Smoke | James Potter

。two 。

☆

making her way through the crowd of first years, who were wondering (panicking) about which direction their classes were, astra held some potions books at her sides, getting closer to slughorn's classroom. she had been back in hogwarts for a week and since then slughorn had invited her to join 'slug club'. astra knew that harley had also been invited, as was lily evans and salem malfoy. in all honestly, she wasn't that fussed but the professor was kind to her.

pushing open the potions classroom door, astra immediately found harley at the back of the classroom and rushed towards their table. lily was opposite and, unfortunately, so was her former best friend, severus snape. the greasy-haired boy had a strange form of obsessive love for the poor red head who was no longer his friend because he called her a 'mudblood': it meant dirty blood and was used by some purebloods and half-bloods to insult  muggleborns, which lily was.

"what're we doing?" astra asked quickly, placing her books down on the desk.

"he hasn't said yet." harley whispered back, chewing the skin around her nail before astra stopped her.

"why are you nervous?" astra questioned lightly.

"i'm not. just bored." harley shrugged her off, her eyes flickering to lily who was waiting for slughorn to speak to the class.

"hm, okay." astra smirked and harley scowled at her, gently kicking her under the table with her boot.

soon enough, the lesson started, slughorn explaining they had to make draught of the living death by following the instruction in their potions book. snape seemed to be doodling down onto his book as he followed the potion but astra paid no attention to him as she added ingredients to her cauldron. standard portioning water was followed by powdered root asphodel and then and infusion of wormwood and valerian root.

astra picked up her silver knife that was given to her, as well as all the other students, and tried to chop the next ingredient: a sopophorous bean. only when she tried to slice the bean to add the juice, it sprang off of the table. with quick reflexes, she caught it but stared at it in confusion, not knowing what to do. harley tried to slice her bean and it sprung across the table and hit lily's arm, causing the slytherin to apologise quickly which made the gryffindor laugh lightly and give her the bean back.

"how are we supposed to get the juice in, then?" lily questioned after trying and failing to chop her own in half like the other three. snape, however, had already done it and was adding the sloth brains.

"i don't know. uh... maybe make a hole in the end." astra suggested and tried but the bean shot out of her hand onto the neighbouring table. "for fucks sake!"

before james, who was on the table her bean landed on, could snatch it and pocket it so her potion would fail and probably blow up in her face, a slytherin on the table threw it back to astra who thanked them quietly. slamming the bean down angrily onto the table, astra thought for a moment before pressing the blade of the knife down onto the bean, only it was on the flat side. instead of pinging onto somebody's forehead like a gryffindor's at the front just had, the bean split open, giving her access to the juice.

holding it above the cauldron, she squeezed the bean and the juice poured out in a steady flow until it was empty. harley copied her movements before showing lily who thought about it for a moment, knowing the book said different but she didn't feel like getting hit with a bean for a second time so she also crushed the bean. the entire table were all a step closer to getting the potion corrected all while people around the classroom were ducking as beans went flying over their heads at full force.

the rest of the potion went fairly well, only snape had his own personal instructions he had made himself so he got top of the class and 30 points for slytherin. many gryffindors grumbled at the points their rivals won and many slytherin's seemed to be smirking smugly around the room. with the lesson done, they left the potions room. astra and harley made their way towards the library but a hand clasped down on astra's shoulder.

she span and saw james standing there, some soot on his face from where his potion had backfired, "what do you want, specs?"

"how did he do it?" james asked.

"how did who do what?" astra replied, raising an eyebrow.

"snape. how did snivellus get the potion to be perfect?" james demanded.

"followed instructions? i don't know, i was doing my own." astra responded.

james looked to harley, "did you see?"

"nope. i try to avoid looking at him." harley answered.

"ask him instead." astra waved him off and turned to walk away again.

"wait, wait!" james called and harley rolled her eyes so astra just told her to walk ahead.

"what?" astra sighed, facing him impatiently.

"you did it nearly as good. how'd you do it?" james asked.

"followed the instructions." astra stated, not mentioning the bean. "i take it you didn't?"

"no, i did! although i didn't use as much sloth brain, i only used half. i put the other half in snivellus' robes on the way out." james grinned.

as pleased as she was that snape probably had a brain sliding down his back, astra didn't want to have a conversation with james much longer, "there's why then. you can't mess with the instructions otherwise you'll look like you just dunked your face in floo powder."

"where is it?" james asked, as if a slight smudge of soot would end his life and good looks.

"your cheek." astra answered.

"right, anyway. bye!" james bid, the soot still on his left cheek.

"twat." astra mumbled and made her way towards the library.

{1007}