the_debt_of_time

"It's more about how it smells than looks. It'll smell differently to you than to
anyone else. It should remind you of the things that attract you." Mia paused to look at her
own potion, which was finally beginning to show the same pearly sheen across the top as
Lily's.
Turning off the heat, she stopped stirring the liquid before her gaze drifted back to
Lily, who was hovering over her cauldron, breathing in deeply and letting her eyes glaze
over.
Lily exhaled, blinking slowly, pupils dilated. "I smell treacle tart," she grinned as she
confessed. "And something outdoorsy, like orchard blossoms, and.. ." Her smile began
to fade as she breathed in deeply again. "A... broomstick?" She paled, jumping away from
her cauldron, bright green eyes wide.
Mia grinned at her friend. "I didn't know you liked treacle tart."
Lily blushed profusely. "I don't. I mean, I do, but it's not.. ."
Beaming, Mia breathed a sigh of relief as she realised that Lily Evans had somehow
just figured out that, deep down, she had at least a mild attraction to one James Potter.
"What does yours smell like?" Lily inquired, obviously trying to change the subject.
"Parchment and grass," Mia said without smelling the potion. "I've smelled
Amortentia before." She thought of her first encounter with it during her original sixth
year when Harry had been using the Half-Blood Prince's book. Her eyes automatically
drifted across the room to Snape, who was sitting at his station with his arms folded across
his chest, looking bored while three phials of his finished potion sat next to a cleaned
cauldron, the show off.
"Parchment and grass?" Lily asked. "That's all? Does that make sense to you?"
"Sometimes other smells get mixed in." Mia shrugged her shoulders thinking of
firewhisky, leather, and tobacco. Sirius. "Smell it for me."
Lily raised a brow. "You don't want to?"
Mia shook her head. "I've been told recently that I should be making my own
choices. I don't want a Love Potion to tell me what I'm attracted to."
"Sirius and Remus?" Lily probed knowingly.
"Sirius wants me to date Remus."
"That seems... sensible of him. Was he confunded?"