Chloe sat next to Draco the next morning, and he began to advise her.

"Don't even talk to those Weasleys if you want anyone to like you. They're the biggest blood traitors I've ever met- not that I wanted to meet them." He gave a short, barking little laugh, and Chloe felt her face flame up.

"The Weasleys are perfectly nice people, Draco. I hope you know that."

He shrugged. "Then I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree. You know," he said, leaning over to her in a confidential manner, "we all thought you'd be a pushover- you know what I mean. But you're fierce, and strong...I think you'll do alright in Slytherin."

Chloe felt touched. "Thanks," she said.

Draco helped himself to a kipper off her plate, though there were platters full all over the great table. "Don't mention it. What's your first class?"

She checked her schedule. "Potions. Advanced Potions."

He looked at her with a new respect. "You're taking advanced Potions?"

Chloe snorted. "I'm no slouch around the cauldron. Besides, I'll likely be in remedial Herbology in a week, I'm terrible with plants."

                                                                                         *        *         *       *

The dungeon room where Potions was held swirled with colorful vapors and a myriad of smells when they walked in. The second-year Slytherin students (and Chloe) had double Potions with the second-year Gryffindors, and she waved to Hermione on the way to her seat in the very front of the class. Harry was placed next to her, and Draco muttered something about 'poor little Potter' under his breath before taking a seat behind Ron.

"Alright, class," said the formidable-looking Professor Snape, as he swept through the room in his long robes. "Today, you will be preparing Wiggenweld potion." Several students sniggered, and Snape fixed them with an angry stare. "This potion is rather difficult, but it is mostly repetition, so perhaps a few of you who are not complete stone-heads will manage to scrape by on a passing grade." With a flick of his long, slender wand, the recipe appeared on the blackboard. "You have one hour. BEGIN!"

Chloe read the recipe. It didn't look too complicated, only a lot of salamander blood and lionfish spikes and stirring until the potion turns a color. She reached for the flask of salamander blood on her desk and carefully flicked her wrist so that a perfect splash of deep burgundy liquid hit the water of the potion. Almost instantly, the potion turned a simmering red. She knew almost instinctively the right measurements and stirring directions to use.

Half an hour and ten hues of potion later, Chloe was busy adding flobberworm mucus (eurgh) when she stopped to look around and see how her classmates were getting on. Ron's face was a shiny pink that matched to color of his potion, which was steadily refusing to turn red again. Harry's potion was a nice shade of yellow, but he was having trouble with his flobberworm mucus, slopping it down his front and spilling it on the floor.

Adding the final splash of salamander's blood and then stirring to accomplish the requisite shade of bright teal-green, she ladled some of her Wiggenweld Potion into the provided clear flask and brought it up to Snape's desk. He whispered, "Very good, my dear," then turned to the class and said, "A passable effort, and by a first-year student. Shows just how incompetent you lot are."

Chloe giggled as she returned to her seat beside an increasingly frustrated Harry. Sometimes, having grown up around a cauldron was her advantage.