Muggle Meets Magic (Harry Potter Fanfiction)

TWENTY THREE Vices and Virtues

After an assembly that seemed to drag on forever, and resulted my legs aching from having to stand through it all (seriously, how did the Mahoutokoro students manage to stand through that every day?), we were all led to different classrooms in our teams.

The Hogwarts team entered a room with beautifully carved desks lined in perfect rows, each space the exact width apart. We didn't need all the desks, so we ended up taking up the first two rows.

Professor Plumble hovered in the doorway.

"I'm going to leave you here to learn that spell. I'll come back for you all at lunch. The round will begin this evening, so you have all day to come up with a plan. The resources in this room are open to you all."

That was all he could help us with. He bid us good luck and he left, and we all looked around at each other awkwardly for a moment. That was, until Albus stood up and marched to the front of the room, where there was a blackboard.

"Okay, so, from what I gathered, we need to come up with two teams," he began. "Half of us will defend our monster, Envy. The other will go and defeat whichever monster opposes Patience."

He drew a line down the middle of the board and labelled each side; Attack, and Protect.

"How can we make a good judgement when we don't know what the monster is like?" Nina, the girl from Slytherin asked. Her friend Mathew added,

"And how do we know what we are looking for?"

"Haven't you heard of the seven deadly sins?" Isabella from Hufflepuff asked him, looking surprised.

"I have," he retorted. "But I don't know them from heart. And besides, there are eight schools competing!"

We all were silent for a second.

"Well," Albus said, clearing his throat. "Let's focus on what we know. Our monster is Envy. I'm not sure what our monster is going to be capable of, as that's a pretty vague clue, but I don't think we need to know that. We just need to be able to defend it against other students, and we have to assume everyone knows different magic, so we have to be prepared for the unexpected."

Everyone nodded, agreeing. I remembered the Professor telling us the room's resources were open to us, and took a better look around. I noticed in the corner there was a cupboard labelled potion supplies. My lessons with Professor Slughorn flashed through my mind and I jolted up.

"Guys!" I exclaimed, my eyes wide. "Is anyone here good at potions?"

Nina and Mathew raised their hands, and then Eleanor raised hers halfway.

"I was taught about this potion, and if we have the right ingredients we could make some and take them with us!"

"Are we allowed to do that?" Veronica questioned worriedly.

"Of course," Lucas piped up, standing. "We're allowed to use a combination of our skills."

I quickly headed to the back of the room to take a look in the cupboard, and sure enough, everything I needed was there. I grabbed enough for four vials and the biggest cauldron I could find, lugging it back to the others and dumping it on an empty desk.

"We need to start brewing this right away. Do you know about the exploding circle potion?" I asked the Slytherin trio. They shook their heads.

"Start chopping all of this up. Add the lavender first, and the chilli second, then let it brew for half an hour. I'll instruct you further then," I explained. They got to work.