Chapter 4

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Chapter 4

"Great. Our first day of classes and we overslept," Timmy panted as we ran down the corridor to get to potions.

"I know! I can't believe that we slept through breakfast. I NEVER sleep through breakfast," I said.

"Well I'm sure that missing breakfast was very hard for you," Timmy said, turning to me with a grin on his face.

"It actually was!" I retorted, giving him a playful hit on the arm.

"Okay, we're here!" I said as we made our way to the potions classroom. We shuffled in to be almost immediately followed by Harry and Ron, both of whom seemed to be just as flustered as us. Professor Slughorn gave an exasperated glance to Timmy and I, but then beamed when he saw Harry.

Harry and I exchanged tense nods; we still hadn't had a proper friendship since we broke up. I saw Harry glance at Timmy's hand on my back. I suppressed an eye roll as Timmy's shoulders shot back, his grip around my waist growing tighter. Why did boys have to be so competitive? Harry glared at Timmy, who was basically crushing my waist at this point. Desperate to end the awkward silence, I turned to Timmy.

"Please try to play nice!" I whispered. He broke eye contact with Harry, and let go of my waist, which was practically bruised.

"Alright kids, go ahead and grab yourselves a textbook from the cupboard," Slughorn said, turning back to whatever he had been talking about earlier. We all rushed to the cupboard, Harry getting stuck with the tattered copy.

We gathered around with all the other students to listen to Professor Slughorn. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a streak of platinum blond hair. Crap, I thought. Malfoy. I turned my head slightly to see how bad the damage was, but was actually shocked. His should-be bruised face was completely clear, devoid of all damage. As bad as it seemed, I was kind of hoping that he would've been worse. I really wanted to teach him a lesson.  His eyes were focused on the tiny bottle held in Professor Slughorn's hand. I stared at Slughorn, trying to listen to what he was saying.

"Now, does anyone know what this is?" Slughorn asked, holding up the tiny vile. Of course, Hermione's hand shot up straight in the air. "Yes, Miss Granger?"

"It's liquid luck," she said, following with a glare at me, which I didn't return, but instead grabbed Timmy's hand and shuffled closer to him. I knew that she liked Ron, and that it secretly killed her that I had such a great relationship. I knew it was mean but, you've got to fight fire with fire, right?

"Very good, Miss Granger. Liquid luck" Slughorn said. "Or scientifically known as Felix Felicis. One dose of this, and all of your endeavors will succeed."

That got my attention. My eyes became fixed on the bottle, thinking of all the endless possibilities.

"The lucky person to receive this vile of liquid luck will have to brew an acceptable draft of Living Death. The instructions will begin on page 10 of your book. Now... Let the brewing commence!" We all rushed up to get a cauldron, then scrambled to our stations. Cut dungbeetles in half, the instructions read.

"Okay..." I said, seeing the immediate problem in that plan. It was proving to be near impossible to get the stupid beetle to stay still. Harry on the other hand, seemed to be working incredibly fast. I tapped him on the shoulder, frustrated.

"Yeah?" he asked, his green eyes sparkling. I had to admit, even though I was wonderfully happy with Timmy, those eyes were beautiful. I snapped myself out of it to ask him my question.

"Ermm... it's just, how are you doing that?" I asked, pointing to the perfectly brewed potion. He smirked, obviously happy that he had impressed me.

"Crush the beetles, don't cut them," Harry said as he turned back to work on his potion.

"Okay?" I said, confused. Instead of doing what the directions said, I turned the blade onto its side and crushed the beetle, successfully extracting all of the juice.

"Wow!" I exclaimed to Harry as I added the ingredients to the potion. "They should have put that in the directions!"

"Yeah," he mumbled, the grip on his potions book becoming tighter. I turned back to my book, attempting to brew something acceptable for Slughorn to look at. I glanced over at Hermione, who stirred her cauldron with crazy hair and a frantic expression on her face. I giggled; potions wasn't really her strongest subject. All of a sudden I heard Slughorn's voice come from the adjacent table, where Harry stood with a rather proud look on his face.

"Why, he's done it!" Slughorn cried, turning to look at the class with amazement. "He's absolutely done it!" The whole class gasped as Harry's potion successfully made a leaf shrivel up and disappear. Slughorn held up the tiny vile of Liquid Luck, then gave it to Harry. "There you go! One vile of Felix Felicis. Use it well..."

...

"How did he do it?" Timmy whispered to me as we sat in the Gryffindor common room, watching Harry pour over his potions textbook. Hermione and Ginny appeared to be trying to get to the bottom of it, so I decided to let them do the work.

"I don't know," I replied, leaning my head on his shoulder. "It seems like he has a different book..." All of a sudden, Hermione shot over to me, a determined look on her face.

"We are going to talk in our dorm, now," she said, giving me a fierce look. I gave Timmy a puzzled look, then stood up. I felt the need to fight back, but was honestly too tired to resist. Whatever it took to shut her up.

"Whatever," I sighed as she marched up to our dorm. I followed, feeling the eyes of the entire common room watching me.

"If this is about what happened in the Great Hall..." I started, before Hermione instantly burst into tears as she ran over to give me a hug.

"Audrey! I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have been so rough and... how else were you going to react and... I'm just really sorry!"

"It's fine!" I said, as I walked over to sit on my bed. I hated when things got all emotional and dramatic. "It's no problem."

"But it is a problem!" Hermione sobbed as she sat next to me. "I should have been there to comfort you when you needed a friend, not made things harder for you!"

"Ugh, Hermione, you know I don't like to be... comforted. Besides, you didn't mean what you said. You were just mad because I zoned out." For some reason this made Hermione cry harder.

"I just want you to be okay!" she exclaimed, hugging me. This was too much for me. I actually couldn't take it.

"Okay. Cool. I accept your apology. We'll get doughnuts from the Great Hall tomorrow or something. But I would really like to go to sleep now."

"Wait," Hermione sniffled, wiping her eyes. "Don't you want to talk?" I laughed. Did she even know me at all?

"I'm fine," I said, putting my hand on her shoulder. "Seriously, I am."

"Oh my gosh, do you really think I believe that? You always try to internalize everything, and hide your feelings from even your closest friends. That is unhealthy!"

"I know," I chuckled. "I'm weird and I have a strange vulnerability problem. Can I go to sleep now?"

"UGGHHH!" Hermione groaned as she walked over to her own bed. "Can I get you to open up to me at least once?" I did feel slightly bad for her. All she wanted was to help. Sadly, she would have to find a different friend for that.

"Yeah, sorry bout that," I said as I reached for the light switch.

"Are we good?" I heard her ask in the darkness. I smiled.

"All good."

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