Hermione sat cross-legged and turned Moste Potente Potions to the page on Polyjuice Potion, carefully studying the recipe. There were drawings of several people turning into someone else.
Densely packed text took up more than half the page.
Harry could understand some of it, more or less, but Ron read for a while before retreating to one side with his head spinning.
"Lacewing flies, leeches, fluxweed, and knotgrass. I remember there being some in the student supply cupboard." Hermione slid her finger gently down the ingredients list, looking thoughtful.
"The difficult ones are bicorn horn-bicorns are bull-like animals that are extremely faithful to their wives, and their sole food is male virgins-and African tree snake skin."
"How are you going to get those?" Su Er asked. "African tree snake skin is an essential ingredient with no substitute."
"Don't worry. We know somewhere that's bound to have it," Harry said confidently.
Su Er's expression turned odd. He had thought of a place too. "You're not planning to steal from Professor Snape's private storeroom, are you?"
"How did you know?" Harry looked at Su Er in surprise.
"Actually, I've never thought breaking into Snape's private storeroom was a good idea." Ron came over.
"If you're scared and want to back out now, that's fine." Hermione closed the book. "You know I don't want to break school rules. Brewing potions in secret, stealing from a professor, wandering around at night, and so on... that's breaking at least fifty school rules."
"I can take the book back to Madam Pince right now."
Harry and Ron fell silent. Finally, Ron gritted his teeth. He thought Malfoy's threatening behavior was far worse than brewing a complicated potion.
"All right, let's do it..."
"So how long does this potion take to brew?" Harry asked then.
Hermione opened