Dear Headmaster;

What people never seemed to realize is, if you screw up a spell, it will generally either fail or backfire in the caster's face.

If you screw up at potions, you could level Scotland.

It had happened before. The Atlanteans, for one. One dumb kid who wanted to brew a potion that would improve muscle tone, and the next thing you know his whole civilization is relocated to the bottom of the ocean. Or the Russian warlocks back in the '70s. They tried brewing up some Felix Felicis, they slipped a dirty ladle into the cauldron, and the next thing you know, the Soviets were trying to figure out what went wrong at Chernobyl.

McGonagall and Flitwick and all those others can be as lax with discipline as they please. I cannot. They can feign horror at my policies and question my methods. Well, they are free too. The insults they mutter behind my back are only made possible because I stopped an eleven year child from turning the Hogwarts air into sulfuric acid.

Mistakes are simply not an option. Not in a Potions class.

It is a war I have waged for almost eleven years, singlehandedly. Each day that passes without death or permanent injury is a minor skirmish won. This war started the first day Hogwarts opened, and will continue long after I am gone. I can only hope to hold the inevitable at bay long enough to find a competent replacement for when I retire or die.

Some nights I wake up bathed in sweat, having dreamt that I had been replaced by somebody like Hagrid.

Incidentally. You have accused me in the past of being melodramatic. A "drama queen", as I believe you put it.

That's as may be. But it doesn't mean I'm not right.

Now, I've heard them say that I prejudged the Potter boy. That I took one look at his face and decided he was a clone of his father. That I have developed an unreasonable hatred for him.

As to who spreads these allegations, I could not say for certain. However, McGonagall does tend to side with Gryffindors in every case...

In any case, these allegations are false. I merely recognized that he was the kind of child who, were I to give him a cookbook and tell him to bake a cake, would burn the house down on accident and still claim it wasn't his fault.

True, he was a nigh-identical copy of my arch rival, and that even if he was Salazar Slytherin reborn I still wouldn't want to spend time in his company. But I am a professional. More than that, I am a potions master. I can shelve my feelings and do what I must.

More than that, he was the son of Lily. I wasn't going to set him up for failure.

My judgement of him, while harsh, was accurate.

Potter needed to understand that in my class, he must do what I tell him, when I tell him, in the precise manner I tell him to do it in.

"I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even put a stopper on death - if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

My exact words. It's the same speech I give every year to the first years. Show me exactly where I acted inappropriately.

Exactly.

Though yes, I did make a crack about Potter's fame. Fair enough. I admit it, and won't call him a celebrity again. That's a reasonable request to make of me.

However, Potter did not prepare for my class. At all. This lackadaisical attitude towards potions was unacceptable. Swaggering into the dungeon like some Lockhart wannabe was bad enough, laughing with his little Weasley pal like they thought Potions was some kind of joke was worse, and doodling on scrap paper when he should have been paying attention to me was the final straw.

Unacceptable. And when I gave a quick quiz to test his knowledge, he failed.

He didn't even know what happened when you mix asphodel and wormwood! For god's sake! I have memorized every page of the first year potions textbook- the Draught of Living Death is on page three. Second paragraph from the top. Potter apparently couldn't be bothered to open the damn textbook and read three damn pages.

I admit I was angry. This may have affected my tone to some extent. But pop quizzes are an acceptable teaching method. Moreover, Potter needed to get it through his head that he knew nothing about nothing. Not when it comes to Potions. We both know what the first step to wisdom is.

Next, he didn't know what a bezoar was. I mean, my God. Even Muggles know what bezoars are. It's such a basic precaution in potions making that I have never had less than three on me when I brew even the simplest concotion, and always have at least 30 within arm's reach in a classroom environment.

I'll concede, though, that even the brightest first year would have been hard pressed to know that monkshood and wolfsbane were the same plant, let alone the Greek name for it. That one may have been spite.

And, oh, did it get worse. When I set the class to brew the Boil Cure, the Longbottom boy somehow managed to send himself to hospital. Don't ask me how, it's the easiest potion I could find.

Actually, I tell a lie, I know precisely what went wrong. You have to take the cauldron off the fire before adding the porcupine quills. This step was written in the textbook in bold faced, capital letters, with several arrows pointing at it from several directions. Longbottom still forgot to do it.

If I got a pay raise every time some idiot child almost killed himself by ignoring my instructions, I could have started at a Knut a month and been a billionaire by now.

But here's the thing, you see. Potter was sitting not three feet from Longbottom, and didn't help him. And I know that he knew what Longbottom was doing wrong, because I watched Potter do his potion correctly just before the fool melted his cauldron.

And why, you ask, would Potter ignore a classmate's mistake?

Simple. The little puke knew that he had gotten off on the wrong foot with me by failing to read the textbook, so he figured that it would make him look better if Longbottom erred.

So. A stupid, ignorant child gets drenched in a fouled-up potion because Potter wanted a little positive attention.

But what if it hadn't been Boil Cure, hm? What if it had been Amorphous potion, or Joint Stiffener, or Tattoo Removal Ointment? What if instead of a mass of painful boils that Madame Pomfrey can fix in a heartbeat, the potion had mixed with the dust on the floor to unleash nerve gas into the air?

Some kinds of nerve gas rise, Albus. And we were in the lowest part of the castle.

I think I showed significant restraint by merely taking a single point away for Potter's malice. I could have just mercy-killed him on the spot.

I have no doubt that Potter has given you a markedly different account of the incident. I'm sure that terms such as "unfair", "mean", "unreasonable" were thrown about with childish abandon.

Nonetheless, I will drill discipline and knowledge and self-control into Potter's skull as though my life depends on it. Because it does. One cannot envision imagine the horrors that can be unleashed when people do not approach Potions with respect and skill.

So, Headmaster, the Quaffle is in your court. Will you back the boy, or me?

Like I even need to ask. I'll see Potter in class Monday, and he will give Potions the respect it requires and I will give him the skill he needs. Full stop.

With any luck at all, Potter will live to see the summer. No thanks to him.

Regards
Severus Snape