“We can make this work? We can make this work?!” Isobel parroted back at Ernie, voice boarding on hysterical. She waved her hands energetically over their cauldron where a deep red coloured liquid was bubbling enthusiastically. “What are we supposed to do about this?? It’s supposed to be lilac, not RED!” she squawked, blonde hair falling out of its pins and dangling around her red-face. Calling her flustered would be an understatement.
They were tasked with making the Draught of Living Death in their NEWT level potions class today, no easy task. Slughorn had warned them at the beginning of the class that he’d only ever had one student complete it within an hour but this had meant nothing to headstrong Isobel. She had been convinced that she would be able to do it, especially with Ernie as her partner. They were at the top of their class so if anyone could, it was them. Clearly, that wasn’t the case.
Desperately she flipped back through her notes. “I know that we added the Valerian roots, I saw you add them myself,” she muttered, half for her benefit and half for Ernie’s. “We were supposed to stir it 10 times counter clockwise for two and a half seconds each…maybe we stirred for too long?”
Pride wounded and at the end of her rope, Isobel slammed the textbook shut. “I don’t understand, we’re the two best in the class! This potion should be perfect!!” she growled, frustrated. A fellow student eyed her warily from across the table, shuffling slightly farther from the heated blonde. Isobel didn’t like to lose. Or be bad at anything at all, really.
Attempting to calm down, she took a deep breath. Slowly, she cast her eyes up at her partner. A small smile found its way onto her face.
“…I’m blaming this one on you.”
