in the brewing methods, and could easily apply the theory from their homework into the more practical aspects of brewing. The Quick Guide to Cutting and Other Ingredient Preparation Techniques he had checked out of the library was also proving to be invaluable to him.

Unfortunately Malfoy was determined to undermine any progress that Harry was making. The blond git had not been taking kindly to Harry's avoidance of him, and was becoming more and more antagonistic as the weeks went on. Harry had taken to putting shield charms around his cauldron in an attempt to prevent the onslaught of additional ingredients that found their way into his cauldron.

Shield charms didn't prevent someone physically placing objects in however, and Malfoy took advantage of that, 'stumbling' as he walked past Harry's cauldron on the way to the store cupboard.

The effect was instantaneous, the liquid in the cauldron turning a bright green and frothing up. The shield charm worked temporarily to contain the mass of liquid pouring out, but it soon failed sending droplets of fizzing potion raining down around them.

"Potter, Malfoy. Detention" Snape snarled, waving his wand to contain and banish the potion. "You will report to Filtch at seven, and if I catch either one of you doing something like that again, you will never see the inside of a potions lab as long as you live! Now get out both of you"

Harry could only stare in shock. Not only had Snape given him a detention for something that clearly wasn't his fault (not too unusual), but he had also punished Malfoy. That was unprecedented! Grabbing his things, he quickly escaped the dungeons, making his way back to the tower, a quick glance out the windows showed no sign of flying Goblins, but Harry supposed it was only lunchtime.

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Twenty minutes into the detention with Filtch, Harry had had enough of Malfoy's whining. It had been continuous all afternoon, only broken with interludes of the Gryffindor's crowing over the fact Snape of all people had given Malfoy a detention.

"You are just annoyed you got caught" He snapped, slamming the cleaning rag back into the bucket of soapy water. Mertyl had thankfully gotten bored of them after ten minutes and had gone to investigate the prefects bathroom instead.

"Of course I am, why do you think I got detention? I got sloppy, I knew adding the feverfew at that stage would cause an unsafe reaction." Malfoy scowled at Harry looking annoyed that he had to state such an obvious thing.

"So getting sloppy is why you have detention, not the fact you almost blew us up?"

"You should know how it works by now. Snape doesn't care as long as we don't do anything that can get us caught. He won't go out of his way to stop us doing things. We have to learn from our stupidity somehow."

"I'm sorry I don't know your secret Slytherin rules. It's just an excuse for the blatant favouritism." Harry sneered

"It's not favouritism. He acts the same whether it's a Slytherin or Gryffindor. You guys are just as subtle as a herd of hippogriffs."

"I will believe that when I see it. But Gryffindor's can be subtle, we just tend to rush in before thinking. Something I am trying to change."

"Why are you being so adamant about this change stuff. We've noticed you being odd since September. You wouldn't even react to me today."

"Someone just pointed out to me what I was doing. I realised it wasn't who I wanted to be." Harry replied honestly. "The reason I don't react to you is because I want us to have a truce. I have been awful to you since first year. Yeah you aren't exactly the nicest person in our year, but you didn't deserve half the shit we did to you."