Love, Potions and Legacies: Fifth Year (UPDATED)

Chapter 3: Panic in the Potions Lab!

Wednesday evening comes and after dinner I head back to my dormitory to get my bag. I'm suddenly painfully aware that in a few minutes I'm going to have to brew Potions alongside Tom and I feel my nerves hit. I've been dreading this since I asked him and he said yes. 

I knew out of everything I needed help with in Potions, the actual making of the Potions was the thing I needed the most help with. You know before I actually did myself or someone else some real damage. The explosion that nearly claimed Pansys' fringe could have rivalled Seamus Finnegan's usual handiwork. I really hope I can keep myself calm, steady and focused enough to not cause an embarrassing situation.

I was going to humiliate myself, I just knew it. I could sense it coming. I'd probably burn his hair off like I'd joked about in the text, somehow, unluckily turning it into reality through sheer bad luck. Gods, what would he do if I did that? Gods, what would the Malfoys do to me? Would they want me in detention? Excluded for 'attacking' their perfect son? It was possible, Lucius Malfoy seemed to fly here to the aids of his sons. 

As I descend the stairs, all I can imagine is Tom lying in the Hospital Wing with a bandaged face, half of it burnt beyond recognition and I have to stop myself to gather my breath and calm down. No, it was stupid to let myself get this anxious. That's how accidents happened! I just needed to stay calm, follow his every instruction and watch him carefully. Take it all nice and slowly and it would go fine. Right?

I rush through the school and stand outside the large wooden door of the main Potions classroom, waiting patiently for Tom. I wonder (as Tom is usually either incredibly early or perfectly punctual) if perhaps he's already inside the classroom waiting for me. I reach for the handle of the door and nearly walk into the door as I try to open it and walk through it and it doesn't move, it's locked. I look at it, confused. I hadn't expected it to be locked. I step back and look at it. I'd never been in a classroom after hours without a teacher so it had never crossed my mind that the rooms get locked. Then again, this was the Potions classroom which had all sorts of dangerous ingredients in it, it made sense for it to be locked.

At exactly 6:59pm, Tom appears behind me suddenly and silently and his sudden appearance startles me.

"Merlin, Tom! Don't do that! Where did you come from?" I breathe out, throwing him a glare. He seems amused by my reaction to him but he doesn't greet me with anything but raised eyebrows and a smirk and he leans past me to grab the door handle.

"Oh I tried the door... it's locked. Do we have to go get a teacher to let us in? Or are we... not meant to go in there after hours?" I say to him as he touches the handle.

Toms' smirk stays and I know the answer from his face. He waves his wand and mutters Alohomora and the door clicks open. He grabs it and holds it open for me and I look up at him hesitantly.

"Tom... I.. I don't want to get into trouble for being somewhere I shouldn't be. I really don't want to get detention. Snape already hates me... I don't want to give him more of a reason to hate me or worse, give me detention!"

"Relax Y/N. I'm Head Boy. You won't get into trouble with me." Tom says with a slight warmth to his voice and he pushes the door open for me and gestures for me to follow him in.

I sigh and follow him into the classroom and I instantly inhale at the sharp coldness of the room. It was like breathing in ice. It was even colder in here than in the rest of the dungeons, the magical candles off due to the lack of activity and movement in the room for hours. I watch as Tom walks down the centre of the room, his wand in the air flicking all the candles on and it suddenly gets easier to see but the room doesn't warm up any. I rub my arms a little and follow Tom around the room with my eyes as I ask him a question.