Gifted Student

Fall—I mean, Autumn is coming. The cool breezes in the air, the noticeably gloomier clouds reigning in the sky, the seasonal allergies that a few unfortunate students are privy to.

It also means that the dungeons get colder. For whatever reason, I might've been in something of a fugue, cold air sinks and warm air rises. Why does it do that? I don't rightly know, and I don't like it! Not one bit!

It's fine for Hufflepuff since our common room is built to be as comforting as possible, meaning there's always a cozy warmth in there. However, it means that Potions classes suck more than normal. Not only do you have to deal with Snape's snapy-ness, but you also have to deal with colder temperatures.

Most of the girls, those that can afford it anyway, have started wearing more wool clothing. Much to my enjoyment, Tori wore some black wool stockings, and, after a positively glowing review, has decided to make them a permanent addition to her clothing.

Hehe.

Today, in class, we've been partnered up to make something especially festive for the upcoming holiday—the Pompion potion. This might possibly be the most useful and useless potion out there. It turns a person's head into a pumpkin, for an amount of time that can be only determined by a select few that have the eyes for potion quality.

However, imagine you need a distraction. Slip a Pompion potion into someone's drink. Most poison spells don't notice it and having the Minster or someone have their head turned into a pumpkin would surely turn some heads.

"Dblurp?" Alexandria blurbles, asking some inane question. Really, dear, not that important. Of course there's no danger in letting a bunch of untrained eleven-year-olds use an open flame next to the boiling mixture.

"Blub bloop?" Hmm… I guess sheep would really eat anything placed in front of them. But! Baobabs are trees, not shrubs. I'd explain, but I don't want to go on a rant about trees.

"Dreamer?" The boy next to me asks, irritation slowly rising, boiling in his voice. I honestly don't see what's bothering him.

"Yyyes?" I twist over, employing doe eyes to my maximum ability. Look at them, Henry! Can't you see the stars?! Can't you see the whole of time and space?! Huh?! If you could comprehend even a tiny bit, then you could see the world as I see it.

Not as objects in a 3-D space, but rather as compounding layers of spaghetti. Each one being what had, what will, what could, what could have! I don't think you have the modicum of power in that sack of fat you call a brain to understand even a partial fraction!

"Can you tell…Alexandria to quiet down? I need to focus." Hmph. Fine, if making this Pompion potion is so important to you.

I humph to make my point but acquiesce anyway. Snape's prowling has stopped at Cedric Diggory and Roger Davies. I guess Snape suspects them of something, but I know for a fact that Ced is a clean boy! He didn't even question me when I built a blanket fort in the common room.

In fact, he and his friends helped me construct it. It remains in there to this day. Professor Sprout liked it as a teamwork exercise, and the upperclassmen liked it because it reminded them of a simpler time.

"Oh no…" Henry mumbles to himself. He didn't intend for anyone to hear, but I don't care~!

"What's wrong?" I continue working on my potion, despite the whispers. It's coming along, being a nice, bright orange. Yeah, it's an on-the-nose potion. People can usually tell what the pumpkin-orange potion does.

"I…messed up." Henry's breathing is slowly becoming more erratic as he stares at the puke-green mixture. His eyebrows are sharply turned upwards, and his pupils are dilating. Okay, he's hyperventilating now, time to intervene.

I hack into his chemical makeup, forcibly lowering the anxiety stuff and making him enter a temporary high to calm him down. Holding this state until his heartbeat slows enough, I simultaneously investigate the potion to see where he messed up.

…Oh. Okay. He just put things in in the wrong order. That's fixable. Pretty easy, in fact.

"Okay, Henry. Are you calm now?" He blinks, quickly nodding. I raise an eyebrow. "Really?"

He takes a deep breath, patting down his clothes, and straightens his blue and silver tie. Another deep breath and, "Yeah. Yes, yes, I'm fine."

I don't believe you. Not a bit, but okay. "Listen, listen to the sweet melody of my voice. This," I gesture to the thickening slop, "can be fixed."

He looks at me as if I were an idiot. "Dreamer," he harshly whispers, "the potion has already settled. I'd have to start over. We only have twenty minutes l-left…" Okay, chemical soup, go away~

"Henry, I've made no effort to hide it. I'm not human."

"Of course, you aren't." He interrupts. "There's even a bet going on between the houses on what kind of magical creature hybrid you are."

I'll…dig into that one later. Investigate. "Yeah, well, I have a wide range of abilities outside of normal human abilities." I hold my hand above the potion, creating a localized temporal field, then reverse the polarity.

Crushed moth wings fly into my open palm, turning the potion back into purple. Henry watches with an entranced gaze as the crushed wings uncrush themselves little by little.

"Able to be fixed," I comment idly. "Remember, reality is going to be more realistic than Professor Snape's expectations and believe me when I say that that statement means a lot coming from me. Things can be fixed; mistakes will be made. Heck, the beginning of everything has been generally regarded as a bad move."

I remove the other three ingredients, then pat the shellshocked Henry on the shoulder, turning back to my own potion.

I could really go for some pumpkin pie. Messing with a dimension of the fabric of space-time, or rather a thread in the fourth dimension branching itself into the third dimension, always makes me hungry.