Nik's eyebrow arched like a broom in rapid ascent at the sound of Snape's voice behind them. Despite his tendencies to zone out and get lost in his own thoughts, he had caught the look that Malfoy and his gang had shot at Marcella.

He had just shot Malfoy and the Slytherins a cold glower and his quill had just been poised to make a 'X' on the parchment, but at the sound, he ended up writing a random note on Potions where he had been about to scrawl an 'X' instead.

"More sour than acid pops, but they are worse..." The words came out more quiet than a whisper, his lips scarcely moving as his other hand reached under the desk to give Marcella's hand a quick squeeze as Snape stalked away.

Well, sour, indeed, but Karkaroff was just as bad, if not worse, right?

Jesse's comment made his lips quirk upwards in amusement. Trust Jesse to think that way. But in truth... Despite the man's disheveled and severe appearance, there was something very... sharp reflected in his eyes.

Nik was willing to bet almost anything that as ruthless as Snape could be and probably was, he was also exceedingly intelligent as well. There was a mind right there that he would like to pick apart some day.

Maybe they'd actually learn something today... if the time wasn't completely spent in deducting House points.

"They leave a far nastier taste in the mouth," she agreed, returning the hand squeeze, squinting at the diagram on which he'd drawn some notes. It amused her that he'd been scared into writing words, disguising the real purpose of the piece of parchment. "He can't do anything," she reminded him. "We're not his pupils. We could walk out of here right now if we so wanted. In fact, I think I might do that. This seems like one big utter waste of time to me." she concluded, thoughtfully as Snape deducted more points from Gryffindor as a boy called Neville Longbottom spilt bile on the teachers shoe.

"Don't let him hear you say that. I think he thrives on scaring young children until they wet themselves. If he knew you weren't afraid... well, he could either get really scary or really depressed. I don't want to see either alternative," Alexander joked, watching the difference between the Hogwarts students and the Durmstrang ones. The Hogwarts students lived in fear, but his school mates were all relaxed and not paying attention.

"We're not his pupils, but I think we could learn something so long as we got past the '10 points deducted' business," Nik murmured, his eyes reflective, and idly scrawled an incomplete list of ingredients for a peculiar potion on the parchment.

"Apparently the House rivalries here are worse than the rivalries we have at Durmstrang," He muttered with a slight shake of his head.

Realizing he probably seemed a little too serious at the moment, he grinned. "Sorry, blame my curiosity and desire to learn on my Bundimun-ness."

"You weren't paying attention, were you?" Gavin smiled, taking out his things and attempting to at least pretend to pay attention; he didn't want to experience the wrath of Karkaroff again anytime soon.

Snape stood at the front of the classroom. With a flick of his wand, the instructions for the potion to be brewed that day appeared on the blackboard. "You may begin."

Hermione elbowed Ron in the side. "Shhh," she shushed him as she took down notes from the board before beginnning the potion.

Alexander eyed the borrowed cauldron and ingredients set on the desk in front of them. He considered them briefly before turning to Jesse. "This is an easy enough potion... but I know something else that we can make with these ingredients. Something a bit more... explosive." He looked questioningly at her.

"Don't apologise, you're not boring. I'm grateful of the fact that you actually seem to want to talk to me," she blushed discreetly. "Besides, I don't think we've got many other options ... " she added, eyeing the bolted classroom door and then the rain lashing against the windows outside.

Eyeing the recipe, she begun to crush bettles with a pestal and dropped them casually in their shared cauldron.

"Oh I can do explosive all on my own.. then we can get out of here. It's too creepy to stay." Jesse closed her eyes and dumped everything, every last indgredient within sight.. into the bubbling cauldron. Thick, yellow smoke poured out. "Come on..hurry..," Jesse said, pulling Al and everyone nearby. "Let's get out of here.."

Harry could have died. Thick yellow smoke from the back table... would twisted into his fault no doubts and detention was looking inevitable. He felt the tug from and heard the accent of the blue haired girl. With a great sigh.. he followed after the retreated lot.

Hermione gasped and looked frantically between Snape and the smoking cauldron. "Harry!" she cried in surprise and jumped out of her seat to follow. "Where are you going? We're going to get in a lot of trouble."