The Sibylline Code; A Harry Potter Next Generation Fanfiction

14: Red and Black

Chapter 14
"Ugh! Budge out the way, fatso." Victoria Cannon whispered in my ear, as we all crowded round Professor Longbottom for our first ever Herbology lesson. I moved, only because I was unwilling to start an argument in front of everyone- well, right now. It kinda wouldn't help, what with all my 'friends' I wanted to get.
Not that that was happening.
Most of the Slytherins who I'd spoken to had taken to giving me dirty looks and pushing me out the way whenever I came near them. I suppose my encounters (notice plural) with the lovely Gertrude Close had initiated these cold confrontations. However, Lena told me that this behaviour was only to be expected between the majority of the Gryffindors and Slytherins. I asked Lena why that never happened to her or Rose, but she said that it's because she glared at them and they were all in awe of Rose because her parents were the two best friends of Harry Potter. She told me to glare at them. I haven't tried it yet.
They had also taken to calling me 'Karthi' like they do in all the old fashioned books, so Lena, Rose and I had taken up the same greeting towards them.
The first few hours today had been like a slap in the face though.
First, we had double potions (so 1 and a half hours), with Professor Elder and the Ravenclaws. The Professor was...odd. He had the weirdest fashion sense (Lena wouldn't stop complaining about the fact that he wore blood red and fluorescent pink, topped off with a black cloak, until she realised he was wearing red and black. Rose just rolled her eyes and told me it was a Muggle song from the Miserable thing Lena had been talking about last night.)
The professor also had the most boring voice which literally made you want to fall asleep. He did a lot of admin at the beginning, going through the register at an extremely slow pace, checking with everyone a million times if he pronounced their names right- literally everyone. It was honestly agonising. I'm sorry, who mispronounces Rose?!
We had to sit in tables of four, so I sat with Lena, Rose and Cosette. Not that I really had an option- I mean, everyone sat in their houses, so we didn't really mingle much.
When he finally got started, we pulled out our book, One Thousand Herbs and Magical Fungi, and were told to get started on the simple cure for boils. Apparently this was always the starter topic in potions, because Rose's mother had already taught her the brew, and Rose wasted no time in collecting the ingredients from the student store cupboard.
"Rose..." Lena started in a pleading voice.

"Na, ah." Rose interrupted, already crushing her snake fangs. "I am not giving you any help! If you wanted to know what to do, you shouldn't have been playing hangman whilst Professor Elder was talking!" She sent us a glare whilst Lena and I shared a guilty look, before she turned back to Rose.
"Oi, don't just assume I need help, I'm not that dumb," Lena retorted, "I just wanted to borrow your pestle because I think I left mine in the dorm, and seeing as you've finished with yours...!"
Rose looked back at Lena with raised eyebrows, before huffing and practically throwing the pestle back at her. Lena smirked, and I found my mouth twitching- for some reason, the sight of Rose looking so annoyed was undeniably funny.
Rose obviously was amazing at potions because of her mother, and Lena was quite good as well. They completed the potion to the gentle silver colour that it was supposed to be, and Professor Elder gave both of them approving glances.
I however, having followed everything from the book, somehow managed to end up with a lime green solution. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with green - in fact Alyssa loved it and even asked me how to do it, even though she had a perfectly good silver colour!- but it wasn't extremely helpful in this instance.
Professor Elder didn't look too fussed, he said that I had obviously stirred 5 times anticlockwise rather than clockwise. Apparently it was an easy mistake to make and just to read more carefully next time.
I can't lie, potions was much harder than I thought, but I was still a little disappointed. Lena and Rose looked kind of guilty as we walked to second period. With all their bickering during the lesson, they'd kind of forgotten about me, but promised to help me next time. I gladly accepted the offer. I was obviously not that good so why should I be all prideful and refuse?

AN: Hey sorry about any underscores I'll fix later...
I've gotta go but I'll explain stuff later...
(See most of you lot on Thursday anyway )
Don't forget to vote comment and stuff...

Aardvark ;)