September 3rd, 1974Gryffindors and Slytherins slipped through the dungeon doors to enter the Potions
classroom. Cauldrons had already been set up at each station, and Slughorn stood at the
head of the class, grinning brightly. The look on his face was incredibly disconcerting to
Mia, who had never known the man to be happy without a self-serving reason.
"Good morning! Good morning! I'm very excited for today. Some of you have
displayed a fine aptitude for Potions," he said, eyeing Snape, Lily, Damocles Belby, Adrian
Abbot, and Mia. When his gaze fell on the four Marauders, Slughorn sighed. "Others still
need a bit of improvement."
None of the boys looked more annoyed by the declaration than Remus.
"Over the next few months, in addition to brewing pre-approved potions from the
textbooks, I am assigning each of you one specific potion ingredient. I want to see your
skills at discovery and invention!"
Mia's eyes widened; depending on the ingredient, this could be an outright disaster.
She could only imagine what Frank would do if given something like alihotsy; the common
ingredient in Laughter Potion was also known to cause hysteria. While Alice was quite
adept at brewing, one thing was for certain: Neville's aversion to cauldrons was a genetic
trait passed down by his father.
Slughorn then went down the list. Alice received a chizpurfle fang, Amycus Carrow
got dandelion root, and his sister received leech juice. Frank—thankfully—took eye of newt,
which was not known to explode in any form. Mary received flobberworm mucus, and
Elora Zabini took baneberry. That just left the Marauders and the future members of the
Slug Club—though Mia was determined to avoid the group at all costs.
"Mr Black," Slughorn said with a smile and placed a small bottle on the table. "Your
ingredient is fairy wing."
Sirius glared at the bottle as though it were contaminated. "These are used in Beauty
Potions. Give it to one of the girls."
Both Lily and Mia turned and scowled viciously at him.
Slughorn merely ignored the outburst and moved down the line. "Mr Potter, you
have onion juice."