Disclaimer: I don´t own anything all rights go to J.K. Rowling

Chapter 6: The Potions Master

AN: I hope you enjoy the chapter

Jen and Hermione walked down to the breakfast together the next morning. They only got lost once, thanks to that both girls had paid attention when they had been led to Gryffindor Tower the night before.

Jen and Hermione had started the day early so they would have a lot of time to find the way to their first lesson. Because of that they were some of the first that came down to breakfast in the Great Hall. One of the other students that were in the Great Hall at that time was Peter. When Jen saw him, she ran up and hugged him and he laughed at her.

"So how is it to be a Gryffindor?" he asked Jen as he followed her and Hermione to the Gryffindor table.

"Okay," Jen said as they sat down and started to load their plates with breakfast. "The common room is located in one of the towers, so all the rooms are round. It´s really cosy but I´m a bit sad I´m not in Ravenclaw, though."

"Don´t be," Peter said. "I´m glad you´re in Gryffindor, it´s a good house."

"Well I´m glad to be in Gryffindor too, especially as I´m in the same house as Hermione," Jen said smiling at Hermione who smiled back at her.

"Good," Peter said. "Do you want me to help you find your first class?"

"Yes, that would be great," Jen said.

Hermione and Jen had been lucky to have Peter leading them to their first class because they soon realised that it was hard to find the right way in the great castle, especially when people now and then whispered about Jen being a Hatstall or gathering in annoying groups outside their classrooms and the corridors because they wanted to see the famous Harry Potter.

Jen had read in Hogwarts: A History that there were one hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts, and all of them had their own quirks. Some staircases were broad and sweeping, others was narrow and rickety, some stairs led to different places when they felt like it and others had a vanishing step that Jen always forgot to jump over. The doors, too, had their own quirks and Jen had more than once walked into them, to the great amusement to those around her, because she had forgotten to tickle the door in the right spot or they hadn´t been a door at all but a wall pretending to be one. Sometimes the doors moved too, so that places they had been were the wall behind them and the door where somewhere else.

The portraits, suits of armour and ghosts didn´t make it easier to find the classroom either; in fact, they often made it harder.

The suits of armour kept moving about and the people in the paintings kept visiting each other so when Jen thought she could find her way to a classroom she often went the wrong way because everything had moved around from the last time she had been there. The ghosts added to the confusion as they had the nasty habit to glide through walls Jen walked by or through doors that she tried to open. She thought that the only helpful ghost in the castle was Nearly Headless Nick who was always happy to help direct the new Gryffindors to their classes.

Then there was Peeves who Jen was always terrified to meet in the corridors because if you met him when you were late to a lesson you could expect two locked doors and a false staircase. Even if you wasn´t late to a lesson he would drop waste-paper baskets on your head, pull away the carpet under your feet and bombard you with chalk pieces or sneak up on you from behind, invisible, and grab your nose and screech, "GOT YOUR CONK!"

It was easy to get lost, which also happened to Hermione and Jen before their first History of Magic lesson. They had been wandering around for a while and had only 5 minutes till the lesson started when they finally met a third year Hufflepuff.

"Excuse me," Jen said. "But could you show us the way to the History of Magic classroom, we´ve gotten lost,"

"Sure," the Hufflepuff said and showed them to the classroom.

"Thank you...eh…" Jen said.

"Cedric Diggory," the Hufflepuff said. "And it was nothing."

"Well, thank you Cedric," Jen said before hurrying into the classroom.

But worse than finding the classrooms and even Peeves was the caretaker, Argus Filch. Jen, Harry and Ron had gotten on his wrong side the very first day. Jen had lost Hermione in the crowd rushing out of the Great Hall after lunch and had tagged on to the only Gryffindor's she could find, which so happened to be Harry and Ron. The only problem was that they had gotten lost, again. It all ended with that they had tried to get through a locked door that turned out to lead the forbidden third-floor corridor. Filch had caught them trying to open it and he wouldn´t believe that they didn´t know where they were, let alone knowing it was the forbidden corridor. Right in the middle of Filch´s threat of locking them in the dungeon they were rescued by Professor Quirrell, their Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, who stuttering managed to convince Filch to let them go and showed them to their next class.

The only positive thing with the incident was that Jen, Harry and Ron had become a little bit friendlier with each other.

Filch also had a cat who was called Mrs Norris and was the only animal Jen could truly say she hated. Mrs Norris was a scrawny, dust-coloured pest, with popping lamp-like eyes like her owner´s. Any rule broken in front of her and in a matter of seconds, Filch would come running. He knew the castle's secret passageways better than anyone (except the Weasley twins, Jen soon discovered).

When Jen finally had found her way to the classrooms, she soon noticed that magic was even trickier than she had thought. Even though they were hard she thought that she never had had such fun and interesting lessons.

At midnight every Wednesday night Jen had Astronomy and had to go up to the tallest tower and study the night sky through her telescope. She had to learn the movements and the difficult names of the planets, stars and constellations. Jen hated the class as she never could see the difference between the different stars, constellations and planets; she thought they looked exactly the same. She was also very tired the next day which made it even harder to concentrate in her other lessons.

Jen also had Herbology three times a week and had to go out to the greenhouses behind the castle. Herbology was taught by dumpy little witch called Pomona Sprout and she taught them how to take care of the strange plants and fungi and what they were used for. Jen liked the subject and was quite good at it, too, even though she wasn´t the best in the class.

History of Magic was the most boring class Jen ever had had. It was thought by a ghost, Professor Binns, and the most exciting thing that happened during the lesson was when he came floating through the blackboard. Binns had a voice that made it hard for Jen to stay awake during his class and if it wasn´t for Hermione, who shook her awake now and then, she would have slept through his whole lesson. She knew that she probably would fail the class if Hermione didn´t lend Jen her notes.

Charms were thought by Professor Flitwick, a tiny man who had to stand on a pile of books to reach his desk. Jen thought the subject was very interesting and Flitwick was a brilliant teacher who made it easy to understand what the different charms could do and what they could be used for. In their first Charms lesson Jen had gotten a good laugh when Professor Flitwick had gone through the register and when he had come to Harry´s name he had given an excited squeak and toppled off his stack of books.

Jen´s absolute favourite subject was Transfiguration and it was taught by Professor McGonagall, the Head of Gryffindor house and Jen´s favourite teacher. In their first lesson with her she gave them all a stern and firm talking to the moment they entered the classroom.

"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she said. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."

Then, to Jen´s and the rest of the class amazement, she changed her desk into a pig and back again. Jen, who had looked forward to this class since she had found out that magic existed, was really excited to start, even if it only was on a small scale. Professor McGonagall started the lesson by making them take a lot of complicated notes and then she told them that they would turn a match into a needle. By the end of the lesson Jen and Hermione were the only ones to make a change to their matches; they had turned silver and pointy. To Jen´s great chock her match had become a little more needle like than Hermione´s, it was the first time she had done anything better than Hermione in any class. Professor McGonagall showed the whole class the matches, which made Jen's face heat up in embarrassment, and then awarded them both with house points and one of her rare smiles.

Jen had looked forward to Defence Against the Dark Arts nearly as long as she had looked forward to Transfiguration. Defence Against the Dark Arts was the subject that would teach them how to defend themselves if they ever needed to but Professor Quirrell´s lessons were a bit of a joke. The room smelled very strongly of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off vampires. Jen didn´t care why he had all the garlic, the only thing it did was make her nauseous. The large purple turban Quirrell had on his head was also apparently a thank-you gift from an African village he had saved from an annoying zombie, but Jen didn´t believe him, for when Seamus Finnigan, who liked interesting stories, excitedly asked him how he had gotten rid of it, Professor Quirrell immediately changed the subject.

Another reason that Jen didn´t believe Quirrell was that his turban also smelled funny and the Weasley twins, who Jen had become quite good friends with, joked that he had stuffed it full of garlic too so he would be protected wherever he went.

Jen soon realised that, even if the classes were hard, she had no problem to keep up with her fellow classmates in the different subjects, except in Astronomy which seemed to be a lost cause for her. Jen was often one of the best students in the class, not as good as Hermione but better than many of their classmates. Hermione had made it her goal to be top of every class, which she also was. The others in their class thought it was annoying, but Jen was proud of her friend, even though she thought her friend was a bit of a know-it-all at times.

Jen and Hermione had become very good friends. They sat with each other in lessons and in the common room talking and studying. Hermione and Jen hadn´t really become good friends with the other three girls in their dorm; they were to different personality wise. Parvati and Lavender both liked to talk about boys, relationships, makeup and clothes and Hermione and Jen liked to talk about school, books and classes while Megan never really said anything at all and mostly just wrote things in a notebook or hung out with friends from other houses. Parvati and Lavender also thought that Hermione, and Jen to a certain level, was a know-it-all and couldn´t see past that and see the really nice girl Hermione actually was.

Jen had talked a bit with the Gryffindor boys too. She only really talked with Harry and Ron in classes if she had to, they were friendly enough but they didn´t like her that much because she was such good friends with Hermione, who they didn't like at all and never really cared to be civil to.

The other three boys, Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnigan and Neville Longbottom, were all very nice and Jen had actually become quite good friends with them. When she had gotten enough of studying and Hermione hadn´t or she couldn´t find Hermione, she often hung around Seamus, Dean and Neville. Seamus and Neville, who were both from wizarding families, had explained a lot of things about the wizarding world for her and Dean, who also had grown up in a Muggle family. Jen knew a little from the books she had read and what her brother had told her, but it was so much better to have someone who had grown up in the wizarding world explain things she didn´t understand.

When Jen didn´t hung around any of the others in her year she often talked with the Weasley twins. The second day of classes they had sat down next to her and Hermione and they had started talking. They had been quite chocked when she on first try had gotten their names right, then they had declared her to be their friend and showed her and Hermione the fastest way to their next class.

At Friday Harry and Ron walked into the Great Hall for breakfast, looking rather pleased with themselves, and sat down at the Gryffindor table. Jen thought it was odd but didn´t think too much about it because just then the mail arrived, hundreds of owls swooping across the ceiling, dropping parcels and letters into people´s laps. The first time Jen saw it her chocked face must have been hilarious to look at because Fred and George, whom had been sitting in front of her, had nearly toppled out of their chairs in laughter.

Jen looked up hopefully and became very happy to see Popcorn flying in with the rest of the owls. Jen and Peter had each sent a letter home to Olivia with Popcorn the day after the sorting and now the white and brown owl had finally returned with an answer.

Popcorn gracefully flew down and landed in front of Jen and she carefully took the letter that was tied to his right leg and gave him a piece of her bacon before he flew away towards the Ravenclaw table with a second letter.

Jen opened the letter and read:

Dear Jen

I´m really glad that you got into Gryffindor. It´s the brave house with red and gold colours, right?

I´m glad you liked your classes, but please, please, please can you tell me more about them? I really want to know!

Mum and dad are fine, and I managed to keep Popcorn away from mother. She never even noticed he was here, otherwise she would have forbidden me to reply so soon. You know so their reputation amongst the neighbours don't get ruined by having owls living in the house.

I think they just realised you won't be home until Christmas. They aren´t home much either, they have just gotten another huge case and are working all the time again.

It´s quiet boring here without you and Peter. I´m already looking forward to Christmas when you´re coming home and you can tell me everything about Hogwarts that Peter has left out.

Write back soon

Olivia

Jen looked up from the letter and smiled; she was very happy to hear from her little sister and decided that she would write a reply that evening. She put the letter in her bookbag before she looked around the table and saw that Harry´s snowy owl Hedwig had delivered a letter to him. Jen had never seen him get a letter before and wondered what it was about, but didn´t pay it much mind as Hermione said something to her.

"What lessons do we got today?" Hermione asked.

"Eh... Double Potions with the Slytherins," Jen said and groaned. They had only been at Hogwarts for a week and Jen had already learned that every Slytherins goal was to tease and make fun of the Gryffindors. So as if it wasn´t enough to have Snape teaching the class they would have to share it with Slytherins, who Snape allegedly always favour as he was their head of house. "And then we have the afternoon off."

"Why do we have to have the class with the Slytherins?" Hermione said irritably. "They will only make it harder for us to concentrate and if what we have heard about Professor Snape is true, he will probably be even harder on us because he has his favoured Slytherins there."

"Well at least we have the afternoon off to look forward too," Jen said.

"Yeah, you´re right," Hermione said. "We can do the homework Professor Snape will undoubtedly give us and finish Professor McGonagall's homework from yesterday."

Even though McGonagall was Head of Gryffindor house she didn't give them any favours and had given them a huge pile of homework the day before. Jen and Hermione had done most of it already and hoped to finish it this afternoon in the library, if they could find their way there.

((&))

Jen had both been looking forward to and dreaded the Potions lesson. Looking forward to it because it seemed to be an interesting subject and dreaded it because of the teacher and the Slytherins.

When the lesson started, she understood immediately that everything people said about Snape being an evil bat that only favoured the Slytherins were true.

The Potions lessons were held down in one of the cold and drafty dungeons with the only source of heat being the fires under their cauldrons. There was also pickled animals lined up on the walls in jars which Jen thought made the dungeon very creepy.

Like Professor Flitwick, Snape started the lesson with taking register, and paused at Harry´s name.

"Ah, yes," he said softly. "Harry Potter. Our new - celebrity."

Draco Malfoy and some other Slytherins laughed at that and Jen glared at them, Malfoy was the Slytherin Jen disliked the most as he always managed to tease or in some other way torment Jen, Hermione and the rest of the Gryffindors, especially Harry. Snape ignored the Slytherins behaviour and only continued to take the register.

When Snape finished calling the names he looked out over the class and Jen shivered and swallowed nervously as she looked into his black eyes. Snape´s eyes reminded Jen of long, cold, dark tunnels with something scary and evil in the end of them.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making," he began to say as he had finished the register. He spoke very quietly, but Jen was able to catch every word he said. Like Professor McGonagall he was able to keep the class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here many of you will hardly think 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 and even stopper death – if you aren´t as big bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

No one talked after he had finished talking. Hermione, who was sitting next to Jen, sat at the edge of her seat and looked eager to prove that she wasn´t a dunderhead. Jen shuffled in her seat as Snape´s cold eyes swept over the class and Jen hoped that he didn´t write them all off as dunderheads only because they were Gryffindors and actually gave them a chance to prove themselves.

"Potter!" Snape said suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Jen knew the answer and, together with Hermione´s, her hand shot up in the air.

"I don´t know, sir," Harry said.

Snape´s lip curled into a sneer.

"Tut, tut – fame isn´t everything."

He ignored Jen and Hermione´s hands.

"Let´s try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

Hermione stretched her hand as high into the air as it would go without leaving her seat; Jen also stretched her hand up in the air but not as high as Hermione's. Jen tried to avoid looking at Malfoy and his gang, who was shaking with laughter.

"I don´t know, sir," Harry said again.

"Thought you wouldn´t have to open a book before coming, eh, Potter?"

Jen started to become really angry. Harry couldn´t answer the question, but Jen and Hermione could, so let one of them answer the question so he could actually learn the answer.

But Snape still ignored Hermione and Jen´s hands.

"What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

At this Hermione stood up in her seat, her hand stretching towards the ceiling. Jen also raised her hand, but without much hope of getting to answer the question.

"I don´t know, sir," Harry said quietly. "I think Hermione and Jen does, though, why don´t you try one of them?"

Jen´s face reddened in embarrassment, but she smiled anyway, and she heard a few others laugh. Snape, though, was not pleased at all.

"Sit down," he snapped at Hermione and glared viciously at Jen, who immediately took her hand down. "For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name aconite. Well? Why aren´t you all copying that down?"

Jen, who already had her quill and a piece of parchment on her desk in front of her, immediately wrote down what Snape had just said.

"And a point will be taken from Gryffindor house for your cheek, Potter," Snape said over the noise of people rummaging for quills and parchment.

Jen looked up from her own parchment and glared at Snape, he really was unfair.

As the lesson continued things didn´t improve for the Gryffindors. Snape put them into pairs and set them to mix up a simple potion to cure boils. Jen and Hermione worked together, and, to both their chock and Hermione's great frustration, they soon discovered that Jen was the best at the subject. After a while they realised that it was much better that Jen mixed the potion while Hermione read the instructions and fetched the ingredients, while now and then coming with more or less helpful advices, and take turns to weigh and cut the ingredients.

Snape also made it harder to concentrate by walking around the dungeon in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Malfoy, who he seemed to like. He didn´t criticize Jen and Hermione´s potion either, but when he swept past them, he looked at their potion, wrinkled his nose and then walked away, like he wanted to criticize their potion but didn´t find anything to criticize.

He was just telling everyone how perfectly Malfoy had stewed his horned slugs, even though Jen had done it better, when clouds of acid green smoke and a load hissing filled the dungeon. Neville, who was sitting two tables away from Jen and Hermione, had somehow managed to melt Seamus´s cauldron into a twisted blob and the potion had welled out on the floor. Jen had to hurriedly jump up on her stool so the potion wouldn´t burn holes in her shoes the rest of the class followed her example and soon the whole class were balancing on their stools.

Jen looked over to Neville and saw that he must have been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed because now he had angry red boils popping up all over his body and he was moaning in pain.

"Idiot boy!" Snape snarled, clearing the potion away with only a wave of his wand. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?"

Jen glared at Snape. Couldn´t he see that Neville was in pain? Jen was just about to walk over to Neville when Snape spoke again.

"Take him up to the hospital wing," he spat at Seamus. Then he rounded on Harry and Ron, who had been working next to Neville. "You, Potter, why didn´t you tell him to not add the quills? Thought he´d make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That´s another point you´ve lost Gryffindor."

Jen glared down at her potion, fuming. Harry had been preoccupied with his own potion, he couldn´t check everyone else's potion too. The rest of the lesson Jen spent between mixing the potion and angrily glaring at Snape.

Jen was still furious as they climbed up the stairs from the dungeon.

"Oh, I can´t believe him," she said to Hermione. "Taking points when he shouldn´t and treat Neville and Harry like that."

"Yeah, it´s unacceptable," Hermione said. "He took away all the points McGonagall gave us for turning the matches when he should´ve given our potion at least one point, it was a lot better than Malfoy´s."

"Yeah, but he didn´t say anything about it and I think that is a good sign," Jen said. "I mean, he complained at everyone else´s potions, so it has to be a good sign that he didn´t complained at ours."

Hermione nodded as they continued to walk up the stairs.

((&))

That afternoon Hermione and Jen had managed to make their way to the library where they sat at one of the tables finishing the last of their Transfiguration homework and getting started on their potions one too. After a while Peter came into the library and sat down with them. He was reading an old ex of the Daily Prophet, a wizarding newspaper.

"Is there something interesting in there?" Jen asked him.

"Yeah, read this," Peter said and pushed the newspaper towards Jen and Hermione.

GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST

Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark wizards or witches unknown.

Gringotts´ goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day.

"But we´re not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what´s good for you" said a spokesgoblin this afternoon.

"I thought it was impossible to break into Gringotts," Hermione said.

"Obviously it isn´t," Peter said and then he lowered his voice. "I´ve heard that a lot of people think that it´s You-Know-Who who has done it and it´s worrying a lot of people."

"Do you think it´s him?" Jen asked her brother worriedly.

"Maybe, I don´t know," he said. "But I know one thing and that is that I´m glad that whoever emptied that vault did it before it was broken into."

Jen and Hermione nodded before looking at each other. What could have been in that vault? And where was it now? Both Jen and Hermione thought it was harder to concentrate on studying after that as both were wondering what could have been in the vault, but neither could come up with a good answer to the questions.