Harry and Ginny slid into their seats mere seconds before Professor Snape stalked into the Potions classroom. He strode to the front of the room, his black robes billowing menacingly as the students’ whispered conversations faded away and ceased.
“Your Eye of the Maiden potions should be nearly finished,” Snape snapped as he spun around to face the class. “If you have managed to follow instructions correctly, all that should remain is the addition of the final two ingredients. Instructions are on the board.” He tapped the blackboard with his wand, causing a few lines of sloppily written instructions to appear:
- Find your subject’s weight and add one ounce of dark chocolate per fifty pounds while stirring anticlockwise
- Continue stirring until the chocolate has completely dissolved, then simmer exactly ten minutes, remove from fire, and add three of your own tears
Iris Winters, a tall Slytherin girl with long, shimmering black hair, looked up abruptly at the mention of her name.
“Yes, Professor?” she asked in a deferential, almost admiring, voice.
“You mentioned last week that you were in need of extra credit in my class. Is that still the case?”
“Yes, sir,” Iris answered.
Snape nodded. “Jamison, Gibbon, you may use Miss Winters as your subject. You may begin.”
Harry breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the two skinny Slytherin boys at the back of the room relax their tense posture. When Snape had announced that they would be testing their potions on their partners, he had immediately thought of William Jamison and Miles Gibbon, the only same-gender partnership in the class. Now, he found that this was one of those rare occasions when he actually agreed with Snape’s judgment. As funny as it would be to see those two profess their undying love for one another, it wasn’t something he wanted to have to watch.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to have you as my Potions partner,” Harry whispered as he and Ginny began setting up their cauldron.
“I know what you mean,” she laughed quietly. “Can you imagine suddenly becoming obsessed with one of those Slytherins?”
“Not really,” Harry admitted as he retrieved his silver knife and a large chunk of dark chocolate. “So, who gets to be the victim?”
“You do,” Ginny answered, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Why me?” Harry asked playfully. “You’ve got me wrapped around your little finger already and you know it. I should get a turn for once.”
“You had your turn for several years; I get the next few.” She smiled sweetly at him, and he knew it was no use arguing.
“You had to bring that up, didn’t you?” he grumbled. “Fine, I’ll do it. But only because I don’t feel like arguing with you.”
“I knew you’d see things my way,” Ginny replied with a smirk.
Harry quirked an eyebrow at her. “Oh, really? How?”
She leaned in close to his ear and lowered her voice even further. “Because I’ve got you wrapped around my little finger.”
Harry chuckled along with her as he went to get in line to use the scales.
“A hundred and fifty pounds,” he reported a few minutes later when he arrived back at their table.
“So that’s three ounces of chocolate, then,” Ginny murmured to herself as she began cutting their block of dark chocolate into small pieces and placing them carefully on her set of brass scales.
Harry watched in silence, not wanting to disrupt her concentration as she measured out the precise amount of chocolate.
“Do you want to stir?” she asked when she was satisfied that she had measured out the perfect amount.
“All right,” Harry answered with a shrug. It wasn’t like he actually cared who stirred the potion, after all.
As he slowly stirred the simmering solution in an anticlockwise direction, Ginny added the chocolate a bit at a time. It took another five minutes of stirring for the chocolate to completely dissolve, turning the potion dark brown.
“Start,” Harry ordered. Ginny flipped over her ten minute hourglass, and they sat back to watch as their potion bubbled sluggishly. Before thirty seconds had passed, however, Ginny spoke up.
“How am I supposed to get exactly three tears into that potion?” she wondered aloud.
Harry frowned. She had a good point; forcing yourself to cry wasn’t exactly a normal activity.
“Well, you’re a pretty good actress,” Harry offered. “Can’t you just, I don’t know, make yourself cry or something?”
Ginny bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud.
“Is there a problem, Miss Weasley?” asked a sneering voice. Harry and Ginny looked up to see Professor Snape looming over them.
“Actually, there is, sir,” Ginny replied with a polite smile. Snape’s eyes narrowed.
“You see, Harry and I were just trying to figure out how I could make myself cry to get the tears we need for the potion.”
“Do you have any suggestions, Professor?” Harry added in a light tone.
Snape glared at him. “Physical pain would most likely be effective,” he answered before moving on to another table.
Harry bit down hard on the insides of his cheeks to avoid laughing at Snape’s response to his question. Ginny’s face was flushed dark red as she held her breath in an attempt to stifle her own laughter. Finally, just as Harry was beginning to worry that she might faint, she took an enormous gasping breath.
“I’ll bet he wanted to be the one to provide the physical pain, too,” she whispered after regaining her composure. “But to answer your question from before, I can’t just make myself cry. If I’m pretending, I have to cover my face or run off to the bathroom or something so nobody can see that my eyes are dry.”
“What about onions?” Harry asked.
“What about them?” Ginny asked in return.
“Does chopping them make you cry?”
“That’s brilliant, Harry,” she whispered excitedly. Then her face fell. “But we don’t have any onions, and it’s not like Snape’s going to let us run to the kitchens to get one. There’s no time for that, anyway; look, we’ve only got about three minutes left.”
“Then we’ll have to conjure one,” Harry said simply as he picked up his wand. Although he had never had a reason to try conjuring an onion before now, the fact that they had been working on conjuring spells in Transfiguration ever since school began in September gave him the confidence he needed to try.
Harry focused his thoughts on a mental picture of an onion and made a small circular movement with his wand while whispering, “Conjurus.” A small, slightly lopsided white onion appeared on the table.
“You did it!” Ginny exclaimed in an excited whisper.
“Yeah, but hurry; I don’t know how long it will last,” Harry replied as he pushed the onion and knife toward her.
Ginny picked up the knife, sliced the onion in half, and brought one of the halves up to her face as she inhaled deeply. Almost immediately, tears began forming in the corners of her eyes. After several more deep breaths of the onion’s fumes, Ginny’s eyes were streaming. Harry carefully captured three of her tears in a small potion vial before Vanishing the onion and helping her wipe her eyes.
“Thanks,” she murmured as her tear ducts finally began to calm down.
“No problem,” Harry whispered as he glanced at the hourglass. They had just over a minute to go before the fire needed to be extinguished and the tears added. He stood with his wand ready to douse the flames, while Ginny picked up the vial of tears.
“I wonder if this is like Polyjuice Potion,” Harry mused idly as he watched the sand falling through the hourglass.
“What do you mean?” Ginny whispered.
“What? Oh, I was just wondering if the tears have to be added right away or if you can save some of the potion for later and add the tears to it then.”
Ginny’s eyes widened and she broke into a grin. “You can! I remember reading that part just last night. It said that people almost always just add the tears to the whole batch all at once since they don’t want it to be used to attract ‘the object of their desire’ to someone else, but it isn’t necessary. Harry, we have to save some of that potion and sneak it out of here.”
Harry looked at her in alarm. “What?” he hissed. “Ginny, you know Snape threatened to Memory Charm us if he found out we were misusing this potion.”
“Yeah, but how likely is it that Fred and George will go running to him after we use it to prank them?” she retorted with a self-satisfied smirk. “Now hurry up; we don’t have much time.”
Harry rolled his eyes, unable to quite believe what he was agreeing to do, and quietly retrieved five glass vials from his potions kit as he watched the last grains of sand fell through the center of the hourglass. As the final grain dropped, he waved his wand at the small fire under the cauldron, extinguishing it neatly.
“He’s looking the other way,” Ginny whispered. Taking that as his cue, Harry quickly filled his five vials with the dark brown potion. As he slipped them into his bag, Ginny tipped her three tears into the cauldron, causing its contents to sizzle and pop, and finally turn bright red.
“We did it,” she whispered, her tense body relaxing with relief.
Harry just nodded and took her hand under the table as they waited for Professor Snape to give them further instructions. Twenty minutes before the end of class, the professor returned to the front of the classroom.
“Prepare a vial of potion,” he instructed. “We will test them one by one.” He paused for a few moments as the students fumbled around, each pair filling a glass vial with a sample of their potion.
“Davidson and Winters, you will begin,” Snape ordered silkily. Peter Davidson and Iris Winters strode confidently to the front of the room and presented him with a small vial of dark purple potion.
“Which one of you is the subject?”
“I am,” answered Davidson.
Snape handed the vial back to him. “Drink.”
Looking only slightly nervous, Davidson uncapped the vial and drank the potion in one long gulp.
“Now, Mr. Davidson, what is your favorite color?” Snape asked coolly.
“Black,” was the prompt reply.
“Oh?” Snape affected surprise, although it was clear to Harry that Davidson’s answer had been exactly what he was expecting. “Would you care to explain why to the class?”
Davidson turned to gaze adoringly at his Potions partner. “Black is the color of Iris’s beautiful, shimmering hair.” He reached out his hand to run his fingers through it and she blushed. “It’s perfect in every way, so soft and wonderful. And her dark eyes are almost the same color. I could spend days just gazing into them and never get bored. They’re-”
“Shut up, Davidson, before you make the entire class sick,” Snape spat as he forced an antidote down the boy’s throat. Harry ducked his head and bit his lip, trying to control his laughter. This must be the reason Snape hated being required to teach about Love Potions.
“Was that amusing, Potter?” Snape hissed.
“No, sir,” Harry answered in a surprisingly steady voice. He was not, however, able to hide his grin as he spoke.
Snape’s eyes narrowed before he turned back to the pair who had just tested their potion. “Infatuated rambling is the most difficult side-effect to eliminate,” he stated. “Other than that, your potion was quite effective. Exceeds Expectations.” Smiling broadly, Peter Davidson and Iris Winter headed back to their seats.
“Potter! Weasley! You’re next,” Snape announced with a calculating sneer.
Harry stood and followed Ginny to the front of the room, where she handed the professor their vial of bright red potion.
“Which one of you will be taking the risk of getting poisoned by your own substandard potion-making?”
With extreme effort, Harry forced himself not to rise to the bait. “I will, sir,” he answered politely.
“Very well,” Snape replied with an almost triumphant smirk as he handed him the vial of potion. “Drink up, Potter.”
Harry uncapped the vial and swallowed a mouthful of potion. An odd tingling immediately began spreading from his stomach out toward his extremities. When the tingling reached his head, his eyes immediately sought out Ginny. She was the most beautiful girl in the room. Of course, that wasn’t saying much at the moment, but Harry was certain that it would always be true, no matter who else happened to be in the room with her. And the best part was, she was his. He stepped forward and slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her close to his side. She was his, and he needed to keep all of those other blokes in the class away from her.
“Feeling a bit protective, Potter?” Snape sneered.
“So what if I am?” Harry asked belligerently.
“I wonder.... How would you react if I did this?” Snape slowly drew his wand and aimed it at Ginny’s chest. In a flash, Harry’s wand was in his hand and he was aiming it threateningly at the professor’s throat.
“Do not threaten me, Potter,” Snape growled.
“Then don’t threaten Ginny,” Harry shot back.
“Can’t we just give him the antidote now, Professor?” Ginny asked worriedly.
“There is no need,” Snape replied as he stowed his wand. “You may take your seats.”
“But-”
“Sit down, Miss Weasley!” Snape ordered. Ginny turned as if to walk back to their table, but immediately spun back around with her wand out.
“Accio antidote!” A vial of clear potion shot from Snape’s pocket to her outstretched hand, and she dumped it into Harry’s mouth before the professor could react. Harry’s head cleared at once, relief flooding him as he realized that he no longer felt that frightening possessiveness toward his girlfriend.
“Detention, Weasley,” Snape seethed as he snatched the vial of antidote away from her. “And fifty points from Gryffindor.”
“Thank you, sir,” Ginny responded as she pulled Harry back to their table.
“As you have all seen, Mr. Potter’s behavior was not altered in the slightest by that potion,” Snape announced to the class. “It was worthless. Dreadful.”
Harry and Ginny’s mouths fell open in identical expressions of shock as Snape turned to them with a triumphant sneer. “Be grateful I didn’t make it Troll.”
Harry didn’t hear him call the next pair of students forward as he set his vial of potion back on the table in front of him. His mind was still reeling from outrage at Snape’s blatant unfairness, and fear of his own reaction to the Eye of the Maiden. He shuddered at the memory of how possessive he had felt. Snape had been right about one thing: ‘Love Potion’ was definitely a misnomer. There was no question in his mind that he loved Ginny, and what that potion had made him feel was an extremely poor imitation at best. After all, love wasn’t possession. If it was, then Lord Voldemort would have no trouble at all understanding it.
A scream and a crash pulled Harry from his thoughts. He looked up to see Miles Gibbon lying on the floor, trapped underneath Iris Winters as she kissed him with desperate passion.
“Petrificus Totalus!” Snape’s voice rang out. Iris’s arms snapped to her sides and her body went rigid, allowing Gibbon to push her off of him and scramble to his feet. Snape knelt down and poured three full vials of antidote down her throat before releasing her from the Full-Body Bind. Red-faced and staring at the floor, she rushed back to her seat where she buried her face in her hands as her shoulders shook with silent sobs of mortification.
“Poor,” Snape hissed at the pair of Slytherin boys who had prepared the potion. “You must have added nearly three times the amount of chocolate necessary for someone Miss Winters’ size.”
“Professor?”
Harry’s jaw tensed at the sound of the drawling voice coming from the doorway. He didn’t need to turn around to know it was Draco Malfoy.
“Your class does not begin for another fifteen minutes, Draco,” Snape reminded him smoothly. Harry marveled at how quickly the Potions Master could remove the venom from his voice if he wanted to.
“I know, sir,” Malfoy drawled. “I just thought you might want to see this before you dismissed your sixth-years.” Harry looked up to see him handing Snape a copy of that morning’s Daily Prophet. Snape’s eyes rapidly scanned the page, but his expression remained unreadable.
“Thank you, Draco,” Snape said after he had finished. “I may be late for the seventh-years’ class. Tell your classmates to continue working on their antidotes until I return.”
Malfoy nodded in agreement, and then turned to leave after pausing just long enough to send a smirk in Harry’s direction.
“Class dismissed,” Snape announced. “Weasley!” Ginny looked up. “Come with me.”