Chapter Four

While Harry could not see them he could very clearly hear the serpents as he stepped into the classroom. He did, however, see an egg on the professor's desk. Glancing over at Tim he saw the other teen's interest in the object, making him conclude he was correct in his guess. Runespoors. Their eggs were a rare and expensive potion ingredient, one he had heard Tim moan over more than once, and judging by Tim's expression this was one. Unless there was another serpent egg Tim wanted, and in all honesty, Harry had to admit, that was quite possible.

Professor Kettleburn was perhaps the youngest professor at the school and had only taken on the post earlier that year. But Harry had to admit he was an improvement on the last professor who seemed terrified of the creatures he taught and kept to written material whenever possible. Kettleburn was the opposite and more often than not told them that the books were for homework, a class for hands-on experience. Harry would have to agree, though he wished his fascination with reptiles was slightly lower. This was the third time in so many months that he brought serpents to the classroom.

"Morning Class, can anyone tell me what this is?" Kettleburn asked, gesturing proudly at the small egg. Harry was not surprised Tim's hand remained lowered. "No one? Not even any of our aspiring potion masters?" He asked, offering a small hint. Still no one. "This is a Runespoor egg." He finally informed them. "This one is the last one to crack if we are lucky it will happen during the lesson. Its siblings have been crawling out sporadically all week, however, today we will focus on the adult Runespoors in my care. While the eggs are a prized potion ingredient. So is the venom, and today you will learn how to milk it."

Harry mentally cursed his luck, he also wondered why he had not chosen to have that particular lesson when they were working with one headed snakes. At least he was not alone in his displeasure, though knowing he was sharing it with Lucia LaRoi was hardly something to brag about. The girl had chosen the class solely for the sake of unicorns and had been greatly displeased when she was told they would only get to that particular animal at the end of 6th year and it was mostly going to be academic, and it was unlikely they would even see one. Which, if she had known anything about the creature she was obsessing over, should not have come as a great surprise. They were not particularly social creatures outside their own herds.

Lost in thought it took him a few seconds to notice how genuinely excited Tim seemed by the prospect though.

"Do you think we get to keep the venom?"

"Not as a rule, no. It is not a pleasant way to die. But you can probably manage it. Or we can try to sneak some out." Harry offered.

"Die?" Tim asked, shocked.

"They are poisonous. Nothing on the same level as a basilisk, of course, but still quite lethal without the antidote."

As Kettleburn walked around and handed each pair a snake, Harry wanted to cover his ears. It was the same as last time, only three times worse with three heads doing the complaints. The least the professor could do was tell the students not to choke the creatures, it seemed less than a handful knew that it did not help to clutch the snake, cutting off the air supply and applying undue pressure. Not that Tim was doing much better. With a sigh, Harry threw a quick charm on the snake to make it freeze.

"How did you do that?" Tim asked.

"Freezing charm."

"But they are resilient to magic." Tim protested.

"They are just difficult to hit when moving freely. If all magical animal hydes were resilient, why do you think we are told to get dragon hide gloves?"

"Then why doesn't everyone do what you did?"

"Excellent question." The professor toned in, looking at Harry he added. "Care to guess?"

"It will make it antsy when released. And we can't milk the venom when it's frozen."

"Yet you still decided to charm the snake?" Kettleburn asked disapprovingly.

"Crushing it was hardly having a better effect. At least this way it's not in pain."

Strangely enough, this did not seem to have occurred to the professor as he looked around to take in the struggling students.

"A sleeping charm would probably have been better." Harry thought out loud, looking at the frozen snake.

"Not unless you can hit three of them at once" Tim muttered.

"Depends on which charm you use." Harry said distractedly while the professor rushed off to save a particularly loud snake. However, that one was more angry than in pain.

"He could at least have shown us what to do first." Tim said, looking after the professor and Harry could not help but agree. There was a little too much trial and error education going on in this class.

"You can let go of the Snake," Harry said instead, looking at Tim's hand clutching the snake's body. "Put it in the box and I will lift the charm."

After that was done Harry left it a few seconds to calm down and complain about the humans, bickering with its other heads regarding which one was worse. Seemed the one to the right really didn't have a high opinion of Harry and his stick. As they bickered particularly loudly with each other Harry struck. Allowing his hand to confidently grab onto the thickest part of the snake he lifted, using his other hand as a perch for the snake to balance itself on, allowing the snake to be in near-constant movement before it finally started to settle down. All while Tim stared.

"How did you do that? How did you know it wouldn't strike?"

"I doubt the professor would have given us hungry snakes, and they were more afraid than hungry." Then as an afterthought, he added. "My grandfather has a snake, I handle her quite a lot." He didn't add that he would usually just tell it what to do, mostly for his grandfather's amusement.

"Now get one of those bottles, they should be spelled to make the snake want to bite down."

"Very good, Mr Potter," Kettleburn said. Harry hadn't noticed him returning. "10 points to Gryffindor. Have you done this before?"

"Yes." He said, not expanding on it.

At the end of the class, Harry headed up to the Kettleburn's desk with the three bottles, filled to the brim with venom, while the professor gathered the snakes from the boxes on the tables.

Harry was just about to turn when he heard a faint crack coming from the egg. Turning back to look at it Harry felt himself smiling as one of the heads peaked out, it's jaws wide open as if yawning or laughing, and he couldn't keep himself from laughing as another peaked out, headbutting the first. As the third head peaked through all three started head butting each other while making nonsensical noises. Without meaning to Harry found himself reaching out to stop them, telling them to be careful.

It wasn't until he turned around and saw Tim looking at him strangely that he understood what he had done.

"Were you hissing at the snake?" he asked in disbelief. Causing one of the Ravenclaws behind him to look up, her eyes on them for a second before moving on to the hatchling. Unlike Harry, she did not seem to find them cute, she shrieked.

"What is that?! It's all gooey." Harry ignored her and looked at Tim before shrugging to his question.

"Figured the first thing it should hear should sound like a snake."

"Well, you did a good job," He said, sounding doubtful. But let it drop. "Time for lunch, then potions. Kettleburn told me he will be giving some of the venom to Slugghorn for today's class." He added excitedly. "I have never worked with snake venom before, have you?"