Harry Potter and the Garden of Intrigue

Being an exploration of the differences in Mr. Potter's life pursuant to his understanding victorian flower language at age 11. Single Point-of-Departure: Harry has a working lightbulb in his cupboard.

Harry Potter, all related characters, and the original Harry Potter narative are properties of J. K. Rowling.

Chapter 7

The Lies

Harry awoke to Iris, dropping a note on his bed. He fed her an Owl Snack. The note was from Hagrid; he wanted to meet harry in the afternoon, after Potions Class and luncheon.

"Augh, Potions today," said Harry.

"Yeah, with Slytherin," agreed Ron.

"Come on, you're looking forward to it. You get to hang out with Mr. Stalker."

"And you get to hang out with Draco Movie Villain Name Malfoy."

"Hey! That's not his permanent nickname!"

Ron shrugged. "Only one he's got right now, unless you let me call him a git."

Harry shook his head.

"Then Movie Villain Name it is. Honestly, Harry, you're a great guy to have around."

"Oh?" Dean Thomas was awake. "Why's that, then?"

"Morning, Dean. Harry's the best at making nicknames, right?"

"Oh, yeah, absolutely." Dean pointed at himself. "The Dean of Awesome has proclaimed it."

Neville screamed.

"What? What?" Harry rushed over. "You're not on fire, what's wrong?"

"Today is Potions Day," said Neville, by way of explanation. He looked as though he were going to faint. "We've got to learn from Snape."

"Yeah, Ron keeps saying he's a horrible minion of darkness, worked for the evil, that sort of thing. Plus he makes my head ache when he looks at me," agreed Harry. "But Dumbledore hired him, right? He can't be that bad."

"Och, don't doom yourself, Harry," objected Seamus. "Five gets you a Sickle you'll regret those words."

Harry regretted those words.

When he'd walked into the Potions room (which was in and of itself a rather pleasant subterranean structure, lined with shelves upon groaning shelves of strange components), he'd had the misfortune of looking Professor Snape directly in the eyes. It had given him a pain more intense than any he remembered, not counting nightmares, and the sensation that his brain was being tickled by a sadist. Harry immediately revised his opinion of Professor Snape from 'rather unpleasant fellow' to 'incarnation of Death who stalks the halls seeking innocent souls to devour', with the addendum hates my blood for good measure. Harry decided that Professor Snape deserved the same level of Do Not Cross that Professor McGonagall received, with added Scarier.

During roll call, Professor Snape paused at Harry's name.

"Harry Potter," he hissed. "Our newest... Celebrity."

Harry wasn't sure what to say to that, so he waited for something to happen. He'd taken a seat between Ron and Hermione; Ron had managed to team up with Mr. Stalker, while Malfoy shared a space with Mr. Loom behind them. Neville and Dean had taken station to Hermione's left, hoping for advice if things went horribly wrong. Harry wasn't sure where Seamus was sitting.

Snape started the lesson with a short dissertation on the subtle power of potions, claiming to stopper death, bottle fame, brew glory; then he called them all dunderheads. Harry glanced at Hermione. Her eyes were almost as scary as Professor Snape's, although they didn't give Harry headaches; there was a fire there, a burning desire to prove she was smart.

As though she hadn't already.

Snape suddenly stared at Harry, ow, and Harry had a sharp stabbing sensation bloom in his skull, almost as though someone had driven a knife right through his scar. The jury is in, Snape hates me, thought Harry.

"Potter!" snapped Snape. "What would I get if I added powdered root of Asphodel to an infusion of Wormwood?"

Asphodel is a type of lily, translating as 'mourning' or 'my regrets follow you to the grave.' And infusion of wormwood would be 'intense bitter sorrow,' or 'intense absence.' Bitter regrets follow lily to the grave... "I.. Uh.. That.." Harry couldn't seem to say what he wanted to say. This man hated him so intensely that it hurt, but had he just claimed to regret the death of Harry's mother?

Harry was so distracted that he missed most of Snape's next question.

"- a Bezoar?" Snape's expression promised nothing but pain for anything less than a correct answer. What about a Bezoar? What it is? What to mix it with to make a Potion of Pecuniary Gain?

Hermione clearly knew the answer - but Snape only had eyes full of hate for Harry. "Er.. sorry?"

"Wrong, Potter."

Ow, thought Harry, at another twinge of pain. Promise fulfilled.

Snape didn't look happy, although that was hardly new. He wasn't done with his ritualistic humiliation of Harry, either. "What is the difference between Monkshood and Wolfsbane?"

Chivalry and Misanthropy. "You mean Helmet Flower, sir?"

Snape paused for a moment before answering. "Yes, Potter," he sneered. "Answer."

"They're the same flower, sir," stammered Harry, wracking his brain for the entries from his Aunt Petunia's book on Flower Language. He'd been interested in Monkshood because it kept looping him around the book, looking for the meaning under another name, and another, and another. "Just different names and meanings. It's called Wu Tou in China."

Snape's eyes didn't exactly narrow, since that would have required several violations of conventional physics, but his demeanor certainly became colder. Harry suspected that Professor Snape didn't need to cast a Cooling Charm to chill things down. "Correct. It seems you're not entirely useless, Potter, but fame clearly isn't everything..." Snape shook his head, as though in despair at the state of his new student. "For your information, Potter, wormwood and asphodel create a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A Bezoar is a stone found in a goat's stomach, and will save you from most poisons. And yes, Monkshood and Wolfsbane are the same plant, also known as Aconite. Ten points from Griffindor for your ignorance."

Harry was still in shock from the rapid revelations, but he was no longer alone; Hermione and Ron, not to mention the rest of the Gryffindor side of the class, had joined him in shock, outraged at the sudden loss of points for their shared House.

"Ten points from Gryffindor? You got one of them right, right mate?"

Hermione, surprisingly, had similar ideas. "How can he do that? Ignorance - you know more about the names of Aconite than he does!"

Harry decided it would be a bad idea to cause trouble in Snape's class, given Snape's reaction to compliance. "Let's just do the work today, alright? I'd rather not spend my first Friday in Hogwarts doing quintuple detention."

Ron and Hermione clearly believed he was out of his mind, but Ron shrugged and said "whatever you say, mate." Mr. Stalker contrived through surprisingly evocative hand signals that he was surprised at this unfortunate development as well, although regrettably he could take no action to ameliorate the loss to House Gryffindor as it constituted a direct benefit to House Slytherin.

Harry wondered again how Gregory managed to get such a huge vocabulary at the age of eleven.

Somehow, Harry managed to stumble through the rest of the class without exploding his cauldron, although his Boil Boiling potion was decidedly subpar. Hermione looked as though she'd like to explode, herself, but her cauldron's contents earned full marks at the end of the lesson. Neville was still trembling.

"Where does that greasy git get off, bearing into you like that?" Ron fumed, his face once again taking the identity of Mr. Crimson.

"He was hard on all of us, Mr. Crimson," said Mr. Stalker. "Gryffindor and Slytherin alike."

"I didn't have any trouble with him," trumpeted Draco, "maybe the rest of you really are dunderheads."

"Oh, come off it, Malfoy." Ron was bitter, partly because his potion had turned out to make the boils worse. "It's obvious he was giving you favoritism, no surprise there, I mean you're the poster boy for First-Year Slytherin! Hermione's potion was perfect, and Snape tore into her plenty."

Hermione was a little red around the eyes from holding in her tears during class; after getting full marks, she seemed to be doing a bit better, but she hadn't earned any points for Gryffindor - a personal worst.

"Who cares what Granger does?" Malfoy was still riding high on the wings of the avian Professorial Favorus, and hadn't bothered paying attention to anyone who wasn't either famous or rich.

"We care," said Neville, who'd narrowly avoided an explosive cauldron himself by quietly asking Hermione for advice. "She's the Queen of Knowledge, you know."

Mr. Loom chuckled.

"And you're her loyal subjects, is that it?" Malfoy sniggered, prompting another loyal chuckle from Mr. Loom. "Maybe you should go play court, supplicant peasants to your Queen."

Harry thought that it had been funnier when he'd said that.

"Oy, Malfoy, maybe you ought to play court with your Slytherin friends, and leave us out of it," advised Ron.

"Maybe you'll even earn a title of your own, eh?" grinned Seamus, shamelessly.

Draco reddened. "I've already got one!" It looked as though he'd reach for his wand, but instead he just took a deep breath and turned away from them. "Not a bad idea, though, I've always wanted a private court."

"Hey, Ron, if he does that you won't be able to introduce Mr. Stalker to your brothers."

Harry panicked. "Dean! Ixnay on the Ocalypse-apay!"

Dean hung his head. "Sorry, Harry. Forgot about the rules."

"What rules?" asked Draco, forgetting his taunts for a moment. "Did I miss something while you were all off being Gryffindors for a week?"

"Yeah, lots of stuff. Hermione was crowned Queen of Knowledge; her full title is Her Imperial Higness, Hermajesty, Master of all Human Knowledge." Mr. Loom chuckled again. "But we like to call her Hermajesty for short. She knows pretty much everything about everything - you should have been there for Defense Against the Dark Arts, she pretty much taught the class..."

At lunch, Harry tried to sit at Slytherin table. The Weasley twins prevented him by dragging him bodily to the Gryffindor side of the Hall.

"Come on, Harry-"

"Can't have you fraternizing with the enemy, you know-"

"Too right, too right, and of course they might tell him-"

"Not that there's anything to tell, of course-"

"All right, all right, I'll sit with you guys," said Harry. "Put me down, will you?"

"Now, Mr. Potter, we couldn't possibly let you go until we've seen you safe to your destination."

"Wouldn't be proper bodyguard behaviour, am I right?"

"Of course you are," approved Percy, showing them to their seats. Draco sent a flying note to Harry, expressing his 'deepest regrets' that Harry was unable to join them at their repast. Harry wrote a reply on the back of the note, inviting Draco to come with him to Hagrid's after luncheon, and convinced Fred to send the note back over.

"Come on, FredandGeorge, how can I prank Slytherin if I don't understand how they think?"

"Well, he's got you there, Fredand."

"Well enough, Andgeorge."

Percy tried to fight a smile without much success.

Ron objected to inviting Draco, however. "He doesn't get on with Hermione at all, Harry. This is going to be terrible!"

"Remember I had Hagrid take care of my spiders, Ron. Hermione doesn't like spiders. She's not going."

Ron stopped eating. "Did you have to mention those... jar... here?" He swallowed. "Come to think of it, Seamus said he's going to taunt the giant squid today, I might just go with him..."

"Come on, Ron, you want to come along. If it's just me and the Magic Mafia, they'll probably convert me to Slytherin or something."

Ron blanched. Percy nearly fainted.

The Twins agreed; "Ron, you've got to do it."

"For the sake of Gryffindor."

"For Britain."

"For the World."

"For Mum's biscuits."

"For three Knuts an hour."

"Fine, I'll do it," said Ron. "But you'd better be serious about the three Knuts."

"Oh, absolutely."

"We wouldn't think of charging family any more than that."

Ron blinked. "Hey!"

Harry decided to intervene on behalf of Mr. Crimson. The proper action, of course, was distraction. "FredandGeorge, does Snape ever ask you completely random questions?"

"You do," suggested Ron.

The Twins exchanged glances. "Well, aside from being a greasy git-"

"And Potions, generally, the fumes do tend to drive one a bit batty-"

"Which fits Snape to an S-"

"No, not really."

Harry explained the Potions Pop Quiz that Snape had treated him to.

"Well, Harry," said Percy, once again demonstrating his penchant for rapid recoveries, "That's pretty unusual. I'm sure he had his reasons, of course, you never know when you'll find a Potions Prodigy-"

"Like Hermione," interjected Harry.

"Yes, like Hermione. The Draught of Living Death is a very potent potion, very dangerous; I'm surprised Hermione even knew about it."

Harry wasn't.

"Still, Professor Snape usually does get pretty strict when he's teaching Gryffindors."

"A little?"

"Brother ours," said Fred...and, draping an arm around his elder brother's shoulders, "you don't seem to appreciate the depth to which Old Snapekins will sink-"

"When there's a House Cup on the line," concluded the opposite twin.