"I have never been much of a potion-brewer and this one is particularly complex."
Chapter Thirteen: The Beginning of Hatred
James and Sirius had sat in the common room waiting for Remus and Peter to come back. When the two boys finally did crawl through the portrait hole Sirius and James practically ran over to them and greeted them in their own special ways, Sirius giving Remus a great bear hug. Remus had arrived looking very pale and scratches were, once again, covering his arms. They all noticed and quickly asked upon his condition. He tried to explain them away by saying his dog had gotten him when they were rough-housing in his father's den. James tried his best to pretend that he believed him but found it quite hard to do.
Once they were situated in the comfy chairs by the fireplace they quickly began to share the many details of their holidays. Remus stayed very quiet the whole time as Peter, who was quite talkative, kept going on about all of the wonderful things he and his cousins did while Sirius tried to change the subject to the house-elves and all of the exploring James and he had managed to do while the other two had been gone. It would have been quite funny watching the two of them switching subjects back and forth if James hadn't been so worried about Remus. It turned out that Remus only talked of his own holiday when they questioned him and his answers always turned out to be very vague and he refused to look them in the eye as he spoke. Finally, after many failed attempts at a real conversation among the four of them they opted to turn in for the night.
The next morning greeted them warmly with another brisk January day. The boys were obligated to layer their robes in preparation for their lessons that day, which would be held in the Transfiguration room and then their schedule would send them down to Double Potions where it was bitterly cold. Sirius smiled proudly as he put his books in his own bag for the first time in several months. He also added a few extra "fun" things in the bag as James laughed silently to himself; this was going to be an interesting day.
Once they were sure they had all of their essays and books they headed down to the Great Hall where they had a fairly uneventful breakfast. Remus seemed to be a bit more talkative that day as he told them about his parents and how maybe they could visit him over the summer; his parents apparently really wanted to meet them. Sirius thought that was a great idea, but then anything that suggested a way for him to get away from his own parents during summer was always a good idea to Sirius. Peter continued to try and talk about his family like he had the night before and once again Sirius countered it with comment after comment on the kitchens and how they should all go down there one night and just hang out.
When they had finished with breakfast they wandered up to Transfiguration while Peter continued to ramble on about his family, which none of them paid much attention to him. They took their usual seats at the back of the room and waited for class to start by drawing back and forth on a scratch piece of parchment.
They had just finished a very funny cartoon drawing of Professor McGonagall and were adding speech bubbles to it. When the woman finally walked up to the front of the classroom, silently ordering all eyes to fall on her, she gave her usual short demonstration of the lesson and set the students to work.
James smiled to himself as he turned his toothpick into a needle easily on the second try. He heard Sirius groan beside him and mumbled something that sound a lot like "show off" before he finally got it down himself. They spent the rest of the hour in silence passing the drawing of McGonagall back and forth adding odd things that McGonagall would never say into the speech bubble. Class finally ended and the four boys made their way down to the dungeons.
"I can never get anything in that class." Peter whined from behind them. "I barely got the match to look shiny." The boy sighed deeply.
"Don't worry about it." Remus said softly, "You're really good in potions, and I'm terrible."
Peter blushed. "You're not terrible."
"I am."
James looked up from his conversation about the McGonagall drawing with Sirius and smiled weakly, "We're all good at something, can we just leave it at that?"
Remus nodded in agreement, probably only as a way to try and avoid an argument, and they slipped into the potions room where Severus Snape sat in his usual spot at the front of the room, just to the left of Professor Lamia's desk. They moved over to their own usual spots, once again, at the back of the room and took out their supplies for the class. Remus moaned slightly as he looked up at the board where the potion of the day was written. James instantly saw why. It wasn't going to be a fun class. The potion was extremely difficult, for a first year level, and the added threat of Professor Lamia didn't help any either.
She had a tendency of starting her classes with little pop quizzes on their knowledge of general potion making. She would then proceed to upgrade the questions to their knowledge of the potion they were going to make that day. Throw in her nasty sixth sense of always knowing exactly who knew the answers to her questions and who didn't, the fact that she knew exactly who didn't know the answer and her need to ask that one particular person to answer just so she could take points from their house, well, to put it bluntly, it didn't make the class fun. They had all decided after the first week of lessons that she delighted in embarrassing the students, especially Gryffindors.
They talked quietly back and forth and started a new cartoon of a very pretty vampire, which they cleverly labeled as the Potions Mistress herself. The bell finally rang and Sirius quickly stowed the drawing away in his backpack. Heaven forbid the professor caught them with it. They'd all have detention until they died. Every student in the room had shut up, and turned to face the front of the room the instant the bell rang for fear of what would happen to them if they didn't.
Professor Lamia came into the silent room a minute after the bell had rung with her robes barely moving behind her. Her dark hair swayed as she made her graceful trudge to the front of her room as her icy blue eyes darted around to see if anyone was doing something, that, in her eyes, was wrong. She smiled dryly at the class when she found nothing to call attention to, like she had done so many times before, as if she was disappointed.
"Can anyone tell me what the property of bezoar is?"
Instantly, Snape's hand shot up in the air. James heard Sirius snicker to his left as Lamia ignored his hand and continued to scan the room for the right student. Finally, her eyes rested on their corner.
"Mr. Lupin."
Remus' body went rigid at the sound of his name being called and he turned just slightly enough to look at both James and Sirius with a pleading look on his face. He didn't know the answer. He quickly looked back to the professor and with an apologetic voice, barely above a whisper; he said simply, "I don't know."
She made a clicking sound with her tongue that cut through the thick silence. "Well, then, Mr. Lupin, you should take the time to read your textbook more extensively. Maybe then you could actually pass my class." She stated with a curt smile. Remus was unable to look her in the eyes. James had never hated anyone more than at that very moment, "Ten points from Gryffindor for your incompetence." She scanned the room and finally called on Snape, who had been waiting patiently with his hand in the air.
"It will act as an antidote against most poisons."
"Very good. Twenty points to Slytherin."
So it went, back and forth, with more incorrect answers and then her giving the Slytherin's a chance to pick up the dropped ball. For the next fifteen minutes it went on until she was absolutely sure they all knew what they were doing. Then she let them get to work on the potion they had been quizzing on.
James collected the supplies they would need from Lamia's own potion supplies and went back to his and Sirius' table. He started adding the ingredients very carefully, double checking the instructions, making sure he didn't botch anything up and give her a chance to embarrass him too badly for the day.
"Why does she have to play favorites?" Remus asked sorely as he stared over at Snape, who was talking contently with the professor whilst he worked on his potion.
"I don't know." Sirius said dryly as he poured some crushed bezoar into his potion, "McGonagall never does."
"I wish she would." Peter chimed in as his potion gave off a white mist like it was supposed to after he added root of Asphodel, "Then we could earn back most of the points Lamia takes away."
James chuckled as he watched Remus nod enthusiastically at the comment and then moan in disgust as his potion let of a dark purple mist rather than a white one. His own was a slightly grayish white but he figured it was close enough. Professor Lamia busied herself by walking around the class criticizing the student's work. When she came to Remus she was so disgusted it seemed that she couldn't even find anything to say that would be potent enough to convey her true thoughts on his potions capabilities. Remus, though, was ecstatic by that fact and went on with his completely off potion without really bothering with the amount of ingredients too much. He figured that since he had already destroyed it, it was pointless to try and do a good job.
Soon James found his potion complete. He put it into a flask and carried it up to the desk followed by the others, all with potions varying in color. Sirius' potion was a night sky blue rather than James pale blue. Peter's was an even darker blue, which was the actual color it was supposed to be. Remus' wound up being a pale purple but he didn't even care. He didn't plan on taking potions after fifth year anyway.
"What is that?"
They all turned around and came face to face with Snape. His lips were curled up in that half smirk of his and he was looking contently at Remus' potion with a mix of contentment and amusement. "A potion." Remus said softly, now suddenly caring that he had blown off the period and hadn't tried.
"A potion," The greasy haired boy mocked, "that's terrible."
He looked over the others work and finally fell on Peter's, "Even the dunce can make a good potion you must really have no talent."
Peter's face went crimson and he quickly turned to look down at the floor in shame. Sure everyone knew Peter was terrible at every other subject but Potions was where his talent was. James glared at Snape as he walked back over to his cronies. Sirius was silent with fury. He hated it when anyone picked on one of his friends. They placed the potions on Professor Lamia's desk. Remus in particular was especially bent out of shape about his own failure now, but Lamia still could find nothing critical to say about his work.
They went back to their tables and sat quietly, not bothering to even try and talk to one another while Lamia was still in the room. Sirius, though, was clamoring around in his backpack for something and finally came out with a bottle from James' coloring kit. James smiled at Sirius as the boy pocketed it knowing exactly what his friend was going to do with it.
The bell rang and the students filed out of the room, most of which were scurrying away as fast as they could into the open hallway. But James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter just moved to the side of the door and waited for Snape to stop talking with Professor Lamia and leave the classroom. When he finally did, he didn't even notice them waiting for him. They, then, followed him down the corridor until they were far enough away from all teachers.
Sirius walked in front of them and slowly pulled the flask that held the color of his choice that he had picked out that morning. He smiled widely as his large stride quickly caught up with the boy. "Oy, Snape-y!"
Snape turned around quickly at the sound of his name being called and his face turned to inclusive anger when his eyes grazed upon Sirius. Snape, apparently, was unable to find something clever to say to him and merely turned around. He began to walk from the four of them in a fast stride. Sirius gave a slight chuckle and only sped up his own walking pace. Soon he was walking side by side with Snape, trying to gain his attention, the flask still in his hand.
Sirius kept smiling madly as he continued to try and get the boy even angrier with him. Every once and awhile he would look up to see what the others were doing. Then, finally, when Snape looked up at Sirius to say something particularly nasty, his greasy bangs falling into his eyes out from the ponytail they had been tied into, Sirius dumped the bottle of color on the boys' skin.
James watched in a mixture of amusement and terror at the thought of what Snape could possibly do to Sirius in return for this action. He soon found himself running towards Sirius as he watched, in what seemed like slow motion, as Snape pulled his wand out from one of the pockets in his robes. He ran in front of Sirius and looked at Snape with even more hatred than Snape had shown Sirius when his eyes had first fallen on him.
James soon felt his lips curl into a cruel and content smirk as he looked at the damage the little flask filled with color had done. Snape's skin was bright orange and it had spread from the point of application to cover every inch of it. His face would have been turning slightly red in rage had the orange not been there.
"I hate you! All of you!" Snape yelled as if he was trying not to cry. He turned to Peter and Remus then back to James and Sirius, "Move!" He yelled at James.
"No."
"You think your being noble here, protecting your brainless friend!" He yelled with every trace of hurt in him, which was now fully doused in hatred so one would never be able to tell that seconds before he sounded close to tears. James said nothing and just stood there staring at Snape, "Move before I make you!"
"Right; and how exactly are you going to do that?"
"IMPEDIMENTA!"
James stared in horror as the spell hit him directly in the chest knocking him backwards into Sirius where they both collided with the stone wall behind them. Sirius opened and closed his eyes as small dots of light flickered in front of them. He felt the back of his head where it had hit the wall and winced slightly in pain, as he felt something wet. He brought his hand forward and looked at his fingers; blood.
Remus came forward and held out his hand without saying a word. James took it and hoisted himself up off of Sirius who was trying to right his breathing. James turned around and held out his own hand to his friend. Sirius took it but said nothing, obviously, upset with himself that he had even let Snape get the spell in, in the first place, a spell that was most definitely far to advanced for an average first year. He looked down the hallway in the direction of the Slytherin common room and groaned, Snape was so far in the Dark Arts it was amazing he had time to bother with anything else.
"You're bleeding." Peter stated to Sirius, breaking the complete silence that had enveloped the group. Then he looked at James, "You are too."
James wiped his nose and sure enough it was bleeding quite nicely and there was a cut similar as Sirius, in the back of his head, where, he too, had hit the stone wall. Remus only stood there as if he were in deep thought, and then he walked away from them knowing they'd follow him. They did, knowing exactly where they were headed. They were in store for another heart felt afternoon with Madam Pomfrey; they were all getting to know that woman very well.