Oliver Evans is The Prodigy of the Heart (Book One)

Chapter Fourteen: Chaos

I awoke the next morning very early, it was time to put our liquid luck into easy to transport containers before the rest of the dormitory woke up. I slipped out of bed and tiptoed over to Trent, who was sleeping face down on his pillow; the sound of his snoring rang against my ears as I pushed on his back, "Hey," I whispered "Wake up. We have work to do."

A groan came from his bed as he rolled over and covered his face with the quilt. "Can't it wait just a little longer?"

"No, now come on."

Trent groggily rose from his bed, flinging his pillow onto the floor and sliding into his slippers. We wrapped ourselves in our shower robes and went down stairs. I had tucked the brewing cauldron in a very far, dusty corner of the common room behind some old furniture. I could see that the potion was ready to transfer.

"Did you bring the vials?" I asked Trent as he yawned

"Yeah, mate." he pulled out two minuscule bottles and tossed them at me. I took one of the bottles and dunked it into the liquid, filling it to the brim. I repeated with the next bottle, then sealed them both. "Okay. Let's leave this here for right now, no one will touch it. Then we can throw it out once everyone is at their classes. I have the vials for our breakfast, we just need to spike our drinks without anyone noticing."

"Fantastic," Trent rubbed his eyes "I'm really not looking forward to our tests today. Defense Against the Dark Arts is probably the hardest class we've taken this year."

"No kidding. We are going to need this more than ever," I held the bottle up to the light and swirled the liquid around "This bottle is going to shape our futures to what we need it to be."

We finished up in the common room and went back to bed until breakfast. The great hall was filled with groggy students having stayed up all night studying for their OWLs. As I found my place at the Slytherin table, I noticed that professor Snape was up at the high table. I stood there and stared up at him for a moment, feeling a drought of guilt wash over me. He looked back at me and raised an eyebrow skeptically. As I was standing there in a trance, Trent sat down across from me and grabbed two goblets, filling them with carrot juice. "Okay, Oliver, are you ready?"

"Actually..." I sat down on the bench, slumping down with remorse. "I don't think we should do this, Trent."

"What?" he said, stopping mid pour "We spent all night brewing that crap and you don't want to take it now?"

I sighed and glanced back to the high table; Snape was listening intently to professor McGonagall speak, "I don't feel right. I already messed up big time by doing it yesterday, I don't want to do it again today."

"You make no bloody sense." Trent said with frustration

"I'm sorry. I won't stop you from taking it. But I'm not going to. I made a promise, and even if I broke it yesterday doesn't give me permission to continue to break it."

Trent snarled down at his bowl of oatmeal "You're no fun."

I smiled softly "I'm really not, am I?". We sat quietly as we ate our breakfast; Trent had taken out the vial and looked at it a few times, rolling it between his fingers. He finally put the vial under the table and I heard a small pop. Quickly, he sprinkled a few drops into his bowl and stirred. He then tilted his head back and shoveled the oatmeal into his mouth.

"That is one way to take it, I suppose." I said as he cleaned his face

"It's horrible tasting. I had to cover it with something sweet." he swished some juice in his mouth and swallowed

Our first and only obligation for the day was our Defense Against the Dark Arts OWLs test. Since I had only taken the class for a portion of the year, I was truly going in blind. Professor Leighton called for us to meet him on the training grounds, and to bring our pets along with us.