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Chapter Eleven: Brewing Conflict

Beside her, Harry’s potion looked alright, but Ron, at the bench with Hermione, nervously surveyed the contents of his cauldron, which was spitting green sparks. Hermione’s was the exact purple as the textbook’s, but her hair had erupted into a halo of frizz as she bent painstakingly over her work.

Just as she reached for some stewed mandrake, Malfoy cleared his throat.

“Still planning to make good on your threat, Potter? What was it you said?” He turned around halfway with a razor-sharp smile, eying her like a shark. “You’d be watching me?”

Ruby forced herself to say nothing, even as Harry stilled beside her, pausing mid-stir for a second.

Seven times clockwise seven times clockwise seven times clockwise.

She needed to focus on the potion. Not Malfoy’s taunts, not Nott listening with his head cocked, wide-eyed with voyeuristic interest.

“Poor baby Potter,” Malfoy went on, voice lilting as if he were singing a lullaby, leaning closer. “Nearly driven mad by her visions.”

He made a grotesque face, tongue lolling out of his mouth, and eyes rolled back into his head so that all Ruby could see were the red-streaked whites. Nott hastily reached over to turn down the heat on Malfoy’s unattended cauldron, and Ruby wished there was some way she could do the same to her simmering anger.

“Shut up,” snapped Harry. “Leave her alone.”

“What’s wrong?” asked Malfoy, head tilted, all faux-concern. “Jumping at shadows?”

Nott’s shoulders shook with amusement.

Ruby and T.M. Riddle spy on Malfoy and Nott following the Snitch incident. Dumbledore supervises Harry's extra lessons. Brewing the Draught of Peace in Double Potions brings anything but relaxation. Read from the beginning at FFN|AO3!