7. Potions problems.
The Potions lessons had been uneventful so far, especially compared to last year's. Snape was not much friendlier when the entire class –and, of course, the Slytherins- were present, but he was not getting on Harry's case anymore either. He still made plenty of snide remarks, especially to the other Gryffindors, but he didn't take as many points off. Harry didn't complain.
Today, they were making a potion that would protect against mind-control curses. Harry was stirring it, checking it for color and consistency, when he heard a squeak from across the room.
"Oh, shit!"
Recognizing Neville's voice, Harry ducked. Moments later, there was a large BOOM and drops of potion rained down on him. With dismay he saw several large drops fall into his cauldron, and his smooth potion started to form little bubbles.
"LONGBOTTOM!" Snape yelled.
Harry looked up to see the Potions Master loom over Neville, both splattered with more than a few drops of the liquid. So, for that matter, were the students who had been unfortunate enough to work closer to Neville.
"What did you put in that potion?" Snape asked darkly.
Neville looked at his feet and stammered, "Yellow ochre, sir."
"And where, exactly, does it say 'yellow ochre' on the list of ingredients I gave you?" Snape asked menacingly.
Neville shuffled his feet. "Nowhere, sir," he admitted.
Snape sighed. "Then please enlighten me why you took it upon yourself to add it."
"Well, I couldn't get my potion…," Neville started, "It was supposed to be green, and eh, mine, well, it was blue and I thought I could at least make it look…"
"Let me get this straight, you added a random ingredient to a potion as if it were a common food coloring?" Snape asked incredulously.
"Well, not quite random," Neville stuttered. "After all, blue and yellow does make…" He stopped. "I guess I shouldn't have."
Across the room, the Slytherins were doubled up in laughter, while the Gryffindors were looking on with silent anticipation.
Snape sighed, then ran a hand through his hair. "No, you should not have," he said in a tired voice. "Twenty points from Gryffindor, and detention tonight during which you will clean the entire classroom."
"Yes sir," Neville squeaked, looking miserable. Harry felt somewhat sorry for him, but he also shared their Potions Master's disbelief at Neville's stupidity.
Snape was now checking Dean's cauldron, which had been closest to Neville's and was bubbling angrily. "We will try to save these at least," he stated. "Harry, get the cat tail fluff from the stores."
Harry blinked in surprise. Even the Slytherins weren't normally allowed in the store room, and Snape had not called him by his first name in front of the class, either. But he recovered immediately. "Yes, Professor," he nodded, quickly walking through Snape's office to the store room.
It was locked, but the password hadn't been changed since summer. He returned with the cat tail fluff, closing the store room door behind him.
"Good," Snape said as he entered. "Pass out a small amount to everyone. Everyone, put some in your cauldrons, stir it slowly, and it will absorb the ochre. You can then skim it off the top."
Harry did as requested, noticing and ignoring the glare Draco and some of the other Slytherins gave him when he handed them the fluff. Then he set to work on his own potion, and managed to fix it so it stopped bubbling.
At the end of class, he rinsed out his cauldron and wiped his desk.
"Potter, I would like to speak with you for a moment," Snape told him as he made to leave with Ron and Hermione.
Harry nodded. Ron and Hermione hung back. "Go, I'll catch up," he said. He wished he had been able to tell them more about his summer, his friends still looked doubtful whenever he insisted the time he spent with Snape had turned out okay in the end.
He followed Snape into his office. Snape sat down behind his desk and sighed.
"Harry, I have a request for you," he said, seriously. "I will not require you to take it on, as it is not likely to be an easy or pleasant task."
"What is it?" Harry asked.
"I want you to pair off with Longbottom, to keep an eye on him during class, and to try and make sure he doesn't blow up anything else," Snape said.
"Me?" Harry asked, blinking. He hadn't expected this.
"Yes," Snape replied. "Look, there are twenty of you, I can't keep an eye on him all the time. I had hoped that he would eventually learn enough to at least stop blowing up his brews, but that mistake he made today is something I would not expect from anyone beyond first year. I believe after this summer you have a pretty good idea of what things are likely to be particularly volatile and you could stop at least some of these incidents."
"Thank you, Professor," Harry replied. "But Hermione is still better than me."
"Maybe," Snape allowed. "But I would rather have you do it. No matter how futile it may seem, I must still attempt to teach Longbottom what little he can absorb. He is not going to be able to do even that if someone brews all his potions for him. Now I'm sorry, I know Miss Granger is your friend, but she is a busybody and I'm afraid she won't be able to keep herself from interfering too much. I only want you to intervene when you have reason to believe his screw-ups are likely to cause an explosion or other serious damage."
Harry frowned, still unsure.
"I won't hold it against you if you don't catch everything –I hadn't foreseen today's display of stupidity myself. But it should at least limit the number of times I have to spent my evening watching Longbottom scrub the classroom ceiling," Snape added.
"Okay, I will do it," Harry made up his mind.
"Thank you," Snape replied sincerely. "See you in class tomorrow, then."
"See you tomorrow, Professor," Harry said, and quickly went after his friends.
-0-
The next day, Harry set up his cauldron next to Neville's. He had told Neville what Snape had asked him. Neville had been apologetic to the extreme, saying he was sorry to put Harry through so much trouble, but Harry could easily hear that he was also extremely relieved that Snape would not be watching him quite as closely anymore.
Some of the others in the class glanced at them as they started to prepare their potion to settle an upset stomach. Harry had also told Ron and Hermione, who couldn't understand that he had agreed, but he had not told it to anyone else. Only about halfway through, Draco noticed Harry kept glancing at Neville's potion and drew his conclusions. No matter how hard Harry tried to work together when they had Prefect duty, the Slytherin still needled Harry any chance he got.
"Babysitting the clumsy oaf, Potter?" he asked.
Harry glanced over to Draco and his potion. "At least I can brew my potion and still keep an eye on his. You may want to learn how to brew your own correctly before you make any snide remarks," he commented.
"There's nothing wrong with my potion," Draco said defensively.
Harry shrugged. "I'm not drinking it."
He turned back to his own potion, tempering the fire a little. Of course he wasn't about to drink Neville's potion, either, but it didn't look like it was going to do anything but congeal. He let his classmate muddle on, watching only that he wouldn't do any other hare-brained things trying to save it. But even Neville wasn't stupid enough to make the same mistake two days in a row. He'd have a hell of a time scrubbing his cauldron clean, but that wasn't Harry's problem.
A few moments later, Harry saw Snape walk over to Draco. "I told you to mix the tapeworm paste with the toad bile before adding it to your potion."
"I forgot, but it's both in there, and I've stirred well," Draco replied.
Snape shook his head. "That isn't good enough, you will have to start over," he said. "If you can tell me why before the end of the period, I won't take any points off."
Harry tried not to grin as he saw Draco leaf furiously through his notes. Harry knew it wouldn't be in there; the only time Snape had mentioned it in their class had been last year during a lecture on poisons and antidotes. Apparently Draco had not been paying attention in that class. Truth to tell, Harry had forgotten the details as well, but he had recalled it when he used the mixture last month.
"Hey, Gryffindor, care to tell me why?" Draco hissed to Harry.
"Why should I?" Harry asked. "You don't usually help me."
"I can't find it in my notes," Draco whispered urgently.
Harry shrugged. "I'm sorry, I already have two cauldrons to watch, I really can't help you right now." Which wasn't exactly true, his own cauldron was simmering and Neville was leafing through his notes trying to find something or other. Harry could easily have helped Draco and perhaps checked on a couple other cauldrons as well. But he wasn't allowed to help Neville, apart from preventing disasters, and he, at least, would try to treat everyone the same.
Draco scowled, but he didn't push, trying with Crabbe and Goyle instead, then the other Slytherins.
At the end of the period, Snape came over again.
"Did you find the reason why you had to mix the two before adding them to the potion?" he asked.
Draco let out an exasperated sigh. "I tried, but no one wanted to tell me!" he said, accusingly.
Snape frowned. "I'm not deaf, Malfoy. Potter was the only one who didn't want to tell you, the others didn't know any more than you did. Ten points from Slytherin, five for you and five for your friends who apparently haven't been listening to my lectures either."
Draco looked hurt. "I bet Potter didn't know either, that's why he pretended to be busy," he said.
Harry sighed. Snape might be more fair than before, but if any of the Gryffindors had made a comment like that, Snape would have taken another ten points off right away. But he knew better than to point that out, not in front of the entire class.
"The bile must have time to activate the enzymes in the tapeworm paste, so those can work to counteract the poisonous effects of the cashew shells," he said. He wasn't gonna let that go completely unchallenged!
Snape looked around at him, and nodded curtly. "That is it," he said. He turned back to Draco and added, "Try to remember it this time."
No points for Gryffindor, but Harry hadn't expected that. Not yet, and not with all of them there. He was still quite satisfied when he left the classroom. Maybe some day.
-0-
Draco was seething. Not only had Potter one-upped him in Potions –one of his best subjects- but Professor Snape had dared to take points from Slytherin and leave Gryffindor alone! Potter hadn't even received a snide remark for being just as big a Know-It-All as that Mudblood Granger. Professor Snape used to hate Potter just as much as he did, but obviously something had happened over summer. He'd even called him Harry in Tuesday's lesson! And sent him into the store room, while just last year Potter had stolen the Gillyweed to win that stupid task of the Triwizard Tournament.
Of course, Draco knew by now that Potter had spent several weeks of the summer vacation at Hogwarts. He didn't know all the details, as several versions of the story went around. Some said Potter had tried to kill his uncle, or his cousin, others said his uncle had tried to kill Potter, yet others thought it had been a Death Eater attack, or the Dark Lord himself. Draco knew it wasn't either of the last two, but he wasn't sure what else to believe. It didn't really matter. Either way, Potter had ended up at Hogwarts with Professor Snape, and somehow, Professor Snape no longer hated him.
Perhaps it had always been a ruse, just a cover for his work as a spy. Perhaps Professor Snape never really cared for his own Slytherins, and had never really hated those disgusting Gryffindors. Draco conveniently forgot that Professor Snape was just as harsh to any other Gryffindors as he had ever been. No, perhaps his professor supported those Gryffindors and Mudbloods, something no respectable Death Eater would ever do. Well, Snape certainly wasn't a respectable Death Eater! He was a traitor and a spy.
Draco had been shocked when his father had told him, hadn't wanted to believe at first. Not that he'd said so, of course. No one said they didn't believe his father, not to his face. But he'd had to believe when his father had told him in more detail about the trap they'd set.
Even then, Draco hadn't immediately hated his Head of House. Professor Snape had always taken good care of him and the other Slytherins. He was strict, more so within their house than the others would think, he didn't tolerate any rule breaking when those rules were his own. But he was also fair, as long as it was about in-house business. He was a good teacher and was always willing to listen to those of his own house if there were any problems. It had been hard to discount all that and to hate his professor. Then. Now, he wondered if it'd all been a lie. Did his professor really care about the Slytherins at all?
He knew something funny was going on with the Friday night 'Study Group' as well. Even if they were learning to work the wards, there was no reason to ward the room as heavily as it was. Draco had tried several listening spells and devices, and nothing had worked. And of course it irked him there were only three Slytherins included. It made it clear Professor Snape did not trust the members of his own house, and also that there was something more going on than learning about the wards.
Potter was involved as well, of course, and Draco thought there was something funny about the big, black dog Professor Flitwick suddenly had. Why would he take his dog to a study group? It didn't bode well that Professor Snape was involved with this group, was he telling them all he knew about the Death Eaters and Voldemort?
The potions incident had simply been the last drop. Draco went to his room, took out some parchment and a quill and started to write a letter to his father. He told his father everything he had learned and suspected, and included every detail about Professor Snape, including a thing or two he hadn't previously wanted to tell.