I thought I knew my ending - Year 1 and 2

Chapter 15 - Two Slughorns

In the morning at breakfast, I apologised profusely to Severus. He looked at me smiling: "It's all right, Lily, you don't have to say it ten times, I have a bad day too sometimes." I grinned at him, but still couldn't get a bite through my throat. The nightmare from a couple of hours ago, still reverberated. Images of the black dog and the gruesome creature disappearing into the Whomping Willow continued to haunt my mind all morning. Why did I feel like I knew them from somewhere?

"Miss Evans!" I looked up startled. Professor McGonagall had come to stand in front of me. She had snatched the piece of parchment I had been drawing on during class.

"Just because your marks are good doesn't mean I don't expect you to take notes in my class. If I see this one more time, I will not only deduct points from your house, but it will be followed with a matching punishment as well!" She tore the sheet in two and threw it in the bin in the corner of her classroom.

The whole class looked my way. The Gryffindors started whispering excitedly to each other. This was the second time this year a teacher scolded me. With a hollow feeling in my stomach, I looked at the professor who I thought didn't like me anyway and had now proved it in front of the whole class.

For the rest of the lesson, I tried my best to pay attention and take notes, but my mind kept wandering back to my nightmare.

As we left the classroom, heading for our next lesson, I saw Sirius bend down and take the remnants of my drawing from the bin. He placed them against each other and looked at them with a puzzled face. I felt my cheeks glow and immediately turned away from his curious gaze. I had drawn the dog in front of the Whomping Willow.

During lunch, I noticed Sirius showing my drawing to James and Peter. They started whispering to each other. I tried to focus on my plate and ignore them, but their piercing glances they occasionally threw my way, did not help.

Evelyne furrowed her brow. "What do these Gryffindors have against you?" she asked as she looked, not exactly subtly, in their direction.

I shrugged. "No idea."

Severus was holding his fork and knife with his gaze fixed on James as if he wanted to slice him instead of his Shepherd's pie.

After noon, we had a potions lesson, my favourite class of the week. Mainly because it was a Gryffindor-free class, but also because Professor Slughorn was always happy to see us.

We had to brew a simple potion against the most common diseases like the flu, fever and the plague. Normally, Severus and I finished after an hour and were given a new assignment by Professor Slughorn, but this time he came to us with a leaflet in his hand.

"Ahh, Mr Snape, Miss Evans, I wanted to have a word with you," he said.

"Do we get a second assignment, professor?" asked Severus.

"No, not this time." Severus and I looked at each other disappointed.

"I don't know if you have already seen it posted on the notice board in the dungeons, but I finally got Professor Dumbledore to organise it this school year!" He looked at us with twinkling eyes and a big grin from ear to ear.

"I um, haven't seen anything hanging on the notice board, Professor," I confessed and looked at Severus, but he too gestured that he hadn't seen anything that Slughorn could be referring to.

"Ohh," Professor Slughorn said, glancing briefly at the rest of the class to see if no one needed his help, but when he noticed that everyone was still busy with the assignment, he turned back to us. "Well, I've been wanting to organise a competition for a while now between the students from the fifth to the seventh years in which they would brew difficult potions. A bit as a promotion for the subject because not all students who are in their final years choose to, or bother with my classes at all." We looked at Slughorn with interest, but he seemed to be expecting an answer to a question he had not asked. When we remained silent, he continued.