If This Isn't Love (Fred Weasley Sequel)

Chapter 12 | Green Acid, Dragon's Blood, and More

Saturday, September 23

Our secret potion plans are coming along. The only few people who know of it is Hagrid, Hermione, Fred, George, and I. Well, Hagrid doesn't know everything.

He doesn't know how we'll get the green acid.

That will be the hardest part. Hermione, the twins, and I figured out a plan to achieve this. Fred disapproved of me going to get it, but I convinced him that it will be okay.

Now, Umbridge is in the Great Hall. This is my chance.

The twins will tell me if she's coming and Hermione will tell them if she's left the Great Hall.

The only way we'll know is through the little clear ball Hermione gave me and the twins. It's green when Umbridge is still in her seat. It turns yellow when she gets up, it turns orange when she leaves the Great Hall. It turns red when she's in the hallway or the hallway beside her classroom.

I don't think I can pull this off without their help.

I open the doors to the classroom, knocking first of course. Hermione is right (not that I doubt her), Umbridge is not in the classroom.

I open the door, sneak in, and close it. First, I call out her to name to see if she responds. Luckily, she doesn't. Another confirmation that she is indeed elsewhere.

I tiptoe to her desk and start to rummage through it. I pull out a section and look through. Papers, papers and more. Something buzzes at my side. The ball is yellow.

I have to act quickly. I go through most of the drawers, looking for any bottle, any at all. Soon, another buzz, which indicates the ball is orange. My breath is quickening but I continue my search.

I open the last drawer and look through it, making sure all the other drawers are neat. Of course she puts the acid in the last drawer! I sneak the protected bottle in my bag when there is yet another buzz.

The ball is red. I close the drawer and run out of the classroom, placing the ball in my bag as well.

She's not in the hallway, but the twins are. I tell them to leave without me as it'll look suspicious and close the door back. That's when Umbridge rounds the corner and sees my hand on the door.

I almost freeze but I can't look suspicious.

"(L/N), dear, what are you doing?" She asks, coming to stand to me.

"I've been looking for you, Professor. I was about to go in the classroom," I lie, my palms beginning to itch.

"Is that so?" She asks. I nod and she tilts her head. "What do you need me for?"

"I just wanted to say... I'm sorry. I listened to your words and they've really motivated me to be a better student," I say. "I'm not really used to having teachers who know how to make the students behave. I respect you for that." I lower my head to seem shameful.

It does the trick. "Well, I'm glad you realized that. We teachers do try to discipline the students as best as we can, some more than others."

Is she saying she's a better teacher than someone who's had experience like McGonagall? Snape?

"Yes, ma'am," I say and she allows me to hurry back to my common room. I see the twins and they look back, then round the corner. I know they'll wait for me to get there.

I walk as normally as I can, then I get out of Umbridge's sight and start breathing heavily. "Oh my god," I whisper. "Let's get out of here."

They lead me far away from that devilish classroom. We go outside where Hermione is sitting on a rock with a bag.

She opens it. "Here, put it in here. Hagrid told us to go visit him. I think he has what we need."

I slip the bottle into her bag, praying that it's enough for the potion. The twins don't come with us because maybe then Hagrid would be suspicious of this being more than a friendly prank.

We sure are going out of our ways for this "friendly prank." If it doesn't work, I might bawl.

Hagrid sees us before we come in, and he hurries us. Closing the door behind us, he says, "Well, I go' your dragon's blood."

He pulls out a small 4 ounce bottle of it, even though we said three. Still, better safe than sorry. Hermione takes it and puts it in her bag.

"As for yer octopus," he continues, grabbing the leg of one. "How many octopus powder?"

"5 grams," Hermione and I say simultaneously.

He raises his eyebrows. "Almos' a teaspoon. I doubt yeh know how ter get it, so I'll teach it to you."

He then proceeds to cut the flesh off of the leg and throws the rest out for the crows. He dries the flesh in the oven and says it'll take a few hours.

We leave until it's the afternoon, and then we come back to find he has powdered the dried flesh and put 5 grams into a small pouch. Hermione puts that in her bag, too.

"Hey, what are you going to do with the rest of that?" I ask, pointing to the rest of the octopus powder. It must be a pound or so of the stuff.

"I'm giving it ter Professor Snape. He mus' have a use for tha' stuff." He rushes us along and we (and the twins) spend the rest of the day collecting portabella, button, and shitake mushrooms.

The book says we need 4 ounces of shitake mushrooms, 6 of portabella, and 3 of button. We found the shitake and button fine, but there are not that many portabella around. Just one or two around every 10 trees. I assigned the twins for that.

Still, by the end of the day, we only found enough shitake and button mushrooms. Sure we found a few portabella but we left the twins to chop up the rest. We don't trust their chopping skills.

When we are done chopping the mushrooms up and putting them into separate baggies, the twins come up with about 6 mushrooms.

We chop those up, too and barely get to 3/4 of a cup, or 6 ounces.

Everything goes in its respected bags and Hermione puts everything up. All we need now is a toad's tongue and water.

We'll finish the potion tomorrow. I can hardly wait.

~~~~
Published 5-9-20

Shitake is such a weird word.

I think it's pronounced
"shi-tah-ki"?

If you know, please tell me in the comments.