Amortentia- Minsung Hogwarts AU

Prologue

***

It was that leisurely time of the day when students wrapped up their final lectures and filled up the halls.

The orange hues of the falling sun that spilled over the ancient windowpanes of Hogwarts indicated the upcoming evening. Some students headed toward the study hall to make an early start on their assignments, while some navigated their way through the moving staircases to get a well-deserved nap. Others visited the grassy courtyard to bask in the glory of the after-school hours. All the while, Jisung was stuck in a dingy underground chamber, staring in despair at his Scintillation Solution, or what was supposed to be one.

"Aw, what in Merlin's beard?"

The three windows that looked into The Black Lake illuminated the room in a gloomy blue light. Ancient runes decorated the walls and the once brilliant golden trims, now decaying, shone in a ghostly manner. The gargoyle fountain stood in the way of the light, casting a rather menacing shadow on the stone floor. Jisung could easily argue that this was one of the creepiest rooms in all of Hogwarts. The only thing gloomier than this room was perhaps his failure of a potion. He was currently trying(and mostly failing) to catch his overflowing potion with a bedraggled tea towel, and the overcrowded table was not helping.

The solution lurched violently, and he recoiled in an instant, his towel dripping in the foul-smelling liquid. He was trying his best not to stain his robes because he did NOT have the money to buy a new set of these overpriced garments. Plus, his parents would probably kill him since he already did that earlier this school year when one of his other potions went terribly wrong and he ended up catching fire.

However, the mess wasn't going to clean itself, and the soaked table was demanding to be wiped away. So Jisung rolled up his sleeves and waited until the potion stopped spraying sparkly toxic particles at him to start mopping. In the process of soaking up the bubbling liquid, however, one of his skillfully rolled-up sleeves sadly met the neck of a brass scale, which fell over and knocked over a couple of crystal phials.

Jisung could only watch, horrified, as he saw the glass containers encasing the exotic ingredients for his potion, fall to the stone floor and shatter into a hundred different pieces.

One vial, which had managed to avoid the marathon of vial suicides, swayed dangerously toward his cauldron. And it just so happened that it contained his Standard Potioning water! Unfortunately, Jisung had forgotten to put the lid back on, and the vial crashed into the hearth, extinguishing his fire entirely.

What followed the fiasco was complete silence. After a few seconds of contemplating his life and fighting the urge to simply scream until he summoned every ghost in the castle, Jisung unfroze from his position and started looking for the nearest broom and dustpan.

~

It was right after Professor San's potions class that the dedicated Ravenclaw Han Jisung decided it would be a good idea to try and recreate the formula the professor had showcased in front of the class that day. He had stayed behind to teach himself how to create the potion, which proved to be a dreadful plan.

Jisung could only sigh as he took out the cleaning supplies from a cobweb-ridden closet and swept the broken glass in big, swift motions. Felix had warned him earlier that day that leaving Jisung and his clumsy ass alone in a potions classroom was probably a recipe for disaster, and he regretted not taking his advice sooner. But what else was he to do when his potion grades were on the very verge of failure? N.E.W.T. level potions were a huge leap from O.W.L. level potions, and he was not prepared for the sudden shift in difficulty.

But honestly, should he really be complaining? He was happy enough with the fact that Professor San was generous enough to let him use the potions chamber after the school day.