Chapter 3: Of Baths, Clothes, Class, and Threats to Ferrets
Explaining to a wild child what a bath is was a very tedious task, but actually attempting to do what they explained was worse. The boy squirmed, bite, and ran around the bathing area, quite nude mind you, to evade the three men attempting to clean him. They were sorely tempted to stupefy and bathe him while he was unconscious, but not wanting to have repeat performances because he didn't see how to do it himself, they held back from doing just that. But their patients was running thin. They began to wonder if they should get tested for any diseases that could be transferred through a bite. The boy was filthy and had lived in an infested area, surely there was the possibility that he had something as vile as a disease.
Once he was thoroughly washed and dried, the next challenge came when they tried to redress him. Harry was quite adamant in his refusal to wear the robes and uniform they attempted to put on him and resorted to other forms of physical violence besides biting. Snape, Lupin, and Black were now all sporting a black eye or two, split lips, other contusions and lacerations, as well as extreme pain in the groin area, because apparently nothing was too low for our Mister Potter. He viscously tore into them with teeth, nails, and anything he could get his hands onto.
Eventually, Harry conceded to wear the robe, but nothing else. He refused the pants, shirts, underwear, socks, and shoes. He did allow them to brush his hair though. Deciding he liked that, he paid extra special attention on how it was done. He was determined to be able to do it himself. Lupin then performed a spell that would make sure the robe he wore would not be able to be blown up high enough to show anything of Harry others shouldn't see, as he wasn't wearing anything else and the unlikely troop headed off the Great Hall for breakfast.
Upon entering the Hall, every eye was upon the three professors and the surly student. Laughter welled up at the sight of the teachers, but they were all very careful to keep it in, afraid of angering the boy with them if he believed them to be laughing at him. If they noticed his lack of other clothing but they robe, they wisely kept quiet. Harry then quickly made his way to the Gryffindor table and Ron, while the professors (quite red in the face from the humiliation of coming into the Great Hall and everyone realizing they had had the crap beaten out of them by an eleven year old) headed to the staff table.
"Ah, Severus! Remus. Sirius. So good of you to join us. I trust everything went well with young Harry?" Upon receiving death glares from the three, his twinkling eyes intensified and he merrily replied, "my, you look as though you might want to go see Madame Pomfrey. I'm sure she has something to heal all those wounds. It looks like you were on the loosing side with a fight with a rather large wild cat!" Laughing joyously, Dumbledore continued on eating his breakfast, oblivious to the murderous looks and thoughts of that of the three staff members he had been talking to.
"Maybe, gentlemen, you could explain to me, as I am the head of Mr. Potter's house, why he is wearing nothing but a school robe? I do believe there is more to that uniform," Professor McGonagal stated dryly.
"Be our guest in trying to get him into anything else, Minerva, please. I do say though, you best wear some dragon hide gloves and protective gear covering every inch of exposed skin. We did try you know, but the majority of these wounds came from trying to dress him, not bathe him," Snape scathingly replied. He made sure to stress the fact that it was dressing him that was truly dangerous. All he got for a reply was a cheeky grin which made him gnaw his teeth in frustration. Why did he have to deal with the brat? He was head of Slytherin house and was never a Gryffindor! He couldn't tolerate the Gryffindors! Surely the headmaster knew this. He should have had Flitwick or Hagrid help them with the child. Oh, well, too late now.
At the Gryffindor table, Ron Weasley, Seamus Finnigan, Dean Thomas, and Neville Longbottom were being sent some extremely icy glares and vicious snarls from their house mate Harry Potter. He was not at all pleased with them informing those adults that he needed to be bathed and needed new clothes.
"I hope you know, you are all now on my list of people I most want to kill and eat. The list goes you four, then the three who bathed me, and then the old white one. Just thought I ought to give you sufficient time to deal with your impending demise," Harry snarled. "Just kidding! You're not on the list, although you should see your faces! But, pull a stunt like that again and you will be. I don't like the adults. Mind you, I'm not so sure about you little people, but I prefer you over the adults any day."
The four boys gulped and nodded their understanding and then they all decided to wolf down their food so they wouldn't be late to their first class, Potions with Slytherins. Upon entering the Potions rooms in the dungeons, Harry decided he definitely did not like it. It was too cramped with not enough light for someone used to living in a forest, but he decided not to voice his opinion. He simply sat down with Ron and waited for class to start. Of course, they should have known it wouldn't go that way.
"Well, well, well. What do we have here! If it isn't the infinitesimally poor Weasel and Potty the Forest Freak. Hm, I'm surprised you didn't eat your house mates or are you waiting until you fatten them up and then you're going to share them with your little pet Weasel, hmm? Yeah, I bet.."
But Draco never got to finish what he was going to say because the next minute he was pinned to the ground, rather effectively, by a snarling Harry. "Malfoy, you know what you remind me of? Hm? A great big, white ferret. You know what I do to ferrets Malfoy? I kill them, skin them, gut them, and eat them. I then use their entrails to ensnare bigger pray and use their fur to keep me warm during the winter months. Is that what you want me to do with you, Malfoy? Hm?" All this was delivered in a rather feline voice, being purred, but quite dangerous to hear. Just before the door banged open to admit Snape, Harry jumped up off of Malfoy into his seat.
"Mr. Malfoy, are you quite all right?" drawled an un-amused Snape. Draco took one look at Harry, paled, and mutely nodded that yes, he was indeed all right. "Then I suggest you get to your seat so that we may start class. You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making. 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."
Silenced reigned after the speech and few looked interested. Although unknown to Snape, he had caught the attention of one youth who could very well do extremely good in this class, one Mr. Harry Potter.
"Potter!" Snape suddenly barked. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" Snape ignored the straining hand of the young witch near Harry. He only wanted to hear the answer from the boy. Said boy was looking at him as though he were mad. Did he truly expect him to answer? "What's wrong boy? Don't know the answer? Pity, fame isn't everything then, hmm?" Snape scathingly said.
"Well sir, maybe you forgot in your old age, but I grew up in a Forest without books. I just got here yesterday and haven't had a chance to get any. Perhaps you could relay that question to the young bushy girl. She seems to know." Harry replied without bating an eye and Snape seemed lost for words.
Finally coming back to himself he spit out "Ten points from Gryffindor for your cheek" and proceeded to write the ingredients on the board for them to copy and start their potion by. Everyone got to work and Harry worked extremely hard. He wanted to do well in this class, even if the teacher didn't like him.
Almost at the end of class a large explosion occurred, resulting from Neville Longbottom adding things wrong. Poor Neville had to deal with the wrath of the Potions Master in all his unholy glory, while nursing boils all over him from the potion. Eventually, Neville trudged his way to the hospital wing, but not before the lose of house points and a detention. All in all, the Gryffindors managed to loose thirty points while the Slytherins gained fifty.
When the bell rang signaling the end of class, the Gryffindors practically flew from the room. Their next class was to be Transfiguration with their head of house, Professor Minerva McGonagal. The shared this class with Ravenclaw. When they entered, Harry and Ron took a seat towards the middle by Hermione, the girl who had known the answer to Professor Snape's class earlier.
"Hello I'm Hermione Granger. A Gryffindor like you. Your names are Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, right?" When she received positive replies from both, she continued on, "well, I hope we can become friends. This way we can study together and practice spells."
The chatted for a little while longer when suddenly the tabby cat in front of the class started changing shape and became that of their teacher. "Welcome students to A Beginners Guide to Transfiguration. You won't learn how to become an animal or change larger items until many years ahead. Instead we are going to take notes first on how to turn a match into a needle. You need to understand the basic concept to actually be able to do it. Mr. Potter, you will simply review over your notes and try to concentrate on the task until we can take you to Diagon Alley to get you a wand and your books. Hopefully we will go tonight after classes. Class, copy the notes on the board and then we will begin."
Once everyone began, Harry sat there unsure of what he should do. She had given him a match so he could visualize what to do, but he got bored of that after a while. He suddenly had an urge to simply put his right hand over the match and say the incantation. Deciding to act upon this instinct, he placed his hand over the match, said the incantation, and felt a strange tingling sensation course through his body, down his arm, and then out of his hand. When he looked down at his match, he had a perfectly formed needle. He couldn't believe it.
He looked up to see McGonagal starring at him and then she fainted dead away in shock. 'Uh-oh,' Harry thought. 'This can't be good!'
TBC
Wow! Two chapters posted so closely together! Well, what did you think? Please review and hopefully other chapters will come together so easily for me. Of course that is if you liked it!
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