You are here to learn the subtle science and the difficult art that is the making of a potion. […] I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death -- if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."
Serverus Snape, Harry Potter à l'école des sorciers, page 138
ANSWERS TO THE REVIEWERS
Meg: I didn't stop, just a few scenes that had me stuck.
Lady Wisdom: Look below.
Kara Star: Well, here it is! ^_-
'Mes: put yourself in his place, everyone thought Harry would be a Gryffindor. Everyone. Especially him. He knows a bit of Harry's background, but only the things that are alike to Riddle.
Ergonyc: Well, if everyone was perfect, it wouldn't be interesting, would it? ^_- I've had years of practice at character-creation. I've done every mistake of the book, from Mary Sue to All-knowing-god (self-insertion ^_- lol). Trust me, relations are gonna get more and more interesting as the years go by. Not one year (cannon year, I dunno what I'll do if OotP isn't out by the time I reach end of book 4) will go by without a change in the group.
Ranma: Maybe, but he'll cause helluva trouble before that ^_- read below for why.
VMorticia: Hey, what else was I supposed to do? The title just stuck there. I didn't find anything better. Hmm, that's true. But the Tarentula, we don't see it at all after that scene, so I think someone (McGonagall) seized it. Yes, Barney the dinosaur. Hey, I was that close to making one of them wear a snorkel, so... Anyway, JKR was pretty obvious on that point: Whatever they see a Muggle wearing, they think they commonly wear that. And Barney is better than one of the telletubies… *Shudders* Like many people look at a fics' reviews (unless they wanna see how good the fic is). Nope, definitely not. Poor Harry. *snicker* Hey, I was out of password ideas. I just thought one up on the spot. Hmm… maybe Neville would need one though… ^_- Yes, Lily in Slytherin. They never say that Lily is a Gryffindor in the book – at least, not in the French version. Yes, it is my fic, though I won't hide that I did get inspired by yours, Dolphin's, J.L. Matthew's and Saerry Snape's, all the best Slytherin-Harry/Slytherin-oriented fics I could find. However, I'm using a unique twist (None of them had what I used ^_-) and re-using a twist in Slytherin Rising to make a quite interesting book 4 ^_- Not saying anymore! Yeah, but you have to admit that ambition can come with a bad side; the reason why so many Slytherins are evil is simply because they stop at nothing to reach their ends, good and fowl. And potentially evil people know where they can find people with proper ambition to fuel themselves. It's not like I feel like letting it out, by the time you'll read this, I'll have finished chapter 6. Call it a security. Long answer for a long review, eh?
Chapter 3: Teachers and thieves
"Remember, you stay hidden under the covers, Nemesis." Harry whispered to his snake, who was glaring angrily at him from under the dark green bed sheet.
"Why can't you just tell 'em all I'm here?" He asked, a tone of annoyance obvious in his voice.
"I trust Draco, but Crabbe and Goyle might accidentally slip I have you. And I'm not allowed to have a snake here."
"Geez, trust dummy and dumber to wreck everything. And why d'ya trust he-who's-hair-makes-the-brightest-lighthouses-jealous?" Sardonically asked the snake, giving a look at Draco's bed, around which the green curtains were tightly drawn. "I mean, he just screams 'bad boy' to me…"
"Hush!" Harry hissed, looking around the dormitory. Fortunately, Crabbe and Goyle's loud snoring blocked the noise of their whispered conversation. After a silent sigh of relief, he turned back to his loudmouthed pet. "I just do. He'll keep it quiet as long as it's in his advantage. But those two are probably too stupid to figure out where their advantage is."
"Finey, finey… Oh and, Harry?"
"What?"
"Ya better wake Dumb, Dumber and Shiny up, you're nearly late."
Harry glanced at the clock, realizing he only had 10 minutes before his first class. While Draco was easy to wake, it took them a "Pluvius" charm to wake the two roaring logs up -- "At least it saves them time for a shower." Draco mused with a smirk.
In the middle of breakfast, a flurry of owls flew overhead, distributing mail, packages or just coming for a visit. Hedwig flew down and, after nibbling affectionately on Harry's ear, accepted the bits of beacon her master gave her.
"Lucifer!" Draco said with a smile as a large great horned owl landed on his shoulder, dropping a bag of sweets on the table along the way. Harry learned it was from his mother, who made it a morning ritual of sending sweets every day.
Harry quickly realized that the practice of magic was much harder than just waving his wand around and saying weird words. That they only did in Charms, which was taught by Professor Flitwick, a very small and a bit clumsy teacher. That same teacher had squeaked and fell down the pile of books –that he used to look more impressive, not that it worked– while making the role call, after reading Harry's name.
The Herbology class was held in the greenhouses outside of school and involved, as the name indicated, learning about magical plants. Harry quickly learned not to get too close from some of them, especially those with thorns and teeth. Goyle, however, seemed to forget that rule until he found himself hanging upside-down from the ceiling with a vine tied around his leg, much to everyone's amusement.
Defense against the dark arts was a class that brought mixed feelings among the Slytherins. Some of them looked unhappy it was taught, for some reason, while the many others had heard about it and didn't look happier. Harry understood quickly why: Quirrell's teaching turned it into a joke. His class smelled strongly of garlic, rumored to have been put there after the professor had had a nasty meeting with a vampire in the dark forest. Also, the teacher's purple turban emitted the same stench, and the story of how he had got it didn't fit: apparently he had fought off a Zombie and saved an African chieftain, who offered the turban as thanks, but Quirrell wasn't able to tell them how he had defeated the zombie, nor where it was in Africa.
Harry had thought right when he had first seen McGonagall. She was not one to be crossed. Her only redeeming quality was that she was fair, in the fact that she gave the same impossibly huge amount of homework to the Slytherins as to the other houses. She talked to them quite directly in the first class, claiming that any fooling around in her class was to be severely punished. Harry, for one, took the warning seriously.
..however, Harry noted she was rather colder on him than the others.
More detestable than McGonagall was Peeves, the poltergeist. Thankfully, he was rather soft on Slytherins, since their ghost was the bloody baron, the only one who was said to have ever been able to control him. However, it didn't stop him from attacking them every now and then.
And even worst than him were the infernal duo: Filch and Mrs Norris. Why that darn cat was called "mrs" was a schoolwide mystery, made more sickeningly disturbing by the fact he kept calling her "my sweet" or other words that easily cut the appetite of everyone who heard them being said to a cat. Filch was the caretaker, but the title 'Security guard from hell' could also fit him just as nicely, if not better. He knew every secret passage of the school and could come up at the most unexpected time, waging an apparent all-out war against the students. He also seemed to have some kind of odd psychic connection to Mrs Norris, as he always seemed to pop-up after someone was caught by her.
However, on the detestable side, one was worst than Peeves, Filch and Norris. His name stroke fear deep in the hearts of the other houses, and usually amusement in the Slytherins.
Serverus Snape, the potion master.
The potion class took place in the coldest and scariest dungeons Harry had ever seen. Dark and cold, with small windows near the roof and the dim flames lit under the cauldrons being all that gave light and, along with the things better left to the imagination that floated in vials around the walls, gave the dungeon a quite gloomy and scary atmosphere. The fact that they shared the class with the Gryffindors made a forced silence, which made the class even darker.
That morning, Harry had received a message from Hagrid to meet him at his hut. He couldn't wait for the lesson to end, so that he would see his giant friend again. 'course, he wanted to go alone, but Blaise read over his shoulder and invited herself, managing to pull Draco in with them.
"Can't believe I let myself get pulled into this thing." Draco grumbled.
"'cause you don't want the Gryffies to know about your 'sleeping arrangements'." Harry said with false sweetness.
The blonde boy shot him a dark look as they entered the classroom.
Professor Snape, with his tall shape, sharp dark eyes, greasy black hair and rather large nose, burst into the dungeon just in time for the lesson to start, making his way to his desk in few quick steps. Harry personally thought he looked like an oversized bat. He checked if everyone was here, starting with the Gryffindors. Many of them got themselves a verbal lashing.
"Hermione Granger… oh yes, Minerva told me about you… the know-it-all who can't keep her mouth shut."
She looked visibly hurt and looked down at the stones making the ground, her cheeks reddening.
"Neville Longbottom… he-who-forgets-something-at-least-once-a-day. Teaching you will probably be impossible, considering you probably forgot the first word I said to you already."
The round-faced boy blushed and tried to hide behind his crossed arms.
"Miss Patil, Miss Brown, I suggest you hide that thing before I decide to check if your horoscope include loss of points in the next 10 minutes."
Two girls sitting side-by-side and that had been reading a magazine squeaked and, after wrestling the poor book in a merciless tug-o-war that the Indian-looking girl he had called "Patil" won, hid the damaged pieces of paper in her backpack.
"Ronald Weasley… If you're anything like your twin brothers, you're in for some great trouble, I'm warning you."
Then, he turned to the Slytherins and made more comments about how he knew their parents, and how he expected great things from them.
"Draco Malfoy. Yes, I know your parents. Was here four years under them, but still knew them well… The two best students of Slytherin at that time. Excellent at Potions as well, I expect a lot from you."
"Miss Parkinson, yes… Met your sister… delightful student, head girl two years ago…"
Pansy glowed with pride an pulled her tongue at the frowning and glaring Gryffindors.
"Harry Potter… our new celebrity." He said, a tint of dislike in his voice. Everyone turned to look at them, some Gryffindors literally gawking.
Snape's eyes glared at him like he had seen a worst enemy for the first time in years. Harry gulped. He didn't like him one bit.
Snape continued, until he went to Blaise.
"Zabini." He coldly said, not commenting at all but his tone of voice literally oozed of dislike. Harry and Blaise turned and gave each other puzzled looks. What had they done?
Snape walked back in front of the class, standing in front of his desk as he began an apparently practiced class entry.
"You are here to learn the subtle science and the difficult art that is the making of a potion."
His voice barely above a whisper echoed in the class, yet everyone heard him clearly. Harry personally thought it sounded like a quiet Nemesis. Wait… no, scratch that. It sounded like a quiet snake, since Nemesis would never be quiet.
"There is no wand-waving in this class. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses...I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death -- if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."
That entry was direct, rather insulting and followed with a Dudley-heavy silence. Harry returned to his initial thoughts. He did not like professor Snape. However, Draco's grin proved him the feeling wasn't unanimous.
"Tell me, Potter." At hearing his name, Harry's head snapped up, pardon the pun, to look at Snape's glaring eyes. "What do you get if you put powdered asphodel roots in an infusion of wormwood?"
Powder of what? Infusion of what? Harry was taken aback. He gave a quick look at Draco, who shrugged. He noted that Granger's hand lifted fast enough to break the sound barrier.
"I don't know sir." Harry replied quietly, wishing someone would talk so his voice wouldn't sound as loud as aunt Petunia's.
"You don't know." Snape hissed, sounding more and more like Nemesis. "It appears celebrity isn't everything in life, is it? Let's try again. Where would you look if I told you to bring me a bezoar?"
Granger's hand once again shot high up so fast that if she kept this up, it would tear off and reach orbit but Harry had no idea what a bezoar was, even less where to find one. He took an instant to wish he had read 1001 herbs and fungi, the only book he had left untouched in the whole collection.
"I don't know sir." Harry whispered, looking down, his fists clenched. What was with this guy?! Why did he only ask those questions to him, and not the others? By now, the Gryffindors were whispering in awe and he managed to catch a:
"Is he badmouthing one of his Slytherins? Potter, no less?"
"You didn't even take time to open one of your books before coming here, did you, Potter?" Snape began again, catching his full attention in mid-flight.
Harry was about to protest when Blaise crushing his foot and shook her head.
"One last question." Snape said with a sneer. "What's the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
This time, Granger got up. If he asked another question, she would probably go and get a bright Hufflepuff-yellow panel written "ASK ME!" in flashy letters. And yet again, Snape ignored her and Harry didn't know the answer.
"I don't know, sir." He replied, a tone of irritation evident in his voice. "But I think Granger knows. Maybe you should ask her." Instead of trying to make me look like an idiot, he mentally added.
There was a couple of laughs and Granger blushed bright red. However, Snape didn't look happy.
"Sit down!" he barked at her, making her squeak and obey very quickly. "For your information, Potter, know that a mix of asphodel and wormwood give a soporific so strong it is called Draught of the living death. A bezoar is a stone that you can find in a goat's stomach and that can protect you against most poisons. As for the monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, also called Aconite. Well? What are you waiting for, write it down!"
Harry quickly took out his notes and scribbled it down, followed by the rest of the class. After one final glare at Blaise and him, he separated them in pairs. Much to his dislike, Harry ended up with Granger, while Blaise was stuck with Longbottom. Snape then walked up to the blackboard at the end of the class and wrote the number 10 down in an exaggeratedly large shape.
"Open your book at page ten, work on the potion written down, to cure furunculous." He barked, then turned to Longbottom and sneered evilly. "I wrote the number down just so you wouldn't make a mistake, page 9 is a poison and page 11 a solvent strong enough to melt stone. I am nice, right?"
Harry resisted the urge to ask if it was a rhetorical question as Granger continued drilling him in the recipe.
When Longbottom messed up and melted his first cauldron, ending up with furunculous growing all over him, and after he had sent the clumsy Gryffindor away with Blaise to the infirmary, Snape turned to him and glared angrily, a light that could only be described as gleeful glowing in his dark eyes.
"And you didn't find it necessary to warn him, did you, Potter?" Harry almost gasped in surprise. He couldn't possibly… "Thought that if he messed his potion up, it would make you look brilliant? That'll cost you one point from Slytherin."
And everyone in the class gawked as the bell rang.
"Darn, he must really hate you…" Crabbe said after the class. "My bro told me he never took a single point from Slytherin before."
"Well I'm flattered, then." Harry snapped dryly and sarcastically. "I have the honor of being Snape's scapegoat."
"You're not the only one," Blaise said as she returned, looking particularly angry and with a bandage around her left hand. "you know what I learned? We get a huge project to do in 2 weeks, and we keep the partner he set us with!"
Harry groaned. "Oh great, I have to suffer through Granger's incessant drilling… I swear she could replace Binns one day!"
"Count yourself lucky she can actually do a potion right. I swear, I did all the work, all he did was add those porcupine quills and BOOM!" She let out a loud, exasperated sigh. "I'm gonna fail because of the loser of Gryffindor."
After dinner, Blaise and Harry pulled a reluctant and struggling Draco outside of school, toward Hagrid's hut.
"Why do I have to visit that big oaf already?!" Draco asked, trying to get his arm free from Blaise's iron grasp.
"Because it's the nice thing to do." Harry replied, not even looking at him.
"I am not nice! C'mon, let me go!" The black-haired boy, who had seen that one coming for light-years, tightened his hold on Draco's other arm as a response, before turning his head toward the boy.
"You wouldn't want Hagrid to hear about Frilly, right? Who knows, maybe I'll slip if you aren't there to make sure I don't…" He said mischievously.
The platinum-haired boy blushed, looked down and muttered a threat to Harry's life, before finally starting to walk forward, a definite air of resignation surrounding him like an aura. Behind him, Harry and Blaise shared a snicker.
"Mastered blackmail already, didn't you, Potter?" Blaise asked with a smirk.
Harry shrugged. "Well, with a dormitory partner that sleeps with a green with blue dots stuffed dragon… There it is, Hagrid's hut!"
Sure enough, the disproportioned wooden house just outside the forbidden forest became visible. Harry knocked on the door while Blaise gawked at the large crossbow near the door. Draco just looked around, probably to make sure no one would spot him meeting Hagrid.
"Hagrid? It's us!" Harry said after knocking, his voice partially covered by loud barks.
"Jus' a minit!" They heard Hagrid's rough voice say, before the door partly opened, revealing the large man who was holding back a huge dog. "Oh, yeh brought yer friends with yeh, too!"
Harry nodded. "Is that all right?"
Hagrid gave a look at Draco, seemed to hesitate a bit before nodding. "Yeah, c'min. Ca'm down, Fang."
The door opened widely, revealing the inside of the house. Hagrid let go of Fang, who promptly jumped on Draco and proceeded to 'clean his face', much to the blonde boy's disgust. It was a rather large, one room house with a huge bed covered with a quilt, a scrubbed wooden table, surrounded by wooden chairs and a fireplace, in which a copper kettle was boiling over an open fire. Hagrid, in it all, stood nearly halfway toward the very high up roof covered in dead birds and other animals. Harry noticed Draco looked disgusted at everything inside, but it could also have been because he was still cleaning up the remains of Fang's drool off his face.
"So, what d'yeh think so far?" Hagrid asked after they had sat down and he had given them tea and cookies that looked like they had been made out of rocks.
Harry proceeded to tell him what had happened so far. He felt comfortable with Hagrid, like some kind of giant older brother. Blaise looked a bit shy, however, while Draco kept his arms crossed and looked around in a displaced arrogant air. Harry made a mental note to talk to him about that.
"Mam' McGonagall's probably jealous." Hagrid noted. "I mean, ev'ryone thought yeh'd be in Gryff'ndor, so did she, 'parently."
Harry let out a sigh. "Great, so McGonagall hates me because I'm not in her house, and Snape hates me because I am."
"'Fessor Snape hates yeh?" Hagrid asked, not looking extremely surprised. "I shoulda known. Just the kinda guy teh hold grudges, that man, and it's not 'cause yer in his house."
"Grudges? But why? Why does he hate me so much?"
"It's not meh job teh tell yeh that, it's between Snape and yeh."
Harry gave Hagrid a look, making him look away. Evidently, the giant man knew what was going on, but wouldn't tell.
"Hey, what's that?" Blaise asked, taking the newspaper. "Robbery at Gringotts? Isn't that impossible?"
"Yeah, I heard about that." Draco said, nodding. "My dad had that odd look when he heard it… He says only the darkest of all mages could try to rob something at Gringotts and get out alive and uncaught."
"I'm sure yer dad'd know all 'bout that." Hagrid grumbled.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Draco asked, frowning.
Hagrid opened his mouth to retort when Blaise let out a startled gasp. "Harry!" She said, turning the newspaper toward him. "Look at the date of the robbery!"
The front page of the newspaper showed: "Robbery at Gringotts!", a quite catchy headline, as it always should. Just below, a moving picture showed a familiar-looking vault with goblins and wizards looking around for clues. Harry looked for the date of the robbery and was surprised to read July thirty-first.
"That's the day we were there!" Harry gasped, taking the article and beginning to read it out loud. "Fortunately, the vault that the thief attacked had been emptied the same day." came out louder than the rest.
Harry gave a look at Hagrid, who was purposefully looking at the fire. The vault 713 had been emptied the same day, even though it had only contained a tiny package. Evidently, the object there was quite valuable if someone had taken the risk of entering Gringotts to get it.
But what could be that valuable, and who could be powerful enough – and have so little to lose – to risk robbing the most guarded bank of the world?
He had a nagging feeling he didn't want to find out.
Sorry for the wait again!!! That was what… one? Two weeks? Well, part 6 is over, so here's part 4 on ff.net! I'd have sent it yesterday, but for some reason *coughstupidtalibansblastingNYClastyearcough* I wasn't able to.
Why did it take so long? Simple: It housed one of the most important scenes of the book, the Halloween scene, and I wanted it to be ABSOLUTELY PERFECT. That, and the fact that I was writing at an extremely fast rate, which means many, many typos. *sighhhh* Plus, I was feeling *VERY* sarcastic that day ^_- Expect the writing to be the same. Hope I'm not going overboard with that though…
REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Pweeeeeeeeeeeeeeze? (Gives a wounded-puppy look)