As It Was *Complete*

17. Little Secret

Thankfully, when she arrived at Potions, there were already two or three students in the room along with Snape, so there was no hope of him trying to speak with her during her lesson. He did turn as she entered the room and gave her a fleeting look before turning his attention back to the board and continuing writing as the classroom door opened and the rest of the class piled in.

"I shall be assigning your partners for this class. This will be your partner for the rest of the year. There will be no exchanging, no complaining, and no chatting," he said with an authoritative voice.

It worked, though, as no one said a thing until he turned around again.

"Today, we will be doing a practical. As I have not taught you Potions in over two years, I would like to see where your skills are at. We will be making 'Veritaserum'. This should not be too difficult for you." He smirked and then pointed his wand at the board.

Along the left-hand side, a group of names appeared. Astra's was among them. "Anyone on the board, I want you to take a table each."

There was shuffling as people moved to take seats. Astra made sure she was in the middle so she could easily hide. "Your partners will be drawn by a spell which will determine who is most compatible with you, skill wise." Again, he pointed his wand to the board as the partner's names appeared.

Astra held her breath, wondering who she would be partnered with. She was always a dab hand at Potions. It was definitely her strongest subject. She tried not to think that the reason may be that her father was the teacher. Since the first year, she had been neck in neck with Draco Malfoy for first place in this class, even sometimes being joint first.

She crossed her fingers that he wouldn't -

Astra McKenna - Draco Malfoy.

Bollocks!

She groaned internally as the stool next to her screeched, and Draco sat down. "Lucky me, I get to be stuck with you for the rest of the year." He moaned.

"You think this is lucky?" She smirked. "At least one of us got what he wanted."

Draco blushed and bit his lip.

Astra ignited her flame under her cauldron and began measuring out the water. "What are you all waiting for? Why is Astra the only one working? Do the rest of you need hand holding? Perhaps a step by step guide?" Snape snapped.

She rolled her eyes, embarrassed that he called her out as she took herself off to the store cupboard and collected all the ingredients, bringing enough back for two. She sat them on the table, divided them up, and pushed half of them to Draco. "Here."

"What is that?" He asked.

"The ingredients," she explained. "I got enough for both of us."

"I am capable of getting my own ingredients. I didn't ask for it, nor do I want your help." Draco snapped.

"Suit yourself. I was trying to be nice," she said, scooping the ingredients back up and stopping Theo as he walked by. "Here Theo, I grabbed double of everything so you can have them."

"Thanks, Angel, you are amazing," he winked as he turned heading back to his table.

Draco scoffed and stormed off to the store cupboard.

She had her back turned when he arrived at the table again and continued to work in silence, cutting up her beans and bashing the root into a powder. Being one of the tops in the class had its perks as she, like her father, was able to alter recipes when needed to obtain better results. She added five eel eyes instead of four, crushing them to get the most juice out before starting the long, boring process of stirring exactly 67 times clockwise and 69 times counterclockwise as opposed to 68 like the book said.