Hermione's Mistake

It all started on a typical day at Hogwarts Academy. Harry, Ron and Hermione were on their way to their least favorite class, Potions. When they arrived, they cringed when they saw their assignment on the board. They were to each make a memory-erasing potion and drink a swig of it in front of the entire class.

"This sucks", Harry proclaimed.

"I'm going to fail", Ron said dejectedly.

"Maybe if you studied like Snape told us to, you wouldn't be in this predicament", Hermione stated.

"Shut up, Hermione", Harry and Ron replied simultaneously.

As the trio took their seats, Harry noticed that Draco was giving their group a snide look. While Harry was setting up his equipment, Snape walked into the room and yelled at the class for not working fast enough.

30 mins. Later

As the class was struggling with the potion, Hermione had finished and was waiting the required 20 minutes for it to turn blue. Hermione was sitting in her seat, studying to past the time. If she had been paying attention to her potion, she would have noticed Draco mix some extra ingredients into it. With everybody struggling with their potion, nobody noticed Draco's mischievous deed.

Hermione took a glance at her potion after the required 20 minutes passed, and chagrined as she realized that the potion was a light purple, instead of blue. She looked around and noticed that with the exception of a select few, most of the other potions in the class were either green, or spewing foul, orange smoke. She tried to lift her spirits by telling herself that it was a very difficult potion, but the fact that a few people had accomplished the goal made her unhappy. Everybody's potions were set up in front of them as Snape walked in to test his pupil's abilities.

In order to properly test the potions, Snape would tell the student a key word. After the student had drunk a swig of the potion, Snape would give them some truth serum, and ask for the password. If the student remembered the password, he/she gets a zero, if he/she doesn't remember it, you get graded based on how much Snape likes you.

As Hermione's turn came, she was slightly relieved to realize that nobody had yet to pass. Snape walked up to her potion, and smiled his crude little smile.

"Well, I guess you're not as perfect as you thought you were, now are you Ms. Granger?", Snape said with a hint of smugness.

"I don't know what I did wrong sir, but the color could be caused by...", Hermione replied before being cut off.

"I care not for your excuses, Ms. Granger. I only care to test your abilities as a potion maker.", Snape replied.

"Your keyword is 'Failure'.", Snape said with a slight smirk..

As Hermione swigged her potion, she felt lightheaded and dizzy, which made her think her potion worked. That thought ended, however, when the effects went away, but the password was still in her mind, as if to remind her of her humiliation.

"Your truth serum, Ms. Granger", Snape said.

She drank the swig of truth potion, and waited for it's effects to take hold. As she waited, she tried to think of what she could have done wrong, but nothing came to mind.

"All right, Ms. Granger, what was the keyword.", Snape asked menacingly.

"Failure.", she instantly blurted out.

She hung her head in shame after realizing what she did.

"Don't worry Hermione," Ron said comfortingly. "It happens to everybody."

"Not to me it doesn't", Hermione stated dejectedly.

"That's a Zero, Ms. Granger. Also, Gryffindor loses 20 points for your overconfidence.", Snape said with a hint of joy.

Hermione walked out the classroom as the period ended, thinking to herself that this day couldn't get any worse. Little did she know, it was about to get a lot worse.