For a castle as big as Hogwarts, there were really so few places to set up a cauldron and brew potions in secret. Not that Harry was trying to hide anything. No, no, everything he was putting in his cauldron was perfectly legal, all honorably obtained with money the boy’s parents had sent after he lied and told them he needed it for something school related. The potion he was making wasn’t something that would get him in trouble. No one could ban a potion that hadn’t actually been invented yet, and anyway, the Ravenclaw had no idea what it’d do yet. Hopefully nothing around him was flammable. The eagle wasn’t stupid, of course. He’d taken all the necessary precautions, made sure that there were no parchment or books or bed sheets—honestly, you set your roommate’s bed on fire by accident one time—around that could get in the way. In fact, the sixteen year old couldn’t have found a better place for just such an inevitability—er, that is, just such a possibility.

It was probably weird for a boy to be hanging around in the girls’ bathroom, but Harry figured most people avoided the one on the second floor, anyway. No one really wanted to have to deal with Myrtle, and the eagle couldn’t really blame them. The sixth year tried to get along with just about everyone, but even he had to admit that that ghost could grind on his nerves sometimes. At the moment, though, she was nowhere in sight, probably busy hanging out in the pipes or something. Harry figured she’d probably be helpful if there was a fire, though he didn’t really think anything in here was flammable. No one knew how to flood a bathroom like Myrtle. The sixth year knew this for a fact—he’d made the mistake of telling her that once. Some people just couldn’t take a compliment.

The eagle laid out all of his ingredients on the floor before lighting a fire under the cauldron he’d set in the middle of the bathroom. It was sort of blocking half the stalls, but Harry wasn’t going to worry about that. He stood for a moment over his ingredients, trying to decide what to do first. Pointing his wand into the center of the cauldron, the boy said, ”Aguamenti!” A stream of water shot out of the Ravenclaw’s wand, filling the cauldron about halfway. That done, the sixth year crouched down to go over the various items he’d either bought from the apothecary in Hogsmeade or “borrowed” from the cupboard in the Potions classroom. It still counted as borrowing if you weren’t sure you could replace it, right? It was the intention that counted, probably. Picking up a bowl that held a healthy dose of powdered asphodel root, the sixteen year old straightened, looked down at his cauldron, then back at the bowl again. What would be a reasonable, safe amount of this stuff to put in? The Ravenclaw hadn’t brought any measuring equipment with him since it took up too much space in his bag. He’d just have to estimate. Without giving it much more thought, Harry dumped the entire contents of the bowl into the cauldron. The water immediately turned a rather frightening shade of dark green. That was probably a good sign, right?