She lowered her head and looked at the ink-black water.
The water did not reflect her face.
Instead, it showed a familiar, dimly lit Potions Classroom.
A thin man with greasy black hair was staring at her with cold, snake-like eyes.
"Stupid... even the trolls of Gryffindor have better brains than you."
Professor Snape's sharp, cutting voice echoed clearly in her mind.
In the image, her cauldron was spewing thick green smoke with a foul stench like rotten eggs.
The snickers of the students around her pricked her skin like countless tiny needles.
It was a disastrous failure in a Potions Class during her second year.
She had added the porcupine quills to the cauldron too early, causing the entire potion to explode.
Shame and embarrassment instantly engulfed her like a tide.
Her cheeks burned fiercely, and she almost cried.
But she bit her lip hard and remembered that rule.
Summoning all her courage, she spoke softly to her bedraggled self in the pool, her voice trembling and barely audible:
"Th-this isn't all of me."
Her voice was so quiet that her own heartbeat nearly drowned it out.
The image in the water did not change at all.
She took a deep breath, her voice growing a little louder and a little firmer.
"This isn't all of me."
A faint ripple began to spread across the water.
She closed her eyes and used every ounce of her strength, almost shouting.
"This isn't all of me!"
The instant her words fell silent.
Splash-
In the pool, that shameful memory instantly shattered like a mirror struck by a heavy hammer.
The dark fragments sank to the bottom.
A new image slowly emerged.
It was inside a warm greenhouse filled with the fragrance of soil.
She was carefully transplanting an extremely rare plant