Chapter Text
“I swear Snape is just trying to get me to fail this term. Detention and an essay on Befuddlement Draughts!” you exclaimed, slamming your bookbag on the table.
The Great Hall had grown unnaturally quiet. Perfect. Just what you needed–everyone to know how badly you were falling apart this year.
“Oh, come on. It can’t be that bad,” Harry said, grabbing your shoulder. Sure, he was trying to cheer you up, but you were well past the point of cheering up.
“A week’s worth of detention and 30 inches of parchment on Befuddlement Draughts! Is there even that much to say about them?”
You sighed and pinched the bridge of your nose to relieve some of the tension.
“Just think of it as extra practice for your O.W.Ls,” Hermione chimed in.
Of course, she would think of it that way.
“Right. I’ll try to keep that in mind while I’m busy singeing my eyebrows off or releasing noxious fumes into the entire dungeon. On second thought, that might not be such a bad idea–the second one… not the eyebrows.”
Hermione rolled her eyes at you from across the table. She never liked it when you didn’t take your studies seriously. As an Auror, the chances of you having to brew potions were minuscule at best, so you were confident that if you could just manage an Acceptable on your Potions O.W.L, then you’d be fine.
The rest of dinner passed rather uneventfully. Hermione needed to catch up on Arithmancy homework, so she left early, Ron ate more chicken than should be humanly possible, and Harry happily complained about Professor Snape with you. Before you knew it, you found yourself standing in front of the large, dark door of the Potions classroom.
It was just a few hours. It couldn’t be that bad, right? Maybe you’d have to scrub a few cauldrons or prep some ingredients for the first years. But Hermione’s words nagged you. Practice. Practice. Was Snape going to make you brew a potion all by yourself for detention?
Shit.
You took a deep breath and reached your hand up to push the door open, but before your hand could make contact with the door, it shot open. Your hand still raised, you stared up at the looming figure in the doorway.
“Professor Snape! How is your evening going?” you asked, unable to think of anything else to say to break the silence. You quickly moved your hand back to your side.
He glared down at you, not willing to dignify your question with a response. That was probably for the best. You didn’t really want to know how his night was going, especially since your detention probably didn’t improve it. Although maybe it had. He liked torturing students, didn’t he?
After a few agonizing moments, Professor Snape moved out of the way and motioned for you to enter. It was eerie walking through the large, empty classroom. The sound of your shoes echoed on the stone walls, making the room feel simultaneously impossibly large and claustrophobic.
A station in the center of the classroom was set up with a newly lit fire and a fresh cauldron. Hermione was right, of course. If that had been the worst of it, you might have been able to put on a smile and make the best of a bad situation. Unfortunately, the tall, lean figure with platinum blond hair leaning against Snape’s desk meant you were in for a true night of torture. The way he smirked at you suggested he wasn’t here for detention, and, by Godric, did you want to Stupify that smirk right off his face.
Snape stood next to Malfoy. Both of them leered down at you, arms crossed, judgment written all over their faces.
“You will stay here until you’ve scrubbed all the dirty cauldrons and brewed an Erumpent Potion,” Snape started.
Erumpent Potion? Why couldn’t you remember which potion that was?
“I have some other matters to attend to, so Mister Malfoy here will be in charge of you,” Snape finished.
Brilliant. Just what you needed, power-drunk Draco in charge of your detention.
“Mister Malfoy,” Snape turned to Draco, “I expect you to make sure everything goes smoothly in here. I shall be back in a few hours.”
Draco nodded, and with a swish of his robes, Snape strode out of the classroom. Silence loomed over you as Draco’s smile only grew once the door shut behind Snape.
“Come now, get to it! You haven’t got all night. I need my beauty sleep.”
“Shut it, Malfoy. No amount of sleep is going to help you,” you jeered, setting your bookbag down on the table near the potion station.
Draco clicked his tongue and shook his head slowly as he made his way over to you.
“That’s not a very nice way to talk to the prefect in charge of your detention, now is it?” he asked as he leaned in close.
He was trying to intimidate you. It was working, but you absolutely couldn’t let him know that. You decided you’d done enough bear-poking for the time being and set about trying to figure out what exactly an Erumpent Potion was. Flipping through your textbook, your heart sank as you found the instructions.
An explosive potion. Snape wanted you, a student who could hardly brew a Wiggenweld Potion correctly, to brew a potion that explodes when touched? There was probably some secret trick to brewing it that you were never going to get right.
What was it you had said about your eyebrows earlier?
Draco cleared his throat and tapped at the invisible watch on his wrist, obviously annoyed with how long it was taking you to get started. Okay, Erumpent horn, tail, and exploding fluid. Yes, that list of ingredients sounded just as bad as you imagined.
You set about grinding up the Erumpent horn and chopping the Erumpent tail. A few times, Draco let out a horrifying laugh as he watched you chop the tail. He never offered any help, only rage-inducing ridicule that only fueled your self-doubt.
After about thirty minutes of preparing the ingredients, it was time to add them to the cauldron. According to the textbook, the exploding fluid and tail were to be added first, allowed to simmer until bright green, and then the tail was to be added immediately. That didn’t seem so bad.
The first two ingredients went into the cauldron without much commotion, and you felt confident enough to leave it simmering while you got to work on scrubbing the cauldrons.
“Care to join me, Malfoy? You look a bit bored. Is my performance not as disappointing as you’d hoped?” you asked while washing the third cauldron. There were about 10 more to go.
“Not on your life. Wouldn’t catch me doing that in a million years. Besides, this is your punishment, not mine, and don’t worry, watching you mess up this potion will be entertainment enough.”
Jerk.
You checked on your potion every few minutes, but even after you had finished cleaning all the cauldrons, the brew had still not turned green. The textbook didn’t give a specific time, but this was starting to feel excessive. You'd had to deal with Draco looking down on you for the last two and a half hours, and you were starting to contemplate whether another week of detention was worth actually hexing him.
Probably not.
“Ah! There it goes!” you exclaimed as the viscous liquid started to turn a sickly green color. It wasn’t as bright as you had imagined, but that must have been right. You’d followed everything to the letter. No mistakes.
You read the next set of instructions. Sprinkle the powdered horn over the cauldron, give it a quick stir, and bottle it up quickly. Once the potion turned amber, it was too late; any touch would set off the explosion.
The creaking of the classroom door behind you startled you. Snape stalked across the room and stood in front of your cauldron. He didn’t speak, didn’t raise an eyebrow–didn’t even look at you. You thought it best to just continue with the potion and grabbed the bowl of powdered horn.
You whispered a silent prayer to Godric that the potion would work and grabbed a handful of the powdered horn. The horn particles landed on the green goop and started to spark—a mini explosion all around the surface of the liquid.
You looked up at Snape, confused. This wasn’t in the textbook. His eyes moved from the cauldron to you, to the cabinet behind his desk, and finally to Draco, who looked quite pleased with himself.
In a flash, Snape had rounded the cauldron and pushed you away from it. The explosion that followed burned your robes and caused the room to spin. Or was that just in your head? It took you a few minutes to get your bearings back, but Snape sprang into action quickly.
“Mister Malfoy!” Snape boomed as he picked himself up off the floor.
“What?” Draco asked, laughing in the corner of the office, conveniently out of the blast zone.
“Don’t “what” me. You added bursting mushrooms to the cauldron, didn’t you?” Snape accused, moving closer to the prefect.
“How do you know it was me? Maybe they just messed up the potion. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Snape didn’t look convinced.
“Professor, sir, I didn’t add bursting mushrooms to the brew. Those weren’t even on the ingredient list–”
“Like you would know a bursting mushroom from a Doxy egg. Who knows what you could’ve added?” Draco interrupted.
You might not have been great at potions, but the one thing you did know about them was the ingredients. The technique was another matter entirely.
“That is beside the point. You were in charge of making sure nothing went wrong, and now it has.” Snape straightened himself up and wiped some more dust off his sleeves. “Detention, the rest of the week.”
Draco stared up at his head of house in disbelief, “But, sir, I can’t get detention. I’m a prefect.”
“Oh, Mister Malfoy, I assure you, you can. And you have. I’ll see you both here tomorrow after dinner. Now get out!”