Ten Seconds Until Chaos
Potions classes were held in one of the largest dungeons in the castle.
Maybe it was the professor's personal preference. He certainly seemed to enjoy the dark, gloomy, damp atmosphere of the dungeons, perhaps because it reminded him of his years at Hogwarts as a member of Slytherin House, whose common room wasn't very far from there.
Not that being a Potions Master meant you had to be... well, Snape.
After all, there was Mark, a Potions Master whom Percy and Harry didn't consider any less skilled than Snape, yet who was the complete opposite of the great grumpy bat.
As in every Potions lesson, all the students were already in place, standing behind their cauldrons, which gave off faint curls of steam atop the wooden tables where their brass scales and the ingredients for today's lesson had been laid out.
And as in every class, Snape prowled between the cauldrons and their rising vapors, making venomous remarks about the Gryffindors' work while the Slytherins basked in every criticism.
The good thing for Harry during Potions was that he wasn't actually bad at the subject.
He'd already learned a fair amount from Aunt Mor, and even picked up a little from his mother and Mark.
So even if Snape wanted to, he couldn't really criticize Harry's potions.
Of course, the professor could always find some other excuse to do it anyway.
And take points.
The bad thing for Percy was that, unlike his brother, he wasn't very good at Potions.
To him, it always felt like he was just making some very strange soup.
To make matters worse, his partner was Neville.
So the two of them, who somehow managed to make less than one competent potion brewer between them, always ended up producing something far too dangerous to drink.
Nothing like the Swelling Solution they were actually supposed to be brewing.
But Percy seemed even more distracted than usual.
Every so often he glanced toward Harry, while Harry kept glancing toward Hermione.
The two of them looked like they were waiting for something.
Ron was sweating too, looking around in every direction and managing to look as suspicious as humanly possible.
Fortunately, Ron's role in the plan was very small.
Which meant he probably couldn't ruin it.
When Hermione finally gave Harry the signal, Harry looked toward Percy and silently held up all ten fingers, telling him they had ten seconds.
Then he suddenly ducked.
At the exact same moment, a Mist-made Harry appeared standing exactly where he had been, as though he'd never moved at all, calmly studying his potion.
The same thing happened with Hermione and Percy.
Meanwhile, Ron pretended that the Harry standing beside him was made of flesh and blood, even going as far as acting like he could touch him.
At the same time, the real Harry and Percy carefully slipped between the students' cauldrons, trying not to make too much noise with their footsteps while casually grabbing random ingredients from different tables and tossing them into several of the Slytherins' cauldrons.
Including Crabbe's.
Goyle's.
And, of course, Malfoy's.
Ten seconds later, Harry and Percy returned to their places and stepped back into their own illusions.
The illusions vanished, completing the switch without anyone noticing.
It didn't take long for the changes to the potion recipes to take effect.
Suddenly, as though they were erupting volcanoes, several of the Slytherins' cauldrons exploded, spraying their potions high into the air like a rainstorm.
Fortunately, most of it was harmless.
Well...
Except for the fact that the potions still retained their swelling effect, causing anything they touched to inflate instantly.
The students who didn't manage to dive beneath the tables in time began watching different parts of their bodies swell grotesquely as chaos and panic took over the classroom.
Goyle now had eyes swollen to the size of dinner plates.
Malfoy's nose had ballooned to an enormous size, while his lips hung down ridiculously, turning him into a complete monstrosity.
And Crabbe had tried to protect himself by ducking his head, but the potion splashed across his back instead, leaving him with a huge hump.
It looked like a parade of monsters.
"Silence!" Snape shouted, restoring order as his face remained like stone, his irritated expression sweeping across the room while he seemed to be trying to understand what had just happened.
"Anyone who was splashed by the potion, come over here to be treated and stop causing a panic. Then I'll find out exactly what happened," Snape said, looking around the classroom, his cold eyes lingering especially on Harry and Percy, who were desperately trying not to laugh while putting on the most innocent expressions they could manage, as though they had never left their places.
And everyone who had seen them would have said exactly the same thing.
Snape finally looked away from them and handed the antidote to each of the students whose bodies had been grotesquely distorted by oversized limbs.
Harry caught sight of Hermione slipping back into the classroom, still hidden by the Mist.
The look she gave him made it perfectly clear that everything was done.
She stepped back into the illusion Harry had created for her.
Harry immediately dismissed the illusion and discreetly nudged his magical tome, hiding it a little farther beneath the desk before calmly looking up again.
By then, after seeing that all the students had returned to normal, Snape began walking among the exploded cauldrons.
He examined them carefully, collecting traces of the potion and sniffing them thoughtfully with narrowed eyes.
He looked at the ingredients on each table, frowning suspiciously.
His gaze shifted to several other workstations that were now missing a few ingredients.
Finally, his eyes settled on Harry once more.
He stared at him silently.
Without saying a single word.
Before Snape could continue his inspection, the bell announcing the end of class rang.
It had never been so welcome.
"That was brilliant. Did you see Malfoy's face?" Ron said, unable to stop laughing after seeing his enemy in that state.
Percy was enjoying himself just as much.
Only Harry still looked a little more serious.
"He knows it was me," Harry said as he and the others hurried toward Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, with Hermione carrying the last two ingredients they needed.
"Or at least he suspects it."
"How? It's not like he can see through that weird magic of yours. You said only Hermione and... well, Percy can do that," Ron asked, confused.
He didn't really understand how the Mist or the illusions Harry created with it worked.
At least he understood that very few people could actually see through them.
Though he couldn't help feeling a little jealous that Hermione could...
And he couldn't.
"Tyson can too. And Harry once mentioned there was someone else at Hogwarts who could. It isn't Snape, is it? Because if it is, we're in trouble," Percy said, sounding a little worried.
"I don't want Mum or Aunt Mor turning us into guinea pigs if we get expelled," he added, for some reason mentioning an oddly specific punishment.
That earned equally confused looks from Ron and Hermione, neither of whom had any idea what he was talking about.
"No, it isn't Snape. But I think he can figure things out," Harry replied. "Remember after Mrs. Norris was attacked? Snape wanted my magical tome, and he talked about my magic. He seems very interested in it."
"Snape doesn't have any proof that it was you," Hermione said, trying to reassure him as she added the last two ingredients to the cauldron.
"And Professor McGonagall already said that no professor has the authority to seize the sensitive information stored in your magical tome, at least not without a fully justified reason," she added, repeating some of McGonagall's own words.
Judging by Harry's expression, he accepted that...
But he still wasn't entirely convinced.
He had the feeling Snape was watching him for a different reason.
It was as though he were trying to uncover something much deeper about the strange magic Harry used.
And there was something unsettling about the fact that, even though he couldn't see through the Mist...
For some reason, he seemed to...
Recognize something.
As if he'd already been familiar with it in the past.
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