Chapter six: When the Potions Master's a Bastard…
Down at breakfast that morning, Barry helped himself to several pieces of bacon, watching Don and Thomas arguing over which was better; Quidditch or Football. Down the table Lemo and Emo were attempting to catch pieces of French toast in their mouths, while Andy was trying to convince Nicholas that today's classes wouldn't be torture for him. Barry swallowed,
"We have our first classes today?"
"Yepo, the timetables are coming soon!"
"Crap," Barry muttered putting more bacon into his mouth.
"First...Herbiology with the Hufflepuffs..." Don muttered, "Greenhouse one..."
"Which one's that?" Barry asked.
"No idea mate..."
"Shall we go and investigate?"
"Yea, if we're lucky we'll find the right one straight away..."
"Knowing our luck, it'll be the last one we look in!" Barry said laughing.
Lucky enough the pair found the right greenhouse straight away. Their teacher, Professor Sprout was a down to earth witch, with twigs through her wild grey hair. She was friendly and more than willing to give anyone extra help. Surprisingly Nicholas was a natural at Herbiology and Professor Sprout took an immediate liking to him. On the other hand Andy hated putting her hands into the dirt with magical roots and bulbs and for some reason seemed relatively scared.
"My great aunt, she got killed by the cry of a mandrake," she said rather tearfully as Professor Sprout patted her on the back.
"Hey, I'll re-pot Andy's bulbs!" Nicholas said happily, taking Andy pot and shovel and started re-pot the bulbs.
Next period the Gryffindor first years had charms with Ravenclaws, Professor Flitwick was a very short wizard who had to perch on top of several books to be able to see over his desk. Today they were practising firing things around the room using only their wands.
"Remember, swish and flick!" Professor Flitwick squeaked, watching very few pillows flying around the room. It seemed charms was more of a subject for Andy as the sent the pillows flying around, quite often she made them bang into Lemo or Emo on the head.
"Hey watch it would ya?" Emo said, getting extremely pissed at her motionless pillow, "Move you piece of shit!"
Mione was another one who was sending her pillow flying into the box at the front of the class with ease. Emo watched with envy,
"How the fuck do you do that!"
Mione shrugged,
"Concentration."
"Concentration my ass..." Lemo muttered.
"No, it's all about skill, darlings!" Andy said with a laughing, making the box at the front of the room jump up into the air.
"Miss Rose! Please lower the box!" Flitwick squeaked, jumping up and down on his pile of books.
"Sorry sir!" Andy answered blushing slightly.
Barry looked down at his still pillow, silently cursing it, to his right Don was in the same situation, while to his left Andrew made his pillow rise several feet, and then let it drop again. Then Andrew looked over at Andy,
"Hey, Amber, do you think you could help me? I can't make my pillow do anything!"
Barry gave Andrew a surprised glance, Andrew raised a finger to his lips and looked over at Andy once more.
"Sure! Hang on a second..."
After morning tea, Barry had Potions. Barry had heard a lot about the potions master, many said he favoured his own house, Slytherin, Barry and Don would find out if this was true, because they had potions with Slytherins. Potions took place in the dark, cold dungeons under the school. Rows of tables were set up all facing the front with large cauldrons beside them; candles flickered feebly on the table tops. The class sat in nervous silence, waiting for Professor Snape to make an appearance. The only people speaking were Dracola Malfoy and co. who was sniggering at floating objects on the shelves above them. With a bang the dungeon door flew open and Snape strolled briskly up to the front of the class,
"There will be no foolish wand waving or anything of the sort in my class. Not many of you will appreciate the delicate art of potion brewing. Not many will be able to succeed in this class. And because there is barely any wand waving, many of you wouldn't consider this magic. But-" Snape broke off when he spotted Barry near the writing everything he said on a piece of parchment, completely oblivious, Barry waited, quill raised for Snape to continue. Don kicked him and Barry looked up.
"Barry Saucepan, our new celebrity," Snape sneered, while Malfoy and other Slytherins tried not to laugh.
"Yes sir?"
"Saucepan, what would I get if I mixed eye of newt and toe of frog?"
Behind Barry, he heard Mione gasp and the sound of her hand shooting up into the air.
"If you mixed eye of newt and toe of frog..." Barry said slowly trying to buy himself more time, "You would have a very mixed up animal?" he finished hopefully.
"Oh wonderful. We have a comedian," Snape said sarcastically, "We'll try again; what's the difference between monkshood and wolfbane?"
"I don't know sir..."
"Pity. Where would you go if I asked you to find me a bezoar?
"I don't know sir..."
In front of him, he heard Andy cough,
"Goat!"
"Not amusing Rose, five points from Gryffind-"
"Sir! That is not fair! She had asthma, she can't help coughing can she?"
"Another ten points from Gryffindor, five because Saucepan here is stupid and five because of your cheek, Roberts."
Andy went to open her mouth, but Don gave her a sharp kick from behind and mouthed, "Snape can get nasty."
Snape smiled a cruel smile,
"For your information, Saucepan; if you mixed eye of newt and toe of frog you would create a silencing potion, monkshood and wolfbane they are the same plant, which also goes by the name aconite, as for a bezoar, you'll find that in the stomach of a goat - Why aren't you all writing this down?" Within second the room was filled with the sound of scratching quills and rustling parchment, "And I'd recommend Saucepan, you take a look at you copy of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi..."
On their way to Defence against the Dark Arts, everyone tried to cheer Barry up.
"C'mon Saucey! Andy and I lost Gryffindor some points too and we're surviving!"
"But, Andy earned Gryffindor ten points in charms!"
"So that covers her ass, but what about mine?"
"But it does cover yours, she earned ten points!"
'Hey, Barry don't worry about it! I'll cover yours and Lemo's ass and then mine can be the uncovered ass!" Andy said laughing.
"Thanks," Barry said smiling.
"No problem!" Andy replied before skipping ahead to Defence against the Dark Arts.
Defence against the Dark Arts, Barry had been looking forward to most of all, but by the end of the lesson it turned out was a bit of a dud. The teacher, Professor Quirrell, spent most of the lesson telling the class a whole lot of bullshit about how he had been given the ugly turban he was wearing by an African prince, because he had rid his town of vampires. But when Lemo had asked eagerly how he had gotten rid of the vampires he ignored her. Another annoying thing about Quirrell was he tended to stutter terribly as he spoke, which after an hour of him talking it really started to piss you off. By the time they let out to go to lunch everyone was relieved, especially because Quirrell's classroom stunk of onion. His turban didn't smell too fresh either...
Last class of all was the most boring by far; History of Magic. The teacher, Professor Bines was an old man when he died in front of the staffroom fire, but being dead didn't stop Bines from rising every morning and coming to teach History of Magic. The whole hour he droned on and on about the history of house elves and Emeric the Evil and other random old dudes with odd names.
Professor McGonagall was their transfiguration teacher. The first thing she did when they entered the class was turn one of the tables in a pig and then back again. Afterwards, once everyone was excited she then told them that if anyone was to muck around in her class, they wouldn't come back. She then put everyone into randomly chosen pairs, Barry found himself paired up with Lemo. Then she handed everyone a match, which everyone had to try and turn into a needle. Only Emo and Mione managed to make a difference to their match, both matches had gone grey and had a slight point. Andy and Andrew managed to set their matches on fire, Nicholas and Thomas made no change and Barry was entertained by Lemo's attempts, which ended in her saying rather huffily, "I'd like to see you do better, pigboy..."