Chapter 2
Kang Yun Soo awoke the next morning relatively rested and cheerful. This was of course before her eyes landed on the Advanced Potion Making mocking from her bedside table. She wasn't much of a morning person as it was and the last thing she needed to see was the bane of her existence: the prospect of a perfectly good afternoon wasted away between the bookshelves of a library (or at least when the books she would be reading were merely for research). I probably should have started yesterday, she thought with annoyance.
Heaving a sigh, she shrugged off her russet comforter and clambered out of the queen-sized bed situated in a corner of her room. A glance at a clock told her that she had thirty minutes before breakfast ended at the Great Hall. At least I don't have that much maintenance to do, she mused, quickly combing her hair with her hand and then heading towards her dresser.
Severus Snape meanwhile had nearly finished with his small breakfast of toast and eggs, and had begun discussing the morning news (a witch in Surrey had accidently turned her son into a teabag) with his closest friend, Hugh Norewood, professor of Ancient Runes. At length, however, the conversation soon turned upon Snape himself, and what he thought of his first apprentice. The subject elicited a glare and a scoff from the potions master who severely regretted ever being conned into the offer by the headmaster.
"Oh come now, he can't be that bad," Hugh laughed, taking a drink from the goblet before him.
"Lazy, spoiled, seriously misled," Snape groused. "He can't even remember how to brew a simple potion."
"Simple to you, you mean."
"Severus," Dumbledore suddenly intervened, smiling at him in a way that could only mean a favor was to follow. "Speaking of your apprentice, where is Mr. Kang?"
"It's none of my concern where he is before lessons," Snape replied crossly, pushing away the rest of his food. Dumbledore chuckled.
"Well of course, but perhaps you might check to make sure he has not overslept. He is, after all, not used to our schedule here."
Snape knew there was no point in arguing. He pointedly stood up and strode towards the dungeons, jaw hardened and eyes aflame. Within a couple of minutes, he reached the door to Kang's chambers and rapped on it briefly before just merely walking in.
Yun Soo looked away from her reflection in a mirror in alarm as professor Snape rudely marched into her private quarters before she had even thought about asking him to enter. She met his cold eyes with an equally hateful stare as he drawled, "Professor Dumbledore would like me to inform you that breakfast ends by eight o'clock. I assume I won't need to tell you this ever again, Mr. Kang." Her teeth clamped tightly together.
"No sir."
He abruptly left the room.
"Asshole," she grumbled and returned to the predicament that had kept her stuck in her room for the past twenty minutes: how in hell do you tie a tie? All her attempts had resulted in something utterly pitiful. The only reason she had been properly dressed yesterday was because Ellie had tied it beforehand. Then all she had to do was slip it over her head and pull it tighter. Her handiwork had come undone when Yun Soo in her anger had yanked the tie off of her neck.
She soon gave up and decided to ask Hugh about it after breakfast, which she arrived to with five minutes left. She sat at the open seat beside him, greeted the headmaster cheerfully, and pointedly ignored Snape who had not acknowledged her anyways. She had just grabbed a particularly delightful looking Cranberry Muffin when the voice she least wanted to hear called her name.
"Yes, professor Snape?" she inquired callously, meeting his scrutinizing gaze.
"Where, might I ask, is your tie?"
"I've yet to put it on," she said. He glared at her maliciously.
"Though in a unique position you may be, you are no different from any other student here," he chastised. "And as the rest of them, you will wear the required uniform. Fix it." She said nothing in reply and eat her breakfast in resentful silence. When the food from the tables had disappeared from sight (along with her half-eaten muffin, much to her frustration), she strolled with Hugh to his classroom. Once the door had closed behind them, she abruptly confessed, " I have no idea how to tie a tie." He noticed the pleading look in her eye.
"There's no way I'm teaching you."
"Aw, come on, professor!"
"I can barely do it myself!"
"I can't do it at all."
"That's not my problem."
Somehow she was able to convince him to help her, but he proved to be of as much use as her own attempts had been. The situation became even more wonderful with the entrance of Snape, who had come to talk to his friend about something she couldn't possibly fathom. He waited impatiently for the two to finish, but after perceiving no end to these useless efforts in sight, he snapped, "Give it here," and effortlessly tied the tie around Kang's neck.
She became even more pissed off by the belittling manner with which Snape had mocked her limitation, and promenaded back to her room with a mumbled word of thanks. She then attempted to knock out the tedious essays he had set for her. To her dismay, they took up not only her afternoon, but her evening as well (partially due to her often getting distracted by other, much more fascinating potions). The recipe to a Sleeping Draught turned out to be a lot more complicated to memorize than she had predicted. She couldn't even find all the information she needed to write her essays and eventually resorted to just making up something halfway reasonable.
Yun Soo entered the potions classroom that day completely drained of spirit. She already knew she was going to fail to meet his expectations and grudgingly handed him her work.
"Brew a Sleeping Draught," Snape ordered and then shifted into a more comfortable position to read her papers. She slid into the storage closet, racking her brains for the instructions to the potion. She didmanage to remember that she needed Lavender, Flubberworm Mucus, and Valerian Sprigs and although her concoction turned out better than the previous one, it was still wrong at the point when Snape stood up to check her progress.
"An incorrectly brewed potion, poorly researched and written essays," he observed and with a flick of his wand, the contents of her cauldron disappeared. "I will not tolerate laziness, Mr. Kang, and especially not in someone in your position."
"The library's books didn't have the information you wanted," she retorted. His eyes narrowed.
"I will not accept excuses. Had you ever put any serious thought into my assignment, then maybe you would have considered that the school library is not the only source of information." She glared at him as he waved his wand again and two stacks of expensive looking books appeared on the table before her. "You are to redo each essay you dared turn in to me by time the clock strikes eleven. Also, as a lesson to your ignorance, you will research places in which a person might find information and hand it into me as a written report tomorrow morning. This is my final warning. If I should find you slacking off the next time we meet, you'll be removed from this program."
With that, she wordlessly set about to her work, angered by her own incompetence.
