Hermione didn't seem to care for Reva's idea in the slightest.
"Absolutely not!" She sounded scandalized every time Revati brought it up. "I'm not skipping class, Reva!"
"But he's ghastly!" Reva always protested.
Though she'd tried for three days, Hermione was firmly against it. It was Sunday now, and their next class was on Tuesday. Reva really wanted her friend to be with her on this—Snape couldn't go around treating his students like they were trash!
"What if I got everyone to do it?" Reva begged as the two walked back up from the Great Hall after breakfast.
Hermione looked unconvinced.
"Come on," Reva wheedled. "You don't want to be the only Gryffindor not skipping, do you? In a classroom with Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson?"
"If you get the rest of the Gryffindors to do it, I'll do it too." She said finally.
Reva beamed. Getting the other Gryffindors to skip potions shouldn't be too hard, she thought. Everyone hated the class to begin with.
But when they returned to the Common Room, the other Gryffindors were crowded around the notice board, grumbling about flying lessons, which were supposed to start on Thursday with the Slytherins.
"Just what I wanted," Harry was saying gloomily, "To make a fool of myself on a broomstick in front of Malfoy."
"Oh, come on, you won't be that bad," Seamus Finnegan replied bracingly. "Flying's the best!"
"Not even Draco Malfoy can ruin that," Reva added as she and Hermione approached, making the others jump.
"Do you fly, then?" Ron asked, his eyebrows shooting up. "Didn't take you for the Quidditch type."
"Oh, I'm rubbish at Quidditch," Reva replied with a wry smile. "I always get too distracted to ever play properly. But I love flying!"
It was true, and Reva was actually an excellent flier. She'd always thought it odd that you weren't considered any good if you weren't great at Quidditch, because she loved to race and do loops and twirls and dives from high in the air. She wasn't much of an athlete, and she could never focus well enough to play any position, but that suited her just fine. The best part about flying, after all, was taking in the glorious sights from up above, seeing the world shrink as the wind raced by her, the air cold and fresh and energizing.
Course, her broomstick was a Comet 220, which had been an excellent model when her mum was playing Keeper for Ravenclaw in the seventies, but which had since become old and finicky. They couldn't afford a new broom, though, and Reva didn't really see the point in asking for one anyway, as it wasn't as though she needed a racing broom.
"I suppose I'll be far behind everyone else," Harry murmured, a little sadly. "Sounds like nearly everyone already knows how to fly."
"Nonsense," called Parvati Patil from where she was sitting with Lavender. "Loads of people come to school without knowing how to fly. I don't much care for it myself."
"Besides, can't be worse than potions, right?" Dean Thomas, who was Muggleborn, added.
"Oh!" Reva said, remembering. "Speaking of, I had an idea earlier." She plopped herself on the floor in front of the other first years, who had moved to the corner of the common room.
"About potions?" Lavender asked dubiously.
"Yes." Reva nodded fiercely. "Well, we all saw last week just how horrid Snape was, especially to Neville and Harry." Both boys flushed a dull red, but Reva continued on, ignoring their obvious embarrassment. "And none of us can deny that he's really an awful bully."
"Hear, hear," muttered Seamus, scowling.
"So I was thinking we stage a walkout," Reva said, growing more animated by the second. "We all come to class, and the moment he's done taking roll, we pack up and leave. Then, when McGonagall comes to talk to us about our behavior, we tell her exactly why we left class. If we continue to put pressure on Snape to change the way he treats us, he'll have to, in order to avoid having the whole school talk about him." She finished triumphantly, sure that her peers would agree.
The other first years looked at each other, and Reva could tell a dozen silent conversations were taking place. She shifted, a little uneasy. Surely the others saw the logic to what she was saying? Surely they wanted things to change as much as she did?
The first person to speak was Ron.
"No," he said, rather bluntly.
"You're not serious?" Dean asked incredulously. "You do know Snape'll dock about fifty points from each of us?"
"It's only September," Reva pointed out with a roll of her eyes. "Gryffindor only has about sixty points, anyway, and it's so early in the year that we can easily make that up. Besides, this is bigger than the House Cup!"
"Sorry, Revati, but I'm not doing it," Parvati said, not unkindly. "I don't want to get in trouble my second week here."
"Th-thanks, Reva, it means a lot," Neville muttered, "But I don't want to make Professor Snape even angrier."
One by one, the other Gryffindors shook their heads no, telling Reva in no uncertain terms that they didn't want to be a part of her protest. She felt her heart sink as most of them left, gone off to do homework or play a game of Exploding Snap. Even Hermione got up, saying she was headed to the library to pick up extra reading for Transfiguration. After a kind squeeze to Reva's shoulder, she made her way out of the portrait hole with a swish of her school robes and bushy dark hair.
"Are you really doing this because Snape was picking on me?" Came a quiet voice. Reva looked up in surprise to see Harry Potter still there, staring at her in astonishment.
"Well, not just you," Reva hedged, "But largely, yeah." She shook her head. "He kept acting like… like you asked for the fame, and like you'd gotten a really big head from it. I thought that was especially cruel."
"I don't know why he hates me," Harry said. "I asked Hagrid and he definitely knows something about it, but… there's a reason."
Revati wasn't surprised to hear it. The way Snape had treated Harry seemed vindictive and personal.
"I'm still going to be protesting," she confessed to him. "Even if nobody else does. I can't just sit there and let him bully a bunch of first years. Honestly, it's like he doesn't realize it's pathetic for a grown man to pick on eleven year olds."
Something shined in Harry Potter's eyes then, a sort of grateful surprise and appreciation. "Er, thanks," he murmured, and though he seemed awkward and bashful Reva could tell he meant it. "It really does mean a lot." Then his expression turned sheepish. "I don't think I'll join you, though. I might've if everyone else did, but… if it's just you and me, I don't want Snape to redirect his attention on me. I'm sorry."
Reva had guessed as much.
"It's okay," she sighed. "I get it."
She'd just have to do it alone.
When Tuesday's class rolled around, Reva walked in with everyone else and sat down next to Hermione. She left her bag next to her chair, but did not bother getting out parchment and a quill for notes. Instead, she stared straight ahead, her hands clasped together as they rested on the table in front of her.
Professor Snape went through roll quickly, and though he sneered at Harry's name, he didn't pause like he had before. He launched immediately into an explanation of how to make a Herbicide Potion, and for every question he asked, he ignored Hermione's hand in the air and berated the Gryffindors for not doing their readings (which they had).
Snape seemed to realize almost immediately after finishing his monologue and instructing the first years to begin that Reva was just sitting there, staring straight ahead, refusing to follow any of his directions.
He swooped over towards her, his voice dangerous. "Is there a problem, Miss Kumar?"
"Yes, sir." Said Reva coolly. Next to her, Hermione let out a tiny groan.
Professor Snape's eyes narrowed, a very cold anger settling in the dark black hues. "Would you care to explain to me and the class what exactly the problem is, so we can all stop wasting our time?"
"The problem, sir, is your treatment of the Gryffindors in this class." Reva said. She was beginning to feel a little scared now, seeing the look of absolute rage that crossed Snape's face at that, but she pushed on. "Not only do you show favoritism to your house, you have also displayed a worrying lack of care for the safety of other students, as evidenced by your reaction to Neville Longbottom spilling his potion over himself last week—"
"Silence!" Snape hissed. Reva obliged. The Potions master's expression twisted with anger, and Reva was definitely feeling scared now. Surely he wouldn't hex her in class? Surely that was frowned down upon? "That's fifty points you just lost from Gryffindor, Kumar."
Reva clenched her jaw. "And that's seven years of respect you just lost from me, Professor Snape," she said before she could stop herself.
Next to her, Hermione gasped, and she heard Ron whisper "Bloody hell," in the row behind them.
Snape looked down at her with furious, narrowed eyes. He appeared to search her face, and something in him seemed to click, because all of a sudden he fixed her with a look of hatred that had so far been reserved solely for Harry.
"Detention, Kumar." Snape said, black eyes glittering with fury. "Every evening for the next two weeks." He'd whispered it, but the whole class had gone absolutely silent as Reva spoke, as if holding their breath as one, so the words lingered in the air.
Detention.
Revati hadn't intended to get detention, but she wasn't about to stand down. The way Snape was treating her class was cruel and unfair, and she was going to make sure he knew they weren't okay with it. But Professor Snape wasn't done yet.
"Get out of my classroom," he hissed. "Your head of house will be informed of your behavior in class today, and I will be sending a letter home to your parents."
Reva knew she'd been dismissed, and so she got up and grabbed her schoolbag, hoping desperately that her robes hid her shaking knees and trying to school her terrified expression into a more blank one. She stalked out of the dungeons, refusing to look anyone in her class in the eyes, though she was quite aware of the wide-eyed stares fixed on her.
She'd barely made her way to the first floor corridor when she heard her name being called.
"Miss Kumar?"
Revati looked around to see Professor Flitwick making his way out of the Great Hall.
"Yes, Professor?" She asked, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot.
Professor Flitwick just raised his eyebrows. "Shouldn't you be in class?"
Revati couldn't quite hide the guilty look in her eyes as she said, "I was told to leave the class, sir."
"I see." Professor Flitwick said in his squeaky voice. He regarded her for a minute. "I have a free period now. Why don't you come into my classroom?"
Seeing no way to refuse, Reva did as she was told, following the short Charms professor all the way to his classroom. The two of them walked in, and, feeling a little silly, Revati took a seat at one of the desks.
"Your mother was one of my best students, you know," he said, smiling at her, and Reva remembered that Professor Flitwick was head of Ravenclaw House. "I recommended her as a prefect her fifth year, and I submitted her name in consideration for Head Girl."
"I didn't know that," Revati said.
"Ah," Professor Flitwick waved his hands, as if blowing off the matter. "She didn't know. All the house heads submit a candidate for Head Boy and Head Girl, and the Headmaster picks between them. Your mother wasn't chosen."
"Oh." Then, unable to hold her tongue, Reva said, "Sorry, Professor, but why am I here?"
Professor Flitwick's smile faded the littlest bit. "Your mother… fell in with some of the wrong crowd," he said. "We'd heard that she was… struggling, so to speak, but none of us have heard from her in about a decade."
"By the wrong crowd," Revati said, gears turning in her mind, "You mean my father."
Alarm flared in Professor Flitwick's eyes. "I don't mean to insinuate that there's anything wrong with you, Miss Kumar. I just wished to check up on an old student with a lot of potential." He squeaked.
"No, it's alright, my mum's told me about him," Revati said, her face hardening. "And I agree. My father ran off and left her when she became pregnant with me. He ruined her life."
For a moment, Professor Flitwick stared at her with utter confusion. Revati was quite used to that—most adults thought she wouldn't know what happened to her mother. But Anjali Kumar had never refused to answer a question Revati had asked, and when a five year old Reva had asked about her dad, Anjali had told her the truth. Slowly, understanding dawned on Professor Flitwick's face, and he nodded grimly.
"Yes," he squeaked, "Well. Do let her know she can always write, as the staff at Hogwarts is always happy to help. Those of us who knew her as a student… we care about her."
A sudden warmth filled Reva's chest as she regarded this old wizard. This was the way a Professor should be, she rather thought—kind and caring and genuine. Professor Flitwick was checking in with the daughter of a former student because he was concerned. She beamed at him, in good spirits as she said, "Of course, Professor."
Professor Flitwick gave her a quick reminder about the essay due to him at the end of the week, and sent her on her way. Reva checked the time, and, realizing class would have gotten out by now, went down to the Great Hall to grab some lunch.
When she arrived, she saw a number of students looking at her curiously. Those from the other houses seemed mostly amused, if mildly disapproving, while Gryffindors seemed torn between exasperation and grudging respect.
"You just lost all our points from the beginning of term!" Complained a second year, Cormac McLaggen.
"Good thing it's barely been a week then, hm?" Reva replied as she sat down next to Hermione, who frowned at her.
"Honestly Reva, you might have been more tactful in addressing your complaints," her friend said reproachfully. "You've got two weeks worth of detention! What will your mother say?"
"I expect she'll just have to make peace with it," Reva replied, though her heart sank. She'd never caused any sort of mischief at home, and she knew the last thing her mother expected from her was trouble. Anjali was going to be so disappointed.
"Well, I thought it was bloody awesome!" Said Ron Weasley, apparently willing to talk to Reva despite her current proximity to Hermione. "Absolutely barmy, mind you, you're completely mad, but the look on Snape's face!" He shook his head, grinning. "You should have seen him the rest of class, he looked as if he'd been forced to eat bat droppings!"
Reva gave him a quick grin, but it soon faded when Hermione nudged her. "Er, thanks, Ron," she said hurriedly before turning back to lunch.
In some ways, Hermione and Ron represented the two sides of Revati fighting for control right now. The last thing Reva wanted to do was develop a reputation as a troublemaker—in fact, she wanted to be the best student she could possibly be, which meant studying often and doing her very best in class.
On the other hand, there was nothing that really compared to the satisfaction she felt in calling Snape out on his bad behavior.
hope you all enjoy!
reva takes herself very seriously in this, and it's meant to be every bit as presumptuous and arrogant as it seems (just as it is also, hopefully, a pretty funny concept). she hates the idea of causing trouble and just wants to do well in school, but she also fancies herself a fair and just person, and so takes it upon herself to lecture others for not doing as she would advise.
lmk what you think! i appreciate you all for reading it to begin with!
-alidfi