Hugo slammed his Potions book shut and glared at it. His head hurt from trying to keep the ingredient properties seperate. Who cared if Hellebore was soupy instead of syrupy. Both were liquid forms of the same thing weren't they? Why should one make a potion explode, and the other make a perfect Draught of Peace? It just didn't make sense.
Deciding that Charms was far easier, and Professor Boot was less likely to yell at him if he got something wrong, he put away the potions paper and took out his Charms essay. Professor liked students to make mistakes, encouraged them, so that they would learn from them and see why a flick was different from a swish. Professor Black seemed to be the sort who thought making mistakes made men morons. And how was that for alliteration. His mother would be proud, he thought, that he'd even known what that word meant.
He was almost done with Charms anyway, just needed a foot longer on the etymology--he'd had to look that word up and wondered why people couldn't just say word origins in the first place--of the spell they were learning. He heard a noise behind him and looked up and saw his mother standing there.
"I'm working, I promise," he said glumly. It was a nice day out, and he could be flying. Well, but nice he meant not snowing and not below negative ten degrees, but that's what warming charms were for.
"Almost done." He grinned at her as his quill dripped ink on the essay. "Dinner time?" Rose was having her boyfriend over, and he was going to make sure the bloke was good enough for his big sister.