Potions lessons were uncomfortable enough these days,

Potions lessons were uncomfortable enough these days, seeing as Harry, Ron and Hermione had to share a desk. Today, Hermione moved her cauldron around the table so that

she was close to Ernie, and ignored both Harry and Ron.

“What've you done?” Ron muttered to Harry, looking at Hermione's haughty profile.

But before Harry could answer, Slughorn was calling for silence from the front of the room.

“Settle down, settle down, please! Quickly, now, lots of work to get through this afternoon! Golpalott's Third Law ... who can tell me—? But Miss Granger can, of

course!”

Hermione recited at top speed: “Golpalott's-Third-Law-states-that-the-antidote-for-a-blended-poison-will-be-equal-to-more-than-the-sum-of-the-antidotes-for-each-of-

the-separale-components.”

“Precisely!” beamed Slughorn. “Ten points for Gryffindor! Now, if we accept Golpalott's Third Law as true...”

Harry was going to have to take Slughorn's word for it that Golpalott's Third Law was true, because he had not understood any of it. Nobody apart from Hermione seemed

to be following what Slughorn said next, either.

“... which means, of course, that assuming we have achieved correct identification of the potion's ingredients by Scarpin's Revelaspell, our primary aim is not the

relatively simple one of selecting antidotes to those ingredients in and of themselves, but to find that added component which will, by an almost alchemical process,

transform these disparate elements—”

Ron was sitting beside Harry with his mouth half-open, doodling absently on his new copy of Advanced Potion-Making. Ron kept forgetting that he could no longer rely on

Hermione to help him out of trouble when he failed to grasp what was going on.

“... and so,” finished Slughorn, “I want each of you to come and take one of these phials from my desk. You are to create an antidote for the poison within it before

the end of the lesson. Good luck, and don't forget your protective gloves!”

Hermione had left her stool and was halfway towards Siughorn's desk before the rest of the class had realised it was time to move, and by the time Harry, Ron and Ernie

returned to the table, she had already tipped the contents of her phial into her cauldron and was kindling a fire underneath it.

“It's a shame that the Prince won't be able to help you much with this, Harry,” she said brightly as she straightened up. “You have to understand the principles

involved this time. No short cuts or cheats!”

Annoyed, Harry uncorked the poison he had taken from Siughorn's desk, which was a garish shade of pink, tipped it into his cauldron and lit a fire underneath it. He did

not have the faintest idea what he was supposed to do next. He glanced at Ron, who was now standing there looking rather gormless, having copied everything Harry had

done.