Chapter 7 - First week at Hogwarts part 2 (2/2)
As the lesson continued with them being told to concoct an actual potion, Neal became nervous as he never had concocted a potion before. Not to mention, everything is going fine for him. He can't afford to make Snape unhappy and get bad in his books.
Then Snape told everyone to pick a partner. While he was going to ask Malfoy to be his helper, Daphne asked him to be her partner. It made him relieved as he doesn't need to take all the blame if something goes wrong with the process.
He stood beside her and asked, ”Is this your first time?”. Daphne nodded. Neal smiled, ”well, you don't seem nervous as you should”. She replied, ”Ah, it's fine. Professor Snape seems to be well interested in Potter. Even if we make mistakes, we'll still be criticized a lot less than them”.
Neal smiled and looked at the Brewing instructions for the Boil Cure potion.
”Ok, give me the snake fangs. I'll crush it into a fine powder while you prepare all the necessary equipment”.
Neal added 6 snake fangs to mortar and used his strength to crush them into powder with the help of Pestle.
Daphne then said, ”Ok, so, add four measurements of it to the cauldron”. Neal did as she said. Then she heated the mixture to 250 for 10 seconds.
While both were harmoniously working together and completed the potion within an hour, soon, a disaster is going to appear at Neville's table. A pink smoke raised from the cauldron which indicated it's complete.
Snape stopped at them and checked the cauldron. He nodded, ”well done, Slytherin, Greengrass. Five points to Slytherin”.
As they both gave one hand high-five to each other, it made Hermoine frustrated as she wasn't able to complete first and made a slight mistake which earned her scolding from the Professor.
Later, after Hermoine and Draco completed their potions successively, Harry and Ron's is on the way to finally get completed after several mistakes
Just then, Neville and Seamus blew up their cauldron and the hot potion was spilled out everywhere which disturbed the process of Harry's too who is standing nearby to him.
Snape snarled, ”Idiot boy. You added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire, didn't you?”. After clearing away all the mess, he looked at Harry, ”as for you, while everyone is standing very far from each other, why did you stand near them and ruined your potion?.
Two points from Gryffindor for intentionally wasting the ingredients”. While Harry is about to argue, Ron stopped him as it would get far worse and they will lose more points if he started to talk back to him.
Gryffindors silently left the class in depression for losing 3 points while Slytherins excitedly left the class for gaining 10 points.
As the Slytherin dormitories were near the class, Neal and others went straight to the common room and sat there.
30 minutes later, Neal went to the grounds with others for Flying classes with an excitement. Daphne asked, ”you seem excited for this class?”. He replied, ”I always wanted to sit in the airplane back in the muggle world but never got the chance. That's why I'm excited to fly in the air for the first time. Did you ride on the broom before?”. She replied, ”well, of course. I have”.
Then he turned aside and asked, ”how about you, Draco?”. He boasted, ”of course I have. I practiced riding on a broom and playing Quidditch ever since I was a child”. When Neal was about to ask what is Quidditch,
Professor Ronalda Hooch gathered everyone, ”what you all waiting for. Standby the broomstick. Come on, hurry up”.
Unlike other classes where it's a joint class with one house every time, Flying classes along with the History of Magic and Transfiguration were attended by everyone at once.
Madam. Hooch said, ”stick out your hand and say up”. As Harry, Draco, and Daphne made it in the first try, Neal too tried. But to his surprise, just as he raised his hand and looked at the broomstick, it jumped into his hand on its own without him saying ”UP”.