A/N: Many months have passed… hell, I think it's been over a year since I updated. I've been busy… working on my novel. But here is the long-awaited (scoffs) Chapter 7.
Disclaimer: No characters belonging to J.K Rowling were harmed during the writing of this chapter. True, Pansy's going to be feeling its effects for weeks, and Snape will be slightly singed, but nothing major.
Chapter 7: Potent Potion Problem
Professor Severus Snape, the bane of all Hogwarts students from the moment they first set foot on school ground, and sometimes, even off it. He was a shady, mysterious character that no one knew much about, and weren't game to find out. It was a new year. Snape was none too enthused about that. But something was different, and soon he would find out what.
Andréa and Milena followed Harry and Hermione to the dungeons. Jodie and Ron were happy to gloat at the top of the stairs, having dropped Potions. The air was muggy on the lower floors of the castle, filled with various aromas of herbs and other potion ingredients.
The dungeon was quieter than usual, even with the number of students assembled; but given the circumstances no one was surprised. Snape, fortunately, had not arrived. There were some seats left at the front of the room, to which Harry and Hermione cringed. They took their places at the remaining bench. Snape burst through the doors, black robes flying, just as they had retrieved their books. Snape swept up to the head of the room and folded his arms neatly across his chest.
'Advanced Potions,' he began, his dark eyes scanning the room. 'You are here because you are the best of your class.'
At this, he grimaced.
'Which, given your results, leaves much to be desired,' he finished.
Andréa and Milena were sitting in front of him, big smiles on their faces. He stared at them, scowling menacingly.
'You must be the new students,' he sneered. 'I will tell you now, I will not accept that as an excuse. You will keep up or I will fail you. Your education at Beauxbatons will scarcely suffice for what you will be undertaking here. Do you understand?'
They both nodded, smiling cheerily. Snape growled and turned away.
'Today, you will be brewing a very basic potion for Sixth Year students. If you cannot successfully brew it, I will be surprised if you can complete this course at all.'
He turned away and began to write the ingredients and instructions on the board to copy down, which they all did swiftly.
'You may begin,' he said brusquely.
Everyone got to work, not a word said amongst them. The ingredients were simple enough, no risk to those preparing them. Milena worked carefully on hers, as she had been taught to do at home, slicing the ingredients into neat, miniscule pieces, separating them into piles for cooking. When she was done, she folded her arms and rested them on the bench.
Andréa had been chopping her potion ingredients for the past few minutes, perfectly, but violently, and was still holding the knife, conversing with another Slytherin and gesturing with the knife. The Slytherin in question was uncomfortably, watching carefully as the serrated edge of the blade came closer and closer to her face. Snape watched her carefully, questioning what to do. He approached her bench slowly.
'Put the knife down,' he said.
'Oh – ok,' said Andréa, glancing at the knife in her hand and dropping it onto the bench.
Snape shook his head.
'Well,' he said. 'Are you going to continue?'
Andréa looked at him.
'I'm just waiting for my cauldron to boil,' she said bluntly.
She went back to her potion, mixing in the ingredients to perfection. There was silence as Snape stalked around the dungeon inspecting the progress of his class, every so often barking instructions to clumsy students.
'Remember to stir your potion periodically,' he ordered. 'If you don't, it may cause unconsciousness rather than merely sleep.'
The potions were now ready to be collected in phials, when suddenly, Andréa's cauldron exploded with tremendous force, leaving everything and everyone around it charred. Milena shot a fierce glare at Andréa who looked wide-eyed and as innocent as she could.
'Vhaa-aat?' she asked. 'I svear, I didn't do it on purpose.'
'Vat de fark did you do?' asked Milena, exasperated.
Andréa shuffled her feet.
'Vell – I might have accidentally knocked dis teeng of powder into de cauldron.'
'Vhat vas de powder?'
Andréa looked sheepishly at her.
'Explosives – dat react potently vhen in high temperature.'
Snape was standing in front of Andréa, his face distorted with fury, observing the chaos. Andréa whipped out a phial from inside her robes and grinned sheepishly.
'Goot news, I saved some of de potion for marking.'
Milena shook her head.
'I don't believe you,' she said. 'Vhat did I say about explosions?'
'Don't remember,' said Andréa nonchalantly.
Milena shot her a look and growled. Andréa turned back to Snape and smiled sweetly.
'Sorry,' she said perkily.
'Fifty points from Gryffindor,' he said coolly. 'And you will clean up this mess in detention this afternoon. Without magic.'
Andréa opened her eyes wide and looked around, pouting slightly. Milena looked aghast.
'Gryffindor?' she asked. 'But – she's in Slytherin!'
'Fine,' snapped Snape. 'Twenty points from Gryffindor.'
Milena's jaw dropped.
Outside in the corridor, Ron came to meet them.
'So, how was Potions?' he asked.
Milena glared and pointed to Andréa.
'It's her fault ve just had tventy points taken from Greeffindor!'
'Well, it wouldn't be Potions if Gryffindor didn't have some points taken away,' said Harry.
They all looked at Andréa who stared at her feet, shuffling them back and forth. She looked up to the many pairs of eyes on her.
'Vhaa-aat? So I blew up a cauldron, beeg deal!' she whined. 'And I have a detention dis afternoon… cleaning de dungeons… vid most loathed professor in de school ok I see your point. But how bad can it be?'
Silence.
'Again, not helpink here,' said Andréa.
No one spoke.
'Do you vant me to feel bad all day because Snape took points from you?' exclaimed Andréa.
Milena coughed and shot a sidewards glance and Andréa, but received a sharp glare in return.
'De answer lies vithin your own vords,' said Milena.
Andréa looked around airily and then glanced back again, smiling sheepishly.
'Vhoops.'
Milena looked murderously at her friend.
'I svear to god, Andréa, you keep dis up, you vill be sorry,' she muttered, turning away.
Andréa made a mock-frightened face behind her back as they headed back above ground to the main hall for lunch. The remainder of the day seemed to fly past, and soon it was time for Andréa's detention. She trudged down to the dungeons, considering for a minute of bailing, but then she would probably be forced to do worse by Snape. Taking this information into consideration, she continued. Snape was waiting for her as she strolled in.
'Start there,' he ordered, pointing to the damaged jars of potion ingredients and spilled potions in one corner of the dungeon.
Andréa seemingly got to work without complaint, but as soon as Snape had left, she did a few, subtle spells to help her along the way, such as, enchanting the cleaning equipment, casting the occasional scourging charm. But as soon as Snape poked his head in, she would follow whatever enchanted piece of equipment she was using, which sometimes proved more of a challenge than she thought. Occasionally, the enchanted object would make a sharp turn, nearly letting her secret go. At this rate, improvement was faster than it would have been manually, but still dragged on.
Several hours later, Andréa had finished her task, and quietly snuck out and hurried up to the Great Hall for dinner. She met the others at the door.
'So, how was detention?' asked Harry.
'Easy,' replied Andréa. 'Just a few spells here and dere to help along de vay.'
At that, Snape came up from the dungeons. He cast a look at Andréa and paused.
'An impressive job cleaning, Miss Dragomir,' he sneered. 'If I didn't know better, I'd say you used magic.'
He glared at her, but Andréa remained unfazed.
'I'll be watching you,' he snapped.
He swept inside and out of sight. They all looked at Andréa.
'I swear,' said Ron. 'You must be the only Slytherin that Snape doesn't favour.'
'Meh,' said Andréa airily.
'Andréa, sometimes I teenk you are too vague for your own goot,' said Milena.
'How does being vague benefit me to begin vid?' asked Andréa.
'And yet dat vas possibly de sharpest teeng you've said all veek,' added Milena.
Andréa threw her a sarcastic wince.
'Sarcasm is de lowest form of vit,' said Milena.
'So vhat does dat say about you?' countered Andréa.
'I only use it vid you, because you can't possibly have de vit to understand my vit,' replied Milena.
Andréa frowned.
'You lost me. I'm getting confused vid de vit.'
Harry snorted. Milena made a motion with her hand flying straight over her head.
'Come on,' said Ron. 'We'll be late for dinner. I'm starving.'
'You're always starving,' groaned Hermione.
They all went inside and sat down at the Gryffindor table. Milena reached into her bag and drew out her python, Rhianna.
'Oh, my poor baby,' she gushed. 'You've been in dat bag all day.'
'You're still carrying that thing?' exclaimed Hermione.
Milena appeared not to hear her and laid the python on the floor beside her.
'Dere you go,' she said affectionately to the snake, and then turned back to the others.
Milena ate her dinner casually, while the others watched with awe as, Rhianna, her python was silently squeezing the breath out of an unsuspecting Third Year Slytherin, seemingly without Milena's knowledge. However, there was a slight glint in her eye to suggest otherwise.
'Milena,' said Andréa calmly. 'May I draw your attention to de fact dat your snake is slowly killing somevun.'
'I know,' replied Milena.
'Den, may I also point out dat dis could possibly give dem reason to expel you,' added Andréa. 'May I remind you of de school in Milan?'
Milena gave a sharp whistle, and Rhianna unravelled herself from around the neck out the fear-stricken, Slytherin boy and returned to her master's side. The boy promptly fainted from shock.
'Vhat vas dat?' asked Andréa, severely.
'He tried to cop a feel in de hallvay before,' she answered nonchalantly.
Andréa raised her eyebrows.
'Remind me never to get on your bad side,' she said. 'I know – too late,' she added as Milena gave her a sideways glance.
Andréa spotted Pansy out of the corner of her eye, trying desperately to get Draco's attention, who was otherwise occupied in his own thoughts, no doubt about her.
'Excuse me vun moment,' she said to the others. 'I need to defend my territory.'
She rose from the table and walked towards Pansy. The eyes of the others followed her, eager to watch the demonstration at hand. Pansy noted Andréa approaching and resolved to back down. Draco predicted what would ensue and stepped away from Andréa's path. Pansy, however, was not so intuitive. Andréa let out a piercing scream and rushed at Pansy, seizing a chair and attacking her with it, beating her repeatedly over the head. Milena stalked over to where the fight was ensuing.
'Put the chair down,' she ordered.
Andréa looked up from where she was, holding the chair over Pansy's head. She pouted and made puppy dog eyes at Milena.
'Do I have to?' she pleaded.
'Yes.'
Andréa lowered the chair and released her grip on Pansy, muttering inaudibly. She glanced up at Milena again, a spark of hope in her eyes, only to face a stern glare and a shaking head. She looked down again, despondently. She got up off the floor and returned to the Gryffindor table, where Harry, Ron and Hermione were sitting with confused expressions. Milena followed her, looking back at the many pairs of eyes staring after. She made a hissing sound at them. They all looked away and returned to the dinners. She sat down casually beside Andréa.
'I don't understand,' said Harry, after a long silence. 'Why didn't you use magic against Pansy?'
Andréa glanced at Milena quickly.
'Vell – she,' she motioned to Milena, 'has me on a ban from using magic against any human beings.'
'De insurance and casualty rate seems to have gone down since den,' added Milena. 'Dere is only so much damage she can inflict physically, and de radius of destruction is decreased. It all makes perfect sense.'
'I'm sure,' said Ron quietly.
Milena frowned.
'Have you ever seen vun of her magical fights?' she asked. 'You'd know vhat I'm talkink about. Debris everyvhere, much damage and destruction, not even restricted to de battleground. Is a daunting teeng to vitness, particularly vhen Magical Law Enforcement gets involved, and de clean up begins. You never know vhat crazy teengs dey dig up, and most of it, you don't vant to.'
She shot a look at Andréa.
'Remember de incident in Budapest?'
Andréa feigned innocent for a split second.
'I vasn't goink to give in to dat gold-digging whore,' she said outraged, her face contorting. 'She vas tryink to rip me off. Vhat kind of deal did she teenk she vas pulling?'
'She vas a ninety-five year old yenta!' cried Milena. 'Not a criminal mastermind!'
'I saw her make Evil Eye at me,' said Andréa, convinced. 'Dat voman had it in for me.'
'I teenk somebody's a leetle paranoid,' she replied.
'Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean dey're not out to get me,' said Andréa, staring around the room shiftily. 'Dey all vant me gone!' she cried out despairingly.
Milena patted her comfortingly on the shoulder.
'Dere, dere,' she said. 'Don't let de leetle purple monster dat lives in your head get to you. It have very powerful svay.'
'You know, sometimes is hard to tell vhen you have genuine concern,' said Andréa, 'or vhen you're just being a bitch.'
Milena just smiled at her.
'Bitch. Got it,' said Andréa.
The five of them trooped out of the Great Hall to the Entrance Hall. Andréa stared up at the ceiling, watching the clouds swirl in the enchanted sky.
'Is nice establishment you peeple have here,' she said. 'I deedn't get goot look vhen ve arrived.'
'Andréa,' said Milena. 'You're not here to talk architecture. Vhat do you vant?'
Andréa frowned.
'Vhy do you alvays teenk vhen I say someteenk unselfish or not centred on me dat I vant someteenk?'
Milena waited patiently.
'Ok, I get vhy you vould teenk dat,' she said. 'I vas just – '
Milena raised an eyebrow.
' – Vundering vhat you vere doink now?' said Andréa. 'Cos I have noteenk to do.'
'And vhat do you vant us to do about it?' asked Milena.
'Maybe, I come join you in de Greeffindor common room?' suggested Andréa.
'Draco von't miss you?'
Andréa paused to ponder this.
'True,' she said. 'I'll need to fix Pansy up before I go. I'll see you all dere.'
Andréa headed off to the Slytherin common room.
'Vell, I von't be de vun to let her in,' said Milena. 'I hope she remembers de passvord.'
A/N: Ok, Chapter 8 is in progress, but with my co-writer out of the country (she's touring Europe, lucky bitch), it is hard to come up with any semblance of a plot. Next chapter: meh, who knows what's going to happen…