September 1991

Snape paced along the front of his dungeon classroom, reciting his first-day-of-first-year lecture by rote. So far, it seemed that yes, this batch of students was going to be as big a bunch of dunderheads as usual. Exhaling slightly more forcefully than normal – Severus Snape never did anything so mundane as sighing – he tapped the blackboard with his wand and the instructions for the Cure for Boils appeared. Keeping his back to the class, he wrapped up his discourse with his customary conclusion.

"Mind that you do not mistake the valerian sprigs for dried nettles… the result will be something which you will not soon forget." Waiting, he wondered if any of these students would comprehend his little potions joke. After a moment passed with no sound, his shoulders slumped slightly. Then, he heard it – a giggle, quickly muffled. Turning slowly, he scanned the faces before him, trying to determine which student had just marked themselves as his favorite.

Hopefully looking in the direction of the Slytherins first, he was highly disappointed to see them all staring back at him blankly. Facing the Gryffindors with trepidation, he noted that several were making a note of his words on their parchments. Fools. At last, his eyes landed on a girl at the front of the classroom. Marvelous, he inwardly snarled. Miss Hermione Granger, the Gryffindor know-it-all and companion of the hated Potter, had just laughed at his joke. Blast.

Avoiding the extreme urge to pen his letter of resignation to Dumbledore this very moment, he instead settled for snapping at the girl. "You find my instructions amusing, Miss Granger?" He was slightly mollified when the humor fled her face and her voice shook as she answered.

"N-n-no, sir, I was only… laughing at your joke." The end of her sentence emerged as no more than a whisper.

Fantastic. She had understood his joke. A bloody, busybody Gryffindor was the only student in her year to have the intelligence to understand what he'd said…

"And tell me, Miss Granger," Snape deliberately made his voice as bored as possible, "do I seem to you like the type of person who would. Make. A. Joke?" He enunciated each word, aware that he was striking fear into the hearts of these children.

Miss Granger's eyes were large saucers in her elfin face, and she shook her head mutely, clearly too terrified to argue with him, even though they both knew that he had, in fact, meant his words to be a feeble attempt at humor.

"Well?" He snarled. "Get to work!" The students rushed about in a sudden frenzy of activity, bumping into each other as they hurried to select their ingredients and brew their first potion. Snape passed a tired hand over his face, wondering how many explosions he would be dealing with today. As Miss Granger walked past him on her way back to her seat, she gave him a considering look. He stiffened and glared back at her. How dare she possess not only intelligence, but a backbone as well? He bloody hated Gryffindors.

Vowing to make her as miserable as possible for the rest of her tenure at Hogwarts, Snape began to move about the classroom, inspecting potions as he went.


A/N: Thanks to WeasleySeeker for beta-reading. Note that dried nettles are used in the Cure for Boils; valerian sprigs are used in the Forgetfulness Potion. I'm still not J.K. Rowling and I still don't profit from this.