Katie Gardner groaned as she scanned her schedule. "Oh no!"

"What?" Asked her friend Annabeth, a Ravenclaw.

"I have potions with the Slytherins," Katie groaned.

"That means that I have it with the Gryffindors!" Annabeth realized. She double-checked her schedule. "Ugh! I'm going to be stuck with Percy Jackson again!"

Katie raised her eyebrows. "You know we all know you like him, right?"

"Do not!"

"Sure." Katie spotted two girls walking ahead. "Listen, I'm going to go walk with Hazel. She's in my class too."

"Okay," Annabeth said. "I'll walk with Thalia and Piper."

"Sounds good." Annabeth and Katie hurried to catch up with Hazel Levesque and Piper McClean, who were walking ahead of them.

"Hey Piper!" Annabeth said. Piper turned and smiled.

"Oh, hey! You're going to Divination, right Annabeth?"

"Yes, I am."

"And you're in my potions class," Katie told Hazel. The cheerful Hufflepuff's face lit up.

"Oh, good! Do you want to sit with me?"

"Sure," Katie said. Suddenly, she was bumped by two running figures and her books were knocked to the ground. "STOLLS!"

No Slytherin had ever matched the Stoll brothers in cunning. They were the third of the Great Hogwarts Pranksters, following in the footsteps of the famed Marauders and the legendary Weasley twins.

Katie scowled at their retreating backs. After a hasty goodbye, Piper and Annabeth broke off from the group, veering toward the staircases. Katie and Hazel turned right and descended into the dungeons. Hazel perked up immediately when she saw the lavish jeweled urns perched in the corner. She loved all sorts of rocks and minerals. She even kept a collection under her bed back in the dormitory.

"Why do you hate the Stolls so much?" Hazel asked, breaking her gaze from the urns.

Katie looked at her. "Do you remember the password prank?"

The Hufflepuff dormitory could only be reached by tapping out a password. If you got it wrong- and few Hufflepuffs ever did- you were sprayed with vinegar.

"Travis Stoll decided it would be funny to set up one of those things attached to bass drums."

Hazel gave her a blank look.

"It's a muggle thing."

"Oh."

"Anyway, when I was tapping out the password, he pulled a string and hit the barrels, so it messed up the password and I was sprayed in vinegar."

Hazel tried to stifle a laugh. "Okay, you have to admit that's pretty good."

"No one would sit next to me for days," said Katie. "I reeked of vinegar. And that was first year, before there were two of them!"

Hazel chuckled as she opened the door to the potions classroom. "Don't worry. If they play a prank on you this year, I'll still sit with you!"

"Thanks. We should probably find our seats."

No sooner than they had sat down, the door banged open and Professor Probably, the head of Slytherin house, walked in.

She had taken over the retirement of Professor Slughorn some ten years ago. Her personality was as much unlike his as possible: she had no favorites and was strict, but also loved a good laugh.

"Well!" She said in her breathless-sounding voice. "As you know, today we are beginning our unit on Amortenia. I have taken the liberty of pairing you up. We have an equal amount of Hufflepuffs and Slytherins, but slightly more girls. You will all be working with a member of the opposite house, and all but two of you with the opposite gender."

The professor walked to the front of the room, where she opened a cabinet and pulled out a stack of books, as well as a paper. "Now," she said, sounding even more breathless. The books probably weighed more than she did.

'The Amortenia potion is not in your books, so I will call the pairs and you will come receive a book and then find a workspace." She scanned the paper. "Levesque and Hoyer!"

Katie shot Hazel a sympathetic glance as a burly Slytherin boy, who probably was three times Hazel's size, rose firm his seat.

"Castellan and Gystell! Meyer and Stormburn! Gardner and Stoll!"

Katie for a moment thought she had misheard, but sure enough, Travis Stoll was rising from the corner where he sat.

"But..."

"But what, sweetheart?" Travis had come up behind her without her noticing.

"I told you not to call me that!"

"Sorry, Katie Cake."

Katie opened her mouth to yell at him, but Professor Probably called "Miss Gardner!" Before she could get a word out.

She turned away from a smirking Travis. "Yes, Professor?"

"You forgot to get your book!"

"Right." Katie walked up to the front of the room and Probably put a large textbook in her hand.

"Now, make sure you hurry and start!" She said, shooing Katie away. "This one is rather challenging. You'll want all the time you can get!"

When Katie returned to her workspace, Travis looked up, grinned at her, and said: "You smell like flowers."

"My perfume is lily of the valley," Katie said, irritated. "You smell like apples and fireworks."

"My shampoo is apple," he said.

"And the fireworks?"

"Well... Let's just say you may have an exciting supper."

Rolling her eyes, Katie flipped open the potions book. "Okay, let's see. First, we have to add a sprig of lavender and then stir it after exactly two minutes. Do you have a timer?"

"Why would I carry around a timer? Of course I don't have one!"

"Well, then go get one!" Katie gestured to the front of the room, where Professor Probably had, indeed, left a collection of timers along with the ingredients that they would need.

Grumbling, Travis left to get a timer. Katie studied the rest of the potion. The professor hadn't been kidding: it was definitely the most difficult potion that Katie had ever attempted. When Travis returned, Katie started the timer and dropped the lavender in. While Travis watched the potion, she put the unicorn hair to soak in the rose petal juice and began grinding the basilisk fangs.

Working together, Katie and Travis managed to finish the potion before Professor Probably called for them to stop. They weren't the only ones: about half the class had finished.

"Alright, class!" Probably called, cheerfully. "If you finished, go ahead and smell it! If not, you may smell another pair's."

Both Katie and Travis leaned into the potion. "I smell chocolate chip cookies and barbecue and lilies," Travis announced.

"I can smell your apple shampoo too," Katie said. "Maybe we should do it one at a time."

"Be my guest." Travis gestured to her as he stepped back. Katie inhaled in. She smelled her garden, strawberries, and something else. She suddenly realized that it was Travis's Apple shampoo. Irritated, she turned to tell him to move away, but when she looked, he was still standing a few feet away.

She gaped at him, not knowing what to say. He smiled knowingly. She hated seeing that look on his face, the look that said that he knew that he had the upper hand. "Do you want a turn?" Katie asked, struggling not to stutter in shock.

"That's okay, Kitty Cat. I already smelled it."

"But..."

He winked at her before walking away, an arrogant smirk on his face.

Hazel came up beside her, and, seeing the look on her face, asked: "What's wrong?"

"I hate Travis Stoll," Katie said.

"What did he do this time?" Hazel asked, worried.

"Absolutely nothing."