The Forgotten Twin

Chapter 7

Draco didn't come back to classes until late on Thursday morning, when the Slytherins and Gryffindors were halfway through double Potions. He swaggered into the dungeon, his right arm still covered in bandages and bound up in a sling. He passed by Delilah.

"How are you feeling?" Delilah asked.

"Mostly fine, hurts a bit though," Draco deadpanned, pausing by her. Delilah rolled her eyes.

"How is it really?" she said.

"Completely fine," he admitted quietly.

"Then why?"

"There are some... benefits. So I'm gonna go sit by your brother."

"Go for it."

Draco looked surprised but shrugged it off and continued walking.

"Settle down, settle down," said Professor Snape idly.

That day they were making a pretty simple Shrinking Solution. Draco set up his cauldron by Harry and Ron, just like he said he would.

The Shrinking Solution was pretty easy. It was mainly just adding ingredients in the right order, which was pretty easy.

"Sir," Draco called, "sir, I'll need help cutting up these daisy roots, because of my arm —" Ah, so those were the benefits.

"Weasley, cut up Malfoy's roots for him," said Snape without looking up.

Ron went brick red.

"Professor," Draco drawled. What did Ron mess up? "Weasley's mutilating my roots, sir."

Snape walked over to that table and gave Ron an unpleasant smile.

"Change roots with Malfoy, Weasley."

"But, sir —!"

"Now," Snape said in his dangerous, down to business, voice.

"And, sir, I'll need this shrivelfig skinned," said Draco, who was unable to keep his glee from his voice. Delilah rolled her eyes, he really was a dork.

"Potter, you can skin Malfoy's shrivelfig," said Snape.

Draco continued making his potion. He was actually really good at potions. He, like Delilah, found the subject fascinating. That was part of the reason he had decided to take Alchemy with her.

She finished cutting her daisy roots evenly pretty quickly. Skinning the curdleroot was easy and quick, and slicing the caterpillars was also not too bad.

Delilah finished adding her ingredients a few minutes before everyone else and waited. The potion needed to stew, the longer the better.

Longbottom was in trouble. He usually fell to pieces in Potions; he had a huge fear of Professor Snape, which made it ten times worse. His potion, which was supposed to be a bright, acid green, had turned —

"Orange, Longbottom," said Snape, ladling some up and following it to splash back into the cauldron, so that everyone could see.

"Orange. Tell me, boy, does anything penetrate that thick skull of yours? Didn't you hear me say, quite clearly, that only one rat spleen was needed? Didn't I state plainly that a dash of leech juice would suffice? What do I have to do to make you understand, Longbottom?"

Longbottom was pink and trembling. He looked as though he was on the verge of tears.

Snape was a great potioneer, but he needed to work on his teaching techniques.

"Please, sir," said Hermione, "please, I could help Neville put it right —"

"I don't remember asking you to show off, Miss Granger," said Snape coldly, and Hermione went as pink as Longbottom. "Longbottom, at the end of this lesson we will feed a few drops of this potion to your toad and see what happens. Perhaps that will encourage you to do it properly."