Something Wicked This Way Comes

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"Alright class," Snape snapped and waved his wand and the windows slammed shut. It was time for us to make Wolfsbane. I had been preparing for this for months, it was our end-of-term project, to make it without help. The first time around making it Snape watched over our shoulders and stopped us before we made a mistake. Now this was different.

"By the end of this class, you will either have a potion that will last for years, or you will have an F and fail my class. You have 1 hour and 30 minutes," Damn, he was making this a do-or-die. I gulped and shook off my anxiety through my fingertips. I could hear the ticking of the clock, hear the breaths of the thirteen classmates around me, all staggered and soft, I could hear the taps of water from the faucet dripping down onto the drain.

"Begin," He stared into our souls, and it was off to the races, not to see who got done first, but who was the most efficient, who knew what they were doing. There was no asking for help, no notes except for the tiny pieces of paper that we had written in front of us at our stations, likely Snapes doing, that had missing ingredients and missing instructions. It truly was a test.

 First I needed to grab all of my ingredients, the list he gave said this:

Wolfsbane leaves ____

Juice of ______

___ drops of ______

___ powdered _____

2 drops of __________

3 ____________

______ of 7 ________

1 __________

I sighed and took a calming breath, I could do this, I knew I could. I rushed to the ingredients, first was the Wolfsbane leaves. That was easy, I needed 17 of those. So I counted out carefully each little leaf. I looked over seeing that a few just grabbed a handful, and some were skipping a few and grabbing tiny bits. I shook my head, that's what would cause an explosion...

14...15...16...17, perfect! I stashed those into my Apothecary bag and went on to the vials next to the liquids, taking a few for the juicing. Next on the list was Juice of.... Blank. Okay, Juice of. I thought for a moment on this one, I remembered the way I could remember this was Mandrake tears. Juice of Mandrake leaves! Okay but how many, I believed it was 2. I thought for a moment of all the numbers in order; 17, 2, 3,1, 2, 3, 7, 1. Okay, so 2 was correct.

I picked out 2 Mandrake leaves and went over to a table with a dipped bowl with a large stone, took out some of the oil given to us beforehand, and added the leaves in with the oil. After I crushed it and rolled it around for a bit I went over to the water pipe and filled it with water, slushing around the crushed mandrake leaves and created a juice from it. After adding it into a vial I had taken before I repeated the same process on the list for the other juice– which was easy enough to guess– Juice of 7 Sorophorus Beans.

After that the rest felt quite simple, all I needed was 3 drops of dragon blood, 1 powdered moonstone, 2 drops of Syrup of Hellebore, 3 Murlap Tentacles, and 1 Occamy egg. Now it was time for the fun to begin truly.

I made my way back to my station and began to work on the instructions. I added the seventeen leaves of the wolfsbane plant into the black cauldron. Then I put in the juice of two mandrake leaves and added the three drops of dragon blood. Now it was time to be a bit more hands-on by controlling the precise temperature at the right time. After a few minutes, I added in the one moonstone. Stirred three times clockwise. Time was of the essence and I was only halfway done. When I gazed at the clock I only had 15 minutes left. Somehow time had gone by that fast.

Next, I added in the two drops of the Syrup of Hellebore, and the Murtlap tentacles while maintaining the heat at medium. 7 minutes left. After that was added in the Sorophorous Bean juice, one at a time, to ensure nothing went ary.

Time to reduce the temperature. 4 minutes left, "Shit!" I whispered, I forgot to gently crush the Occamy egg! I decided there was no time to take it over to the mortar and pestle, I would have to do so on the table. I took the ingredients list and a book I had and began to crush the egg. 2 minutes. I sprinkled it into the cauldron. 1 minute. With the wave of my wand, I stirred exactly 6 times counterclockwise twice.

"Time's up!" I put my hands on the table and gazed around, I was so entranced that I didn't realize that some of them had black soot on their face, some of their hair frizzed up, and some looked sluggish and sick. Snape stalked around the room, giving either approving nods or disapproving hums. Some he was so disgusted that he demanded them to leave, leaving the students a crying mess as they ran off.

Then he got to John. He quirked a brow, "Mhm...." He grunted and stared down at his potion before he moved on directly to me. I gulped, the moment of truth. He hummed and twisted to look at everyone, "These are the students that passed the class; Zachary, Jones, Lividia, Harmony, Eloise, Jonathan, and Ozwald," We all gasped and silently cheered, "The rest of you, I'm severely disappointed, leave the class and don't come back until next semester."

The ones who did not pass stumbled out of the classroom with embarrassment and sadness, but I couldn't bring myself to feel sorry for them in the moment. Snape silenced us by holding up his hand, "Now, you're grades will be posted Monday morning. Keep the potions with you, and job well done. You are dismissed."

Do we get to keep the potion? He really was leaning onto this... It was peculiar that he made us keep them, but I brushed it off and I took off with Johnathan with our collective prize.