Salazar sat at his desk, drumming his fingers lazily, watching his breath pour out in a stream of smoke. The dungeons had seemed like the perfect place to give potion lessons- No smells could reach the main part of the castle, any corrosive potions that were dropped wouldn't go down to the floor below, since there wasn't a floor below, they were naturally cool, so the fires weren't stifling…And plus, they had planned out the classes in the heat of summer. The dungeons felt nice then, and Salazar had insisted that potion lessons take place there. Of course, he had foolishly forgotten that classes were to begin after the fall harvest, and end before the heat of summer crept in.
So much for teaching in comfort, Salazar thought, as his morning class, Ravenclaw's and Hufflepuff's came in, shivering and wrapping their cloaks around them.
"Come on, set up your cauldrons, light your fires," he said, quickly standing up, in hopes of looking some what professional. "Once you do, it'll be warmer in here."
He gestured to the large black board behind him. "First and second levels, do the boil remover potion. Third, fourth, and fifth, do the silver polishing one. Six and seventh, the hospital wing needs more gangrene preventing potions, so get to it."
One of the seventh years raised her hand.
"Yes, Miss Adelburg?"
She pointed. "It's not written on the board, sir."
"You should have memorized it by now," said Salazar, curtly.
There were some groans from the five older students seated in the back. Salazar glared, and continued. "First through fifth levels, be careful not to let your potions boil over. They are slightly corrosive, and they will damage your skin. Get to work. Six and seventh, see me for the shredded unicorn horn now."
The students crowded to his desk, and Salazar carefully measured out a spoonful of the silvery substance to each student.
"Careful, it's worth its weight in gold," he said, giving the last student, a particularly clumsy Hufflepuff, his measure.
Salazar then set up his own cauldron, to get ready to test a new potion he had thought up the night before. As he did, he marveled once again at Rowena's genius. They had given every student a test of their magical knowledge, and sorted them into seven levels. The seventh level would graduate that spring.
This made it possible to give assignments to students based on their known ability, rather than their age, and made setting up lessons a breeze.
As Salazar started his fire, he heard a horrible scream. One of the first level's was on the ground, clutching his arm. Tears were streaming down the girls face, but she wasn't making a sound.
Salazar rushed over. "What happened?" he demanded of the boy closest to him.
"I think she splashed some of the potion on her, sir."
Salazar paused, considering what to do. The students didn't know their way around the castle well enough to get to the hospital wing quickly. He needed to take her.
"Connelly!" he barked, to the back of the class.
"Yes sir?" said a tall seventh level, looking up from his cauldron.
"You take over the class. Make sure no one else injures them self. No one is allowed to leave, unless to go to the hospital wing."
"Yes sir," said the boy, looking around the classroom, daring the other students to ask to go to the privy.
Salazar ran out of the classroom, leading the girl by her unburned arm, and dashed up the stairs, to the second floor. He ran through the hallways, until he reached the wing. Helga was on duty, and, as the wing was otherwise empty, was tending an odd looking plant with thirteen spiky pedals.
"What happened?" she asked, concerned, as Salazar ran in.
"She splashed some boil removing potion on herself," he said, gesturing the girl to sit on the nearest bed.
Helga grabbed a pitcher of water and a rag, and bustled over.
"Not much I can do, 'cept wash it out," she said, as she put the rag in the water, and wrung it out.
She gently patted the girl's wound. Tears streamed down her face faster, but she still didn't utter a sound.
"Salazar, grab me a bandage, please," she said, as she poured water carefully onto the girl's arm.
Salazar rushed over to the cabinet, and grabbed a roll of white linen. He tossed over to Helga, who skillfully caught it, and began dressing the wound.
"There," she said, patting the arm. "All better." She then turned to Salazar. "Can I have a word?"
"Miss Neilsen, head back to class- you remember the way back?"
The girl nodded, and left the wing.
"Yes?" said Salazar, once the girl was out of earshot.
"Did you leave the class alone?" said Helga.
"Well…yes."
"Salazar…"
"What was I supposed to do?" he retorted.
"Send her up with a class mate. You know that's what Godric would like us to do. Especially after that incident in Care of Magical Creatures."
"That happened because Godric was being a troll head. It was stupid of him to leave a bunch of Gryffindor's with a hippogriff. Bravery my foot, Marchbanks was a moron to ride him."
"And it's not stupid of you to leave your students with potions that can clearly hurt them?"
"I left Connelly in charge."
Helga gave him a look. "I'm going to have to tell the others about this."
Salazar glowered, and then lightened up. "If you don't tell them about this, I won't tell them that you had a poisonous plant in the hospital wing."
Helga glanced towards the plant. "You wouldn't."
He grinned. "Oh, yes I would."
"I'll tell them about the time you accidentally gave your seventh levels a love potion to brew."
"I'll tell them about the time you almost forgot to tell your students to put earmuffs on when working with Mandrakes."
"Almost. The mouth was only halfway out of the dirt."
"Miss Higgs had a headache all day, I recall."
Helga stuck out her hand. "Truce."
"Deal," said Salazar, shaking it.
"Get back to class," said Helga, gently shoving him out the door.
*
When Salazar returned, the hourglass on his desk was almost spent.
"You should be done by now," he said, picking up a stack of coins from his desk. "Now, after I'm done checking, do as it says on the board. Place your bottles on the desk before you leave."
He patrolled the rows, carefully examining the colour and texture of the lower level's potion, dropping a silver coin in each of the third, fourth, and fifth levels' cauldron, and smelling the upper levels' silvery green brew.
He went back to the silver polishing cauldrons, and pulled out the coins. To his amazement, none of the coins had changed at all.
"This-" he said, raising the tarnished coins in the air for all to see. "Is pathetic. Don't bother bottling it. All middle levels come here after the final bell, to try it again."
The bells rang, and the class rushed out, dropping bottles on his desk as they left.
Salazar sighed, as he turned one of the coins over in his hand. He walked over to the board, to erase the silver polishing potion recipe. It was obviously to hard, the afternoon class would have to do something else.
He paused for a second as his hand passed over one of the ingredients. Two handfuls ground sea salt- he thought. Damn, it should be four. And it's the active ingredient. Damn it! He stopped erasing the recipe, and collapsed at his desk. He had humiliated half his class because he made a stupid mistake. The students would rejoice when they found out. Every time a student's potion didn't work, they could easily say that they thought he'd had the recipe wrong, and they tried to fix it.
So much for teaching, he thought, and flung the coin in his hand across the classroom.
*
A few minutes after the last bell, a third level wandered in. Salazar wanted to tell him that he needn't be here, but something stopped him.
Five minutes later, the whole class was in the room. Salazar stood up and cleared his throat.
"Everyone, get to work!" he said, briefly.
The students talked among themselves as they grudgingly set up their cauldrons, and got their ingredients ready.
Salazar sat tensely in his seat, just waiting for what he knew what was going to happen. And sure enough,
"Sir, is there more sea salt in it then this morning?" asked a fourth level.
"Yes," he said, trying to keep himself from sighing.
"Why?"
He thought for a moment, before arriving at a solution. "Anyone who can tell me, is free to leave now, but must submit a cubit long essay on why there needs to be four handfuls of sea salt, rather then two."
The class plunged into silence, as they tried to think of whether or not they knew or not. After a few minutes, a fifth level packed up his things and left. The rest of the fifth levels, and most of the fourths left soon after. Within fifteen minutes, everyone was gone except for the two third levels in the class, a boy and a girl.
They looked at each other in self-pity. Suddenly, the boy spoke.
"This isn't fair."
Salazar looked up. "Pardon?"
"All the ones that left, they came from wizard families. Me and Alyce here, we don't know as much about magic as they do, since we came from muggles."
"You knew enough to get into the third level."
"That's cause I talked to a witch in the village for a bit before I came here," said Alyce.
"And I just guessed on the test," added the boy. "I didn't know none of that stuff."
"You could use your schoolbooks, and not to mention the library, to research the essay," said Salazar defensively.
"But they know it already! Some of the fifth years, they've had private tutors. And I know that Brian's father is an apothecary. Why should they get out of rebrewing?" said Alyce.
"You're in school to learn," said Salazar, getting tired of all this. "You need to learn the skills to let you survive in the magical world. And don't think that the more experienced students have it easier- they still have things to learn as well."
"We don't have any silver at home. So why should I learn this potion?" said the boy.
"It's the theory behind it, not the potion itself. That's why the other children aren't writing about how to make the potion- they're writing about why the ingredients work the way that they do. So that way, eventually, they'll be able to make their own potions. And, might I add, learn why they ones they make sometimes don't work. And they'll be able to fix it."
"So why to we have to brew it?" said Alyce rather loudly.
"Because," said Salazar through closed teeth. "You aren't at their level yet. You need to get more potions under your belt before you get into the complexity of it all. And I don't want to hear another word. Get to work."
Alyce and the boy glared, but started to brew their potions.
After another turn of the hourglass, they were done. Salazar dropped a coin into each of the cauldrons. He fished them out, and examined them.
"Alyce, very good. Bottle it up, and go. But yours-" he looked at the boy. "Is still tarnished. Did you forget something?"
The boy held up his closed hand. He slowly opened it to revel a fistful of sea salt.
"Put it in," commanded Salazar. "It's not too late."
The boy looked him steadily in the eye as he turned his hand over, and dropped it on the floor. He then walked out of the room.
"Get back here!" yelled Salazar. The boy didn't stop. Salazar ran after him.
"Why did you do that?" said Salazar, trying to remain calm. "You could have just put that handful in, and be done."
"I didn't want to," said the boy, and spit on the ground at Salazar's feet.
Salazar then lost it. He grabbed the boy by both shoulders, and pulled him in until he was a foot away from his face.
"I have potions that can stop your heart in a second. I have ones that can collapse your lungs, ones that can make your limbs fall off. I don't suggest making me angry," said Salazar in a low voice.
The boy finally looked scared. He wrenched himself out of Salazar's grip, and ran up the stairs, as fast as he could.
Salazar watched him, breathing heavily with anger. His face slowly fell, as the realizations of his actions piled up on him.
"Sir?" said a voice behind him.
He wheeled around. It was Alyce. "Yes?" he said, surprised.
"Can I go now?"
"Yes, yes," he said, still flustered. "Go."
He watched her climb the stairs, turned, and went slowly back into the classroom to clean up.
*
After dinner, Salazar was heading to his room, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around. Rowena was there, looking mad.
"Oh, good evening Rowena. What's the matter?"
Rowena gave him a look reminiscent of the one the boy had given him. "Good evening Salazar. I hear you threatened one of my students this morning."
Salazar raised his eyebrows. "Did I?"
"He says that he forced him and a Hufflepuff girl to stay after and brew a potion, while the rest of the class got off with an essay. And after he did his work, he tried to leave, and then you threatened him because he didn't do the potion right."
"That's not true," said Salazar. "He knew perfectly well what was wrong with his potion."
"So you did threaten him?"
"No!" said Salazar quickly.
"Really," said Rowena. "Why would my student lie?"
"I don't know. To get attention, maybe? To get me in trouble?"
"Why would he do that? From what I've heard, the students tend to like your class."
Salazar knew he was in trouble. Rowena was a force to be reckoned with. He'd heard that she had once talked her way out of a burning, on Halloween, after she had turned the village priest into a pig, in broad daylight. He said nothing.
"I'll see you in the morning Salazar," she said finally, and turned to walk down the hall. "Don't think I don't know you're lying," she called over her shoulder.
"You're wrong for once, Rowena Ravenclaw," he called back, before continuing on his way to bed.