Novus Orbis - Fred Weasley x f!reader

Chapter 4 - Not What's Expected

"Here, we are," Fred announces. "Potions classroom, located in the dungeons of Hogwarts." He gives an exaggerated shudder. "Inhabited by none other than the Extremely-Biassed-Professor-Severus-Snape-Who-Tries-Every-Year-To-Take-The-Dark-Arts-Job." They snigger at this before opening the door and walking in. A few people are already there, leaning on the desks and sitting on the chairs and conversing as per the usual. Snape has not arrived yet, so they are milking the few precious moments they know they have before the ink-black robes come swishing through the room.

Snape, of course, has no need to say 'silence' or 'be quiet'. His mere presence is enough to quiet them all, knowing that the merest squeak could earn them a detention. Some are even sure that, if he could, he would go so far as to expel them if they move a chair too sharply, or knock a vial against a cauldron.

"Today," he announces as he settles at his desk, "We are going to be concocting a Wit-Sharpening potion." With a wave of his wand, the recipe is laid neatly across the blackboard in chalk. "Come up to the front and gather your ingredients. You will work in pairs." Y/n quickly looks around. Wouldn't want to separate the twins, she thinks. Spotting Lee Jordan, she walks over.

"Wanna pair with me?" She asks.

"Sure," he replies, "Was just going up to gather the ingredients. I'll get the armadillo bile, would you mind getting the rest?"

"No problem at all." Walking up to the cabinet, Y/n spots almost immediately the ginger roots and grabs a few. Searching a moment more, she finds the jar of scarab beetles and takes a few before returning to the desk.

"Now, we'll just.." Lee chops his ginger root and tosses it into his cauldron, beginning to stir. Y/n follows his lead, looking up periodically to check and re-check the instructions. Mix in ginger root until lime green. Cutting her ginger root neatly, she tosses it in and stirs it. Lime green, lime green... Grinning as it swirls to about the right colour, Y/n sets the spoon aside and prepares her armadillo bile. Stir in armadillo bile until blue. Stir, stir, stir, blue. Scarab beetles. Stir, stir, stir, red. Remix armadillo bile. Stir, stir, stir, yellow. Remix ginger roots. Stir, stir stir...

At last, the potion is ready. She takes the ladle, pouring a little bit into her vial and taking it to the front, placing it on Snape's desk. He looks up, a mild expression of surprise on his face.

"Miss L/n, what are you doing?"

"I-I finished my potion, sir." She glances around. "Hasn't anyone else finished yet, Sir?" The others in the room are either staring at her or continuing their work, trying not to draw attention to themselves.

"Perhaps you have not been paying attention to the time." He picks up the vial of violet liquid, squinting at it. "It has barely been 10 minutes."

"O-oh." She lowers her eyes a little, feeling his gaze flicker from the bottle back to her. "What would you like me to do, sir?"

"I suggest, Miss L/n, that you return to your desk,  collect your things and wait for the others to finish."

"Yes, Professor." She turns, walking back to her table next to Lee Jordan and beginning to clean. She scrapes up the extra ingredients, putting them into the trash. She takes out her wand and flicks it at the cauldron.

"Evanesco," she chants, and the liquid disappears into thin air. Lucky I remember Potter's bad experiences in this class, she thinks, though they are many. Sitting down, she pulls out her potions book and skims through to a random page, reading to pass the time until the others finish their potions.

She gets up when she hears the shuffling of feet and scraping of chairs.

"All good?" Fred asks. "Let's go."