Potions, Class 1

[James Potter]

If Remus wasn't one of James' best friends, he would have yelled about he should have said no. James swallowed hard and turned back to his book. Things were starting to not go right and it was starting to bother him, however he wouldn't say anything to Remus about it, considering Remus did need to get out. James situated himself to where his back was half turned towards Lily and Remus.

[Sirius Black]

Sirius turned and grinned at Remus, then turned back to Kris. "Well, since everyone's asking everyone to Hogsmeade, Kris, will you go with me this weekend? I was planning to ask you anyway, but I was gonna wait until we met by the lake."

[Kris Lupin]

Kris nodded, "Of course." She smiled then started to apply a few of the ingredients for the potion. She hoped she would get it right, she wasn't the best at potions, she had barely passed potions the last years.

[Sirius Black]

"Cool," said Sirius. "This weekend should be pretty fun." He winked at her, then turned back to his potion. He skimmed the directions quickly, then lazily began dumping ingredients into his cauldron.

[Robin Slater]

Robin had listened to all of this quietly, not saying a word. She was a little confused. Sitting over here with James and Sirius, she felt a little like the outsider sitting with the popular kids. She tried to shake off that feeling, but the truth was, she was not sure why she was here. Why had James asked her to Hogsmeade? The way he acted when Lily asked Remus made it seem pretty obvious that James would rather be going with Lily. She had turned him down, so Robin was just his second choice. Was she OK with that?

She sighed softly as she began to work on her potion. After a minute, she glanced back to see how James was doing with his.

[Severus Snape]

Severus sneered at the comment, but gave a short laugh when James ruined his potion.
"Well, Immaturity can be amusing to watch." He said with a self important smirk, his potion was a perfect shade. He motioned to some of the roots that needed to be peeled on Natalie's side of the table. "They are easier to peel with the back of the silver knife, Less waste that way than with the blade side." he muttered to her.

[Natalie St. Clare]

Natalie smiled slightly. "Thanks," she said, and began to scrape along the edge of the root with the blunt edge. "Am I going to be an outcast now, because I am friends with you?" she asked in a whisper. "Because if I am, I don't care. I just wanted you to know that."

[Severus Snape]

Severus felt a squirm of pleasure at the thought of such a loyal friend. he flushed lightly in his blotchy fashion, mostly the tops of his ears that were covered by his hair. "Be sure to cut first along the grain of the root, then across." he said changing the procedure of the potion.

[Natalie St. Clare]

Natalie quietly did as he said. "Thank you," she whispered. "You know, ehen I was younger, there were these kids in my neighborhood. They thought something was wrong with me, because I almost never talked. They used to pick on me and stuff." She shrugged. "Little did they know I just didn't find them worth talking to. Besides, I knew more about them than they realized." She gave a slight smirk.

[Severus Snape]

Severus expertly added the right amount of ground beetle wings to his potion, giving the concoction a simmer. "That sounds typical, It's like dumber children know to pick on smarter ones." he said stirring his potion three times clockwise, thus removing the shimmer.

[Severus Snape]

**Let's finish this thread non?**

[Natalie St. Clare]

Natalie glanced over at him, watching how he stirred the potion. "I suppose that's how it always is," she said. "Daddy said it was the same for him... he was smarter than they were, and they didn't like that. Some people need to believe that they're better than everyone else, and if they can't do it one way, then they'll do it another way. It's almost sad, really."

[Severus Snape]

"Yes, sad." said Severus cutting the flame under his potion and swinging the cauldron away from his small burner. It would cool faster that way, with no interfering magic. "don't cast cooling charms on your potions, it does funny things to the brew." he said grabbing his mother's well worn potions ladle from his bag. He was a bit distracted, but he always was at the end of a potion, terrible things could go wrong at the end. Not unlike when Potter started his, he chuckled at the thought.

[Natalie St. Clare]

"Thanks," Natalie said as she took her potion off of the burner. She didn't mention that she hadn't learned how to do a cooling charm yet, anyway. She felt like she was the only first year student in school; all of her friends were older than she was. "That didn't seem so hard," she commented. "I hope it turns out OK."

[Severus Snape]

Severus refrained from checking it for her, but it did have the right color and looked to be the right thickness. "I think it will be fine! We'll wait a moment before bottling it up and taking it to Professor Slughorn." He said prepping his bottle for the potion and taking out a small funnel to transfer his potion. After that moment, his potion had settled into the bottle with no problems. He smiled at Natalie as he went to take his bottle of potion up first.

[Sirius Black]

Sirius was having a lot of trouble with his potion. For one thing, the color was now the color of mud. Even worse, it also had the sludge-like consistency of mud. All in all, it looked like he'd added a whole bunch of ingredients just to make something he could have scooped up outside.

He scoured the instructions, trying to figure out where he had gone wrong. He'd added the right ingredients in the right order... had he just added too much of something? Was that enough to make it look so wrong?

[Emmeline Vance]

Emmeline ran to the dungeons. Why her last professor had to talk to her, she didn't know. But now she was late. She had a pass, but it gave her very little time to get from a tower to a dungeon. As she finally made it to the door, she slowed her pace and walked in. There were a couple of glances her way, but everyone was busy making their potions or at least trying to make them right. She slowly walked to the professor's desk and placed the note on the desk with a small, sheepish smile. She still had time to spare.

As she looked for a seat, she noticed all the Ravenclaw's had stuck together and now there wasn't any room. She got a couple a apologetic waves from her friends. She rocked back on her heels and sighed. Well, this was awkward. She noticed a seat close to the wall and took it. But soon regretted it. There was a putrid smell and she should have known that it was because of Sirius Black. Knowing her luck, it would blow up and burn her skin. Maybe she should help.....

"Ummmm, you added to many ..." She cleared her throat. Hopefully she didn't sound like a busy body. She just didn't plan on getting blown to smithereens today.

[Sirius Black]

Sirius was stirring his potion slowly. The stuff was getting so thick he could barely even get the wooden spoon through it. He tugged and tugged, and the spoon snapped in half.

Hearing the voice next to him, he turned to look at the girl who'd just walked in. She was cute... a Ravenclaw, he thought. "Yeah, well... I guess I measured wrong," he said. That would have been true, if he'd actually measured anything at all. "Guess it's too late to fix it?"

[Emmeline Vance]

She smiled a little. He was very good looking. But, that's what Sirius Black was known for. That and pranks.

"You could try stirring the other way." She said, handing him her ladle. "Or if you have any, because I think you added too many mandrake roots, you could try to add more earth worm hearts. That might counter act the roots. But I'm not sure. My aunt showed me this potion once, but I don't really remember." She shrugged and looked at the other members of the group. There were mostly Gryffindors and one Hufflepuff. They were all pretty intent on their work.

"I'm Emmeline Vance, by the way. You can call me Emme."

[Sirius Black]

Sirius grinned at her. He was sure he'd seen her around before, but they'd never been introduced. She was much cuter than he'd realized before. But he wasn't going to fall into this trap again. He was dating Kris... and then there was Amy.... what was wrong with him, anyway?

"Nice to meet you, Emme," he said, in a cool but friendly voice. "I guess I just don't have the patience for potions... I just start dumping stuff in. Never really been one for doing exact measurements and stuff. Or, you know... reading directions. Or following them, for that matter. Anyway, how many earthworm hearts should I add?"