Healed & Broken (HP) {Book 4 of the Wild & Free Series}

6. Quidditch Try-Outs

For the rest of the week's Potions lessons Harry continued to follow the Half-Blood Prince's instructions wherever they deviated from Libatius Borage's, with the result that by our fourth lesson Slughorn was raving about Harry's abilities, saying that he had rarely taught anyone so talented. Neither Ron nor Rowan nor Hermione nor Lucy nor I was delighted by this. Although Harry had offered to share his book with us, Ron and Rowan had difficulty deciphering the handwriting than and could not keep asking Harry to read aloud or it might look suspicious. Hermione, Lucy and I, meanwhile, were resolutely plowing on with what we called the "official" instructions, but becoming increasingly bad-tempered as they yielded poorer results than the Prince's.

"I forgot to ask," I whispered to Lucy and Rowan as Slughorn was talking for the millionth time about Harry's talent for potion-making, which made my blood boil. "What did you smell in the Amortentia?"

The cauldron with Amortentia was still standing in a corner in the classroom, filling it with beautiful scents.

Lucy sniffed the air.

"I smell..." she began, closing her eyes to concentrate harder on the scent. "Freshly mowed grass, and... the woody smell of wands, and... some natural, herbal scents mixed with tea tree oil."

She opened her eyes and looked at Rowan.

"I smell..." Rowan said, also sniffing the air, but not closing his eyes. "Jasmine flowers. We keep them in our garden at home and I've always loved their scent. I also smell... toothpaste, and... the smell of fresh, damp dirt."

"Interesting..." I said. "I smell peppermint, gunpowder and scent of the wood of a broom's handle."

They nodded and we turned our attention back to Slughorn, who had stopped talking about Harry.

Harry pointed out some spells in the Half-Blood Prince's book to Rowan, Ron and me on Saturday evening and told us the spells were probably invented by the Half-Blood Prince himself.

"Or herself," said Hermione and I irritably,

"It might have been a girl. I think the handwriting looks more like a girl's than a boy's," said Hermione.

"The Half-Blood Prince, he was called," Harry said. "How many girls have been Princes?"

Hermione seemed to have no answer to this. She merely scowled and twitched her essay on The Principles of Rematerialization away from Ron and Rowan, who were trying to read it upside down.

Harry looked at his watch and hurriedly put the old copy of Advanced Potion-Making back into his bag.

"It's five to eight, we'd better go, Liana, we'll be late for Dumbledore."

I looked up and instantly forgot my anger toward Harry.

"Ooooh!" gasped Hermione, looking up at once. "Good luck! We'll wait up, we want to hear what he teaches you!"

"Hope it goes okay," said Ron, and he, Hermione and Rowan watched Harry and me leave through the portrait hole.

We proceeded through deserted corridors, though we had to step hastily behind a statue when Professor Trelawney appeared around a corner, muttering to herself as she shuffled a pack of dirty-looking playing cards, reading them as she walked.

Harry and I waited until we were quite sure she had gone, then hurried off again until we reached the spot in the seventh-floor corridor where a single gargoyle stood against the wall.