Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Conundrum 6

Potions came after breakfast. It was one of those thing called 'the passing of time', meaning that time can only flow forward, unless some sort of 'magic' interrupts its normal flow…which by now Harry had no doubt could pretty much happen. In truth, if teleportation was available, if transfiguration could do what the book stated and so on, then what was the problem with changing time?

Well, there were those sort-of problems coming from the past-self doing something idiotic or not being able to change things because 'fate' had its ways with you, but it wasn't that the real reason he was meddling with time.

It was his self-berating attitude of having risked being late, when he finally managed to enter the classroom and take the last free seat in the last row at the far end, right next to a never known before Hufflepuff who appeared as devoid of particular signs as he could go.

He did so just in time, because the next instant their professor, the man that had actually helped Harry to get his wizard stuff, entered the classroom from a side door. The stern look was intimidating, as were the first few choice words.

He actually had to question what dunderheads meant. He had never heard about dunderheads. Stupid, idiotic, imbeciles…but dunderheads? Really? Who'd use such a word after all?

"Mr. Weasley," the voice sounded just like when the man had brought Harry to Diagon Alley, if not actually far more filled with loath, "Where is a Bezoar found?"

Harry knew the answer to that one: it was the stomach of a goat.

"I…I don't know sir."

The voice belonged to a boy with bright red hair, who apparently was sitting at the same cauldron of his cousin.

"Miss Potter, what is the difference between Wolf's bane and Monkshood?"

This time, it was the girl who stood silent, embarrassed probably from all peers eyes on her as she had no idea on the answer to give.

It was then that a hand raised itself in the crowd. Hermione's right hand had been lifted, probably because the girl wanted to answer the question. Bravely foolish then, Harry thought. It was clear now what the difference was between a Ravenclaw and a Gryffindor: the girl was positively bubbly, like she hadn't even realized that the professor was a veritable fearsome creature that would probably snap someone in half with a mere snort.

The other Ravenclaw kept quiet, standing in the back lines without as much as muttering a single breath. Many were probably thinking, just like him, how useful the suggestion of Basileus had been to keep quiet, keep the head low, and stay in the back.

Although he kind of didn't remember if he had actually been told to stay in the back, or if his brain had merely suggested it too...by having him come in late.

Now that was just ludicrous: his brain couldn't suggest him to come in later just so he could get the last seat in the corner, could he?

"I don't know sir." The reply came after a minute had already stretched by, and finally Severus' voice turned around the room.

"Mr. Dursley?" At the polite inquiry of his name, Harry blinked, before standing up with a gut twisting feeling within him that he was just about to get the mother of all difficult questions.
"Yes professor?"

"What potion comes to your mind that requires wormwood essence, Valerian and Asphodel?"

"I don't know professor." He replied quickly, "It's in the sixteenth chapter…I reached till the ninth." He cursed his quick mouth a second later. Why did he have to try and justify it?

"You know the chapter it is in but not the name, Mr. Dursley? Pray tell how that works."

"Skimmed the pages professor...I remember the picture of wormwood on chapter sixteen for…" His mind recalled the picture of the wormwood plant, just next to… "Was it the draught of living dead perhaps?"

"Correct Mr. Dursley." Severus mused, "Want to answer the previous questions?"

"The Bezoar's in the stomach of goats professor…kind of stuck in my head since I read about it: I mean, it's not like they process lambs with lumps of rock stuck in their bellies do they? And…Wolf's bane is known as Aconite, right? Just like Monkshood is too so…they're the same plant?"

"Fifteen points to Ravenclaw." The raven haired man replied slowly, before raising an eyebrow in Harry's direction. "Five more points for taking notes…just like the rest of you should be doing right now."

Harry's perplexed expression lasted only for a second. His eyes lowering themselves to his right hand, he realized that he was indeed taking notes…well, more than notes he was scribbling to ease his stress, but being that far away from the professor, it was entirely possible his scribbles of small stars and twirls had been misinterpreted as taking notes.

He quickly drew a line and began taking notes about…well, what he had told.

It felt strange, his ears were probably flushing from the stress and half of his notes ended up blotched in ink as the professor began to explain about a boil-curing potion. The only thing he was glad of was that the guy he had ended up being paired with wrote big enough for him to copy the relevant notes without actually having to ask for them.

Just what had taken him to answer!? He should have kept his mouth shut. He had to remain on the average side of the place. He had to keep himself average, like everyone else.

It was then, that in a small part of his brain a single question rose.

Why?

Why did he have to be average? Why couldn't he try and be good at something?

He had to. It was needed.

Needed for what?

Survival.

Wait, how did that make any sense? Why did he have to keep himself average and…unnoticed? It kind of was strange, especially…no. It was no use dillydallying about this or that: he'd go with the flow, as always. Better to be a sheep among the herd and hide within it, then try and stick your head out for the wolf to take.

The lesson passed without any other accidents, and just as he was about to leave, the voice of the professor cut in quickly.

"Mr. Dursley, stay for a moment." He shivered in fright, silently. No professor had ever asked him to stay after class ever. Truly, no professor had ever taken an interest in him. This was wrong and going against all eleven years of life in him.

Mildly put, he didn't know how to react to this.

He felt cold and numb, waiting for a reply from his professor that moved towards a nearby closet. The wooden panels opened with a small creaking noise, as the last students dwindled out of the classroom in their hurry to leave behind the 'awful' professor.

"This is yours." The man's lips were pursed in a slight frown as he handed over to the boy what appeared to be a potion's book.

An advanced, highly scribbled on the cover, book that apparently had seen better days. The cover was grey, and the title recited 'Advanced Potion Making'. Within it, the words 'This book is the propriety of the Half-Blood Prince' had been scribbled on the upper corner, as Harry could see having on habit opened the first page.

"Professor?"

"It is a Newt Textbook and as such I do not expect you will need it until the end of the sixth year. In any event, it belonged to your mother, and she would have wanted you to have it…I'm giving it to you now because I need the cabinet's space." The man replied snappishly, "If you have nothing better to do than gallivanting in front of me, Mr. Dursley, please take your leave." The order came coldly, and still numb for the strange, and completely unexpected…gift? Harry was out of there in a flash.

Pushing the book in his bag, he shook his head as he made a small dash to reach the end line of the first years heading towards lunch.

Just what the hell did the potion professor mean, by the book being of his mother? The Half-Blood prince seemed a pretty male name, rather than female. Why would anyone call himself 'Prince' instead of 'Princess', if said anyone was a girl?

Still, maybe the used book was just that: used. Maybe his mother had used it once, and had been the last to use it before their death. Now that he thought about it, he kind of understood why people fawned over the 'Girl-Who-Lived': she had avenged all the dead wizards because of 'You-Know-Who' while giving peace to the grieving families.

He understood it now, but still it felt strange to sit among the Ravenclaws, who were looking at him like he had grown a second head.

"What?" He muttered, earning himself a grin from Anthony who deemed it worthy to reply.

"Well…you just managed to do the impossible, Mr. Dursley." The boy spoke quietly.

"You realize," this time it was the Prefect, the bloody Prefect Clearwater who spoke, "That never, ever, did Severus Snape ever assign points that weren't to Slytherin?"

"Eh?"

"He doesn't know!" Another Ravenclaw along the table exclaimed, earning more murmurs.

"Severus Snape has always removed points from houses. And the few assigned…well…thirty points? In one go? There's something amiss here." Penelope spoke again, "Did you know him beforehand?"

Harry blinked for a moment, trying to recall…before shaking his head.

"No…he and my father hate each other though…and I don't know why, but are you sure? I mean…"

"Yes. It's unprecedented: you know, if Snape stops favoring Slytherin this year…then maybe we could even win the cup?" The question made far more Ravenclaws turn their eyes at him. He gulped down nervously, already imagining himself being brought up as a 'savior' and then thrown to the wolves as he failed.

"Well…" Harry tried a nervous chuckle, "Could we please speak of something else? Please?"

"Oh well, there's Quidditch…" and as the discussion digressed elsewhere, Harry raised a puzzled eyebrow: had they really changed argument that easily? They had made it seem such a big deal, of winning the house cup. Yet now the table had all returned to talking about that sport with brooms…and Beaters? What was it, a vicious variation of tag and polo?

After lunch, Harry found himself, once more, late. It could have had to do with a portrait stopping him to ask some questions about the chances of Ravenclaw winning the cup for once, but then again he had answered he just hoped he'd survive the following lessons, earning a bright smile from the apparently old gentleman in the portrait.

Once more, he ended up in the far behind corner of the room, and once more he found himself sitting next to a non-descriptive Hufflepuff…no, this one wasn't non-descriptive.

"Neville?" Harry asked, looking at the boy who suddenly turned around to get a good gaze at the other eleven years old kid.

"Harry? Oh! Didn't see you for a moment. Busy looking for Trevor in my backpack and kind of worried for him so..." The boy was flustered, so flustered that Harry couldn't help but grin a little.

"Are you sure that's a toad and not some sort of Lupin the Third?" Neville's face frowned for a moment, before said toad found its way on top of the boy's hair.

"Trevor! There you are." The boy sighed in relief, grabbing the toad from his hair before asking. "What's a Lupin the Third?"

"It's the name of a really famous thief…you've never watched a cartoon of it?" Harry asked curiously. Maybe Neville didn't have cable television, or satellite one, but still it was a pretty known name for a cartoon.

"Cartoon?"

"You don't know what a Cartoon is? It's a set of moving pictures…displayed on a television."

"Oh! Photos. Strange way to call it." No, Harry decided he would not keep on the argument. If Neville thought that photos and television were the same thing…then again, the portrait moved, didn't they? And if the portrait moved…

Then the photos moved too.

So they had never needed to develop 'Cartoons' in order to watch things, which meant that they didn't need television to look at films, because a photo could do it pretty much in the same way.

In the end, as the professor entered the classroom, a pair of glasses on his face and a rowdy red hair to differentiate him, he let all subjects drop in wait for the first lesson to begin.

"Well, my name is…" *ribbit* Trevor's croaking sound came right in Harry's left ear, making him wince. How the hell had the toad manage to reach his shoulder without him noticing.

"Trevor!" Neville hissed in a low murmur, "I'm sorry." The Hufflepuff hurriedly added before taking the frog once more and settling her in his bag.

"Potter. But you can call me Mr. Prongs." At that, there was a loud huff coming from the first rows, as the man kept on talking, "Anyway, I take it you all came from Mr. Sniv…Snape's first lesson, right? I should actually give you the hours off, since surviving that obnoxious…I mean, that serious professor is a bit of a hard job…but we have much to learn! First of all, take your wands out."

Harry obeyed, trying to look at the professor's wands movement…if only he could see beyond two relatively tall Slytherin who apparently stood seated in front of them.

His wand felt cool, even cold in his hand. The polished black surface of the wood barely reflected the light in the classroom, and as his fingers numbly began to trace the lines on the wooden surface, he made a light sigh he didn't think he had been holding.

"Now, defense against the dark arts means not 'learning how to curse the living hell out of people because we think they're ugly'," the sentence was delivered all in one bout, completely and utterly sarcastic as it went by, "It means 'learning how to put up a good defense', or, as I prefer to say it: push enemies the hell away from you." With that, Harry heard the professor yell a word 'Flipendo', before hearing a loud booming noise coming from the front.

"As you may have seen." Harry of course hadn't. "The Flipendo spell merely generates an orange light as it strikes the target and…pushes it back."

In front of their desks, a small ball suddenly appeared, floating but tied by a small rope to the wooden surface by a materialized hook of metal.

"Now, all of you open the book at page seventeen, look at the wand movement, and try and imitate it in regard to the balloon floating in front of you." The professor spoke once more. "Remember to not pronounce the spell: if you do so correctly, a flicker of orange light should appear at the tip of your wand. If it does, touch the balloon and, if the balloon moves, then congratulation, you can now try and pronounce the spell…possibly one at the time, in front of me, and not against one another."

Of course page seventeen bore a strange set of scribbles that represented the wand movements.

And of course…

After two hours, Harry Dursley had not managed to do the damn spell, and neither had Neville. It just seemed to be bloody useless, no matter how many times he tried to do it.

It just…didn't want to work.

"I did it!" A voice rang just as the second hour ticked by, and the female voice did indeed belong to one Hermione Granger.

"Well done Miss Granger! Thirty points to Gryffindor!" Thirty points? For doing a bloody wand movement? He had to answer three different questions and he had gotten twenty-five points!

Why was he being jealous anyway? No, more than jealous he was frustrated. He hadn't even managed to see the professor do the wand movements once! And a book is only as good as it is written, right?

"Well, practice hard and we'll see each other next time! Off you go!" And off, indeed, he went. He stormed out as fast as he could, like a man on a mission of some sorts, not even stopping to answer the questions coming from the students.

"You think he's going smug on professor Snape for having given off more points than him?" Neville asked, worriedly.

"I don't care." Harry muttered, "Did you manage to see what hand movements the man did? I barely could see anything."

"No, I didn't." Neville's reply was pretty much all that Harry had expected the boy to say. With a loud sigh, he turned to look at the other students dwindling by. Of course the Girl-who-lived was basically surrounded by yet more people asking questions, but Hermione appeared to be heading out alone.

Good enough for him…and probably Neville if he followed.

"Hermione!" Harry exclaimed, waving towards the bushy haired girl who stopped at being called, turning around with a sort of pained expression, albeit it lasted less than a second.

"Yes…Harry?" For once, he decided to ignore the feeling of hurt he felt for being '…Harry'. They had met on the boat and he hadn't even made an impression on her? Now that hurt.

"I wanted to know if, well, you had time to show me the wand movements the professor did…I was in the back and couldn't see and…"

"The library in half an hour?" The girl queried back with a half-hesitating tone. Harry nodded: he didn't have anything else to do now, did he?

Of course, when he finally did get into the library, precisely half an hour later…he found out that no, Hermione Granger wasn't there, nor would she arrive in the following hours.

"If she didn't have the time…she could have just bloody said so." Harry murmured to himself, putting his stuff back into his bag and heading to drop it off at the Ravenclaw's tower. He had even decided to wait for the girl near the entrance and he knew, he damn well knew, the girl hadn't entered the library.

The knocker's riddle was of course the same as the night before, and as he entered the common room he was greeted…by the portrait hanging atop the fire pit.

"Hello young crow! How was your first day at Hogwarts? You should hurry up, lest you be late for dinner." The voice was kind and maternal, and probably the question was rehearsed for every first year around.

"It's fine." He replied meekly, before heading upstairs to drop his stuff, and then coming back down.

"Now there, young man." The portrait began again, "What's there to be earned by lying to me? You look like someone played you a nasty trick…was it the Weasley brothers? I told those gits to stay out of the feathers of my younglings!"

"Huh? No! Really…it's nothing: she probably forgot." Harry replied quietly, "And it's just the first day, so she's probably got to get the hang of the place too." Maybe Hermione didn't even know where the library was… No, wait a moment: the girl had been the one to tell him to meet there, and he had even gathered the courage to ask a portrait where it was!

"If you say so…still, what did this miss forget to do?"

"You're awfully nosy for a portrait." Harry muttered back, earning only a shrug from the antique-looking woman.

"Got nothing better to do: a lot of the students easily ignore me except for 'morning' and 'goodnight', just because I'm a portrait doesn't mean I don't feel the sting when they ignore me…you know?"

"Yeah…I'm Harry."

"Helena," the portrait replied smoothly, "Well then, what was it you needed from said miss?"

"I…I kind of wanted to learn the wand movement of the Flipendo, I was too far in the back and couldn't see them, and since she had actually managed to make it right in the last moments of the classroom…"

The portrait raised an eyebrow, before nodding slowly.

"I see…well, all I can suggest with the Flipendo is to be charmingly nice about it: it is a spell made to politely knock people backwards…not like the Reducto meant to smash you to smithereens. Your movements need to be slow and gracious, not fast and to the point."

"Thanks?"

"Oh now, no need! Thank me when you'll really mean it: once you learn the spell." And with that, Harry still didn't know, but he had made yet another friend.

If one counts the fact that the portrait turned far more 'boring' the moment Harry left the room, the Grey lady floating down through the walls…whistling.

Even Peeves stopped at the sight for a moment, blinking before deciding he was having hallucinations. And as a poltergeist…something was clearly not right.

Author's notes

More hints. (Two words of notes, and that's all)