Chapter Three: Let the Lessons Begin!
"Bloody werewolf," Snape breathed fiercely under his breath, "as if the Granger Know-it-all was ever in here." Snape was busily measuring out diluted Bundimun secretion, a substance used often in cleaning fluids. "Waste of time. Waste of energy. Waste." Snape poured the secretion into the middle cauldron, while continuing to stir the cauldron on the far left; the Wolfsbane. The potion in the middle cauldron turned from green to orange, and then once Snape adjusted the heat, boiled down to a clear blue. As he turned down the heat and replaced the lid, Hermione knew that the fluid would most likely have to simmer for a further forty minutes, before being bottled. More than that, and the Bundimun secretion would start to erode the cauldron; too much less, and it would explode in the bottle, taking about half the dungeon with it. All the while stirring the Wolfsbane with his right hand, Snape grabbed a mortar and pestel and began to crush snake fangs. He then weighed an appropriate amount of nettles and, Hermione knew not how, he somehow managed to add both simultaneously to the cauldron next to the all heal. Placing some horned slugs in a much smaller cauldron behind him, Snape divided his attention between stewing the slugs and monitoring the five potions. Once they were ready he added them to the mystery potion between the all-heal and the cleaner.
'And why,' Hermione thought, 'is he making a first year boil cure?' Clearly, there were more effective potions the Potions Master could manage easily, many of which his fifth, sixth and seventh year potion students could make in class. As he reached to add porcupine quills to the boil cure, Hermione restrained a gasp, but, luckily, he remembered in the nick of time to take the cauldron off the heat, just saving himself from making the same mistake Neville had in their first ever potions lesson. Hermione supposed he hadn't been going to make such a fatal mistake - which would've turned to the other four cauldrons into blobs and reacted with their potions, likely resulting in an explosion or harmful injury - but as Snape shook his head to clear it, her mouth fell in shock, because she realised that he almost had made a stupid mistake. Maybe he was the one that was affected by that Wolfsbane Potion, she thought. I've never even heard of him making a mistake before, even recently when he began making four or five difficult potions at once, even while teaching at the same time.
"Bloody hell," Snape muttered, "not again." He turned around to the cauldron between the cleaner and the Wolfsbane, brow furrowed and features contorted almost in fury, but instead showing his lack of sleep. "Orange. Of all colours. A third year potion, to boot. Longbottom would be proud." No, thought Hermione, he can't just have made the same mistake as Neville with the Shrinking Solution. Her memory searched rapidly, finally reminding herself how she had fixed that dilemna. The potion required daisy roots, a shrivelfig, some caterpillars, and was supposed to turn a bright acid green. Snape had just made the same mistake Hermione had remedied in third year - losing five points for her expertise - and had put more than one rat spleen in, and too much leech juice. Hermione was beside herself - a mixture of disbelief, willingness to help, and sheer confusion running through her brain. Two mistakes in a row? Who is he and where's Snape?
Although Snape could have just doubled the amounts of the other ingredients like Hermione had instructed Neville, Hermione knew the potion would lose its potency. The only way to remedy it for human consumption would be to stir the potion quickly and continuously, now and then adding small amounts of Moke Skin as you doubled the amounts of the other ingredients. With only one hand available, even with a wand, this task seemed almost impossible to Hermione. It seemed Snape was just going to leave it until he could cover the Wolfsbane again. Unfortunately, as Hermione quickly did the math, the ratio in which the ingredients were mixed, and the leech juice which did not have enough shrivelfig mixed with it to counteract the acidity of the potion, would either destroy the potion for good (likely taking the other four with it), or give off a fume which would likely kill Snape.
I've got to do something. Pulling her wand from the inside of her robes, she carefully put a concealment charm on herself so he wouldn't discover her while she was trying to help. Then, ever so slowly, she manipulated the jar of Moke skin from the shelf with a quick "Locomotor Moke skin jar" and bid it rest next to the cauldron of Shrinking Solution, making sure that both she and Snape could see it, and then unscrewed the stopper even more slowly. She carefully, unobtrusively prepared the other ingredients in the correct amounts before softly breaking a section of Moke skin into very small pieces. So far, Snape hadn't noticed anything. Thanking God and Merlin and anyone else listening, she observed a stirring rod still sitting in the cauldron, which she magicked to start very slowly but gradually build up speed until it was fast enough to add the ingredients - making sure none of her spells affected the Wolfsbane, which she knew was quite sensitive. Snape still didn't notice the stirring rod whizzing about right under his nose as he was busy writing down what looked like times and quantities, and making bottles sterilise themselves in the sink. Carefully levitating the ingredients at the right times, Hermione fixed the potion bit by bit, and then let it simmer for the appropriate ten minutes, wondering how she would get it into bottles and label them without Snape noticing. Using her ten minutes to levitate bottles and labels underneath the bench and just in front of the cauldron on her side, she then crossed her fingers and hoped that her spell would work - naturally, it did, and the cauldron suddenly had a tap on her side of it. Using her wand to operate the tap from a distance and maneuvre the bottles, Hermione managed to fill the bottles, emptying the cauldron of its contents, and conjured up a quill, labelling them. Suppressing a sigh of satisfaction and relief, Hermione levitated the bottles up onto the bench, where she hoped Snape would find them in due course. Hah, she thought, who's insufferable now?
Most ironically the concealment charm chose this moment to fail Hermione. More ironically, though, Snape chose this moment to look up. Oh. No. I am so in for it now.
"Miss Granger?" His tone was almost pitiful; he was much too tired to even think about sounding at all threatening.
"Yes, Professor?" She replied weakly.
"You...you... Lupin?" He vaguely gestured towards the door. Hermione understood completely.
"Yes, Sir. I came in with Professor Lupin. He told me to stay here, although I am not sure why. I can leave if you want..."
"You... you saw me... you watched me brewing potions?"
"Yes, Sir."
Damn, he thought, so much for not making a noticeable mistake in front of someone. He glanced down at his work, his hands only just remembering to stir the Wolfsbane, as if searching for an explanation which wasn't there. Instead, he did not believe what he saw.
"What's this? Who- When- ...how?"
"I noticed that the potion hadn't gone quite as one would have planned, sir. I recognised it as a Shrinking Solution. I knew that if it wasn't remedied quickly, there may have been awful consequences, but you couldn't attend to it because you were brewing four other potions, including the Wolfsbane. I... fixed it up. You should find it adequate for human consumption, Sir."
"I... ah... thankyou, Miss Granger."
"You're welcome, sir," Hermione was satisfied at being the first Gryffindor ever to receive praise from Snape. "Sir?"
"Yes?"
"Ah... surely supplying the hospital wing is a tedious task, sir."
"Tedious but necessary."
"Yes, well... I was wondering, if it's not too presumptuous of me, would you like some help with... anything? I... I'm not really busy and I... I wouldn't mind."
"It is too presumptuous of you, Miss Granger."
"Sorry, sir. I'll... I'll be leaving, then."
"I don't think so," Snape said thoughtfully, "Out of bounds, Miss Granger? Why aren't you at dinner?"
"I would have thought that was obvious, Sir. Professor Lupin invited me to come down and hear what he thought of the Wolfsbane incident, to save him from repeating it again," Hermione was furious. How dare he criticise her for breaking the rules, when she had helped him, and when she hadn't broken them in the first place? "And by now, dinner will be finished."
"Still... you are a prefect. I'm afraid I'll have to give you detention. I expect you outside that door straight after your last lesson tomorrow, Miss Granger. Good night." A small yet malevolent sneer played on Snape's lips, pleased to have delivered justice to the first person to see him mess up a potion.
"Good Night, sir." Hermione spat, racing out of the dungeons and back to the Fat Lady before she realised how hungry she was, and back-tracked to the kitchens to grab a bite to eat before going up to bed.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Hermione wasn't sure whether or not she was unlucky she didn't have DADA. Remus had said he would take the blame for anything that happened - whether or not that included her detention, Hermione didn't know - but she wasn't particularly eager to share what had happened down in the dungeon. However, she wouldn't see him before lunch and by then it would probably be too late - she realised, anyway, that even if Remus talked Snape out of the one she had received last night, she would do something that would earn it back in potions that afternoon. After fifth year and the dreaded OWL examinations, classes had become specialised and, naturally, Hermione was taking the most classes in the grade - all but Muggle Studies and Divination. She wasn't in many of Harry and Ron's classes and the trio seemed to have grown apart ever so slightly since last year. Somehow they had managed to scrape into her Care of Magical Creatures and DADA classes. She suspected this was because the former had such a little number of people doing it and, well, they had to be good at one subject, and the DADA classes were larger - thanks to an enormous show of interest with the rise of Voldemort - however, she did not push the matter - they were friends, even if it was more than often the case that she was the only one with any intelligence.
Professor McGonagall took her aside that morning to summarise what they had done in the lesson Hermione had missed. Hermione had mastered the principles of self-transfiguration over the summer holidays (if not beforehand), and to the slight surprise of both student and teacher, she managed to transfigure her left arm into that of an octopus almost immeadiately. A little dazed, McGonagall let her return to the rest of her classmates, who were still having trouble with transfiguring their limbs into wings - wings being the simplest they could transfigure them into, because they were almost all feather, and one simply had to remember where the bones went and what direction the feathers were in. While McGonagall roamed the classroom, changing back heads and legs and necks and even sending one poor girl off to the hospital wing, Hermione studied a diagram of a shark fin and several diagrams of mammal limbs - mastering all but that of a horse because there just wasn't enough time. By the end of class Hermione was so far ahead McGonagall simply told her to "do whatever she wanted" for homework - but, she said jovially, brushing up on the counter-spells would be useful if the rest of her class were still of the same standard next lesson.
In Advanced Charms the class was of a slightly closer standard. Most of the class managed to master many of the simple charms wandless magic had to offer by the end of the lesson - of course, Hermione, who had already practised this in the Hospital Wing, had moved on to re-reading and summarising the lengthy chapter in their textbook about Wandless Magic. Flitwick found no need to bring her up to date, as they had mainly talked about Charms and what they would be learning this year, answering many of the students' questions about NEWTs. As Hermione had already interrogated Professor McGonagall about NEWTs two or three years ago, she wasn't worried that she had missed anything. Unfortunately, Flitwick set them quite a lengthy essay on various types of wandless magic and their advantages and disadvantages. Hermione was pleased, though, that most of this was in the textbook and she wouldn't be spending hours searching for information which didn't exist.
Morning break left her just enough time to get from Charms to the dormitories and swap around her books, and get back down to Greenhouse Five just as the bell rang. Herbology was, to be frank, a bore (this was quite normal). The only other Gryffindor there was Neville, and really Herbology was considered such a useless subject except by those who were counting on it to pull them through to a Medi- witch or wizard degree (potions had become rather nasty, lately), that they and a few Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs made up the entire class. Fortunately, Neville was good at Herbology and Hermione didn't mind being his partner every lesson. Hermione hadn't missed much last lesson - what had happened in Charms pretty much summarised the Herbology lesson, too (except, of course, it was about Herbology, not Charms). They had begun studying special plants from different places around the world and by next lesson had to have their 3-week projects organised. This was easily accomplished in the lesson (naturally, Hermione paired up with Neville), and as Neville was quite passionate about the subject, he had already figured out almost everything, and Hermione, for once, didn't have to do a thing.
Lunch left much to be desired - oh, the food was magnificent (the house elves were getting better and better everyday, with all the compliments they received from Gryffindor table) - but Harry, Ron, Neville, Dean and Seamus were nowhere in sight, and Hermione ate two ham sandwiches and gulped some pumpkin juice before disappearing into the Gryffindor dorms. Swapping her books around for her potions kit and textbooks, Hermione skipped up the boys staircase to see what they were up to. There wasn't a boy in sight. Figuring there wasn't enough time to find them before class, Hermione grabbed her Potions stuff and raced to the dungeons, arriving 5 minutes early. Examining the Senior Timetable on the noticeboard in the main dungeon, she saw that they were in one of the smaller dungeons, one of the ones next to Snape's private rooms and stores.
Surprisingly, the dungeon was unlocked. She was unsure as to whether she should go inside - this was, afterall, her first Senior Potions lesson, and she wasn't sure whether the rules would be different from now on. She was sure, however, that if Snape came and she was the only one sitting inside, it wouldn't be pleasant. Several Ravenclaws arrived on the scene: from what Hermione could tell, they appeared to be Anthony Goldstein and Morag MacDougal. At the last moment before the bell, Malfoy arrived with Snape, apparently disgruntled that none of his Slytherin friends were talented enough to join him, but smirking because he knew he'd be the favourite in the small class. They passed without a word, moving into the dungeon to take their places.
"So." Snape began, staring at each student as though meticulously weeding a garden. "You four managed to get into the top class. You may be under the impression that this means you're fantastic. On the contrary, most," and at this he almost smiled at Draco, "of you only just scraped in. I only teach two Senior classes for each year. One is for a small group of dunderheads who need the marks, the other is for a select few. You happen to be the select few. This," he snapped his head in Hermione's direction sharply and glared at her, "does not mean you get special privileges. This," he spat, "does not mean class will be any different from now on. This means I expect perfect results from you every single time you do something." Hermione could tell he was almost enjoying this. She knew she was not.
"This course is continuous for two years. I expect your other teachers have bothered telling you about NEWT Examinations. I will not. If you have any questions, see your Head of House about it. Some of the topics and potions we will cover are," here he tapped the board, "on the blackboard. Every potion you do here at Hogwarts will be taken into account. Every potion had better be perfect. I will not accept lazy, heavy handed fools in my classroom. If you mess up you will make the potion again until you get it right. If you mess up three times you will explain yourself. If I do not find that explanation satisfactory, I will kick you out of this class." He paused for this statement to make its impact on its victims. Unfortunately, there was only a hint of fear in the Ravenclaw boy. Annoyed but unruffled Snape continued:
"Your first task this year will be a project which starts tomorrow," Hermione restrained her arm, perhaps she was wrong, but she thought they didn't have potions again until Monday, "where you will be teaching first years. You will, in pairs, each take one class at least once a week. You will stick to the curriculum," he handed out their lesson plans, "or face the consequences. Mr. Malfoy and Miss Granger will take the Gryffindor/Slytherin class, Miss MacDougal and Mr Goldstein will take the Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff class. I expect you to notify your teachers about why you cannot attend their lesson by tomorrow or be solely responsible. At the end of a four week period every first year will have a small examination. If one of your students fails, you also will fail. If you forget to come to class, you, also, will fail. I will supervise your first lesson. You should be familiar with the curriculum. If all goes well, as I doubt it will, I may end up leaving you to carry on with your teaching by yourselves. You are all prefects and as such I expect you will not have a problem with discipline. Be warned that if you do not complete this project to a satisfactory level your prefectship may also be in jeopardy."
"This lesson you will read Chapter One in your textbook which should be on Healing Potions. You will then make the potions on pages 5, 7, 9 and 11. You will bottle and label these and then you will summarise the chapter. I expect 16 inches on the properties of the ingredients you used in these potions, why and how they are effective, etc. You will then devise your own Healing Potion using at least six of these ingredients, make it, bottle it, and label it. Make sure you include a recipe on the label. Everything not done this lesson will be homework, due Monday. You may use the ingredients and equipment in these store cupboards," he opened 3 or 4 cupboard doors with his wand, "but no ingredients from the others. Everything you use must be washed up and put away. You may begin."
Hermione had already read this Chapter, several times in fact, but to avoid suspicion she read it once more, albeit a little faster than normal. Once she had finished she turned to pages 5, 7, 9 and 11 to read the recipes. She decided that she could make two at once. The Burn-Relief Potion and the Cough-Relief Potion looked pretty easy, and she was positive they could be made in conjunction with each other. Preparing two cauldrons and her ingredients, Hermione began working away. Soon enough, however, the major disadvantage of being one of the 'select few' became apparent - with only four students, Snape had to spend some time looking at what you were doing. Thankfully, however, he busied himself by making potions on a bench up the back of the classroom with his back turned, and before she knew it she had the Cough-relief finished and began on the Headache Cure. Once the Burn-relief was bottled and labeled, Hermione brewed an Advanced Boil Cure, hardly keeping herself from smiling at the thought of Snape almost making a mistake with a first year boil cure. With half an hour to spare, Hermione cleaned up and began working on the tedious tasks of summarising a 25-page chapter and writing 18 inches of herbal properties. She managed to summarise the chapter and had written 12 inches of the essay when class finished. She immeadiately packed up her things and began to move to the next dungeon for her detention.
