Chapter 77: 77 The Next Lesson

Monday morning arrived and everyone went down to breakfast. The food was served and halfway through the meal, the mail was delivered. Hedwig flew in and a lot of people were surprised when it didn't go to Harry. The owl landed with a large package right in front of Lavender and she let out a loud squeal.

Lavender opened up the parcel and squealed again, because inside was the very fancy and expensive outfit that she had always wanted. She had reluctantly told Harry about it, not really believing that he would actually spend that much money on her just for finding the ghosts for him, and here it was. Her dream outfit. She lifted out the top and hugged it, then caught her breath at squishing it.

“It's all right.” Harry said as he handed Hedwig several owl treats. “It has all the proper clothing enchantments like anti-wrinkle and dirt repelling.”

“Oh, Harry.” Lavender said and put the top down, saw it was fine, then she got up and walked over to him. “Thank you very much.” She said and bent over to hug him for several moments. As she let him go, she gave his cheek a kiss and walked back to her seat.

“What was that all about?” Pavarti asked, shocked. Her friend had just kissed a boy in front of the whole school. A lot of other people were looking at them with shock on their faces, too.

“I was just thanking him.” Lavender said and her eyes almost sparkled as she looked at the outfit.

“Are... are you... going out?” Pavarti asked, hesitatingly.

“No.” Harry, Hermione, and Lavender said at the same time, which made several people laugh.

“She just helped with a project and I thanked her by getting her a present.” Harry said. “That's all.”

“Sure, sure.” Seamus said, not believing a word. “Who else have ya given presents to?”

Harry's head turned and his eyes immediately went to Hermione. A few people laughed, probably the same ones. Harry couldn't tell, so he kept turning his head and looked at Neville. The laughs died out and were replaced with confusion.

“They really are just gifts of thanks.” Hermione said, her face red.

Everyone had no choice but to believe her.

“What did he get you?” Lavender asked and Hermione shook her head.

“I let her get copies of the books she wanted.” Harry said to take the attention from his friend.

“And Neville?” Ron asked.

“He let me get a new wand.” Neville said, because he understood that he shouldn't say a hundred galleons. He knew that everyone would freak out if he said that.

“WhatcanIdotohelp?” Ron asked so fast that no one heard what he said.

“What? Sorry?” Harry asked.

“What can I do to help?” Ron asked in a normal voice. “I'll do anything! Anything at all!”

“Wow, Ron. Excited much?” Dean Thomas asked with a laugh. “I know seven galleons is a lot in the muggle world...”

“It's almost a hundred pounds.” Hermione said, quickly doing the conversion in her head.

“Blimey, I didn't realize...” Dean took out his wand. “I think I need to send my parents a really long thank you letter.”

“I'm using my brother Charlie's old wand.” Ron said. “It works, but... you know...”

“It didn't choose you.” Neville said.

“It's old, too.” Ron said, his voice sad. “I know if I had my own...”

“Ron, can you go get Susan Bones for me? I need to ask her something.” Harry said and held out a single galleon. “She's the blonde haired girl next to the blonde at the Hufflepuff table.”

Ron grabbed the galleon and stood up, then ran around the Griffindor table and over to the Hufflepuff table. He walked up and down it, then walked back. “Which one was she again?” He asked and several people laughed, Harry included.

Harry knew his blonde beside the blonde comment had gone right over Ron's head. “She's that one right there.” He said and pointed to her. She was one of the people that had laughed, too.

“Got it!” Ron said and ran over to her, whispered something, and waved at Harry.

Susan was a good sport and played along. She nodded and both she and Hannah got up and came over behind Ron. “Hi, Harry. I just heard that you want to ask me something.”

Harry gave her a big smile. “I'm going to be practising spells after supper and wondered if you wanted to join in.”

“I'm sorry, I can't. We've got homework to catch up on.” Susan said.

“You didn't do it already?” Harry asked.

Susan shook her head. “I spent too much time going over what Auntie told me to do.”

“I guess it was different than what she told me.” Harry said with a bit of a smirk.

“Of course it was.” Susan said with a laugh. “She wants me to excel, remember?”

Harry nodded. “Well, if you catch up or finish early, let me know.”

“I will.” Susan said and briefly touched his shoulder, then she and Hannah walked back to their table. They both let out little giggles and sat back down to finish eating.

After that, Ron hovered around and was pretty much Harry's gopher all week. Of course, Harry didn't need that and he knew that Ron was only in it for the money, so he just made up stuff for Ron to do. Returning a book to the library, getting a dessert from another table, checking to see if the bathroom was clear for a private bath, and anything else he could imagine.

Ron on the other hand, knew he was being given free money for doing stupid and probably unnecessary things, so he made sure he was enthusiastic about it and offered to do other tasks. He had even kept an ear out all week for Susan's response to see if she did catch up on her homework. She didn't, so all he could do was tell Harry that she was still busy.

During that week, Harry did his best to master the extra spells that Hermione had given him. He also adjusted his Bombarda spell's aim to hit properly. The upgraded spell Deprimo gave him the key. It included a wand steadying component and it let you aim, even while expelling so much explosive force from your wand. It was a great modification and Harry easily adapted it to Bombarda.

In fact, because of that modification, he could use the powered up version called Bombarda Maxima. It created a more concentrated explosion into a smaller space and could cause a lot of damage, unlike the Deprimo one that started out creating craters. He couldn't test any of the dangerous spells unless he was outside and he used the enclosing curtain and silence spells to hide his experiments.

Hermione and Neville were great spectators and encouraged him a lot. It let Harry concentrate, especially when Hermione used her Protego shield spell to protect herself and Neville from flying dirt and rocks. Filing the hole back in was a bit of a pain, until Harry realized that he was 'packing' the dirt back into the hole. He laughed and told Hermione, who gasped and then laughed as well. They quickly taught Neville the packing spell and he got the joke, too.

After that revelation, they took turns packing the dirt back in and also using the spells. They had lots of time after school most days, since they did their homework quickly. The only day they didn't do anything was Wednesday, because that was a Harry and Hedwig day. Even Ron was smart enough to not interrupt on that day.

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Both Neville and Ron stayed after flying lessons that day and to Harry's surprise, Ron hopped on a broom and raced him. Hedwig enjoyed having another person to race against and the group delivered the brooms just as quickly as if it was just Harry and Hermione doing it. Hermione and Neville took turns levitating the brooms for Harry to catch as well, so they all had fun.

It took Harry nearly all week to find... or better yet, discover... a good base metal to test the philosopher's stone on. He had to do it when no one else was around, so that wasn't a lot of time to search. It was when he was getting his potion equipment together on Thursday night for class the next morning, that his eyes fell upon the standard size 2 pewter cauldron. He had remembered seeing a solid gold cauldron in Potage's Cauldron Shop.

After a quick letter to the shop and an order for another pewter cauldron, he asked if it mostly consisted of one of the base metals. The next morning, Hedwig made the delivery at the breakfast table. Harry opened the attached note and smiled. The owner professed that his cauldrons had the highest quality and quantity of tin with only a small amount of copper mixed in.

Harry was very happy with that, since both were base metals, and he only had to wait until the break before lunch to conduct the test. He put the unopened package into his trunk with the letter and no one mentioned it until they left breakfast to go to class. The others ran to go to Griffindor Tower to get their potion things, except for Harry, Hermione and Neville.

Ron met them outside the Potions classroom as they stood there and waited for the door to open. “If no one else is going to ask, I'm going to.” He looked at Harry. “What was in the package you got?”

“A cauldron.” Harry said.

“That's it?” Ron asked. “Why didn't you open it?”

“It's just a cauldron.” Harry responded.

Ron gave him an odd look, then he looked down at Harry's trunk. “I can carry that for you.” He said, despite having his arms full and them being right outside the classroom.

“No, you can't. It has anti-theft charms on it.”

“Oh.” Ron said. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

Harry smiled and the door opened. They all entered the classroom and he gave Hermione and Neville their things. They quickly set up their equipment and waited for the potions professor to appear.

Severus Snape strode into the room and the door closed behind him. He went to his desk and picked up the box there. Without a word, he walked around the classroom and handed back the potions that everyone had made in the last class. He didn't look at Harry as he put the potion on the desk and then did the same to Hermione.

Harry picked his up and was surprised the cork had been removed. He was also surprised by the mark on it. “This sucks.” He said with a sigh.

“What is it?” Hermione asked and didn't try to hide her potion, despite getting Exceeds Expectations on it. It was because of Harry's help that she had done so well and she wouldn't hide that from him.

“The professor gave me 'Acceptable'.” Harry said.

“Oh, Harry. I'm so...”

“Now I can't complain that he's been giving me all 'Troll' results on purpose.” Harry said, to everyone's surprise.

“Mister Potter.” Snape said and everyone looked at him, not just Harry. “As long as you do your work, it is Acceptable and you will pass this class.”

There was a lot of low chuckles from the Slytherin side of the room and Harry could see some of them hold up their uncompleted potions to show him that they had 'Acceptable' written on them.

“Today's class will be preparation only.” Snape said and a lot of the students let out groans. “If you do not get this right, then next week's class where you actually brew the potion will be a waste for you.”

Both Harry and Hermione understood what that meant. If Harry didn't perform perfectly today, he wouldn't be allowed to attend the next class.

“We've got this.” Hermione whispered as Snape tapped the chalkboard.

Harry and Hermione recognized the telltale sign of the Disillusionment Charm ending and smiled at each other, proud that they had figured out the writing was the same color as the chalkboard until the spell was cancelled.

There was a lot of writing and a lot of ingredients. The preparation of them was many and varied, which meant it really was going to take a long time to prep them. Hermione copied it out as Harry read it through to find the one with the longest prep time. He copied them down in the time order, just like he had for the last potion, and the two of them got to work.

The thing was, they only needed to prep one portion of the ingredients. Thanks to Harry's experience with the Geminio spell and the Inanimatus Conjurus spell, he could make identical copies of whatever he had. Instead of using multiples of an ingredient, which used up his potions kit, he instead used one and copied it. Leaves, beans, prunes, snake fangs, and everything else that he might use, he created multiples of and used them.

Any liquid he needed, he put a tiny bit of it into a flask and used the Refilling Charm to fill it. Even if it was juice from the prunes or sliced beans, he would only need a small amount to make as much as he wanted. Hermione copied him and did the same things herself, using the same techniques, and she had even transfigured all of her vials to crystal and made them unbreakable.

As Harry and Hermione worked, deftly using their wands as well as knives to prepare the ingredients, everyone seemed to lose their concentration as they kept glancing over at the pair and the flurry of activity on their table.

Professor Snape let this go on for several minutes, then he walked over to their table. “Mister Potter.” He said and loomed over them. “You are distracting the other students.”

“Huh?” Harry looked up and saw that several people were looking at him. “I'm sorry, Professor.” He said and waved his wand to create a red privacy curtain that cut the entire table off from view.

“Now you cannot see the chalkboard.” Snape said and successfully held in his sneer.

“We wrote it all down.” Harry said and tapped the parchment. “It's also charmed to repel dirt and liquid, so there's no chance of it being smeared or ruined.”

Snape looked at it and wasn't surprised that it had been reorganized by preparation times.

“We also copied the original.” Hermione offered and showed the instructions as an exact copy of what the professor had on the board.

Snape squinted his eyes for a moment, then turned around and walked into the curtain. Harry didn't laugh as he cast the parting charm and it split open. Snape stood there for a moment, fought down his anger and embarrassment for not checking for the opening before walking into it, then he walked back over to his desk. He turned to see that the opening was gone and he couldn't hear or see what was going on inside the curtain.

“Get to work.” Snape snapped at the students staring at the red curtain. He promised himself that no matter how well Harry Potter's potion turned out, it would once again only get an 'Acceptable' grade.

Inside the curtain, Harry and Hermione were laughing.

“I can't believe... you did that!” Hermione said when they calmed down.

“Me, either.” Harry said. “I should have parted it first, except... I felt like... he wasn't being fair. We were working and it's not our fault we gathered attention.”

Hermione took a breath and let it out. “I don't want to have the curtain up all the time.”

Harry chuckled. “I'm sure by next class, the professor will have a reason why we can't have it.”

Hermione smiled. “I guess you're right.”

“We better get back to work. If we don't get all of this done by the time class is over, I'm sure the professor will ask us to not come back.”

“You, anyway.” Hermione said with a grin and Harry had to laugh.

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