It wasn’t a very easy potion, no, but nothing in the text implied that anyone should be moving so quickly that a cauldron got tipped. In fact, the potion called for precision, it called for time, and it called for cooperation between the two partners. Naturally, the two partners would have to be mature enough to work together and agree to the unspoken rule that, while the other turned his or her back to gather some ingredients for the potion that that cauldron wouldn’t be accidentally bumped over. Honestly, it was the most immature and elementary mistake she had seen in the Potion’s classroom in all of her years at Hogwarts, and the class was into far too complicated, advanced, and sometimes dangerous potions to be making mistakes such as these.

Alice had never been one of Slughorn’s particularly favored students, but she worked meticulously in class and did very well, alongside always having a polite smile to offer and just-barely-real-enough laugh for the Professor’s light hearted jokes, or, maybe, it was the fact that as the smallest body in the classroom, he didn’t trust the rest of the group not to trample her in the frenzy to evacuate the classroom. “Meadowes,” he said, met by two sets of very different eyes, before he realized further clarification would be necessary. “The small one,” he said, shaking his head as some sort of apology for the confusion. Alice raised an eyebrow, as the chaos in the middle of the room began to spread outward. “Get everyone out of the hallways. Quickly.” He called upon the prefects in the room to follow after her, but she got the first choice of which hallways to bring to safety.

Leaping deftly to her feet, Alice darted to the outskirts of the classroom into the corridor. It was the middle of class and, she supposed, her job shouldn’t be too difficult as most students had a fair amount of regard to, at least, attending and being present to class, but there was the occasional wanderer or the student who excused his or herself to the restroom in the middle of the lesson. Alice was occasionally guilty of using the bathroom excuse to stretch her little legs when her focus got so bad that she just couldn’t sit still. It was a learning strategy: she was better off excusing herself, and returning the classroom refreshed rather than sitting idly in the classroom, distracted by anything that moved.

Alice glanced first to the left, and then to right, finding that on either side of her, there were no students to warn. Somewhat selfishly, she headed in the direction of Gryffindor tower first to catch and warn any of her own house’s lowerclassmen or wanderers, not because she valued their safety, exactly, over anyone else’s, but decided that they could at least have the advantage of clear, navigable walkways. Encountering a giggling group of second years, Alice heaved a sigh of annoyance as she heard them giggling and squealing about cutting class. Gryffindor spirit, as she termed it, had taken its influence over the girls. Alice approached them, already irritated by their giggling and naivety, touching the shoulder of the young Gryffindor she recognized and urgently suggesting that they all retreat back to their respective common rooms or classrooms, considering them warned, and sped past them to warn whoever else she may come across.

She could hear the faint voices of her classmates as they filed out of the room, sure that Slughorn had called upon a select few of his highly revered students to help him clean up the mess that none of them had even caused. It was not her intention, either, to get caught in the anxious mass of bodies, so she picked up her speed, figuring she would start heading toward her own common room when she came across another wanderer who, clearly, had not heard of the growing noise behind him or had any reason to move quickly. In fact, he moved rather leisurely in his green trim robes and, Alice supposed, why should she expect anything more? Increasing speed to come up side by side with whatever Slytherin this may be, Alice took a breath before looking up to face the blonde.

"I'm supposed to be clearing the halls. Safety measure; potions accident. Now, I know your house is that way," she said, tossing her head back in the opposite direction that they were still moving away from. "But we have to go this way, to avoid running into the accident or being trampled by the evacuees," Alice finished, finally acknowledging that she had run into Crouch Jr. and that she really shouldn't have been counting on him being up for any sort of adventure, with her, no less.

It was something of a mystery as to Barty why he continued to take Arithmancy. Divination might have been more useful with its promise of prophecy but, even then, just as much a distraction from his better classes. Yet there was a pull of fascination, with all its numbers, computations, and hints of great worldly discovery. Arithmancy was also less wishy-washy as there were actual calculations to be made and formulas to follow. It had rules, as opposed to Divination which said stare into this crystal ball and tell me what you see with your inner eye! Or some such nonsense. Merlin was he thankful he had dropped that class at last. If he had to make one more dream diary, he may have thrown himself out of the Divination tower window. At least then one of his predictions might have come true.

Sitting in class with his chin resting in his palm, elbow pressed onto the table top, Barty did his best not to drift off to sleep to the lull of his Professor’s voice. That would be unseemly for him. Due to the unfortunate circumstance of trying to be a loyal friend, he had ended up staying in the library for hours on end the night before. An exhausting endeavor on the best occasions, it was made all the worse when someone's fluffy white cat started cuddling and harassing him for attention in the early hours of the morning. The water outside the window was still a murky dark green, telling him to go back to sleep. But once he was up, he was up, and that was ages ago. Now it was only an hour and a half past breakfast. From this side of lunch, the rest of the day stretched on for years.

When the Professor had finished his lecture and the class was set to doing individual practice work, Barty raised his hand politely. His number chart swam before his eyes and he knew he could not survive completing it. Being a generally well-liked student, the Professor greeted the signal with an expression expecting some great philosophical or advanced question. Bright student that he was, Barty was in fact inclined to hold discussions with his Professors only when he didn't have to do them in front of other people. Which was why the Professor came straight over to him rather than call on him from the front.

Not in the mood for academics, Barty presented the ace card used by Outstanding and Troll students alike: he asked for permission to use the restroom. Permission granted. Not that he expected anything less, but it was always a pleasure to have his wishes met.

Barty set out into the hallway, his supplies and book bag waiting for his return. He would have preferred to have taken them along but he couldn’t remember the last time he had fully ditched a lesson. But certainly he couldn't use the restroom one on Arithmancy floor. No, he didn't like that one much, not today. That would be a complete waste. Now, the one two floors down was just perfect. It would give him time to stretch his legs and take in some morning sun settling in through the high castle windows.

Walking at his leisure through the corridor, in no rush to get to his destination or to get back to class, he heard the soft, hurried steps coming up behind him. None of my business, he thought at first, but then suddenly Meadowes, the small one, was walking beside him, warning him. An odd moment for him, since he was under the opinion that the Meadowes sisters were no fans of his and might even enjoy seeing him trampled. But when she looked up at him, they both shared a moment of what looked like ‘Oh, it’s you...’ Or maybe that was just how it felt to him.

He opened to his mouth to tell her that he wasn’t going back to his common room, but he closed it and hastily reconsidered. If his safety was at stake, certainly he was allowed to go with wherever the evacuees were going. Barty looked over his shoulder to check and, even though he saw nothing of unusual—no strange ooze coming for them or clouds of murky smoke—he took only a moment of thought. His initial destination was the fifth floor, but if going with her took him all the way to the ground floor, then that seemed as good to him as any.

“Well, that’s inconvenient but all right,” he said simply, making a slightly worried face for her benefit while patting his front pocket to check for his wand. Without waiting, he picked up the pace and looked at her sidelong. “Let’s not get trampled then, shall we?”

Alice was, actually, a little shocked to find Crouch Jr. wandering. Sure, he was a year younger than her but Hogwarts was small, and class ranks were listed. It didn’t take a spreading rumor for Alice to know that Crouch Jr. was a studious boy who took pride in his studies and, certainly, everything else that had his family’s name beside it, which only reminded her that even the most brilliant Slytherin could not shake the feelings of entitlement that coursed through his or her veins. Then came the part in every Slytherin that needed to uphold the family name, and she could finally conclude that she was still expecting this particular student to be evacuated with the rest of his class.

In the moment where the two very different sets of eyes met, she thought she might have conveyed all of this in a glance, but she doubted that he picked up on it. For all of his academic sharpness, Crouch Jr. had not gained a reputation of being extraordinarily astute in social situations; then again, this could hardly be called a social situation. It was a quick exchange of words that they wouldn’t be having if she hadn’t been sent to corral the wandering ones.

He opened his mouth as if to speak, but he didn’t continue before reevaluating whatever he was going to say to her. Alice couldn’t help but raise her eyebrow as the steam of haughty lines he could have just swallowed sprang to her mind. Did he think this was some sort of prank, and if he did, could he possibly believe that Alice was concerned enough with him to single him out of the many Hogwarts students? Whatever the thought may have been, she would never know and he had found his good sense to move past it as, well.

He looked over his shoulder, obviously looking for the telltale signs of a potions accident, and Alice grimaced as she looked back to find that the corridor was void of such signs. There was no way she could quite know what was going on within the classroom or how much they had already gotten under control, but she knew that she’d been told to hurry out here and take care of whoever might encounter the spill. It did make things a little bit more interesting, though. Crouch Jr. could think her a bit loony, and the idea seemed almost an invitation to play the role... had she not been entirely serious in warning, but as slow moving as the potion was, she was starting to see potential in this unconventional exchange.

Still not having fully decided that she was willing to play the theatrics with Barty Crouch, anyways, she decided to dismiss the forced look of concern on his face. She nodded once slowly, realizing that exaggerated gestures were already coming too easily for her not to have decided. It occurred to her only now that her greatest restriction in simply choosing to dabble in her playful antics was the impression she would leave on Barty, and who he might tell… if he might tell Regulus, really, because he was the only one of her concerns that Crouch Jr. would have the mind to tell and didn’t know this side of her already. She and Regulus had left things in an interesting place, to say the least. Nothing in particular had been said, but she had no intention of letting their experience in the library be their last one.

Realizing how social-typical she was being, she shook her head. Alice had no reason to assume Regulus had even thought of the solove-the-love-potion-debacle as more than what it was, meaning he would have had no reason to tell his dear friend, and Barty would have no reason to tell him. Brushing off the concern, she tossed it aside immediately choosing to assume her role. Certainly she could get the two of them to safety and have a bit of fun doing it, since she was not a loon and still operating with her brain capacity.

When he had properly armed himself for defense, Alice considered herself, empty handedly trying to face the situation. She reached for her own wand, and nodded very seriously. “It’s a shame these things happen,” she said pensively, “tramplings, that is, you can’t seem to stop them.” With an expressive sigh, she incorporated two delicate skips into her walk to keep up with the legs that were much longer than her own and rushing away from the reported potions accident. “I don’t suppose it happens to you often?” she inquired, setting him up to respond to her strange behavior before she decided whether to keep it up or not. The levity could easily be traded for a more caustic air, if he would prefer it.