Chapter 16: Truth or Potion

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Hazel was in potions class. She was squinting to make out the text in her copy of Advanced Potion-Making, with only candlelight to assist her. The artificial smells circulating the room made her a little queasy, and she looked up at the valves above her for a brief moment of pause.

Once she had gathered some strength back, she gave the recipe another try. She was trying to get her head around the next directive, something that could be quite taxing in the best of circumstances. On this day it was proving to be particularly difficult, for reasons well out of her own control.

Add a droplet of salamander blood while stirring clockwise. On the fourteenth stir—

"Will you just trust me?"

Hazel sighed, then attempted to read on again.

On the fourteenth stir, pause for five missisippies, then add the rest of your distilled toxin.

"I swear we have time. Slughorn won't be back for ages. I heard him say he was going somewhere on the second floor."

Hazel lifted a small phial and stared at it forebodingly. "How am I supposed to have time to distil this crap before our time is up?"

Lily took one look at the green sludge that was Hazel's potion, it was the first time she'd shown any concern for it in ages. "You can't. You're screwed."

Hazel sighed loudly once more and lifted the book up to her face. Leave to brew for seven minutes, at half time reducing the flame to half strength, and adding a handful of moondew petals in the eighth—

"Come on Hazel." Lily interrupted. Her hands were clasped together and there was an urgent tremor to her voice. "Who knows when next we'll get an opportunity like this. Give this sorry project up and make something cool with me instead."

Hazel slammed the book down on the desk. "Can't you just help me instead of getting me in trouble?"

"You won't get in trouble. The professor's not here!" Her eyes began to sparkle with glee and she pressed her praying knuckles into her chin.

"I think he'll get suspicious when at the end of class he takes a look at what we've done." She mimicked Slughorn looking down over her kettle, "Hold on, this is not the Conundrum-Cast Draught I asked you to make, but rather something quite the opposite of that."

Lily then realised that she was going to have to try much harder if she was going to convince Hazel. Her green eyes squinted at Hazel's brown ones as she thought up her next play.

"We'll say we looked at the wrong recipe." she blurted. Her first strike.

"The wrong recipe? It's an entirely different course book!"

Lily had no response for a moment, and Hazel had to break their eye contact when the flame under her pot started spitting up extra flames of its own accord, causing the brew to make a gurgling sound.

She hummed faintly and twisted the knob that controlled the flame.

"Where is this excessive need to do everything right suddenly coming from? Is it only because you think you're going to get in trouble again after your excursion tonight?"

She felt an urge to argue Lily's use of the word 'suddenly', but let it slide. "It has nothing to do with that. I'm feeling pretty confident about it actually."

Her attempt to defend her actions was undercut by her own absence of mind. She was for the moment far more concerned with her potion. With a frown she looked down at the group of little bubbles that kept forming and popping in succession.

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