Chapter 35: Power and Control

"Potter, Weasley, despite your uncountable amount of attempts at making potions, you always seem to fail..." Snape muttered, his lip curled as he peered into the inside of Harry and Ron's cauldron that did not match the finished product of the potion they were making today whatsoever. "I doubt you will have passed your potions O.W.L."

It was second to last lesson and it was potion, it was Snape's first time teaching the fifth years potions since he had arrived back. Lucy and Shona were doing pretty well with their potion (well, Lucy was doing well with her potion and Shona was reading a muggle comic book.)

"Which means," Snape continued. "You will not be able to attend N.E.W.T potions classes."

"Good," Harry muttered under his breath.

"Ten points from Gryffindor," Snape spat, causing Harry's smug smile to disappear as Snape strode around the room.

"Shona, can you hand me the powdered unicorn horn, please?" Lucy asked as she continued to make the potion, it seemed that she was the only one in the room doing it correctly.

"Uh-huh," Shona murmured as she continued reading her book. She reached to the side of her and handed the ingredient to Lucy. She took it with thanks. "You know, Lucky, I'm thinking about writing a comic book."

"Oh yes, what about?" Lucy asked a little amused as she added the powdered unicorn horn to her potion.

"About me smashing my brothers face in because he stole the sword."

"Not before I do, McGuire," Snape announced as he stood by Lucy and Shona's desk. "McGuire, why don't you help Lucy?"

"Does it look like I want to help Lucy?" Shona snorted and turned the page of her book. "Besides, if I got hold of that potion I'd end up making the dungeons explode."

"Alright, best not let you near that then," he turned to Lucy who finished off the potion with ease. "Another successful potion?"

"You can be the judge of that," Lucy shrugged. Snape looked into her cauldron and studied it for a few moments before nodding.

"I'm surprised that you aren't tired."

"Zuc only came to give her a friendly reminder that he's still in power last night, she's fine," Shona shrugged. "I swear all he wants is to be part of her fan club but it too much of a coward to ask."

"I have no fan club, everyone has lost faith in me," Lucy reminded her and shook the thought of Fred Weasley out of her mind. "They lost faith in me when the DA and WA broke up.

"Sir!" Hermione called to Snape suddenly.

"What is it, Granger?" Snape spat as he turned around, there was so much venom in his voice.

"It's the end of the lesson," she replied nervously. But when Snape stood up straight she knew that she was in deep trouble.

"I will decide when it's the end of the lesson, ten points from Gryffindor for trying to teach the class."

"You're so mean, she was only saying it was the end of the lesson and that you're so un observant and that you can't teach your own lesson..." Shona rolled her eyes.

"I make the decisions in my own classroom, thank you very much, McGuire."

"But it is the end of the lesson, can we go now?" Lucy asked as she began to put her textbook in her bag.

"Everyone else can but you two are staying here, I need you to do something for me."

"But we'll miss charms, Professor Flitwick will be angry at us!"

"Are you seriously worried about him?" Shona asked with a disgusted face. "The worst he's going to do is bite your ankles!"

"I shall send a message to Professor Flitwich saying that you shall be absent from his lesson because you will be with me," Snape announced simply as the rest of the fifth years attempted to pack away their things quietly behind the potions Professor's back. "You are dismissed." He said finally and the whole class ran out in a mad rush apart from Lucy and Shona.

"So what do you need us to do?" Lucy asked as she placed her cauldron on Snape's desk as she knew he'd want to fill a few flasks with this potion and keep it in his store cupboard like he usually did.

"I want you to think of ways we could possibly get the sword back, what the ending to the tale of the knights is and why the orb is acting strange lately," Snape replied.

"The orb's not acting strange," Shona pulled a face.

"McGuire, it made that sword talk to us. The sword even admitted that it was the orb that made it talk - Lucy why are you angry?"

Lucy frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Snape took hold of one of her plaits. "Your hair is red. Is this you messing about with your metamorphose us abilities or are you angry?"

"Neither," Lucy shook her head. "Maybe it's the orb doing this to me?"

"Maybe so, and that is want I want you to do. Come up with theories, now get on with it. I have the delight of first years to teach now..."

"Dad, can we have the orb?" Lucy asked suddenly.

Snape paused. "If you so wish, let me go and get it for you..." Snape dashed upstairs and five minuets later he was back with the orb in his hands which was glowing red just like Lucy's hair. He handed it to Lucy and she took it from him.

Snape walked towards the door and then opened it while Lucy and Shona went and sat at Snape's desk to make room for the nervous first years that were just making their way into the room. Lucy felt ever so sorry for them, Snape hated children every single solitary one apart from her.

Lucy and Shona spoke amongst themselves as Snape wrote potion ingredients on the board that Lucy could register almost immediately as an easy potion. Lucy had a sheet of parchment in front of her and was writing down a few ideas that Shona had suggested but surrounding it was a numerous amount of doodles. Lucy hadn't really been paying attention.

It seemed all of a sudden she had become not interested in what she was doing, therefore had decided to draw and ignore what Shona was saying.

"Oi! Did you hear what I just said or is Lucy land too interesting?" Shona waved a hand in front of her face angrily.

"Hmm what?" Lucy asked, the dazed look did not remove from her eyes.

"I said that the ending to the Tale of the Knights is something we cannot debate over, instead it's something we have to find."

"That's nice..." Lucy sighed as she went to finish the drawing of Angus but Shona snatched the piece of parchment off of her. "Do you mind?" Lucy asked, her tone bored.

"Yes I do mind! We're supposed to be coming up with theories and all you're interested in is drawing your bloody cat!"

"It's a good drawing though, isn't it?"

"You're just hopeless..." Shona muttered and took Lucy's quill off of her and began writing theories down with it, avoiding the drawing of Angus.

"You're doing it wrong again..." Snape groaned at one of his students who look absolutely terrified. Lucy snapped out of her bazaar daydream and looked up at the class, Snape was singling out a poor first year who looked like they were about to cry. Her hair turned a white blond colour.

She looked at one of the students at the front and saw that they were desperately trying to fix their potion before Snape came over to yell at them. Lucy stood up (making sure Snape wasn't watching) and walked towards the boy who was now frantically throwing ingredients in his cauldron. Lucy put a hand on his wrist and he stopped.

"Stop. You're just making things worse," she hissed under her breath. Lucy took out her wand and cleared the cauldron and then (as quickly as she could) made the potion correctly. As soon as she had finished, she ran back to Snape's desk and returned to her seat where Shona stared at her.

"What is wrong with you?" Shona demanded.

"Nothing!" Lucy snapped just as Snape inspected the boy's potion in which Lucy had just fixed.

"Have you got a problem or something? One minute you're in a daydream, the next you're helping some first year and the next you're all angry!"

"SHUT UP!" Lucy yelled and stood bolt upright.

"Sit down, you idiot!" Shona yelled just as fiercely.

"I'd like to see you make me!"

Shona went to clamp a hand down on Lucy's shoulder and make her sit down, but she was quick to react. Lucy grabbed hold of her wrist and glared at her.

"Get off!" Shona growled but Lucy clutched her wrist tighter.

"Girls!" Snape barked at them but they continued to argue. Shona twisted her arm quickly, causing Lucy to let go. "STOP!"

Shona violently shoved Lucy over, causing her to knock all the contents of Snape's desk off and onto the floor. All the valuable objects shattered as Lucy fell onto the floor. She picked herself up quickly as the first years watched in terror. Lucy grabbed hold of her bag and pulled out her broomstick and went to hit Shona and she ducked.

"YOU MISSED ME!" Shona laughed and threw a potions vial at Lucy, luckily she held up a chair just in time.

"Well you missed me!" Lucy yelled back and took another swipe at Shona with her broom.

"Fred cheated on you!" Shona threw another potions vial.

"At least I can get a new boyfriend if I need to!" Lucy lifted up the chair again after dropping the broom.

"You can't fight anything!" She took out her wand and used a hex.

"None of your family likes you!" Lucy spat, venom in her voice.

Shona gasped. "Alright, that does it!" She charged towards Lucy and put her hands around her throat. Lucy tried desperately to break free but there was no way that she could.

"BOTH OF YOU CALM DOWN!" Snape yelled in a very ferocious tone and hauled Shona off of Lucy. "I can't believe you're acting like this!"

"Sir," a small first year squeaked. "It's the end of the lesson."

"Good, all of you leave!" Snape spat and all the first years hurried out as quickly as they could, leaving Shona to fight against Snape to try and attack Lucy who was in fact bleeding from when she fell in the glass after being shoved over Snape's desk. "What is the meaning of this?!"

"Her!" Shona hissed. "That's the meaning of this! She isn't anything in the gifted but a wimp! She can't fight anything and always expects sympathy from you!"

"We'll she's just a reject who only feels good when she's making fun of others!" Lucy sneered.

"Both of you need to get a grip! I don't care what you think of each other you just need to calm down!"

"Calm down? Calm down? I don't want to calm down!" Lucy screamed. "I'm fed up of her! I say we kick her out of the gifted!"

"I say we kick you out of the gifted! You're nothing to us!" Shona snapped back.

"You're right I'm nothing but Merlin's descendant..." Lucy sighed but then looked up and smiled. "The one who's more powerful than both of you!"

"Oh for goodness sake!" Snape groaned but then he glanced towards his desk with his fragile possessions all shattered on the floor. The only thing that was fragile and had remained intact, however, was the orb. "Of course..."

Snape freed Shona and walked towards his desk, he picked up the orb and saw it was glowing a red colour just like Lucy's hair was. It had been like this earlier too. They had all come to a conclusion that Lucy's hair colour changed according to what the orb was feeling and right now it was angry. It was making Lucy feel angry too as we'll as Shona...the two girls never acted like this.

"Alright, I think we can all put our differences aside now...it's just the orb doing this to you," Snape announced and beheld up the orb. Lucy and Shona stared at it and then back at each other. They growled.

"Are you just making up excuses to prevent us from arguing?!" Shona demanded.

"No I'm just stating that there's no need to be angry at each other because its just the orb doing this to you and nothing else. You're not really angry at each other it's just the orb controlling you."

"You wish," Lucy groaned.

"But I don't wish! It is controlling you!" Snape protested.

"Well I believe it's nonsense. It simply can't be controlling us because I'm just mad at her!"

"What exactly are you mad about then?"

Lucy and Shona looked at each other again; what exactly were they angry about? It was apparent that they were angry at each other but there was no reason to be angry at each other. They had just started fighting in the middle of one of Snape's lessons.

"I'm just angry at her!" Shona spat after a long and awkward silence between the three.

"Exactly! That's why I think it's the orb! Do you not understand that?"

"The orb can't do anything to us! It's just a glass sphere that everyone thinks can do a lot of important stuff, I say we smash it!"

"And I say we rip up the Tale of the Knights!" Lucy chimed in.

"And burn it!"

"Listen to yourselves!" Snape said in frustration. "You two girls are not the two girls that fight in the gifted, and I know that for a fact."

Lucy pulled a face. "This is how we normally act! How dare you lie!"

"No you do not!"

Shona stepped in. "Yes we do! You don't know us!"

"I do know you! I should know you because Lucy is my daughter and, Shona, you're her best friend! And you're both part of the gifted! How can you argue with that?"

Silence fell in the room again.

It was so quiet in the dungeons that you could hear the busy corridor upstairs full of students making their way down to the great hall. You could even hear the moans of Filch in the fustrated meows of Mrs Norris as they tried to clean the floor and students wiped their mucky feet along the newly polished floor.

Snape waited for the two of them to come to an agreement. Things were looking good, they both seemed to be returning to their normal selves. They even looked sorry for each other! They then turned to Snape.

"That's..." Lucy whispered, her face full of worry. "THE MOST RIDICULOUS THING I'VE EVER HEARD!"

"How dare you lie to us!" Shona added, she was just an angry.

"You know what, I've had it," Lucy growled. She ripped off the necklace Snape had given her just before her fourth year with the family crest on, and threw it on the floor.

"Lucy - !" Snape was about to protest but he couldn't get a word in.

"I AM NEVER GOING TO DEFEAT LORD ZUC! NO WAY ON THE FACE OF THIS EARTH!"

With that, she turned around and stormed off, leaving Snape to stare at the necklace in shock...