Diary of a First Year – Part 9

September 20, evening

Dear Diary,

Today’s Potions lesson was nothing short of a disaster. I’m not even sure what I did. Eloise isn’t even sure what I did and she was right next to me the whole time. All I know is that today we were making Shrinking Solution and something went horribly wrong. I was adding the wormwood when suddenly the whole thing exploded. My cauldron grew to the size of a giant pumpkin, my ladle fell to the floor and nearly broke my toe, and it knocked over Eloise’s cauldron and spilled her potion all over. Professor Snape was so angry I was just waiting for him to curse me or something. He restored everything to its normal size, cleaned up the spilled potion, and made me stay behind after class. I have detention now for the first time in my life, organizing potion supplies in the storerooms.

Eloise ranted about how unfair it was; it was really an accident. I was sure I’d followed the recipe exactly. So we started to investigate. We went over my cauldron, the water, and all the ingredients. It wasn’t until we looked at my daisy roots that we realized something was wrong. I think, somehow, I got dragon dung on them the other day when I was tripped in Herbology. That must have ruined the Shrinking Solution and reacted with the wormwood. I can’t believe those Slytherin girls tripped me and now I have detention. Eloise is right; it’s really not fair.

– Maisie