By the time they arrived at Hogwarts, Hermione was ready to shoot her two male friends! It wasn’t that she wanted to talk about the latest edition of Witch Weekly or anything “girly” like that, but really now, 3 straight hours of Quidditch? Thankfully the witch with the food cart had come by before she said something she would really regret!
As they climbed off the train, Hermione, Ron and Harry noticed with relief that for once it wasn’t raining. They must have outrun the rain in London this morning. In fact, they could clearly see the stars shining down on them and reflecting in the water of the lake. The first years would have a good view of Hogwarts on their way across the water this year.
Just then a very large, dark form carrying a rather dim lantern lumbered over to them. “Arright then, you three?” came Hagrid’s unmistakable rumble.
“Yes, Hagrid” they replied.
“See you up at the castle then. First years, this way, over here!”
Harry, Hermione and Ron quickly jumped into a carriage, and waited expectantly for the ride to the school. The door abruptly opened again, and Ginny stuck her head in saying “Can I join you? The only other space is in the carriage with Malfoy, and I don’t feel like listening to him whine and poke fun at me.”
“Come on” Harry said moving over to make room. “Have a good train ride? Where’d all your friends go?”
“There are five of us, and I was the last one to the carriage.” Ginny answered as the carriage lurched forward.
They spent the rest of the ride discussing the coming year, and what classes they would be taking. The carriage stopped with another abrupt lurch as they reached the stairs leading to the entrance. Across the lake they could see the lanterns from the boats reflected in the water as the first years made their ghostly way across the lake.
As they climbed out of the carriage, Harry suddenly fell forward and landed on his face at Ginny’s feet.
“Harry, are you alright” Ginny was aghast at the sight of her brother’s friend sprawled at her feet.
“Look at that! Potter must be proposing to the Weasel’s sister!” the loud, stuck up voice of Draco Malfoy drifted over the crowd of students gathered at the bottom of the steps.
Ron immediately turned as red as his hair and started toward the blonde Slytherin with his hands knotted into fists.
“Ron, stop!” Hermione and Ginny said holding on to the back of Ron’s robes. “Don’t give him the satisfaction! Besides, that won’t help Harry.”
Reaching down, Ron gave Harry a hand up. “What happened Harry?”
“I don’t know. All of a sudden my eyes went sort of fuzzy and I couldn’t see the step down. I must have missed it” he said with a sheepish grin.
Entering the grand hall they found their seats quickly and waited anxiously for the first years to appear, be sorted, and the food to appear.
“Oh come on, get it over with.” Ron moaned, holding his stomach as the new students were slowly sorted. By the time the sorting hat was done, he looked as if he thought he wouldn’t last any longer with out substantial food.
The headmaster rose, welcomed the new students, and the food appeared to Ron’s great relief.
Having filled his stomach adequately, Harry took the time to look around the room at various friends. His eye lit on the head table, and he noticed that for once there were no new teachers, and no empty chairs at the table. Dumbledore caught his eye and winked with his normal merry twinkle. Professor McGonagall calmly ate her dinner, talking with tiny Professor Flitwick, who was seated next to her. Even Professor Trelawny had graced them with her presence. Looking the other way down the table, his eye immediately fell on the saturnine features of Severus Snape. Not much had changed there. Suddenly the potions master’s eyes met his, and he was surprised that Snapes didn’t immediately radiate hate. In fact, they seemed rather inscrutable. That was odd. Just then, his attention was grabbed by Fred Weasley sitting next to him.
“Did we tell you about the things we invented over the summer using your money?”
“No, Ron said that he’d heard lots of explosions from your room. I assumed that meant you were busy inventing. So, what have you made?” Harry asked, deeply interested in the Weasley’s new products.
“Ah, quite a few things. We need some testers though, and for some reason, our family members weren’t willing to help. We thought about just slipping some to them, but after Mum’s blow up last year, we thought we’d better not. Didn’t want to lose everything we’d done so far.
“Well don’t try them out on me!” Harry exclaimed.
“We weren’t planning to. One little gem we’ve got planned for a certain notorious professor to try out for us. Keep watching the head table over the next few days, you may be surprised at what you see.” Fred said with a devilish smirk.
The following morning as they all trooped down to breakfast, the question on everyone’s mind was what the new class schedules would look like. As they sat down and helped themselves to the food already on the table, George reached over and handed them some papers.
“New schedules. Hope yours is better than ours. We have three classes with Slytherin this year.”
Ron, looking at his schedule with as much attention as he could muster this early in the morning said “They must be kidding! Harry, we’ve got Double Potions with Slytherin first thing in the morning three times a week! Who makes up these bloody schedules, and why do they have it in for us?”
“Ron! Will you please just hush? They can hear you all the way up at the head table!” Hermione hissed.
They looked at the teachers seated at the head table and noted with some embarrassment that their section of the Gryfindor table seemed to have the unanimous attention every teacher present. Including Snape. Who was glaring at them as usual. The Headmaster however, seemed to have an amused smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, even as he shook his head at their behavior.
“Well we’re off to a brilliant start, I’m surprised he didn’t take points off for that.” Hermione whispered. Choosing discretion as the better part of valor, rather belatedly, they took off for their first class of the new year, potions.
Entering the potions classroom they apprehensively seated themselves at their normal table toward the back. Neville joined them in the vain hope of being ignored by his tormentor. The Slytherins seated on the other side of the classroom contented themselves with smirking in the direction of the Gryfindors seated across from them. Professor Snape swept through the door, black cloak billowing as he strode confidently to the front of the room. His dark gaze was piercing as he gazed across the students in front of him, lingering momentarily on Harry. Harry, feeling like he was a small rabbit about to provide the main course for an overgrown hawk, slouched down in his seat and rather fervently prayed for an end to the class.
“Today, fifth years, we will be starting a new level of your potions instruction. As you all know, you will be taking your O.W.L.S. in a few short months, and I suggest that you pay attention. Now, pair up. No, Miss Granger, you will NOT be working with Mr. Longbottom today. You will work with Mr. Malfoy. Mr. Longbottom, you will be working with Mr. Potter, and Mr. Weasley, you will work with Miss Bulstrode. Well, what are you waiting for….MOVE!” Hermione, grimacing slightly, moved across the room to sit with Malfoy, while Ron could be heard muttering uncomplimentary words under his breath as Milicent made her way over. Neville, looking even more uncomfortable than usual leaned over to whisper to Harry, “I’m sorry Harry, I’ll try not to kill you.” Harry just grinned weakly at him. He was pretty confident Snape wouldn’t really allow anything truly dire to happen to him, but then again…
“Copy down this recipe, carefully note that you must add the frog’s eyes one at a time, stirring in a clockwise motion PRECISELY 3 times. This potion must simmer for approximately 45 minutes, so you should not waste any time getting started.” That said, Snape promptly turned his back on the class and began checking supplies in the large, locked storage cabinet to the right of his desk. Silence descended as the class began busily mixing ingredients, intently staring at the notes they had taken. Harry carefully chopped parsley leaves as Neville prepared to add the frog eyes.
“Remember Nev, one at a time.” Harry cautioned.
“Right, Harry” he responded humbly.
“And you stir 3 times clockwise.” Harry continued.
“Clockwise? Are you sure it was clockwise? I wrote counter clockwise.”
Just then their cauldron began to shudder and smoke. Harry, taking in the situation immediately, yelled “Hit the Deck” just as the contents erupted out of the cauldron, soaking both boys. Their skin was immediately covered with angry looking purple boils.
“Idiots!” The professor hissed as he swept up to them in a swirl of robes. “I clearly said to stir it counter clockwise. Potter, 10 points from Gryffindor for not correcting Longbottom’s mistake! Go to Madame Pomphrey. Oh, and Potter, I will expect to see you down here tonight for a detention with me.”
The boys quietly let themselves into the hospital wing. Madam Pomphrey hurried over saying “Oh Neville, not another potions accident. Good thing I’ve laid in a stock of restorative. Now just sit down quietly over there and we’ll have you right in a jiffy.” She bustled off, returning several minutes later with a large blue bottle and two spoons. “I want you to both sit here quietly for the next hour while this works, and then we’ll see how you’re doing.” Harry sat quietly, thinking about how unfair it was for Professor Snape to blame him for Neville’s error.
“Harry, I’m sorry about this” Neville said quietly
“I know Neville.”
“Why do you suppose Snape didn’t give me detention too?” he asked.
“Dunno, unless it’s one more way to torture me” Harry said with fatalistic calm. He knew that Snape hated him, he just didn’t know why. Contemplating that thought he drifted off to sleep.
“Well, my dears, the potion seems to have worked.” Madame Pomphrey’s cheery voice woke Harry. “Now, whatever you do, stay out of the direct sunshine as much as possible for the next few days, or you’ll be back with a horrible sun burn.”
Both boys left realizing that they had missed Transfiguration, and would be late for Defense Against the Dark Arts if they didn’t hurry. They ran through the halls, slammed through the door, and slid into their seats just as the bell rang. Ron leaned over and asked if he was ok as Professor Lupin walked through the door and up to the front of the classroom.
“Today, class, we will begin with a review of what you learned last year. We will be doing lots of hands on practicing later on in the year, and will focus quite a bit on subjects you can expect to see on your O.W.L.s. Now, who can tell me….”
Harry’s attention drifted away as he thought about his first class of the day. What a lousy way to start off a year. Not even a full day of classes and he already had detention.
“Harry Potter, would you please stay behind a moment.” Harry jerked out of his reverie when Professor Lupin addressed him, realizing he hadn’t heard a thing during the whole class. He approached Lupin’s desk as the rest of the class left, Ron and Hermione reluctantly dragging their feet, trying to wait for him. “You seemed a bit preoccupied during class, anything you want to talk about? Remus asked kindly.
Harry looked into those warm eyes and found himself spilling the whole sorry story to his favorite teacher. “and now I’ve got detention, and the first day isn’t even over. Why does he do this to me?”
Remus looked away as he thought, and then said “Harry, I’m going to have to ask you to keep an open mind about Professor Snape. I can’t tell you about his life, that would be up to him. Suffice it to say that things have never been easy for him, but I trust him implicitly. Now, I believe it’s almost time for dinner, and I’m sure your friends are waiting out in the hall for you.”
Harry, Ron and Hermione quickly dropped their packs off at the common room before trooping down into the hall for dinner. Harry didn’t really want to talk, and the other two respected his silence and contented themselves with giving him encouraging glances. As they settled into their places at the table, Fred and George leaned over to talk to Harry while Ron and Hermione listened in.
“Did we hear right?” George asked quietly.
“Snape really gave you detention on the first day of school?” Fred continued.
“Miserable git.” Harry muttered.
“Well then, watch the head table, the show tonight should be impressive.” Both the twins smiled vindictively at the head table, looking particularly hard at Professor Snape, who was sitting in his accustomed spot. He seemed to have something on his mind, he was looking into the distance and more playing with his food than eating it. He kept darting strange glances toward Harry too.
“What did you do?” Hermione asked suspiciously.
“Us?” Fred asked innocently
“Come on, what’s going on?” Ron pressed.
“Nothing! We’ve just selected one of our esteemed teachers to have the supreme honor of testing one of our new products!” George protested.
“What product, what does it do?” Hermione continued to look suspicious.
“It’s called a Terrific Truth Tonic. It’s tasteless and odorless so even the most discriminating palate can’t detect it. It also lowers the inhibitions of the person so that not only will they tell their deepest, most hidden secret, they’ll do it in a most public and humiliating way!” George grinned.
“You didn’t!” Hermione seemed torn between horror and anticipation.
“Oh, but we did. We figured His Supreme Nastiness needed a little humbling after his performance with Harry today. So watch the head table and enjoy!” George said, lifting his goblet of pumpkin juice in a salute.
They watched the head table through dinner. Dessert was being served, and the twins were beginning to look a bit worried and whisper to themselves when a very peculiar look swept over the Potions Masters face. He seemed to be fighting a battle with himself and losing, from the looks of it.
“Severus, are you all right?” Remus asked as he looked at Severus.
“Yes, of course. Just have to do something, that’s all.” He responded. With that, he resolutely got up, and climbed on the table.
By now, the whole school was watching the spectacle of their rigid professor behaving so uncharacteristically. The Slitherin’s in particular seemed pained to see him standing there, swaying lightly.
“Severus, whatever are you doing?” Minerva whispered to him. “Get down this instant!”
“In a moment dear Minerva” he said calmly. Standing straight and looking out on the massed students he said in a loud clear voice “Harry Potter is my son!” Instantly there was a loud “poof” and a large cloud of smoke. When the smoke cleared, Professor Snape was still standing there, but he had sprouted electric pink feathers all over his body. Silence filled the hall as Severus Snape, master potion maker and bane of all students slowly keeled over on the floor.
“Hmm, didn’t expect that. Have to work some more on that one George, I don’t think the pink feathers will go over well when we try to market it.” Fred muttered with a look of clinical detachment on his face.
“Forget that, Fred, I think we’re really in for it this time. Look at Harry.” George responded, looking in some concern at Harry, who seemed to be frozen in shock.