Perseus Riddle *REWRITING*

Chapter 37

3rd POV

Perseus turned his head to watch Hermione carefully. He memorized her wand movements and the way she pronounced the spell. He was ready to do exactly what she did, until he saw her results. Her matchstick was still in the shape of a matchstick, all she did was change it to the color of a needle.

Hermione lowered her wand in disappointment and Perseus, for some reason unknown to him, felt the need to comfort her. "Hey, if you've done this spell before then you can do it again."

"That's exactly the problem." She turned to him with a small frown on her face. "I've done it before, very well might I add. Therefore I should be able to do it now."

Perseus linked his hands together and shrugged. "Maybe you're not focusing enough."

"What do you mean?" She looked at him curiously.

"Well," he fiddled with his thumbs." In Charms I had to focus on what I wanted the spell, or rather my magic to do. I focused my intentions on lifting the feather and it did just that. I figure the same logic applies here, although I believe this would take more concentration. Instead of just waving your wand and saying the spell you need to picture in your mind what your magic is going to do."

Hermione thought about what he said and nodded slowly. "That does make a lot of sense. Though with that logic you would be able to do any spell wordlessly!"

"Yeah," he shrugged. "I suppose so, wandless too if you really push your magic and focus your mind. Without the spells and the wand, your magic has no outlet from your body, so you would have to focus more on getting your magic our."

"How do you know all of this?" Hermione questioned. She made it seem innocent but Perseus could hear the underlying suspicion.

"Well I don't really. It's all just theory. Logically, think about why you need your wands. You need them to do magic, right? But why would you need a wand if you already posses magic in you? Why do you need an outlet for your magic if you were born with it? Theoretically, you don't really need the wand - it just makes using your magic that much easier. Then there's also the fact that some wizards and witches just aren't that powerful and could possibly need a wand because they don't have the ability to do wandless magic."

Unknown to Perseus, Professor McGonagall was listening to their magic theory talk. He was smart, unusually so for someone who had just learned about magic. Though she could blame it on his genes, his Grandfather was unnervingly smart as well. Although he flaunted his knowledge in a cruel and harsh way. Perseus seems to have intellectual conversations and thoroughly explains his views. In a strange way it was refreshing. Hermione was smart yes, but she based her knowledge more on exactly what the books say rather than thinking for herself and coming up with her own theories. Persues, she realized, had the potential of being extremely dangerous should he wish to do so. She continued to watch the two discuss, both them genuinely seeming to enjoy the conversation.

The class passed by the two quickly. They both managed to complete the spell at the very end of class, Perseus took a while but he finally managed to get the matchstick to turn into a needle by using his very own magical theory.

The Patil twins had already left so Perseus walked with Hermione to their next class - potions.

Perseus carried her books again - despite her saying she could do it. They continued to talk with each other as they walked with Harry and Ron silently following behind them.

Hermione was telling him about how biased the potions Professor is towards every house except Slytherin, but other than that she really enjoys his class. Ron mumbled to Harry behind them. "How can she enjoy his class? He practically hates her."

A noise of agreement came from Harry, the only sound he's made so far. All to soon for Ron and Harry they arrived at the dungeons.

They entered a nearly full classroom and Perseus followed Hermione to her usual seat near the front - Harry and Ron of course sitting right behind them. The potions professor was not there, which was strange to Perseus because normally the teachers are there before the students.

As soon as he pulled out his parchment and the horrible invention called a quill the doors were slammed shut as a tall man wearing black robes strutted into the class. His cloak billowing out perfectly behind him as though he had rehearsed it for hours. He waved his wand and the windows all closed loudly. The long robes and billowing cloak gave the illusion that he was floating as he walked to the front of the room. He stood and stared at the students for a moment, his eyes flitting over the kids in green while he glared at those in red - particularly one Harry Potter which Perseus made a mental note of.

He was silent for a few minutes as he stared or rather glared at them. He then  whipped out a piece of chalk and stared writing on the chalkboard - something Perseus didn't think a Wizarding school would have, 'I mean they're wizards', he thought. 'Aren't they supposed to have a super cool magical way of doing everything?'

The Professor started to speak as he scraped the chalk onto the board. "I hope by now you have all remembered the rules, but I will repeat the two the foolish dunderheads in this room cannot seem to comprehend. No foolish wandwaving and no asking other students for help. Today you will be creating the Draught of Peace. The instructions are on the board as well as in your books. I expect them to be flawless."

His monotone voice finally stopped alongside then screeching of the chalk as he turned to face the class. He paused as he gazed over the students, his stare stopped on Perseus as his face smoothed into an emotionless mask - as though he didn't want Perseus to see what he felt. "Gather your materials."

At his words the class stood and raced to the cupboards to get the things they needed. Perseus followed Hermione and grabbed whatever materials she grabbed as he didn't know what any of it was or what he needed. Once his arms were full he walked back to his seat and set his arms down onto the table so that everything spilled out gently. He then reached down into his bag and pulled out his copy of the potions book - something he realized he should have done earlier. He flipped through the pages until he found the Draught of Peace. He started to carefully follow the instructions, starting with the first step of adding water to the cauldron.

As he followed the steps he realized his potion looked a lot different from Hermione's. Hers was a bright green while his was looking a little like puke. Perseus thought he followed the instructions perfectly, at this point he didn't think he could save it. So, he decided to have some fun and just start throwing random stuff into the cauldron. Hermione glanced at him and her eyes widened. "Perseus!" She hissed. "What are you doing?"

"There's no saving it." He shrugged his shoulders as he tossed something that vaguely looked like a cockroach in. "So what's the point in trying?"

"The point is that the ingredients that you're just randomly tossing in at a whim could have a major reaction with each other and-"

Her speech was cut off when his cauldron exploded. Perseus yanked Hermione down to the floor and slowly peeked up at the Professor when the minor explosion died down. He looked at the expression on his face and mustered a cross between a grimace and a smile. "Oops."

The Professor's face twisted into a sneer. "Detention and fifty points from Ravenclaw for your foolish actions."

Perseus turned to Hermione still crouched with her behind the table and gave a small smile at her stern expression. "I expected that."

So um it's been a while. I got tagged awhile back but I wont do anything with it until later. So a little update on my updating schedule. I just lost someone, and I'm grieving really badly right now but I wanted to get this chapter out of the way. So my schedule really can go one of two ways. 1. I update like crazy to fill the void or 2. I barely update and it takes me forever to even open up the app. Anyway, if I do end up updating a lot just know that I will probably push my sadness onto Perseus so they'll all be like sad or depressing. Anyway that's all for now.

-Jelanii (no kitty for now sorry)