Protégée (George Weasley)

Chapter Three

Lisa could feel the bags sagging under her eyes as she struggled to stay awake in Potions class. The stench from the ingredients laid out infront of her was foul, but so was the drowsiness that she was experiencing. If she did not have Noel jab her awake every few seconds, her face would have already lolled into the cauldron.

She stayed up all night doing her school work. Apparently, Umbridge was not the only one who had given her something to do, but Lisa had to prioritize her Defense essays first, managing to turn them in just mere minutes before nine o'clock in the evening. The rest of the time she had spent figuring out her Arithmancy equations, writing a paper for Transfiguration and studying the ingredients and measurements for their work in Potions.

Her memory was getting cloudy the longer she sat stationary in her seat. Fortunately Noel had also took it upon himself to study earnestly, and was now doing most of the work.

He suddenly thrusted a ladle into her hand, stirring her out of her half asleep state, "What—?"

"Snape's coming this way. Act busy." he said, with as little lip movement as possible. Sure enough, the black robed professor stopped in front of their desk, eyeing Lisa with an accusing look on his face, "Miss Branson. Could you tell me how many tablespoons of peppermint does Amortentia need, essentially?"

She opened her mouth to speak, and closed it again, like a fish out of water, shooting Noel a desperate glance.

"Two and a half." he said in the lowest voice possible, before covering it up with a believable cough.

"Two and a half." she replied, Snape cocking his eyebrow grimly, "Excellent. But maybe next time I would prefer you coming up with an answer by yourself and without Mr. Johnson feeding answers in to your ear." he said sharply, "Five points from Gryffindor." with that, he left, going to check up on another pair of students.

"I'm sorry," Lisa sighed, rubbing her cheek against the sleeve of her school robes, "I don't know what to do, I'm so tired."

"It's okay, I got it. I'll make the Amortentia, just try to read up on the ingredients, measurements and procedures, just incase Snape decides to double back and ask you something else."

"You're the best, Elly." she said, rubbing his shoulder, before flipping open a book.

All the periods before lunch flew by in an agonizingly slow pace, and many times have Lisa's eyelids threatened to shut completely, more so when she and Noel had different classes. By the time the bell rang for lunch, she sprinted towards the Great Hall to get an early start, ate a few spoons of mashed potato, before she lay her head against the table, taking a desperately needed nap.

"Oh man," she heard Noel's voice from somewhere, not bothering to pop an eye open, since she was so focused on dozing off, "If she was at my house and she slept on the table, mum would have gone ballistic."

"Probably my gran, too," said Katie, chuckling, "We weren't even allowed to prop our elbows against the dinner table. She would go batshit crazy if any of us dared to do that."

"Yeah but Lisa gets a pass today. Second day back and it's already been hell on earth for her."

"Stop talking... I can't fall asleep when you two are talking as if I'm not here." she grumbled, burrowing her face deeper into her arms, trying to drown out the sound of the rest of the chatter in the Great Hall.

She only had about fifteen minutes of successful napping, hauling herself towards her next class, grumpy beyond belief. At that point there was absolutely nothing she wouldn't do if it meant that she could clamber back to her dorm room and hibernate for the rest of her day. Her train of thoughts were scattered haphazardly around her head, walking half asleep.