Potions, term 12, year 1-4

For some reasons, the years seemed to go by so quickly. Lucia found it was a rather scary thing, as she thoroughly enjoyed her time with the students, but before she knew it, they were all gone. Now was the last term for one of the best classes she'd had. Not that all the students were brilliant at Potions, but they were decent people and showed mostly respect and fondness of one another. But Lucia decided to push those thoughts out of her head. This wasn't the class she'd have with them, so it'd all be good. And the people in this class weren't all bad either. Most of them were quite hilarious and hyper. Which, in Lucia's mind, was rather great.

So when Lucia entered the classroom, she looked around and smiled. No matter how quickly the summers went by, it was always a wonderful feeling to be back at Hogwarts. Weird, but wonderful. She waved her wand at the blackboard that started writing up the potion for the lesson. Fire Protection Potion. This was going to be fun!

Ari was glad to be out of the house. In her sense, Hogwarts was officially now the only place she truly belonged. She was happy to be in potions. Professor Henley was supper lucky to have Ari in her class. Ari loved Potions. Potions was even better because she had Matthew AND Derek in there with her. So no matter what, she wasn't alone. Ari hated being alone. Today, Ari sported her Slytherin robes with pride. Her long red hair was pulled part way back and had a black bow for decoration. Ari was still too perfect for makeup she decided. She skipped down to the dungeons. She didn't understand what was so scary about them. Yeah they were dark, and cold, but that was the mystery behind it.

She made her way to the classroom, her marker board, and satchel in hand and walked in the door. She laughed at the board. "Fire protection potion" Matthew was going to be so pissed! She made her way to her and Matthew's usual spot and sat down she wrote on her board, "Hello Professor Henley! How was your summer?" She hoped Professor Henley didn't get her in trouble and force her to speak. That would just ruin all cause for her evil little plan. No professor has complained about her yet. She stayed quiet, did her work, and kept her head down and avoided questions. Her plan was working well, but Ari had almost given into talking. But she vowed that she wouldn't. It had been two months, 60 days, 1460 hours, 87658 minutes, and 5.25949e6 seconds. She wasn't going to stop now.

Potions. Good. Derek was good at Potions. No, better than that. He was good at all his subjects. He was exceptional at Potions. That was, when Matthew wasn't being annoying and distracting, and Derek had to focus on making sure he didn't set everything on fire. He wasn't much of a group work person. He much preferred working independently and without distractions, so he was credited with something's success, and if something went wrong, it was his fault, no question about it. But it didn't much matter. Potions shouldn't be too difficult, anyway. It was almost fifth-year when he did his OWLs, he supposed. Wow, he was so old. But so youthful. So contradictory. Like usual, he was overthinking everything, his stream of thoughts heading in random directions as he walked along the corridor.

Only Ari was there when he entered the classroom. And Henley. "Hi, Professor," he grinned, before going over to take a seat by Ari. He really ought to get his own whiteboard, to communicate in the same way. Although he was still a little weary of Ari's current speaking situation. "How's it going, Ari?" She'd probably give up on her no-speaking protest soon, he imagined - she could never stay silent for long. He glanced at the board. Fire protection potion? Surely there was a spell for that, which would be way simpler? Some potions just seemed a little bit pointless.

Zypher was happy to be going back to Potions class. He like the Professor because she was really nice and made learning fun. It wasn't too often that you heard anyone ever doing that. After dashing through the dungeons he made his way into the class and saw that he was in fact not going to be late. He was thankful for that because he hated being tardy.

Looking around the class he saw there were only two students and the Professor. After waving to the professor he took a seat near the middle before looking up at the board. *Fire Protection Potion* He blanched at that a bit because it brought memories back about the day his dad died trying to save him. His mood instantly killed he rummaged around in his backpack and sat quietly.

Potions was always one of Matthew's favorite subjects! He was pretty good at it - or at least he was good at lighting the flame beneath his cauldron. That was a skill, wasn't it? Anyway, some potions were cool. And there was no other class this year that could teach him how to make something unpleasant to send to Ollie. You couldn't send a spell. But you could send a potion that made your evil Ex-Awesome-Big-Brother's eyebrows fall off of his face. And god knew that Ollie deserved to have his eyebrows fall off and worse! He'd have to ask Professor Henley about making a potion like that. As he got to the room, he was glad to see that he was on time. Last time, the professor hadn't been at all understanding about the very legitimate reasons for his lateness, and he didn't want to lose points for Slytherin again!

He quickly spotted Ari and Derek sitting at the same table and rushed over, grabbing a chair of his own and forcing his way in between them. That way, neither would have to fight about who got to sit next to him! He was so nice. "Hi guys!" he said happily, but frowned as his voice cracked along with his enthusiasm. Being fourteen was cool because of less strict rules, but was not cool because it made his voice sound like a vomiting unicorn when he got too excited. And Matthew was normally excited when he was talking, which meant more often than not his voice squeaked at all the wrong times. He hurriedly went to light the fire beneath his cauldron, and then looked up to see what potion they were making.

What?! NO! That couldn't be right! There shouldn't even be such a potion! That was horrible! Things didn't need protected from fire! People just needed to learn how to handle fire! Matthew should have skipped class. He would have, had he known. This would be a terrible lesson.

Arwen was not looking forward to class. This was not going to be great. She had managed to avoid most of her schoolmates, and even managed to avoid Derek and other Ravenclaws she'd gotten more familiar with. Of course, she didn't really know Derek, so she supposed avoiding him wasn't that hard. She really didn't have to avoid anyone, apart from Ariadne. Because Ariadne was the only one up til now who insisted on being her friend. Which did make Arwen feel a bit better about herself. Then again, Ariadne was beautiful. And... well... Arwen was not. She woke up that morning, her eyes filled with hair. Yes. Hair. Because Arwen's hair was more unruly than Merlin's beard on his worst day. Yes. That's how bad it was.

So after having spent twenty minutes trying to get it out of her eyes, and barely succeeding by the means of the brims of her glasses, she gave up on her hair, because there was no chance in hell that she would manage to get it to lie flatly. No. Chance. So she just pulled on her Ravenclaw uniform, which looked ridiculous with her insane hair, and after having donned everything that needed to be donned, she looked in the mirror. Was. That. A. Zit?! Arwen wanted to scream bloody murder. But she didn't, because then people would hear her. And she couldn't talk to people. Especially if she screamed. She'd probably faint at the insane amount of blood that would rush to her head.

She finally left the Ravenclaw tower and walked slowly down the stairs, but made sure to keep a weather eye, so she wouldn't happen upon someone going the same direction as her. That would be baaad. She got to the dungeon quicker than anticipated, but she only had a couple of minutes until class, so she was glad she'd gotten there at that time. She had unruly hair that was insane, she had glasses, her chest wasn't quite so flat anymore, and on top of it all, she had a zit. Coming in late would be hell. No. It would be worse than hell. This already was hell. So she opened the door, as silently as she could. She barely managed to make eyecontact with the professor before having to look down again, and then sat at a table far away from the three others she knew, and somewhat far away from the Hufflepuff she hadn't know. So, basically, in the back of the classroom. She looked at the blackboard and frowned. Well, that was a potion that might be useful to know, at least!

Lucia looked up when Ariadne walked into the classroom, being the first student to enter. "Hello miss O'Rieley," she said kindly, her smile widening at the board with the sweet question from the Slytherin fourth year. "It was very nice, thank you, very relaxing. I trust you had a good time too?" she asked back, curious about the no-speaking part, but decided not to ask, and looked up as Derek walking in. She gave him a nod. "Hello, Mr. Lawrence." They sat beside each other, and Lucia (being the professor she was) instantly wondered if they might have something more going on there. She quickly greeted Zypher and Matthew as they followed soon enough and took note that Zypher sat down on the side, and Matthew joined the two others already there. She hoped everyone was getting along well; nothing was worse than studying at Hogwarts all alone. Lucia would know. And then Arwen walked in. Lucia smiled at her, but the girl had looked away from her eyes before Lucia had time to react. She also sat down alone, closer to the back than the front. This was discomforting. Perhaps she should have Zypher and Arwen sit together? But Lucia decided against it.

Looking to her watch, she noticed that it was time to start the class. She sat up a bit straighter and smiled at them all. "All right, let's get our hands dirty," she said and looked to the blackboard and back. "The fire protection potion. I figure the name is rather self-explanatory. There are also spells where this will help, but potions are always more effective than spells. At least, they last longer," Lucia said with a twinkle in her eyes. Her respect for potions was much higher than her respect for spell-casting. Lucia rose from her desk and walked around it. It gave her a much better overview of the class. "Now, the elements of this world - earth, air, water and fire - have an enormous impact on people's lives. I don't want you going around playing with fire just because you know how to brew this potion, because fire is something to be respected and not played with," Lucia said in all seriousness. "So, can anyone tell me what you think this potion does?"