"Flowers?" asked Sirius with a raised eyebrow, not understanding.
"Yes, the Cerebella Floralis Potion. The person who takes it will grow flowers on their head, instead of their normal hair they will have showy flowers," replied James with a smile.
"That's great! Imagine Rabastan's face as he walked through the dining room with a head full of roses," exclaimed Sirius with an evil grin.
"Shh, gather round," said James as the group made a small circle and whispered.
...
The first week of school was over. James' group had already started to work on the potion that James suggested.
They had chosen three targets. The main one would be Rabastan. And finally, his followers were Mulciber and Avery. These three Slytherin students were the ones who were always annoying and saying typical blood supremacist comments, the perfect targets.
The weekend was spent planning in the Gryffindor common room. The first mission would be for Toby and Peter. They were to head to the greenhouse they go to in Herbology classes and "get" five magical plants. James named them one by one.
"So, what plants do we need?" asked James, looking at Toby and Peter giving them a little quiz.
"Wind Vanilla, Asphodel, Bouncing Bulb and...." replied Toby, as he tried to remember.
"And a Nettle," said Peter.
"Good. They'll go get them today. We need to have the potion ready for Monday," said James. They needed to act fast, as Monday would be the start of their punishment with Slughorn, and James would have limited time.
"Will just one potion be enough for the three of us?" asked Lupin.
"Yes, it should be enough. You don't need to ingest much for it to take effect," replied James.
"Why don't we have everyone in Slytherin try it?" suggested Sirius, imagining all the Slytherin students, from first to seventh year, with gaudy flowers on their heads.
"We'd need a lot of ingredients, plus it will be impossible to mix their cups with the potion," said James, shaking his head.
"Speaking of that. How will you get them to take the potion? No one from Slytherin will accept anything from us, and there's no way you'll manage to do it without being seen at a table full of them," said Lupin skeptically.
"Don't worry about it, mate... I've got it all figured out," James said with a mysterious smile that made Lupin get pissed off.
Besides the flowers, they needed potion ingredients which they had to get from somewhere. The first option they thought of was to go into Slughorn's office, where there should be a large amount of ingredients, but it was too risky. The other option was to look for it in the Potions classroom.
Sirius and Lupin went to the classroom and searched through all the shelves and corners, but found nothing useful. They were all simple ingredients.
"That's impossible. If Slughorn catches us breaking into his office and stealing ingredients from him, we'll be in big trouble," said Toby, repeatedly shaking his head as he again heard Sirius' suggestion to break in and steal from Slughorn.
"Me and James will be grounded in his office. That will be the key moment to steal from him," said Sirius stubbornly.
Monday arrived. After classes, James and Sirius walked to Slughorn's office. When they arrived, Rabastan was already in front of the door.
It was rare to see him alone, as he was always followed by his ass-kissing bodyguards, as Sirius calls them.
Rabastan gave them a hateful look, averted his gaze, and knocked on the door twice. James and Sirius approached the door without taking their eyes off him.
"They have finally arrived. Come in," Slughorn said, opening the door.
James walked through and got his first glimpse of the Potions professor's office. It was medium-sized, not the best in terms of tidiness. There were many shelves with glass jars and strange substances.
He could notice many ingredients, some he didn't even recognize, and that was because he studied from cover to cover the book of one thousand magical herbs and fungi. James and Sirius looked at each other with complicity and a slight smile. It was almost certain that the ingredients they needed would be in this office.
"On the one hand, Sirius Black, you must head to the trophy room on the third floor. You are to polish all the awards, trophies, cups, plaques, and stained glass windows. You will do this Monday through Friday at this time for one hour," said Slughorn. Sirius made an ugly expression. Rabastan let out a chuckle, but when he heard his punishment his expression worsened.
"As for you, Rabastan Lestrange, you will go to the armor gallery, which is connected to the trophy room, and you will polish all the armor. The same, Monday to Friday, 1 hour. The warden Filch will be watching you and will make sure that the armors and trophies are shining," Slughorn finished his explanation.
"But Sir there are hundreds of armors!" complained Rabastan. Having Filch sniffing the back of your neck wasn't nice at all, until they were dazzling he wouldn't let them go.
"Do you want one more week of punishment?" asked Slughorn in a calm tone. Rabastan stopped complaining, but he had a deep frown on his face. He couldn't believe that the head of the Slytherin house was punishing him like this.
"Fine, go. If I find out you don't, Filch will know right away, and your punishment will be worse," Slughorn said as a final warning not to try to run away. Sirius looked at James, leaving everything in his hands, as it looked like their punishment would be in the professor's office.
The two boys shuffled out, as they closed the door Slughorn looked at James closely. James looked back at him a little nervously, if he had to admit it. If Sirius and Rabastan's punishment was to clean hundreds of trophies and armor, his punishment would be worse since he hurt two students.
Slughorn is a wizard of short stature a bit overweight, round-faced with blond hair a bit gray from advanced age.
"A wonderful flipendo, Potter. I even hit two targets at once," Slughorn said, and James put on a surprised expression. The last thing he expected was to be praised.
"Eh... thanks," said James, looking strangely at the professor. He had heard rumors that Professor Slughorn was looking for students who showed great talent in some field of magic or had good connections. In other words, a prominent family.
"However, today we are here for your punishment. It will be Monday through Friday, for two weeks, 1 hour. You will do the following..." said Slughorn, getting up from his seat and heading towards a corner of his office.
Slughorn made a simple wave of his wand, and from the wall came out (as if they were drawers) two tables. He then grabbed a medium-sized leather bag on a shelf, and shaking it out came hundreds of potion ingredients, which took up the two tables in their entirety, even making a small mountain.
Then Slughorn passed James a long parchment and a quill, "You will have to sort all the ingredients and separate them into importance. In this book he explains how the correct classification is," he said, passing him a book, "You will also need this book in case there are ingredients you don't recognize, believe me, you will need it" he added passing him a very fat book that when James had it in his hands he almost dropped it because of how heavy it was.
"If I finish it in less than two weeks, is the punishment over?" asked James hopefully.
Slughorn laughed strangely at the comment, "It will be a great achievement if you finish in two weeks...if you achieve what you say we'll see," he said. As he returned to his desk and began to sift through papers.
James immediately began sorting through the hundreds of ingredients there, 'What we are looking for must be in here,' he thought with a slight smile. However, he couldn't steal it with Slughorn in the room.
There were countless herbs and magical fungi in these ingredients, many that James didn't know or couldn't exactly remember their name, as it was a difficult task to memorize so many strange names.
The punishment was difficult, he had to be very careful not to make a mistake, so he had to make sure in the books several times. Sirius and Rabastan's punishment was much easier, although it was somewhat repetitive.
An hour passed. A bell rang in the office, and the mountain on the two desks was still almost the same size, "Time. Come back tomorrow at the same time. I'll take care of putting away the ingredients you already classified," said Slughorn. James respectfully took his leave and left the office.
"How was your punishment?" asked Sirius rejoining James.
As he told him what Slughorn's punishment consisted of, Sirius' face was getting worse and worse, "I thought my punishment was bad! I'd rather polish the trophies for three hours than that," said Sirius, who didn't like the idea of having hundreds of ingredients and having to sort through them looking at a thick book.
"It's not all bad. I found several peculiar ingredients and was able to learn a lot," said James, and Sirius looked at him like he was a weirdo.
"The bad thing was that Slughorn didn't leave his office for the whole hour. That way, I can't steal the ingredients we need," said James, not noticing the look on Sirius' face.
"Easy, mate. He who waits perseveres. You still have many days of punishment. The opportunity will come," said Sirius with an aristocratic air.
"Wise words. It was to be expected from the heir of the ancient and respected House Black," joked James. Sirius wanted to punch him, but James dodged him and started running into the dining room being chased by Sirius.