"Professor Snaaaaaaaaaaaape!"
Titters and giggles rippled around me as I strode proudly into the dungeon classroom, late as always for potions. I dropped my bag on Roger's table but did not bother to sit down like all of the other students. Instead, before breezing to the front of the room, I waved to the desk across from us, where Angie and one of her Gryffindor friends were both biting their sleeves to keep from laughing loudly enough for Snape to hear.
Not that Severus Snape particularly cared that his entire seventh year potions class was hardly cowering in fear at the moment. He had learned long ago that no class with me in it would be business as usual, but he still held onto hope. He envisioned my fellow Ravenclaws marveling at the power he held and desiring to be as cunning and clever as him one day. Wishful thinking, of course, but sometimes it was good to dream.
It was common for students to have favorite classes and favorite professors, but nobody liked potions, and certainly nobody liked Professor Snape. That was what he tried for, at least. But, from day one, I made it clear that I was having none of his plan. Hogwarts was the beginning of my own life, a life away from my mother's fears and nightmares. The way I saw it, the best way to break cleanly from her influence was to face down the scariest teacher in the school and stand my ground. If Snape couldn't get to me, no one could, I figured. My plan hadn't worked nearly as well as I thought, as any encounter with a spider would prove, but I never once cowered in his classroom. See, I was most excited about learning how to make potions, and it came naturally to me. I might never be able to turn a button into a mouse or manage to pick a constellation out of the billions of stars in the sky, but I could make one hell of a potion. Even Severus Snape had to admit that. Just…never out loud.
When Fred and George, who grudgingly sat in front of Angie and Lee because they'd managed to snag a table in the very back of the room, arrived late and lost house points the very first day of our first year, I immediately called George a dunderhead and told them to find a map of the school so they could get to class on time. The boys thought nothing of it, of course, and George told me I looked like a scruff and should be quiet, but my outburst had Snape completely thrown. Students didn't speak in his class. The most he ever got was a stammered half-word when he berated their pathetic excuses for potion making. The points he docked from Ravenclaw that day only encouraged me. I would make this man like me. He might never admit it, but I would win him over.
He could never put me down, either. Every student to ever sit in his classroom had a button, one that turned even the most confident Quidditch star into a bumbling idiot beneath his icy gaze. Not me. When he called me a bumbling buffoon for slicing my wolfsbane when I should have crushed it, I laughed, called myself a dunderhead (a name I normally reserved for George's stupidity), and produced a new sprig to try again. When he announced to a class of half-Ravenclaw, half-Slytherin my second year that my potion was not golden brown but rather a rather brilliant pink because I forgot the simple addition of two cloves minced garlic, I announced that I never could have corrected the mistake without his patience and guidance and thanked him for being such a brilliant teacher. My goal was for him to realize what it was like to be the one stammering with nothing to say, and I'm fairly certain I succeeded at least once. I give him credit though. He always hid it well.
So, when I turned up for my seventh year of Potions, Snape squeezed his eyes shut as if praying this was the last day of classes so I would be gone again for three blissful months. When he opened his eyes to see me standing before him with my expectant, wide-eyed stare, overjoyed grin, and outstretched arms, his hope officially died for the school year.
"It's so good to be back!" I squealed, throwing my arms around him. He let out a light 'oof' at the impact and staggered back a step. Once he regained his composure, he pried one arm free of my bear hug and used it to push me off of him.
"Five points from Ravenclaw."
"What for?" I pouted, but I could tell by his scowl that he saw the mischievous glint in my eye. I knew exactly how much I annoyed him, and he knew that it was my goal to drive him insane.
"For being late. And for touching me. Sit down, Miss Harper."
I stuck my bottom lip out, turned on my heel, offered a quick wink to Angie, who smiled more broadly to show that she approved of my performance, and flounced back to my seat, my spiraling black curls bouncing with every step. After a few deep breaths to regain his menace, Snape attempted to control his class again, but I knew that hug had thrown him off his game. Today's battle was tipped in my favor.
"This…" he started gravely, sweeping the room with his most paralyzing glare, "is going to be your most grueling school year yet." To seal the deal, I decided to ask the question I had spent all summer coming up with. I shot my hand up into the air, and his eyes flicked to me briefly. He wasn't going to call on me, though, not about to give me the satisfaction. "I pride myself in knowing that I produce only the strongest, most skilled," I waved my hand as if I thought he couldn't see me, "witches and wizards in potion making, and this year will be no different. Do not think that-"
"Professor-"
"-because you had barely passing grades with your substandard performances in the past, that, what on earth could you possibly need to ask me right now, Miss Harper?" he finally broke, ignoring the tittering that followed his grunted question.
"Are we going to learn how to stopper death this year?"
"…Excuse me?" He fixed me with his most belittling stare, but I was too good at looking innocent for him to reasonably dock points for asking imbecilic questions. I knew I had him with this one. As long as I played off of his responses right, I would set the perfect tone for this year.
"Are we going to learn to stopper death? Our first class, you said that potions could…"
"Yes, Miss Harper, I know what I said. I just said it earlier today to a group of first years that were far more capable of sitting through a class silently than you will ever be."
"That's all well and good," I brushed the remark off without letting that innocent look wipe off of my face. "But will we learn to stopper death this year?"
"Miss Harper, I hardly doubt you could produce a potion that could stopper your mouth."
The laughter of my classmates, especially the doubled-over glee of the Angie and Lee, didn't faze me in the slightest. If he insulted me, it meant I had him on the run. "Well, if you won't teach us the death thing, could we try that one?"
Snape squeezed his eyes shut and pursed his lips. Game over. He had no clever retort, no belittling comment, not even a stare meant to make me feel smaller than a baby blast-ended skrewt.
"Five points from Ravenclaw."
Totally worth it. You'd think he would have learned by then that I had an answer for everything, right down to turning his quip about how ungodly annoying I am into part of my merry joke about his daunting beginning-of-the-year speech. All of my jokes were meant to show him that he didn't scare me. I knew since my first opening feast that Severus Snape was not a man to be feared. It wasn't the way he lightly smirked at how Fred, George, and I all ended up being the last ones singing the Hogwarts song, or how he let McGonagall take her seat before he sat down. It was something else entirely.
The Sorting Hat took its sweet time deciding where I belonged, debating between three houses in turn. It ruled out Gryffindor immediately despite my protests; no matter how badly a student wanted to be in a house, it appeared that the hat would only be so appeasing. There were some things that apparently could not be overlooked, and I certainly did not have the star qualities of a Gryffindor. Hufflepuff was next to go; the hat told me I was just a bit too proud of myself for their lot. With only Ravenclaw and Slytherin left, I told it that I'd throw it to the ground and jump on it until they forcibly removed me if it put me in that house. The Hat found that amusing and agreed that my wit and mind overpowered my cunning and announced my home in Ravenclaw. I sulked my way to the table and took my seat with a forlorn look at Fred and George. Of course I had been sorted somewhere else. It was mildly comforting that I was not in Slytherin but, really, only mildly. I wanted to be with my new friends.
When Angelina was sorted into Gryffindor, too, with the hat barely even touching her head, I decided that Hogwarts and all those associated with it were out to get me. That's why my mother fretted over letting me attend. Or at least part of the reason.
"Can you believe this?" she hissed at me, carefully sitting in the seat directly behind me. I shifted on my bench so I was sitting on my leg. It looked like I was intently watching the Sorting and had turned to face it, but when Angie shifted to match me, it was worlds easier for us to talk without being noticed. "How are we not in the same house?"
"Clearly, they hate me," I muttered back. She grinned at that.
"Cheerful as ever." She stopped when the room fell silent over a particularly long decision for a boy with dreadlocks whose name I'd missed. When the hat announced, "Gryffindor!", he pumped his fists in the air and charged towards the table, and Angie continued. "Look at all the teachers. What an unpleasant lot."
"I like the one with the funny glasses and vacant stare." I would later know her as Sybil Trelawney, the most perplexing teacher I ever studied under.
"Look at the hair on that one," Angie giggled, motioning with her head towards a hook-nosed teacher at the far end of the table. He clapped slowly for the newest member of Slytherin, his cold eyes following the young, pale girl as she scurried to her table. "Bet he's a real piece of work."
"That's Severus Snape," Fred supplied. "He's the potions master."
"Heard it's his goal to make someone cry at least once a month," George added.
"He only likes the Slytherins, which makes sense since he used to follow You-Know-Who."
"You don't know that for sure," Angie frowned.
"Everyone knows that," Fred and George supplied in unison.
I studied this strange, greasy-haired, hook-nosed man with the permanent scowl and the always-scanning eyes. As if he felt my gaze, his eyes flicked towards me, and as soon as our gazes locked, I Knew. The feeling washed over me like an ice-cold wave, and I gasped from the unusual strength of a feeling that was normally no peskier than an itch or a bit of thirst.
Angie dropped our act and turned to face me, which caught the boys' attention. "What's wrong?" I shook my head, but didn't answer her as I kept my focus on this strange man. "Mel, what happened?"
"Nothing," I shook my head. Angie growled, held onto her bench for balance, lunged at me, and landed a solid punch on my shoulder that genuinely hurt enough for me to not even find it amusing that she nearly fell face-first from trying to cover the distance between us. "Ow!"
"Stop lying."
"I'm not lying. It was…" I glanced at the twins, who were staring at us, and carefully phrased my response, "y'know, the usual. Just stronger than normal. It surprised me."
Angie eyed me carefully but accepted this enough to turn back to the Sorting, which was nearing a close. "What brilliant insight have you got, then?"
"Eh," I shrugged, noting the not-so-subtle way the twins were looking between the two of us, "not much. I just don't think he's as bad as everyone here lets on."
"What're you on about?" Fred laughed at me. "Snape's practically You-Know-Who in teacher form. Minus, y'know, the killing bit."
"And the torture."
"And the hordes of followers."
"And the hygiene."
"Trust me," I shook my head, "he's not as bad as he seems."
"No, I'm pretty positive he has terrible hygiene," Fred insisted. I shot him a glare.
"If she says he's not evil, he's not evil," Angie defended me as the Hufflepuff table erupted with applause. "She knows things."
"Clearly not that much. That man is the worst teacher in this school," Fred insisted.
"Fred." It was my turn to stop pretending I was paying attention as I turned to face their table. "I have this kind of sixth sense. I Know things that I shouldn't. Nothing solid that I can explain, but I get these feelings that I can't explain sometimes. I just know that they're true."
"Like premonitions?" he frowned.
"Yeah, sort of. Sometimes, I wake up in the morning with the overwhelming sense that my mum's going to get hurt that day. I won't tell her, she'll go to work, she'll come home, and she'll tell me this fantastic tale about how she cut herself so badly she nearly couldn't raise her wand to heal herself. I don't know what triggers it, but I know when I'm right."
"It is," Angie supplied. "When we were six, she told me I was special and I was not going to be an accountant like my father. Two years later, I hit my head against the fireplace and when they wiped the blood away, there wasn't a mark on me. If she tells you she has a Feeling, you believe her."
It should have scared them. I was a freak, something that I never let myself forget. I told myself to embrace it, to make it as much a part of me as my tendency to stare at people awkwardly and insult freely. It was always in the back of my mind, though, that I wasn't quite normal, and I was reminded every time I had one of my moments of overwhelming certainly.
Then again, I learned that day to never think the Weasley twins would react quite like everyone else. Instead of barraging me with questions or shrinking away from me, they broke into huge grins.
"This could come in handy," Fred beamed. George nodded. "Anything else you happen to Know? Like if McGonagall is fond of Fillibuster Fireworks?"
I laughed at them, shook my head, and turned to listen to Dumbledore, because I didn't need some gift to know I could never lie to these boys, and acting like there was nothing else was certainly a lie. It was the first lie I ever told them, and I wish I could say it was the biggest. What I actually Knew was something I couldn't quite understand at the time, something that wouldn't happen for another 8 years on the day our world would change forever. All I knew that day in the Great Hall was that I should not share Knowledge about the honorable death of Severus Snape. It would do no good to tell them, anyway. I had learned long before that I could not change what I Knew.
Thanks so much for the review, Ella Unlimited. Please, everyone, if you think I've screwed something up or can improve something or am doing a good job or whatever, let me know! I really like criticism and hearing what people have to say about my writing. These first few chapters are really going to be about introducing Mel's character, since we all know about the cannons but not so much about her. Plus, since I think it's unrealistic to assume everyone is automatically in the same house, I don't want her only ever hanging around with the Gryffindors. This is as much her story as it is theirs. But, if you start getting tired of reading about Cho Change and the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, let me know!
Next chapter, when I get it finished, is: Family Ties
