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"Agreed." Said Morag. She had not the ti to say more. A wizard looking to be in his thirties with hair oscillating between the brown and the black ca into view and opened the door with a flick of his wand.
"Enter!" He barked, in a snap all too reminiscent of Snape the last year. So the man was Professor Timothy Whitehead, the Junior Potions Professor. The wizard didn't look like a pleasant man. His face was a nasty sneer, he had an ugly scar near his throat and his clothes were of a scaly material which looked similar to the dragon-skin gloves all the students wore in Potions. Everything in his attitude scread 'arrogant pure-blood'.
Entering the dungeons, Alexandra felt all her hopes that Potions class would be better this year evaporate like water in the forges of Barad-Dûr. The classroom was as sinister as the one of Professor Snape, and there were already nas enchanted over the different seats, sign they were not going to have the choice of partner for this lesson.
Alexandra was not the only one in a sombre mood. Most of the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff present had clearly hoped that not having Professor Snape was the next best thing to a victory, only to realise his replacent in front of them was perhaps worse. Okay, not worse, maybe as bad. Moreover, most of them had passed last year with a single partner and knowing you had to work with another partner in Potions was an unpleasant change.
Alexandra personally didn't mind, as she had always been paired with Zacharias Smith, and the boy was to be polite a disaster in Potions. Generally, handling him for more than a few minutes under Snape's taunts was more than enough to put anyone in a bad mood. It was with a certain relief therefore, that she noticed her partner for the morning would be none other than Morag MacDougal. Smith, on the other side of the room, seed to have understood the challenge waiting for him. His partner Sally-Anne Perks was sending him threatening glares promising painful retribution if he exploded sothing.
Whitehead didn't bother asking questions. After having called their nas, he took their holidays howork and unveiled the instructions to make a potion easing digestion problems. According to the Professor, the final result would be an azure blue colour with a sll of lemon.
"Prepare the ingredients, Morag." Alexandra whispered to her designed partner, drawing her wand and lighting a fire under the cauldron they shared. "I will deal with the rest." The red-haired witch on her right didn't protest, and her face sounded almost relieved when Alexandra took charge of the cauldron.
The two hours which passed after that were not a pleasant ti for the Hufflepuffs and the Ravenclaws. Last year, the magical potions made lasted rarely more than an hour; the work they had just been demanded lasted two, and while not extrely complicated one step missed was enough to utterly ruin the potion. Not surprisingly, Zacharias Smith had managed to transform the cauldron in front of him into a substance half-tal half-acid and was sent to the infirmary with burns on his hands. Just in face of Whitehead's desk, the cauldron of Wayne Hopkins and Terry Boot made sounds and was illuminated of a reddish colour which presaged nothing good.
Professor Whitehead was anything but a help in this class. The man was looking more and more like a cheap version of the much more dangerous Professor Snape, making snide remarks and useless comnts, but missing completely the lectures or what exactly had went wrong for a potion. Professor Snape was extrely talented in Potions, even his greatest critics were forced to admit it; by comparison Whitehead looked like he had had his Potions licence in a trickster kit. The adult only useful acts appeared to vanish the failed potions which turned dangerous and send to the infirmary those who were wounded. Alexandra was sure the accident which had befallen Roger Malone was pretty much the teacher's fault: the man had pretty much interrupted the Hufflepuff with one of his nasty mockeries in order to make him forget the timing to add the cloves. No wonder Potions was no one's favourite class.
"Looks like it's good." Whispered Morag, at the end of the imposed class. Indeed the liquid inside the cauldron had taken a pale blue consistence, and Whitehead had not bothered making a comnt at his last pass, instead choosing to go critic the poor Hannah Abbot behind Morag.
When the bell rang to signal the end of the double class of Potions, Alexandra's pair and the tandem between Susan Bones and Su Li were the only ones to have a potions to the Professor's expectations and received as a result 'only' five inches on the possible uses for the potions they had just done. The rest of the class was less lucky, twenty inches to give back next Wednesday, along with a dissertation how they had failed today. In all Ravenclaw had lost nine points and Hufflepuff eighteen. No one had managed to earn any House points, and the students were in low spirits when they filtered back in the Great Hall.
Great teaching, Professor. Superb teaching.
At lunch, Alexandra saw Hermione and Nigel were perhaps in a worse state than her, having just undergone a session with Binns. The ghost teacher, not to be worried, was as boring as ever.
"What've you got this afternoon?" Asked Alexandra, changing the subject. Speaking about Binns was in general sure to put you under sleep. The lassitude generated by the ghost knew no limits.
"Defence Against the Dark Arts." Affird Hermione too quickly not to be suspicious at once.
"Why," asked Nigel, throwing a look over Hermione's shoulder to glimpse the Gryffindor titable, "have you outlined all Lockhart's lessons in little hearts?"
Hermione plunged back the piece of parchnt in her school bag, flushing furiously. Alexandra turned her head towards Morag, expect the Ravenclaw girl was red like a tomato too.
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