The next day in potions Harry earned his detention by sabotaging his potion. The comments Snape made as he assigned Harry detention for the potion were classic Snape. Harry knew not to expect better treatment in the classroom, Snape himself had warned him that would not change. And it couldn't change, even if the Marked students were gone as they had been expelled there were still watchers who reported to Voldemort. The class was pretty much a typical potions class with Gryffindor losing points and Slytherin gaining them. Oddly enough when Harry sabotaged his potion and got detention no points were taken.
Malfoy who clearly blamed him for his father's imprisonment had threatened him before class. For some reason Harry had expected that. He understood where Malfoy was coming from even if he didn't like it. Maybe thought Harry, Lucius was a decent father, even if he was a Death Eater. And for all of it Harry did respect Malfoy's loyalty to his father. And he could understand in some ways why he was the focus of the anger, rather than the one who Draco should be angry at: Voldemort. He still didn't like Draco though he understood this.
Ron was still not talking to him because of the quidditch thing, and a good amount of Gryffindor agreed with him. The whole argument they'd had the night before returning to school had been rehashed several times since returning and Harry was sick of it. Ron was treating him like he'd betrayed Gryffindor and Harry was heartily sick of that. Harry had no intention of telling them why he wasn't playing anymore. He did agree to give Ginny some training as Seeker for the team. She'd asked him to train her and he promised to do so on Saturday mornings when he was free. He also promised to let her use his Firebolt, which had been returned to him by Dumbledore for both practices and games, as long as he could use it himself at other times.
Hermione still wanted to know what the extra training was, and Harry told her it would be extra DADA and occlumency. She wanted to know more but he wouldn't go into it and told her so. She wasn't happy that he wouldn't tell her but she accepted that some things couldn't be shared. Hermione unlike Ron seemed to accept that he had things to do that were Order related that he couldn't share.
Harry went to the dungeons after dinner for his "detention" with Snape. They spent the first hour going over curses. Snape would not let him cast them as the wards would detect Dark magic and go off. Snape told him he would be practicing at Grimmauld Place over the holidays. Then they went to the parchment. Harry was trying to explain some of what it said with difficulty. He could read it, but every time he tried to read aloud, he lapsed into parseltongue. So he settled for writing it down. Much of what he was reading seemed to be someone's personal journal. Aside from it being in parseltongue the English was archaic and hard for Harry to understand. Snape seemed to have a better time of understanding what he was reading as Harry passed the translations to him.
So Harry translated and passed pages to Professor Snape who read them avidly. There were some words Harry couldn't understand, as there were no modern equivalents. He was trying to be as accurate as possible and neat so Snape would have no problem reading it. What he did understand was fascinating. The person who wrote the journal had been at Hogwarts during the founding and commented freely on all 4 of the founders. Which led Harry to believe the writer was not Salazar Slytherin but someone else. He mentioned that thought to Snape who seemed to agree that it probably wasn't Slytherin himself but maybe a member of his family. The whole journal seemed to cover years and Snape made it very clear that they would not get to it all in one night.
Harry agreed with Snape on that one. He knew there was a lot of journal there to read. His concern was finding something that might help the Order and he was enjoying the immediacy of what he was reading in the journals. He really felt history in them and enjoyed the observations of the writer. The writer seemed to know all of the founders well and had an irreverent sense of humor. The comments concerning their personalities and quirks intrigued Harry who would've loved to meet all of them. The writer seemed to have a good eye and ear for details and the writing was lively.
Snape was amazed that Harry would willingly sit still and read such old material. The translation seemed to be literal and Harry confirmed he was doing it literally as he didn't understand some of the more archaic words in the journal. Spelling seemed also to be an issue, as English spelling was not standardized until much later than the journals. Looking at the context to get the words did some of Snape's understanding.
After about 3 hours of reading and translating, Snape stopped Harry and gave him some tea. The tea was hot and refreshing after all the work he'd done. Snape asked him how he sabotaged the potion and Harry told him. They made an agreement that Harry could earn his detentions that way, but must be able to explain what he did and why, so Snape would know it wasn't an error. If the potion exploded though Snape would take House points: if not, a simple detention. If it was an error he would have to redo the potion in detention. Snape also commented on how glad he was Neville had dropped potions. Neville in his opinion had been truly dangerous to himself and others in the classroom. Harry commented back mildly that Neville's fear of Snape had made him that way. They didn't discuss this further as neither had any wish to argue. And it seemed like what was in the classroom should stay there
They did discuss briefly the journal. Both of them agreed that the writer probably wasn't Slytherin. Harry asked if Slytherin had a family when they founded Hogwarts, since Hogwarts: A History didn't mention if any of the founders did. The answer was probably, but he wasn't sure. There really weren't any definitive biographies of Salazar Slytherin out there. That surprised Harry, after all there were biographies of muggles who lived in those times. Snape pointed out that Gryffindor had destroyed any papers of Slytherin left at Hogwarts, the fight between them had been such that they had come to wands. And the aftermath of it was that Slytherin had been demonized by magical Britain.
Harry had to wonder if something else was suppressed there. Obviously there was a disagreement, but to come to wand point over it? What else had happened? He wondered aloud if there were a history of Slytherin House. Gryffindor had one, he knew having seen copies of it in the common room. Snape looked at him sharply and said there was, but all House histories stayed in the House common rooms for a reason. Hmm the House history may have more about Slytherin in it though, Harry mused. Perhaps Snape should look at it? Snape agreed with that, and they made arrangements for the next "training" session, as Snape handed him another Dark Arts book, transfigured to look like a potions book for him to read through. He was strongly encouraged to take notes and have his questions ready. Since they would not be meeting the next night. Harry would be meeting Dumbledore for occlumency lessons then. Harry returned to the dorm with a lot on his mind and ready for bed.
