Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling.
Chapter Five: Potions Class
Ellie was up bright and early the next morning. She put on her robes eagerly, and stared in admiration at her reflection in the mirror. A new crest on her robes advertised the fact that she was a member of Gryffindor house. Ellie felt on top of the world. There were four other first year girls in her dormitory too – Helen Jones, Amy Mittle, Joanna Lake and Tanya Sloane. The five girls left their dormitory together and went down the steps into the common room.
Jamie was already here, as were a mixture of students from other years. Jamie rushed over to Ellie. They chatted excitedly about their first lesson. An older boy with flaming red hair asked what their first lesson was. When he heard it was potions he laughed.
"Well you'd better watch out then. Snape teaches potions," the boy said. Jamie's face fell, but Ellie was confused. Jamie explained it to her.
"I've heard about Snape from my cousin. Jason says he's a right git. He's head of Slytherin house and he always gives them special treatment. He hates the other houses, especially Gryffindor. I forgot he taught potions!"
Ellie began to protest, saying surely a teacher wouldn't practice such blatant bias, but the older boy nodded his head.
"'Fraid so. Don't be surprised if he takes 5 points off Gryffindor if you breathe the wrong way. The man's a total pillock."
"Which one was Snape anyway? Was he at the feast?" asked Jamie.
"Did you notice the bloke with long black hair and really pale skin?" the older boy asked.
Ellie and Jamie both nodded.
"That's Snape," the boy told them.
"Charlie!" a voice called. The boy waved at his friends and turned to leave. He turned back to Ellie and Jamie suddenly though and said, "By the way, my name's Charlie Weasley. See you later!"
After breakfast in the Great Hall, the first year Gryffindors attempted to find their way to Potions class. There were ten of them – five boys and five girls. They walked together in a group, chatting about Snape.
"I heard he turns you into a snail if you hand your homework up late!" proclaimed a small boy named Alex. Ellie wanted to scoff at this, but remembering what Charlie and Jamie had said about Snape made her wonder if it really was true after all.
"I heard he's really a vampire!" whispered Helen. Ellie shuddered. Now that definitely could not be true. Then again, he was awfully pale…
"But so am I," she thought to herself, "and I'm not a vampire."
She heaved a sigh of relief at this, glad she was not about to go to a class taught by a vampire, but then an awful sentence floated into her head.
"Of course, who knows what you are. No one knows what your father was."
Ellie gulped. What if she was a vampire, or part vampire? She had very pale skin after all! If Snape was really a vampire and he was so pale, then maybe she could be a vampire too! That would be awful!
Ellie tormented herself with these terrible thoughts as she followed her classmates down into the dungeons to where the Potions class was held. Outside the door, a few other first years were standing around. From the crest on the front of their robes, Ellie knew they were Slytherins.
"Well hello there, Gryffindors," a skinny boy with black hair said.
The rest of the Slytherin group sniggered, as if the boy had just said something incredibly clever.
"Hello," answered Jamie, but not in a friendly tone.
"Let's just go inside," muttered Amy. "We don't want to get into any fights with them. Snape would eat us for breakfast."
The Gryffindors all went inside and sat down on one side of the room. The Slytherins came in a minute later and sat down on the other side of the room. The skinny boy from outside began to speak loudly about how worried his parents were about all the mudbloods Hogwarts was accepting these days. Ellie did not know what the word "mudblood" meant, but she could tell it was a nasty word from the way the boy was saying it, as well as from the reaction from the other Gryffindors. Amy and another boy, Stephen, went red, and Chris, another Gryffindor boy, and Jamie looked furious.
The last Gryffindor boy, Thomas, stood up, his fists balled.
"Come over here and say that!" he shouted.
The Slytherin boy looked scornfully at him, and then stood up. A Slytherin girl sitting at the back of the class shushed them both.
"Professor Snape is coming!" she hissed. Both boys sat down, glaring at each other.
Ellie recognised the tall dark man from the feast last night as he swept into the room, his black robes billowing about him. He walked up to his desk and turned around to face the class. Ellie noticed that close up he looked even paler, if that were possible. His long black greasy hair hung limply around his face. His eyes were black and cold. He wore a stony expression as he swept his gaze around the class, taking in each face. His eyes rested a moment longer on Ellie than anyone else, but nobody noticed this.
Snape started the class by taking the register. Ellie learned that the Slytherin boy was called Devin Farley. She suddenly remembered him from the sorting last night. The hat had bellowed out "SLYTHERIN" after only being on his head a second. Ellie's name was the last on the register.
"Eleanora Winterbourne," Snape said, slowly, staring right at Ellie. She swallowed before uttering a feeble "here". His stare made her feel very uncomfortable, as if he was reading her thoughts at that very moment.
Standing in front of her, Snape concluded that Eleanora Winterbourne did indeed bear a striking resemblance to Claudia Winterbourne. Her eyes were unmistakable. Oh yes, he knew those eyes well. His heart used to skip a beat when they would gaze at him, and now here they were, staring up at him with a frightened expression. This time the eyes belonged to someone else though. Snape had to look away. He was surprised, and ashamed, to find that he found this girl's frightened stares unsettling.
Snape looked past the girl, focusing on the row behind her. He began to speak to the first years about Potions, outlining his expectations, and also making it clear that he didn't expect many of them to meet his standards. The Gryffindors all felt uncomfortable if he turned his gaze in their direction, as he frequently did. The Slytherins just smirked for the most part, although one or two shared the uncomfortable looks of the Gryffindors.
Snape finished his speech and set the class to work. They were to divide into pairs and brew a simple potion that would cure boils. Snape set this potion for the first potions lesson of the first years every year. He sat down at his desk, surveying each group from his seat. As before, his gaze rested with Ellie longer than with anyone else. She and her partner seemed to be working well, Snape concluded. From where he was sitting, he could see that their potion was of the right colour and consistency, mainly due to Ellie's clear instructions to her partner. Snape could not help smirking to himself at this. It seemed very amusing to him that this girl should have a natural talent for potions.
On the Slytherin side of the table, everyone seemed to be working away too. Devin however, had a nasty surprise for the Gryffindors. He watched Snape carefully, and when he was sure that Snape was not looking in their direction he took a wizard cracker out of his bag, and flung it at the Gryffindors. He didn't care who it hit, although that boy, Thomas, who had stood up to fight him, or that other boy, James, who had said hello to him would be perfect.
It went better than Devin could have imagined. The cracker landed right in Ellie and Jamie's cauldron and exploded. Ellie and Jamie, who could see the cracker was about to explode, had a chance to duck and shield themselves from the splatter, but Thomas and Alex, who had been working behind them, were drenched in the potion. Almost immediately huge red boils sprang up on their faces. The boys cried out in pain.
Snape had seen the cracker whizzing through the air. Only an idiot wouldn't be able to guess where the cracker had come from. Devin had a very satisfied smirk on his face, while the rest of the Slytherins were almost rolling around the floor with laughter. Snape got up and walked over to the two Gryffindor boys. He told Amy and Helen, who were working beside them, to escort the boys to the hospital wing. He then turned on Ellie and Jamie.
To admit that a wizard cracker had caused the accident would mean finding fault with students from his own house, something Snape never did. His only option was to blame Ellie and Jamie.
"You two, clean up this mess you've made," he sneered.
Ellie leapt up indignantly.
"Mess we've caused? Those idiots (Ellie waved at the Slytherins) threw something into our cauldron!" she said angrily.
Snape was amused at the fiery look in Ellie's eyes. He had seen those eyes look at him like that before.
"5 points from Gryffindor for your insolence, Miss Winterbourne," Snape said.
"What? I like that! Come on! You know they caused this mess!" Ellie yelled. Jamie pulled at her, trying to get her to sit back down, although he felt furious himself.
Snape looked at her for a moment without speaking, and then his mouth curled into a thin, sneering smile.
"Detention, Miss Winterbourne. My office, eight o'clock this evening," he said.
Ellie made to spring forward with more angry protests, but Jamie managed to hold her back and haul her back onto her seat, hissing to her that she was just making things worse. The Slytherins were in stitches at this point. Ellie was absolutely seething with anger at Snape's unfair treatment of the class. She begrudgingly helped Jamie clean up their work area and mop up the floor, as the Slytherins looked on, sniggering. At the end of the class, Snape asked each group to leave a sample of their potion on his desk. Ellie and Jamie, whose potion had been absolutely destroyed, had nothing to hand up.
"Pity. Zero marks for both of you. You shall both have to work hard to make up for that," Snape said. Ellie felt like giving Snape a piece of her mind, but she resisted, knowing she'd probably just lose Gryffindor more points. She walked out the classroom with the remaining Gryffindors, her fists shaking in anger.
Snape recognised the unfairness of the situation. He admitted to himself that Ellie and Jamie's potion had looked to be the best in the class before the wizard cracker ruined it. He would have been furious too in their situation. He noted Ellie's obvious anger at the injustice of what had happened, although she managed to contain herself this time. Watching her leave, an image of Claudia Winterbourne flashed into his head, walking in a similar fashion, her fists shaking in anger after a Slytherin girl deliberately knocked her cauldron over, sending her potion everywhere. The potion's master at the time, Professor Slughorn, genuinely had not seen the incident take place, and had to award Claudia no marks. She had been absolutely livid at the time. Snape again had to turn his gaze away from Ellie, finding himself feeling unsettled at her image for the second time that day.
When Ellie and Jamie got back to the Gryffindor common room after morning lessons were over Ellie had calmed down somewhat, although she was still angry. The other Gryffindor first years were angry too. They had heard that Thomas and Alex would have to stay in the hospital wing overnight. Amy and Helen said the boys had both looked awful by the time they had found the hospital wing.
"We'll have to pay them back somehow," said Chris.
Charlie Weasley had just come into the common room with some of his friends. He noticed the angry looking group of first years.
"What's up?" he asked.
Jamie explained, and Charlie shook his head.
"Bloody typical!" he said.
Ellie suddenly felt guilty. She had lost the house 5 points.
"Sorry I lost Gryffindor points," she began. "I just got so angry…"
Charlie waved his hand at her.
"Don't worry about it. If by the end of the day nobody else from Gryffindor has lost any points from Snape I'll eat my broomstick!"
The rest of the day passed uneventfully for Ellie. She enjoyed her other classes, particularly Transfiguration with Professor McGonagall. If only she didn't have that rotten detention with Snape later that evening. She had not seen him since the morning's potions lesson. He wasn't in the Great Hall during lunch. When she and Jamie walked in at dinnertime though there he was, sitting at the end of the top table. He looked up the moment she came in, and Ellie could swear he smirked at her. In that moment, she felt that she hated him. Ellie had never hated anyone before, but Snape was such a horrible person she couldn't help it.
She sat down with her back to Snape with Jamie at the Gryffindor table. As they were eating, Ellie softened a bit. She didn't really hate Snape, but she did think he was a really nasty person. She hoped her detention with him that evening wouldn't last long. The thought of being in a room alone with him gave her the creeps.