Chapter 4. Potions and Peeves

On Friday the day started with a double Potions class for the first-year Slytherins, together with the Gryffindors. Maura had been looking forward to it, because to her, Potions was the next coolest thing after Defense Against the Dark Arts. She was also really excited to be having a class together with Neville. After Tuesday she hadn't talked to him much, apart from the occasional 'good morning' in the Great Hall when Maura passed by the Gryffindor table. Neville never came to the Slytherin table. Maura didn't blame him. Some Slytherins were incredibly nasty towards Gryffindors, and Neville in particular, since the start-of-term feast. Whenever someone said something about her brother, Maura would stand up for him, but then she would mostly get laughed at as well.

Blaise didn't help her much in these particular moments. He kept mostly to himself when Maura had trouble with other Slytherins. He wasn't joking when he said that 'they could be loners together'. For now, Blaise was the only friend she had, but it wasn't a ride or die relationship.

Maura hadn't talked much with the other Slytherin girls, with whom she shared her dormitory, either. Pansy and Millicent had started giving her the cold shoulder since that first day of classes. There was no doubt Malfoy had a hand in inciting their dislike for Maura because of her disagreement with him. She did sometimes have small conversations with Lily, who had her bed next to Maura's, but they weren't exactly friends yet. Daphne and Tracey mostly stuck together as well.

After breakfast Maura and Blaise went to the dungeons together. They took their usual seat next to each other when the students shuffled into the dim classroom. Maura caught Neville's eyes and he waved at her. She waved back at him with a smile on her face. He came over to her.

"We're finally having a class together!" Neville said excitedly. "I'm really curious what Potions is going to be like."

"Yeah, me too!" Maura replied. "Maybe we could work together at some point on a assign—"

"Aw, does baby Longbottom need help from his big sister with Potions?" Malfoy sneered while turning around in the seat in front of Maura. Crabbe and Goyle, never far away, sniggered.

"We're the same age," Maura replied dryly.

"You're also the same level of stupidity," Malfoy hissed and turned back around. Maura heard Pansy and Millicent giggle from a few feet away. Maura threw a dirty look their way which they returned.

Blaise gave a little cough in which the word 'asshole' could barely be made out. Neville, his cheeks red, quickly went back to the side of the classroom where all the Gryffindors were sitting. He sat down just in time before the door to the classroom burst open and Snape walked in. Everyone was silent while he went to the front of the classroom.

Without a word prior he began by taking the roll call. He paused at 'Harry Potter'.

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

Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle sniggered behind their hands again. After Snape had finished calling the names he looked up at the class. Everyone sat up a bit straighter.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making," he began. No one dared to make a sound. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe 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..." Maura hung on his every word. "I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even put a stopper to death — if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

More silence followed.

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

The Slytherins looked nosily over at where Harry was sitting, looking confused. Hermione, who was sitting in front of him, raised her hand quickly.

"I don't know, sir," Harry replied. Snape's lips curled into a sneer.

"Tut, tut — fame clearly isn't everything."

Hermione's hand was still up in the air. She shook it a little to try to get Snape's attention, but he ignored it.

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

Hermione stretcher her hand as high into the air as it would go. Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle were shaking with laughter and Pansy looked at the scene with a cruel smile. Blaise had gotten a bored look on his face.

"I don't know, sir."

"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?"

Harry kept looking straight at Snape. Maura couldn't blame him for not knowing. She had looked through her books during the summer break, but she didn't remember everything that had been in them. Maura quietly slid out her Magical Drafts and Potions from her bag and started scanning the contents to try to find where she had read about a bezoar.

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

At this, Hermione stood up, her hand stretching toward the dungeon ceiling.

"I don't know," said Harry quietly. "I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try her?"

A few people laughed including Maura. Where did Harry get the guts to talk to Snape like that? She wouldn't dare herself.

"Sit down," Snape snapped at Hermione. "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 of aconite. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?"

Maura quickly rummaged in her back for a piece of parchment. With her quill, she tried to scribble down everything Snape had said. Over the noise of rustling parchment, bags closing and the scratching of quills, Snape added, "And a point will be taken from Gryffindor House for your cheek, Potter." The Slytherins chuckled. Maura didn't think it was fair, but she didn't mind it much as it would favour Slytherin in the competition for the House Cup.

The Potion lesson continued. Snape put them into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. Maura and Blaise set to work. While Blaise was weighing the dried nettles, Maura crushed the snake fangs. Snape walked by their table and criticized Maura for not crushing the fangs into a fine enough powder. Maura continued pounding the fangs, using her mortar and pestle, with more force.

It was apparent Snape mostly critiqued the Gryffindors, but he didn't leave the Slytherins unscathed. A bit later he came back to her and Blaise's desk and complained about the colour of their potion, saying Maura had been stirring the wrong way, urging them to start over. Blaise had been irritated with her after that. He had pulled the ingredients out of her hands a few times to fix something she had been doing wrong.

Snape seemed to have something to complain about at everyone's desk, except for at Malfoy's. He even told the whole class to look at the perfect way Malfoy had stewed his horned slugs.

Then suddenly clouds of acid green smoke and loud hissing filled the classroom. On the other side of the dim room, Neville and Seamus were looking with shocked faces at something that must have been a cauldron, but was now a twisted blob. Their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people's shoes. People started jumping quickly on their stools. Neville was moaning in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs. He had been drenched in the potion.

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

Neville whimpered. Maura quickly got off her chair and ran to him as boils started to pop up all over his nose.

"Take him to the hospital wing," Snape spat at her. Maura put her arm around Neville's shoulder and let Neville towards the exit of the classroom. Before they were out the door she hear Snape say angrily:

"You — Potter — why didn't you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he'd make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That's another point you've lost for Gryffindor."

Neville heaved a sob as they walked out into the corridor.

"It hurts, it hurts, it hurts," he cried.

"Come on, we're getting you fixed up," Maura shushed as she supported him on the way to the hospital wing.

Fortunately Neville didn't have to stay long in the hospital wing and after less than an hours he was allowed to go again. The boils on his skin were gone, but it was still a bit red in the places they had been. Maura had stayed with him and held his hand while Madame Pomfrey gave him a potion and he waited for the inflammations to calm down.

"Y-you should go back to the classroom. You're missing the lesson," Neville had stammered, but Maura didn't want to hear any of it.

As they were walking back to the dungeons to collect their stuff — the class would be almost over by now — they ran into Peeves, a poltergeist who was always causing chaos at Hogwarts. Maura had seen him in action a few times around the castle by now. The Hogwarts caretaker, Argus Filch, waged a constant war with him too, and year after year he requested the poltergeist be thrown out of the school.

One time Maura was late for Herbology and while she was running up the dungeon stairs towards the Entrance Hall, Peeves had snuck up on her invisible, grabbed her nose and screeched "GOT YOUR CHONK!"

Right now, Peeves didn't look like he would let them pass through unbothered either.

"Why, it's the unlucky Longbottom siblings!" he cackled while flying around their heads.

"Get lost, Peeves," Maura said.

"Wee baby Longbottoms, walking down the hallway, One skin as red as a tomato on a gourmet," he sang.

He finished the last words with a somersault in the air. Then he started throwing pebbles at them and they quickly had to run around a corner, but Maura didn't want to let him get away with it that easily. She stopped dead in her tracks and slowly peeked back around the corner again. She had to duck when a pebble came flying right at her. As Neville was tugging at her sleeve she quickly picked up the pebble and threw it at Peeves. It went right through his head in-between the eyes. She followed it up with a rude hand-gesture and ran around the corner again. This time she and Neville didn't stop running until they had reached the dungeons. By that time they were laughing so much they had to stop and catch their breaths before they went back into the Potions classroom.

"Look who cared to join in again in the last minute?" Snape said as Maura quickly took her seat besides Blaise. He was already packing his bag.

"You told me to bring him to the hospital wing," she replied.

"I didn't give you permission to have a tea party over there."

Malfoy sniggered and Maura gave a kick to one of his chair legs. He shot her a venomous glance.

"Stay after class, I would like to have a word," Snape said. Maura sighed. Great.

While everyone pushed out of the classroom, Maura strung her back around her shoulder and made her way towards Snape's desk. She waited while he was writing something and seemed to take his time doing so. After a minute she cleared her throat.

"I know you're here, don't be impatient," Snape said. She kept her mouth shut.

After a few seconds Snape closed his book with a blow.

"You were the worst of all Slytherins today," he began. He swept out of his chair, his long black cloak billowing after him, and started wiping out instructions from the chalkboard. Maura opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it and closed it again. "I expect my House to be the best of the best in all classes, especially mine. I expect you to write an essay on the Cure for Boils before next week with a minimum of two-thousand words. I want you to include what you did wrong and how you should've done it." He finished wiping the board and turned around at her. He wrapped his arms over each other holding his cloak, which made him look a bit like an oversized bat.

"Why don't you give this assignment to Blaise as well?" she asked. "It was his potion too."

"If it wasn't for Zabini, you would have melted your cauldron just like your fool of a brother, and I would've had to send you both to the hospital wing," Snape replied. "Oh wait, I did. After which you didn't think it important to come back to class!" He bowed down and came very close to her face. "If you think Potions is unimportant, you're going to have a very hard time here at Hogwarts as a Slytherin."

Maura's eyes widened. "Wait, no, I don't think it's unimportant. I'm really interested in the subject."

"Then give me the essay by next week. And include a vial of the potion." He stood up straight again. "You can leave."

Maura ran out of the classroom.

During their short break before Herbology she caught up with Blaise on the way to the greenhouses. He asked her why Snape had wanted to have a word with her and she told him about the homework. Blaise laughed for which she whacked him on the arm with One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi.

"Jeez, why always that aggression with you?" Blaise asked, again in mock offense.

"It's just so unfair. Most of the Gryffindors performed worse than I did," Maura said.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that. You were pretty bad. Well, maybe a bit better than your brother."

"Honestly, you're such a bad friend. I don't know why I stick up with you."

"Because otherwise you'd be alone."

"Touché. But don't talk that way about Neville again."

At her remark, Blaise took a sharp breath-intake, with his mouth in the shape of an 'o' and his eyebrows knitted down. Maura rolled her eyes. This boy was unbelievable.

As they kept on walking to the greenhouses, there was chuckling from behind them. It was Malfoy and his group, walking not far from them.

"I hate that git," Maura said. Blaise looked lazily over his shoulder as well and pulled up his shoulders.

"Yeah, he's kind of annoying," he replied.

"Annoying? He's the worst!"

"Why are you wasting all of your energy on it? He's not worth it."

"Because I have plenty of energy. If he's going to try to make my life here bad, all I'm going to do is return the courtesy."