Disclaimer: Not mine, I only own the plot of this fanfic and Carya, some parts are copied from the book, you might notice that some people got into different houses than in the books by JKR; this has only minor reasons, but I need them to be where they are now ^_^
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Chapter 06 – Classes
The first morning was unusually quiet. Most people still couldn't get over the fact that the Potters were Slytherins. Harry, Carya, Ginny and Draco had nearly finished breakfast when an almost hostile looking Professor McGonagall handed them their schedules. They hadn't done anything wrong, had they? The children couldn't explain themselves what this look had meant.
Draco tried an explanation.
"Maybe she's just jealous that you and Harry aren't in her house like your parents were. The same for Ginny I think. I for one have never heard of a Weasley in Slytherin. No offence Ginny," he said defensively. It certainly seemed to be the most plausible answer for the Professors behaviour.
They had more than half of the classes with the Gryffindors and the rest of them with the Ravenclaws. They had Transfiguration, Potions, Astronomy, Herbology and Flying Lessons together with the Gryffindors and History of Magic, Charms, and Defense against the Dark Arts together with Ravenclaw.
School had started and both Carya and Harry thought that is was fairly easy. They only had slight problems and didn't get top marks in History of Magic because they were more asleep than awake, in Astronomy because they weren't really interested and this year with Defense against the Dark Arts because the Lessons were less than jokes as Ginny said.
After the first Lesson Harry and Draco decided that Quirrell was a loon but Carya had a distinct feeling that there was something wrong with him though she couldn't quite place a finger on what it was. She was soon close friends with Ginny who suffered greatly from being shunned by her brothers and fully ignored by her own parents.
On Friday of their first week they had their first class with Professor Snape – Double-Potions – together with the Gryffindors.
The potions lessons were taking place down in the dungeons. It was colder there than in the rest of the castle, and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls. Professor Snape began his class the same way as Flitwick had done. He was taking the roll call and, just like Flitwick, paused at Harry's and Carya's names.
"Ah, Yes," he said softly without addressing anyone in particular, "The Potter twins. Who'd have thought that the two of you might get sorted into Slytherin!?"
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potionmaking," he began.
He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word -- like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort.
"As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. 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."
More silence followed this little speech. Harry and Draco exchanged looks with raised eyebrows.
"Mr. Potter!" said Snape suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
'Powdered root of asphodel ...? Ah, yes', Harry remembered reading about that in the summer holidays. "Asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death," Harry answered calmly.
Snape seemed surprised but awarded Slytherin some points.
"Good answer, Potter, 10 points to Slytherin!" he said.
"Let's try another. Mr. Malfoy, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"
Draco barely hesitated and answered: " A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons," the boy said.
The other students barely heard Ron Weasley whisper something to Finnigan that sounded like know-it-all-snakes but Snape apparently had heard him.
"Mr. Weasley! What is so important that you have to tell Finnigan in my class?"
"Nothing, Ss..sir!" Ron stammered.
"I see. Then I'm sure you can tell us what is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?" Snape questioned.
Now Harry, Carya, Ginny and Draco were snickering silently. They waited for Ron whose ears had gotten bright red to answer.
"I don't know," said Ron quietly.
"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Weasley?"
Ron's ears went even redder after that and he looked really angry but didn't say anything. His brothers had warned him that Snape loved to deduct points from Gryffindor.
"Well anyone else?" he inquired. Carya raised her hand. This was easy.
"Yes, Ms. Potter?"
"Monkshood and wolfsbane are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite."
"Very good, textbook answer. Ten points to Slytherin!" Snape said to the Slytherin side of the room and then suddenly snapped: "Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?"
There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Things didn't improve for the Gryffindors as the Potions lesson continued. Snape put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils.
He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticising almost everyone except Draco, Ginny and surprisingly the Potter-twins since they turned out to be quite good in brewing potions.
He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Malfoy had stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon. Neville had somehow managed to melt Seamus's cauldron into a twisted blob, and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people's shoes.
Within seconds, the whole class was standing on their stools while Neville, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.
"Idiot boy!" snarled Snape, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?"
Neville whimpered as boils started to pop up all over his nose.
"Take him up to the hospital wing," Snape spat at Seamus. Then he rounded on Dean and Ron, who had been working next to Neville.
"You – Weasley, Thomas -- why didn't you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he'd make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That's five points you've lost for Gryffindor."
This was so unfair that Dean opened his mouth to argue, but Ron kicked him behind their cauldron.
"Don't push it," he muttered, "I've heard Snape can turn very nasty."
The Slytherins of course where snickering throughout this whole ordeal. As they climbed the steps out of the dungeon an hour later, Harry's and Carya's minds were racing and their spirits were bright. They'd won ten points for Slytherin each in their very first week – but why did Snape seem to dislike them so much?
They finally decided to worry about that later when Ginny suggested that they should get their homework done right now and then have the whole weekend without schoolwork.
Though Draco was not very close to the group since his father did not approve his friendship with the Potters, he and Harry were rambling about Quidditch most of the times they spend together while the girls went to the library where the often met with Hermione Granger from Ravenclaw. Since they had some classes together they sometimes did their homework together, too.
After two weeks of classes they were about to have their first flying lesson. Unfortunately they had it together with the Gryffindors. At breakfast Carya got her copy of the Daily Prophet (A/N: she had a subscription to some small magazines and the Prophet just to stay informed of the world outside Hogwarts ^_^).
It was a very interesting headline on the first page:
GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST
by Tamara Timids
Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on August, 1st, widely believed to be the work of Dark wizards or witches unknown. Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day. "But we're not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what's good for you," said a Gringotts spokesgoblin this afternoon.
Harry remembered Draco telling him on the train that someone had tried to rob Gringotts, but Draco hadn't mentioned the date.
"Carya!" said Harry, "that Gringotts break-in happened on our shopping day! It might've been happening while we were there!"
He grabbed the paper and read the story again. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied earlier that same day. Snape had emptied vault seven hundred and thirteen, if you could call it emptying, taking out that grubby little package. Had that been what the thieves were looking for?
They knew that there had to be a connection between whatever Snape had gotten out of that vault and this attempted robbery. But right now they had to worry about something completely different.
After breakfast, Harry, Carya, and the other Slytherins hurried down the front steps onto the grounds for their first flying lesson. It was a clear, breezy day, and the grass rippled under their feet as they marched down the sloping lawns toward a smooth, flat lawn on the opposite side of the grounds to the forbidden forest, whose trees were swaying darkly in the distance.
The Gryffindors were already there, and so were the broomsticks lying in neat lines on the ground. Harry had heard Flint and Bletchley – two members of Slytherins quidditch team - complain about the school brooms, saying that some of them started to vibrate if you flew too high, or always flew slightly to the left.
Both houses stood on the lawn glaring at each other when their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, grey hair, and yellow eyes like a hawk.
"Well, what are you all waiting for?" she barked. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up."
Harry glanced down at his broom. It was old and some of the twigs stuck out at odd angles.
"Stick out your right hand over your broom," called Madam Hooch at the front, "and say 'Up!"'
"UP!" everyone shouted. Harry's broom jumped into his hand at once, but it was one of the few that did. Draco's did jump up exactly like Harry's. Ginny and Carya did okay, Ron's had hit him square in the face which made the Slytherins laugh and Neville's hadn't moved at all.
'Perhaps brooms, like horses, could tell when you were afraid', thought Harry; there was a quaver in Neville's voice that said only too clearly that he wanted to keep his feet on the ground.
Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips. Harry and Draco were delighted when she told Weasley he'd been doing it wrong for years.
"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," said Madam Hooch. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle – three -- two --"
But Neville, nervous and jumpy and frightened of being left on the ground, pushed off hard before the whistle had touched Madam Hooch's lips.
"Come back, boy!" she shouted, but Neville was rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle -- twelve feet -- twenty feet. Harry saw his scared white face look down at the ground falling away, saw him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and --
WHAM -- a thud and a nasty crack and Neville lay facedown on the grass in a heap. His broomstick was still rising higher and higher, and started to drift lazily toward the forbidden forest and out of sight. Madam Hooch was bending over Neville, her face as white as his.
"Broken wrist," Harry heard her mutter. "Come on, boy -- it's all right, up you get.". She turned to the rest of the class. "None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch.' Come on, dear."
Neville, his face tear-streaked, clutching his wrist, hobbled off with Madam Hooch, who had her arm around him.
No sooner were they out of earshot than Malfoy burst into laughter. "Did you see his face, the great lump?" The other Slytherins joined in.
"Shut up, Malfoy," snapped Parvati Patil.
"Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?" said a smirking Carya who was clearly enjoying the baiting of Gryffindors. They had been hostile towards them since the first evening. "Never thought you'd like little cry-babies, Patil."
This was where Ron stepped in. "Watch your tongue Potter. You might not want to end like your good-for-nothing parents. I've heard they died as cowards," he spat.
Parvati and many of the Gryffindors started laughing. This was too much. Even before Draco and Ginny could hold them back Carya and Harry were physically attacking Weasley and Patil. The two Gryffindors got quite a few blows barely being able to withstand the angry twins.
Their rescue was none other than Professor Snape and they didn't know what would've been worse – dealing with Snape about this or get beaten up by two Slytherins.
The Professor stopped the fight and gave each of them detentions. Ron and Parvati had to clean all bedpans in the infirmary with toothbrushes but no one ever knew what the twins had done in detention. They never told anyone besides Ginny and Hermione and those always kept it secret.
When They arrived at Snape's office at the scheduled time he told them that he had to give them detention to make it less suspicious. Actually they were helping him brew some healing potions for the infirmary.
Another two weeks later Slytherin house held it's quidditch tryouts. Draco and Harry both wanted to participate but didn't really think they'd have a chance. They were only First Years and it was a well known fact that those were never chosen for the house teams. But then everyone got a surprise.
Harry was picked as reserve-seeker and Draco as reserve-beater. Some of the team members were graduating this year and if they did well, Harry and Draco would be on the regular team in second year. Their friends were happy for them and said that this had to be a record for getting into reserve position.
While exploring the castle the five friends somehow ended up in the forbidden third floor corridor. Draco had soon stopped to insult Hermione for being muggle-born but not until Carya hexed him. He had to go to the infirmary to have the kitten ears removed. They were curios what would be so horrible and tried to look.
The children were shocked about what they saw. A three-headed dog barely fitting in that hallway. Only Hermione noticed him standing on a trapdoor.
"I wonder what he's guarding," she murmured after they had found a quiet place in the library and regained their breath.
"And I wonder if that dog has something to do with what they had tried stealing from Gringotts. Why else would Dumbledore let this, eh ... monstrous dog into the school?" Carya asked.
(A/N: They never did tell the others that they had been at that vault with Snape!)
From a chat with Hagrid they found out that this giant dog was named Fluffy and somehow he let slip the name "Nicolas Flamel".
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Thx to all who have reviewed !!! ^_^,
Carya
