"Weasley," said Harry as they went down to breakfast the next morning, "do you know Mr Hagrid?"
"Isn't he that gamekeeper? The one that brought us up to the castle on Sunday?"
"That's right. He's very interested in animals, did you know?"
"To be gamekeeper he'd have to be."
"Oh, I suppose so…he told me once that he even wanted a dragon."
"You're not allowed to have those. It's like a law or something. They keep them on reservations miles away from anyplace people live, but you can't have a dragon, I mean like one person can't."
"Really?" Harry thought about this. "Doesn't it seem to you," he said slowly, "that if you couldn't get a dragon the next best thing would be an enormous bloodthirsty three-headed dog?"
Weasley stopped and stared at Harry. "You think maybe Mr Hagrid knows something?" he whispered.
"And what Granger said, about it guarding something…I mean, why else would Dumbledore let it in the castle…?"
"Blimey," said Weasley, "I think you'd better think up a way to go talk to Mr Hagrid as soon as possible!"
It turned out he needn't bother to think up anything.
At breakfast (they sat next to Granger, but she was so furious she wasn't speaking to them—a pleasant bonus, in their opinion), Hedwig flew in and dropped a note on Harry's plate. It ran, in an untidy scrawl:
Dear Harry
I know you get Friday afternoons off, so would you like to come and have a cup of tea with me around three? I want to hear all about your first week. Send us an answer back with Hedwig.
Hagrid
Harry borrowed Weasley's quill, scribbled Yes, please, see you later on the back of the note, and sent Hedwig off again.
Weasley, his mouth full of toast, was telling one of his older brothers about the flying lesson the day before and bragging about both himself and Harry.
"Bit odd about the Flying lessons," said Prefect Percy thoughtfully. "Our first year they started the second Thursday of term. Course, Professor Potter was hired just recently; he'd probably like to start in as soon as possible. People say he's quite interested in Quidditch…"
"That's an understatement," muttered Harry.
"Didn't get on with Coach?" Percy asked. "I know he can be a bit…well, much, but he's not all bad."
"He hates me," said Harry. "He criticised my broom handling when Longbottom literally fell off of his. And he took all those points from me for nothing."
"You were a bit cheeky," chipped in Weasley. "But it was odd how he kept singling you out."
"Didn't it seem to you he was awfully arrogant? Thinks he's the best thing to happen to the athletic world since Babe Ruth."
"Babe who?" Prefect Percy asked with interest.
"All those jokes and Quidditch stories. Like he was some kind of entertainer instead of an instructor…"
"Oy, take a look," whispered Weasley suddenly.
Harry turned. Malfoy had just entered the dining room. He caught sight Weasley and Harry seated at the Gryffindor table, looking tired but completely free of manacles, bruises, luggage, or anything else that might denote having been caught out of bed. His jaw dropped and he turned a little green.
"Ha!" said Weasley fiercely.
Even Harry smiled. He didn't hate Malfoy the way Weasley did, but yesterday's misadventures had not put the pointy-featured pureblood on Harry's list of all-time favourite people.
Malfoy recovered from his shock and scuttled off to the Slytherin table; grinning, Harry and Weasley went back to their breakfast.
"What have we got today?" Harry asked as he poured sugar on his porridge.
"Double Potions with Slytherins. Oy, just what we need. More time with Malfoy and his cronies."
Harry had been looking forward to Potions more than anything. He'd studied the course books and found himself unable to put them down; it was like chemistry, like maths, like a jigsaw puzzle, all the little bits fitting together and coming up with something completely different. The prospect of sharing it with Malfoy didn't dim his enthusiasm in the slightest.
Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. It was colder here than up in the main castle, and would have been quite creepy enough, in Weasley's opinion, even without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls. Harry just wondered what they were all for.
Exactly on the hour, the professor entered and made his way to the front of the room. He was a small wizard with a grey beard and sharp eyes, which shot around the class as though he were looking for something. He placed a stack of books in a fastidious little pile on his desk.
Like Potter, he started the class with roll call. Unlike Potter, he simply called the names, with no embellishments or little comments—Harry liked him already.
He did pause for a fraction of a second when he came to Harry's name, but Harry was used to that by now. (When he was introduced to new people they tended to shake his hand, look him straight in the forehead and say things like "Pleased to meet you at last".)
Then the teacher gave a short speech introducing himself and the topic. His name was Professor Arbutus, and he'd been teaching here for ten years. He would not tolerate laziness or dishonesty in his classes, and looking at his drawn brow Harry could well believe it.
But the description Arbutus gave of the course was something else. He spoke with something like reverence for the grace and power of potion-making. He called it beautiful science and precise art. Only the best magicians, he said, could master such a complex skill; a talented Potioneer was the most respected advisor in any court. Kings and emperors and gods had been brought to their knees or raised beyond imaginable heights by a well-crafted philtre. The mortar and pestle and cauldron were the symbols of healers, of diviners, of priests. With skill and care you could contain the uncontainable and bottle the intangible; you could bring life or death, glory or despair, love or hatred…
Harry felt a shiver go down his spine. Nothing in his other classes had ever come close to this.
Arbutus put them in pairs; with a flick of his wand, the instructions for a simple boil cure appeared on the board. "Begin," he said.
Harry settled down and prepared to concentrate. Nettles and fangs and stewed horned slugs…
The instructions were absurdly simple. He found himself following them swiftly and efficiently, crushing snake fangs and weighing dried nettles with fingers that felt as though he'd done it a thousand times before. In a rush of fierce joy, he realised he'd found something he could do without being taught—this was easy, this was wonderful. Weasley, his partner, gave up trying to help after about sixty seconds and just sat and stared at him.
It was like some kind of Potions instinct rose up inside him and took over. The potion should look like that and not that. Listen for this sound and then switch…sprinkle, don't pour; stir, don't grind; the smells, the colours, the fumes…
Harry didn't so much as pause until he came to a step near the end; he looked at his cauldron sceptically.
"Er," said Weasley, "the next step is 'heat at a high temperature for ten seconds'."
Harry nodded. "But the point of this step is to soak the venom into the potion, isn't it?" he murmured. "The professor said. Heat it too high and the venom will start to boil away; isn't that logical? It might be better to just stew it for, say, fifteen seconds…" And he lowered the fire and waved his wand gently over the simmering pot.
Most of the other students appeared to be encountering problems. Harry heard a loud hiss, and Longbottom yelped in pain. Arbutus, without looking up from Malfoy's stewed slugs, cleared away the spilled potion before it had a chance to spread and told Finnigan to take Longbottom to the hospital wing.
Harry didn't take his eyes off his own potion. The instruction said to brew for three minutes, but it didn't look quite done, so he let it go another five seconds…
Finally, he added the last ingredients, stirred, and tapped the edge of his cauldron twice sharply with his wand. A cloud of pink smoke arose and left a beautiful bubbling liquid, slightly deeper blue than the one on the professor's desk.
"Professor," said Weasley, raising his hand cautiously, "this one's done."
Arbutus approached and looked into the cauldron. "You simmered instead of boiling, I see," he said to Weasley.
"Yes, sir," said Weasley, darting a glance at Harry.
"On purpose?"
"Er…yes, sir?"
"Why?"
"I think, to soak the venom. Does it…make a difference, sir?"
Arbutus nodded. "It decreases its ability to heal naturally occurring boils, but," he added, "it significantly elevates its effectiveness in virtually all magic-induced skin, boil, blister, and pimple maladies. In many ways, your concoction is the superior." He nodded. "Twenty points for Gryffindor," he said, and went on to the next cauldron.
Weasley turned and goggled at Harry. "Blimey," he managed, "twenty points in one go!"
The only other pairs in the class who managed to get anything resembling the Boil-Cure potion were Granger and Patil (of course) and Malfoy and Crabbe, whose potion was a bit turquoise but did produce the required cloud of pink smoke.
Arbutus stopped by each of the failed cauldrons in turn and got the class to try and figure out what had gone wrong.
"Obviously, Longbottom and Finnigan added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire," said Arbutus, glancing at the twisted blob that had been Finnigan's cauldron. "But for instance, Goyle and Zabini's potion is orange instead of blue. Can anyone tell me what may have caused that? Someone besides Granger," he said, without even turning to look at the upraised hand behind him.
"Sir," said Harry, raising his hand.
"Snape," said Arbutus.
"They may have forgotten to wave their wands the first time, sir," he said. "That's the step that starts to turn it blue."
"Correct. A point to Gryffindor. Without the proper application of magic early enough in the process, this is a cauldron full of bubbly, useless sludge. Now, Thomas and Brown's looks about the right colour; can anyone tell me what's wrong with it? Snape."
"It's the wrong consistency, sir. They may have added the slugs too early, or they may not have stewed them properly."
"Correct. A point to Gryffindor. And the effect of misapplying the slugs would be…?"
Harry thought. "Well, sir, the slugs have a healing enzyme in their slime, don't they? The potion might ease the pain but it wouldn't actually fix anything."
"Correct. Another point. And Davis and Greengrass have…yes, Snape?"
"Sir, they just stirred it too much. The potion is kind of gaseous and would evaporate before it could do any good."
"Correct. Point to Gryffindor. Can anyone tell me whether that could be remedied? …Mr. Snape."
"They could fix it by using something sticky like, I don't know, Vaseline, or…or that Flobberworm mucus stuff. And sir," Harry continued, on a roll now, "Parkinson and Bulstrode forgot the porcupine quills altogether, sir, that's why the potion isn't bubbling. But it's too late now; they'd have to start over because the porcupine quills would need time to simmer. And they might not have crushed the snake fangs right, either, you can see chunks. And Dunbar and O'Neal just did the next-to-last step a little wrong but I think they could redo it, the last wand wave isn't effective if they didn't do it right anyway. And then Nott and…"
"That's enough, Snape," said Arbutus quietly, but his eyes twinkled under his thick grey eyebrows. "Two points, and someone else will answer the next question."
When everyone's potions had been thoroughly examined and diagnosed, Arbutus put his hands behind his back and began walking up and down in front of the class.
"Logic," he said. "Logic is essential to a mastery of Potions. Ask yourself what you are attempting to accomplish, and how you are attempting to accomplish it. Do not be afraid to try new things, but be prepared to explain your process. You must thoroughly understand every step, every ingredient, and every idea behind what you are doing, and be able to extrapolate upon that. If you cannot say what you did wrong, how will you be able to correct it? If you cannot understand what you did right, how will you be able to improve upon it? To really excel in the area of Potions, you must utilise creativity, mathematics, and, above all, logic."
Harry left Potions with his heart singing. Arbutus had given him twenty six points, enough to make up for the Flying lesson and one over.
"You were brilliant," said Weasley as they climbed the stairs. "How'd you know how to do all that stuff?"
"Well, it said on the board. And then I read the lesson in the book, too."
"But you didn't even do what the instructions said and you made a better potion than the Professor's!"
"It was just…logic," said Harry. "I mean, it's like how you don't boil tea for too long, you know?"
"All I can say is I hope I get paired with you every assignment in Potions. You got more points even than Granger!"
Harry blushed. He wasn't used to being good at things.
"Oh, I just remembered!" Weasley said suddenly as two Gryffindors hurried by and almost knocked them off their feet. "Lee Jordan managed to sneak Fizzing Whizbees in from Hogsmeade and he's flogging them in the Common Room. We might have time to get some if we hurry."
"I can't," said Harry. "Hagrid's invited me for tea."
"Really? Brilliant! Can I come?"