Author's Note: This is the first year course schedule that I found online. I think it's as accurate as possible given what JK gave us to work with.
Monday: Charms, History of Magic, Lunch, Transfiguration, DADA
Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday: Charms, Herbology, Lunch, Transfiguration, DADA
Friday: Double Potions, Lunch, Free period
Plus Astronomy at midnight on Wednesday and flying lessons at 3:30 on Thursday starting the second Thursday of term.
Sept 1991
Severus managed to avoid thinking about the Brat-Who-Lived anymore after the feast, but his thoughts were returned to the boy when he entered the Great Hall for breakfast. That was due to the fact that the boy had beat him to breakfast. No one beat Severus Snape to breakfast. Ever.
He cast a quick tempus while he paused in the staff entrance doorway and frowned at the 7:32 that it displayed. Potter must have arrived in the Great Hall before breakfast even started.
Frowning, uncertain what to make of this development, Severus took his seat at the Head Table, having received only a cursory glance from the boy who'd just finished filling his plate. While Severus served himself and began to eat, he watched the boy surreptitiously. Curiously, he'd filled his plate with nothing more than fresh cut fruit and a croissant spread with butter but no jam or honey. He also avoided the pumpkin juice and drank plain white milk.
He was reading while he ate, Severus noticed, though he couldn't tell what the book was. It was open on the table next to the boy and he held it that way and turned the pages with one hand while he ate with the other, proving that he at least knew how to take care of a book relatively well. He was a surprisingly fast reader if he was actually absorbing everything in the time between turning pages, which he did quite frequently.
Every time someone else entered the room, Potter's eyes would dart toward them briefly before returning to his book. When he finished eating, he pushed away his plate and focused completely upon his book, not appearing at all bothered by having nothing to do but read for over an hour before the rest of the Gryffindor first years were finally escorted into the Great Hall at a few minutes to nine, along with about half of Gryffindor House, which routinely came to breakfast so late.
Severus sneered at the noisy herd of children and wondered again about why Potter would have shown up so early. He also wondered how the brat had managed to find the Great Hall without an escort. He didn't think on that too deeply, however, fairly certain that it was a fluke of some form. He was much more interested in the interaction between Potter and Weasley. The redhead threw himself onto the bench next to the Boy-Who-Lived and immediately engaged him in conversation. Severus couldn't hear what was said, but it looked familiar and relaxed. The Weasley boy obviously considered Potter a friend. Potter, on the other hand, looked mildly annoyed. Perhaps he couldn't be bothered with a boy of so little standing as a mere Weasley.
Their exchange didn't last too long. Potter seemed between indifferent and annoyed the entire time. Weasley appeared oblivious to that fact. When the redhead slathered his plate with syrup, Potter's lip curled in what Severus was certain this time was a sneer, but it was once again wiped away quickly as he drew his book further from the messily eating boy, as though to protect it, and he continued to read.
When Severus returned from passing schedules to his Slytherins, Potter had already left the Great Hall.
HPPOV
Unsurprisingly, Harry was the first one awake in his dorm even though he'd been the last to go to sleep. Despite his month of freedom, he'd not broken himself of the life-long habit of waking around six. He didn't see much point in trying to break it either, actually. He liked getting an early start on the day now that he was allowed to do what he wanted with that day.
After untangling himself from his familiar, Harry grabbed clean robes and quietly headed to the shower. Once he was clean and respectably dressed in his new robes, he packed all of his class materials and some extra books into his shoulder bag – now bearing the Gryffindor crest – and wandered out of the silent common room, a little bewildered that not a single student of any year seemed to be up yet.
He remembered how to get back to the Great Hall, having paid careful attention last night. So, he only got lost three times on the way there when staircases or doors or corridors didn't lead where they'd led last night. Hogwarts: A History had not, it seemed, been exaggerating when it had described that. It would take some time to get used to it, but he was determined to learn all the passages and tricks flawlessly as soon as humanly possible. Knowing every trick and shortcut of his old neighborhood had saved him many a beating when he was growing up. He had no intention of letting down his guard now that he was at Hogwarts. He'd already made one enemy among the students here, after all, and he figured as much as people seemed to love him for being the Boy-Who-Lived, supporters of the former Dark Lord had to hate him just as much.
It ended up taking him a little less than half an hour to find his way to the Great Hall, and it was still completely empty. In fact, he quickly deduced, breakfast wasn't being served yet. He checked the pocket watch that he'd bought in Diagon a couple weeks ago and found that it was just after seven. With a shrug, he sat down at the Gryffindor table and located the transfiguration book he'd been not-reading on the train. When the food appeared on the table, Harry checked his watch again to find that it had just gone half seven. He made a mental note of that for the future and selected eggs, hash, bangers, and some raw fruit. He continued reading while he ate as the professors started trickling into the room first, followed by some Ravenclaws and Slytherins, then Hufflepuffs. The Gryffindors were the last to make an appearance and Harry had to restrain himself from shaking his head at just how much he didn't fit into his House.
When he was finished eating, he pushed his plate away and it vanished, giving him room to read comfortably while he waited. The prefects had said that they'd get their time tables at breakfast today, so he figured he had some time to kill.
It was almost nine before Ron came stumbling into the room still looking half asleep, and plopped himself down right next to Harry. The other first years were just arriving too, having evidently been escorted down by one of the prefects.
"Blimey, mate! How early did you get up?" Ron asked.
Harry suppressed a sigh at the way the boy seemed to have decided that they were best mates just because they'd ridden the train together, then been sorted into the same House. There was nothing for it though. He had to put up with the annoying redhead. "Six," he answered simply. "I always get up at six."
"Why?" Ron said, apparently horrified by the very idea. He was currently scrubbing sleep from his eyes with one hand and filling his plate with the other.
Harry resisted the urge to wrinkle his nose at the sheer volume of syrup that was drowning those poor waffles, and focused on his book. "That's when my guardians wake me," he answered flatly.
"Well, fine, but that doesn't mean that you have to do it now," he protested.
"I've been waking up at six for as long as I can remember," Harry said, trying to conceal his impatience. "I can't just turn it off."
Blessedly, Ron finally became more interested in his food than the conversation. Though everyone else was staring, no one seemed brave enough to try to talk to him. Harry knew that he needed to be more open and cheerful, but he suspected that it would take him a little while to train himself to do that. At the moment, he was afraid that he was going to be a little too honest if he kept interacting with his Housemates.
Finally, Professor McGonagall came around with their timetables just after nine. Harry excused himself as soon as he had his, claiming that he had to get some books from the dorm. He used the forty minutes until he had to attend his first Charms class to search out some of the classrooms he'd have to find today so that he wouldn't have to try to do it when he didn't have much time.
He made it back to the Charms room on time despite the fact that he swore one of the corridors had moved on him in the last half hour. Professor Flitwick taught that class, and Harry found that he liked it well enough, even if the professor did make a bit of a spectacle of Harry by falling off his pile of books when he called Harry's name during roll. The first class was just discussion of theory though, and Harry found that he didn't learn anything new in that class over what he'd studied in the course book and his supplemental reading over the summer.
History of Magic was… mind numbing. Their professor was a ghost, which, when he first heard about it, Harry thought would be a fantastic thing. Honestly, who could know history better than a ghost? Unfortunately, Binns turned out to be attempting to bore them all to death so that they could sit in his class forever – at least, that was Harry's theory. He quickly found, however, that Binns paid no attention to what his students were doing, whether it was sleeping or playing games. Seeing that, he took out his course book and opted to do independent study during the damn class. He refused to be ignorant about anything just because the professor was impossible to learn from.
Transfiguration was different. McGonagall was as strict as he'd imagined, but she did cover a lot of material fairly quickly and get them started on learning a real spell in their very first class, even if they were only changing matchsticks into needles. By the end of the class, Harry and Granger were the only ones who'd made any progress – Seamus had somehow managed to make his explode. McGonagall drew attention to both he and Hermione to show how Granger's matchstick had gone all silver and pointy. Harry's on the other hand, still looked exactly like a matchstick. Except that it was made of metal. Granger clearly took it as a challenge and immediately began giving him calculating looks.
No one, he noticed, seemed at all surprised that he'd done well. It was obviously expected of him.
The final class of the first day was Defense Against the Dark Arts, which everyone was pretty excited about. Until they actually sat through the first five minutes. Harry's initial assessment of Quirrell had been correct. A man with a stutter was a terrible teacher. Harry had a headache listening to it within five minutes and he tried to just reread his course book instead of listening. Halfway through the class, his head was pounding and he closed his eyes to rub his temples in some hope of a small relief.
That's when he noticed it. He was used to feeling that little prickling sensation when magic was used around him, but at Hogwarts, the air itself seemed to hum with magic. By the time he'd woken up this morning, he'd been blocking his perception of it as much as possible. That's why he almost hadn't noticed just what he was feeling. It was like a pressure inside his skull that was slightly reminiscent of when the Sorting Hat had been talking in his mind and listening to his thoughts.
That idea scared the crap out of him and he spent the rest of the class very studiously focusing on his book and trying not to think about anything else.
Disturbingly, the sensation faded as soon as he was out of the room and the headache soon followed.
They now had two and a half hours until dinner started. Harry glanced at Ron, who seemed to have surgically attached himself to Harry since first period. "Hey, I'm going to head to the library."
As he'd expected, Ron instantly balked. "It's the first day! None of our assignments are due until next week! Come on, let's go to the common room and play some exploding snap!" he begged.
"Ron, I wasn't raised in the wizarding world. I have a lot of catching up to do," Harry pointed out.
"What?! You knew the answer to every question Flitwick asked you and you did better than anyone in Transfiguration!"
"That's only the course stuff. There's a ton of other stuff I want to learn, Ron."
He stared at Harry as though he'd started speaking Chinese.
"You go ahead without me," Harry implored. "I'm just going to be reading anyway, so I'm sure I won't be very interesting company."
Ron looked slightly relieved at realizing that he didn't have to go, though Harry wasn't sure why he'd have thought otherwise. Maybe it was a friend thing. God knows, he didn't understand what that was all about. Though he did know through observation that friends did tend to spend a lot of time together, he wasn't sure if that included times when only one person wanted to do something. Did they have to compromise about every little thing they wanted to do, or just spend a lot of time doing things they didn't want to do? It sounded annoying to him.
"Are you sure you don't want to come with me?" the redhead tried one more time.
"Positive. I'll see you later, Ron," Harry called over his shoulder, already headed in toward where he remembered passing the library this morning.
Half an hour later, Harry had found the library – the staircases had thwarted him this time – and he spent a good minute just standing in the doorway staring in open-mouthed wonder at the… Herculean collection of books. He'd expected Hogwarts to have a library. Hogwarts: A History had confirmed that it had a library that was supposed to be very good. But this… He hadn't expected anything on this scale. Maybe he should have though. The damn school was in a castle, after all.
Finally, he shook himself and ventured inside. While he tried to familiarize himself with the organization of the books, he searched his mind for what he wanted to learn first. He silently paged through all of the mental notes he'd been making lately. There were a lot of them, but Harry was very good at remembering things when he made a point to do so. He'd learned that early on when he'd been given verbal lists of chores and extreme punishments if he forgot anything.
Ah, the DADA migraine. That was definitely first on the list. Annoyingly, he spent over an hour searching through the library, not exactly sure what he was looking for, before he finally stumbled upon The Mind Arts, a tiny section – just one shelf – tucked into a dark, shadowy corner as though it wasn't meant to be found by any but the most diligent.
Harry scanned the books available and selected several that looked the most promising based on their titles, then went in search of a place to sit and read. The first place that he found was fairly close, but apparently, it was a little too dark and quiet as a pair of upper years – a Ravenclaw and a Hufflepuff – seemed to be using it to snog. The shocking part was that it was a pair of boys. Harry quietly slunk away without the distracted boys noticing him and found the next best place, which was still fairly remote, but located by a window that probably made it a little too bright for those seeking secret liaisons.
Harry wasted a few minutes examining the fact that he'd just seen two boys with their tongues down each other's throats. It took him quite a while to get passed a few of Vernon's more colorful rants about "freaky homos" before he realized that that sort of thing might not be such a no-no in the magical world. After all, most of the things Vernon hated seemed to be common place here.
Eventually, he managed to push that aside with recollections of a pressure in his skull, a building headache, and the knowledge that he had to be back there tomorrow.
Despite being a fast reader – and his vastly improved eyesight had only made him faster – he didn't make much progress before dinnertime. The books had a lot of interesting theory in them, but little about what the various spells and techniques actually entailed. He couldn't find anything at all about what it actually felt like when someone was using what he learned was called Legilimency.
He decided to put the books back and come back later rather than checking them out. He didn't trust Dumbledore. The man was far too involved in fucking with his life. And he was fairly sure that anything he checked out from the library would be accessible for the headmaster to investigate. So he wouldn't take anything out of the library that wasn't perfectly normal, uninteresting stuff that a lot of students were probably reading. No sense in giving the man any more ammunition to use against Harry than he already had.
During dinner, Harry made an effort to shake his troubled thoughts and converse with his Housemates. This was the time when they were getting used to each other and he didn't want to become known as unsociable. That wouldn't fit the Boy-Who-Lived's personality at all.
So, he got to know them a little bit. Seamus was a halfblood who was obsessed with Quidditch and had a propensity to blow things up in just about any class. This made Harry a little nervous about sitting anywhere near the boy, especially in Potions. Dean was a muggleborn who apparently hadn't done any supplementary reading before school like Harry and Granger had done. He knew almost nothing about the wizarding world, but wasn't self-conscious about that fact. Indeed, he seemed eager to argue about things that were "better" in the muggle world. Like football. Seamus and Ron almost died of indignation when he said it was better than Quidditch. Harry pointedly stayed out of that conversation. When he was asked his opinion, he just shyly said that he'd never been much interested in sports, which was true enough anyway.
Neville was a shy boy who didn't talk much unless prodded into it, and when he did, it was usually quiet enough to ignore, which most of the others did. Harry, however, recognized that Neville wasn't stupid – certainly smarter than Ron. There was also something that you could only see if you watched him when he didn't realize anyone was watching. It was an innate grace, the way he held himself, the way he used his dinnerware, the cadence of his words. Harry was willing to bet that Neville Longbottom had been raised just as refined and wealthy as Draco Malfoy despite having obviously turned out vastly different. The reason for his shyness was also readily apparent. He'd evidently grown up being compared to his father – and found wanting. Harry made a point to be extra-polite to Neville. He'd be someone that Harry wouldn't mind spending some time with, at least, and he might prove a good friend to have.
Lavender and Parvati were both simply annoying, always tittering about hair and fashion and boys… It set Harry's teeth on edge. Thankfully, they seemed happy enough to exist in their own little world and ignore him – well, when they weren't staring at him and whispering behind their hands and giggling… He did not understand girls. He did not want to understand girls… Ever.
He left dinner a little early and headed directly back to the library to get as much reading as possible done before curfew. He'd have to figure out how to smuggle books out of the library safely, but he didn't want to risk it when he didn't know if there were perhaps spells in place to catch them at it.
That gave him an idea. He left that evening with a harmless supplemental Charms book casually concealed among his course books. He figured that if he got caught, he could simply claim to have not realized that he'd put it in with his other books. An innocent enough mistake.
Happily, he didn't get caught. He walked right out under the watchful eye of the librarian and not a word about it.
That night, he claimed that he was tired to escape the common room – easily believed as he'd been the first one up – and closed the curtains around his bed to do some reading before everyone else went to bed. He wished that he had some of those mind arts books, but as that would have to wait, he contented himself with reading the extra charms book he'd smuggled. It couldn't hurt to learn more about that class anyway.
Shortly after he heard the fourth snore begin permeating the room, he heard the whisper-quiet rustle of scales over stone and turned just in time to see his familiar stick his head through the curtain at the foot of the bed. The rest of his body soon followed and Harry closed up his book with a yawn while Rhast made himself comfortable – and made the bed seem much smaller – by coiling himself through Harry's legs and finally piling his head on top of a couple thick coils near the pillow.
"Did you have any problems today?" Harry inquired, reaching out to gently stroke the smooth scales of his best and oldest friend. Well, only friend, though Athena was beginning to earn herself such status, even if he couldn't actually talk to her like he could Rhast.
"Problems?" Rhast laughed. "Master, this place is amazing! It is like it was made for snakes! There are secret nooks just large enough for me everywhere. I can't see them with my eyes, but I can smell them. They go up and down, and I think maybe through floors as well as walls. I can get almost anywhere without crossing human paths."
Harry smiled at the excited snake while he considered that, then nodded thoughtfully. "That might actually make sense. One of the Founders was supposedly really into snakes. He might have put those passages in without telling even the other Founders if it takes a snake to find them. That's really convenient. Can you do me a favor and see if you can find any other passages he might have put in? Maybe something large enough for people?"
"Of course, Master," the snake answered as though insulted that he'd even had to ask.
Harry smiled sleepily and stroked the snake lightly until he dozed off.
The rest of the week passed similarly. Herbology, which he attended for the first time on Tuesday, was held in greenhouses behind the school. It was taught my Professor Sprout, Head of Hufflepuff House, who was a cheerful woman who approached malicious plants with a matter-of-fact attitude that Harry found a little baffling. The class wasn't altogether bad. Having been caring for Petunia's garden since he was four, he definitely understood the basics, though there was a ton of stuff to learn about magical plants and the special care that they required. He and Granger quickly took top places in that class as they had all the others. The difference was that this time, they weren't at the very top, but right under Neville Longbottom, the shy boy who apparently had an instinctive affinity for all manner of plants.
Every day before dinner and before curfew, Harry smuggled a book back into the library and a different harmless book back out. He was going to give it a solid week before he trusted that he was safe to take things that he didn't want anyone knowing about. He figured that, if they were noticing, they might ignore it once or twice, but if he made a habit of it, they'd have to say something if they realized he was doing it. While it might be a little tricky to explain such a habit, it would be preferable to getting caught with the more sensitive material.
Harry was aware of the fact that he might be way more paranoid than was really warranted when it came to Dumbledore. It was quite possible that the old man hadn't intentionally destroyed Harry's life. It was possible that he hadn't considered it stealing but helping when he'd decided to steal all of Harry's mail. Lots of things were "possible". It was also possible that Dumbledore was a sadist who'd sent Harry to the Dursleys just to cause him as much pain as he could manage. It was possible that doing so was part of some elaborate scheme to crush his spirit in over to mold him into some sort of tool or toy to exploit with the wizarding public, who seemed both gullible and sycophantic in Harry's limited experience.
Yes, logically, Harry thought his paranoia was… Well "justified" might be a bit of a stretch, but certainly of an acceptable and functional level.
He spent almost two hours before first period, over two before dinner, and over an hour before curfew every day closeted away in that back corner of the library studying the mind arts. He was starting to get a bit of a reputation as a bookworm and Ron had stopped even trying to convince him to join him in the common room by Thursday. He did force himself to spend time in the common room after curfew before bed and he made a point of always being sociable at lunch and dinner. He rarely saw his housemates at breakfast since he was usually in and out and closed into the library before they even made it to breakfast, but that couldn't be helped. He got up early and he was hardly going to spend two hours sitting at the breakfast table. He'd have just gone to the library first except that it didn't open until eight, which was usually about the time he was finishing breakfast, having arrived right when it started.
In the hour before breakfast, after he'd had his shower and dressed, Harry occupied his time by wandering around the almost silent castle with his invisible snake, exploring secret passageways. He'd learned rather quickly that being out after curfew was dangerous. Teachers and prefects stalked the halls until about midnight searching for wayward students. No one was out looking early in the mornings though, which actually made sense as there were very few students that voluntarily got up and about before breakfast. In fact, there were only a handful in the whole school that Harry routinely saw in the Great Hall right about half seven – none of them were Gryffindors.
Rhast was finding dozens of secret passages every day. Apparently, they were everywhere in the castle. He quickly found that a lot of the upper years knew about a lot of the passages and used them routinely. Harry could see why. Some of them might have a trick step or something, but at least most of them didn't move. The castle was infinitely easier to navigate with the secret passages – which was likely a security measure to slow down any invading force.
Most interesting of all, however, were the passages that only opened in response to parseltongue. These were not marked in any way, and most of them were located on various random stretches of unremarkable wall, which forced Harry to memorize the exact placement in order to find them on his own. Rhast was able to scent them. They all opened to a simple "open" hissed in parseltongue, and, like the snake passages, they seemed to lead everywhere, even when it should have been physically impossible for a passage to actually fit through an area. If he was correct in his assumption that he was the only parselmouth in the school at the present time, then these passages were, at the moment, all his. He was seriously starting to develop a crush on Salazar Slytherin. The man was a freaking genius! Building secret passages that one not only had to be a parselmouth to open but have a pet snake to locate… Utterly ingenious.
Friday morning, Harry left the library and headed down to the dungeons for his first Potions class. He'd been hearing a lot of ominous things about the Potions professor – the Head of Slytherin – who apparently hated all things red and gold. He certainly hadn't ever had anything less than a scowl for Harry when they passed in the corridors or their eyes happened to meet in the Great Hall.
It was cold in the dungeons and Harry made a mental note to wear a jumper under his uniform to his next class. When he entered the room for the first time, he found a large selection of creatures floating in jars around the walls – ingredients, he imagined. There was a strange smell to the classroom that must have been from so many ingredients and what was probably centuries of potions fumes soaking right into the walls.
Harry had just settled down at one of the tables when Ron took the seat to one side. Neville and Seamus sat on the other side of Harry, which was more than a little unnerving. Ron kept casting glances over his shoulder toward the desks further back, but he didn't move away – unfortunately. Before he could make a plea to move, Professor Snape entered the room rather dramatically, his voluminous black cloak billowing around him.
He started with roll call, but paused when he reached Harry's name.
"Ah, yes," he said, his drawl slow, soft, and dangerous. "Harry Potter. Our new… celebrity."
Harry hadn't realized that it was possible to imbue a single world with quite that much enmity for a complete stranger. It reminded him starkly of the way Vernon and Petunia sneered freak at him, and he was instantly on his guard. Draco and his little bodyguards snickered behind their hands, which Snape ignored.
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making," he began, speaking at barely more than a whisper in the silent room. "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… I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death… If you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."
Silence followed his speech. Harry was having mixed feelings about this class. On the one hand, he was extremely interested in potions, and had been ever since getting his eyes fixed. He'd learned of some of the amazing things that could be done with potions and was very eager to learn the art himself. Snape also seemed incredibly passionate about his subject – maybe more so than the other professors, which was intriguing by itself.
On the other hand… Few people had ever looked at Harry with quite as much loathing as Snape managed. He had no idea why the man seemed to hate him so much, but it was clear that he did. Maybe it was just because he was in Gryffindor – Snape was the head of Slytherin, after all. Perhaps Harry was just the easiest and most obvious Gryffindor to single out, being who he was. Or maybe Snape had just reacted to Harry's celebrity in the opposite way of everyone else. Maybe he'd supported Voldemort and hated Harry for supposedly defeating him.
Well, whatever the reason, Harry was already beginning to suspect that he might be better off trying to learn this subject outside of class.
"Potter!" Snape said sharply, and Harry probably would have flinched if he hadn't already been on his guard just being in the room with that man. "What would I get if I added powered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
Harry frowned. He'd read about that… Granger's hand shot into the air and he was instantly determined to answer the question. He wouldn't be less knowledgeable than that annoying girl. They were presently competing for top marks in every class – excluding Herbology – but he preferred to earn his recognition by doing the lessons well and knowing the answers whereas Granger made a spectacle of herself trying to answer every single question. All of the teachers seemed to be getting sick of her already.
Now, he remembered reading about this… Toward the back of the class book. Harry opened his mouth to answer, then he met the professor's black eyes and slowly closed it again. Snape didn't want him to be able to answer the question. He was looking for something to criticize him about. Though he'd have loved to prove him wrong in thinking that Harry was ignorant… There wasn't any point. He'd faced this kind of hatred before. Snape would find a way to humiliate him, degrade him, punish him for a crime that Harry did not yet know. The best thing Harry could do was let him think he'd won. At least, if he was mocking Harry for being stupid, Harry would know that it wasn't true.
"I don't know, sir," he said flatly, looking the man straight in the eye.
"Well, fame clearly isn't everything," Snape responded exactly as Harry had expected. Yes, he wanted a reason to demean him. Best to let him have his way. Snape went on, ignoring Granger's hand, "Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"
Harry shrugged, "The storage cupboard, sir?" There was no sense in trying to make nice with someone who clearly would never allow it. He'd spent too much of his life trying to make the Dursleys like him. He refused to waste any time on the potions professor.
Snape's eyes darkened with fury. Baiting him might not have been the best idea, but Harry hadn't been able to help himself. "Detention, Potter," the professor practically purred, "for disrespecting a professor." Again, he ignored Granger's desperately waving hand – she was clearly dying to prove that she knew something Harry apparently didn't. Draco and his goons were shaking with laughter now.
"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?" Snape said vindictively.
Harry just stared in return, wondering vaguely if Snape knew the Dursleys. Maybe they'd collaborated on how best to make Harry's life hell? Well, as long as Snape didn't actually strike him, he could deal with anything. He was utterly immune to dispersions to his character, intellect, or breeding by this point.
"Perhaps an easier question. What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
Nothing, his mind supplied – that was actually a relatively easy one – while he shook his head and said quietly, "I don't know." He barely prevented another sarcastic comment. He really didn't want another detention.
"Sit down," Snape snapped at Granger, who was now on her feet waving her arm around, as though Snape couldn't see her. "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?"
Everyone scrambled for parchment and quill to write it down while Harry continued to stare at Snape. He wondered, briefly, if things would have been different had he let the hat put him in Slytherin, or if Snape would have hated him anyway, and been his Head of House. He shook that meaningless thought quickly, and started up a mental tally for wrongs done to him by Snape. Someday, he could pay him back just as he planned to repay the Dursleys. In the meantime, plotting that payback would keep him sane while he avoided rising to the bait thrown out to him.
SSPOV
Potter was infuriating for the mere fact that he was not at all what Severus had expected. Most prominently, he wasn't lazy. He arrived at breakfast right before or right after Severus every single day. He always ate a healthy breakfast including nothing sweeter than fresh fruit. Actually, he never ate anything sweeter than that at any meal. In fact, he seemed rather averse to sweets in general judging by some of the somewhat humorous expressions of disgust the boy had donned from time to time when one of his housemates – usually Weasley – attempted to interest him in the puddings or pumpkin juice.
Potter spent every breakfast reading, and generally left the Great Hall by eight o'clock. Severus had followed him the second time – to the library. The boy evidently spent his mornings alone in the library. A quick inquiry with Irma proved that the boy had done the same the previous day, and he soon learned that Potter did the same every day. He ate breakfast alone at the earliest opportunity, reading a book the whole time, then retreated to the library just after it opened for the day and remained in there, alone, until it was time for his first class.
Perhaps it wasn't greatly surprising given the boy's apparent interest in reading, but Severus discovered on the second day that Potter had already made himself a favorite of both Filius and Minerva by answering their every question correctly, and Minerva went on ad nauseum, all about how well Potter had performed the first practical in her class. The boy was, apparently, "even more naturally talented than his father", which did nothing good for Severus' impression of the brat.
Now the boy was entering Severus' classroom for his first potions' lesson, and Severus wasn't sure if he was more uneasy or curious to see how the annoyingly studious Gryffindor would perform. The class fell silent at his entrance, as expected. His reputation almost always preceded him, even with the new first years. That was exactly as Severus preferred it. If the brats were properly terrified of him, they tended to be much more careful in his class.
Potter, Severus noticed as he took stock of the class, was seated between Weasley and Longbottom. Both of the other boys were watching him nervously. Potter didn't look nervous. He looked wary. Severus spread his glare around the room during his opening speech, but his eyes returned continuously to those brilliant green that were far too old for the face.
He paused in the roll call when he came to Potter's name. Time and time again over the last week, the boy had surprised him. He seemed intelligent and studious like Lily, but the similarities were almost a mockery because he was also very different. He had none of her effusive warmth or fiery passion. Not even her explosive temper based on what he'd seen so far. He didn't know if he wanted to hurt the boy or just see how he would react, but he couldn't resist provoking him. Perhaps if he got angry, the resemblance to Lily would be stronger.
"Ah, yes," he said. "Harry Potter. Our new… celebrity." More venom than he'd really intended leaked into that last word. It was the surname – saying it aloud again – that had set his blood boiling as it rarely had since that night. He was watching those green eyes as he said it, but they didn't ignite with anger as Lily's would have. Severus ignored Draco and some of the other Slytherin's that were laughing at Potter's expense. He ignored the Gryffindor's who were angry on Potter's behalf. He focused only on the boy himself. The boy who was – yet again – failing to meet Severus' expectations.
Potter didn't look angry at all. He met Severus' eyes squarely, cool green eyes narrowing with cautious calculation. "Present," the boy said after just a moment, his tone far too casual to match his eyes.
Severus held the unnervingly unaffected gaze for several seconds before moving onto the next name. He followed the roll call with his traditional opening speech, which left the room in silence, as always. Draco was smirking smugly, obviously certain that he was not one of the dunderheads to which Severus was referring. Potter just continued to look calmly thoughtful. Truly, that unshakeable calm was beginning to be seriously abrading.
"Potter!" Severus snapped suddenly, almost desperate to put some expression into those green eyes. To force him to anger. To… anything one might expect of an eleven-year-old.
Annoyingly, the brat didn't so much as flinch.
"What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" Severus posed. The question was slightly obscure and from the second-to-last chapter of the course book. He didn't actually expect anyone in the room to know it, even the bookish brat.
One of the Gryffindor girls – the muggleborn that several of the other professors had already mentioned as having apparently memorized all of her course books – stuck her hand in the air. Severus ignored her, intent on the boy whose eyes had narrowed in concentration. He still looked perfectly calm.
The green eyes widened with sudden comprehension and Severus was surprised that the boy apparently knew the answer. The boy opened his mouth, then stopped without speaking, and slowly closed it again as his eyes narrowed speculatively.
"Well?" Severus snapped when the boy didn't speak.
"I don't know," Potter lied.
Severus stared at him for a long moment, completely shocked. Why would the boy lie to make himself look less competent? His shock quickly turned to anger. He may not have figured out what the boy was playing at, but he was certain that it was some juvenile joke of which Severus would probably find himself the brunt. "Well, fame clearly isn't everything," he sneered hatefully at the little brat, then immediately hit him with another. "Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"
Again, he saw that the boy knew the answer. Instead of giving it though, the boy just shrugged carelessly and answered, "The storage cupboard, sir?"
Severus' eyes narrowed as he flashed back to another insolent little brat with wild black hair. "Detention, Potter, for disrespecting a professor," he said smoothly, reminding himself that he had the power now. If Potter was going to antagonize him, he would pay for it. The infuriating brat gave absolutely no reaction to receiving a detention. He didn't even blink. "Thought you wouldn't even open a book before coming, eh, Potter?" Severus snarled furiously. He knew that the brat had opened plenty of books. He practically lived in the library, he was leading almost every one of his classes after the first week in theory and practical both. He was even convinced that Potter knew the answers to these questions. He was just deliberately refusing to answer, which was far more infuriating than anything else the foul boy could have done.
"Perhaps an easier question," he offered. Anyone who had read and paid attention to the first two chapters of the class text would know this one. "What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
"I don't know," Potter replied, his tone careless, his eyes demonstrating that he knew exactly how easy that question was.
"Sit down!" Severus snapped at the annoying girl who'd gotten to her feet and was now waving her arm around in her pathological need to answer the easy question. Severus truly could not believe the gall of this boy. He was tempted to give him another detention, but he didn't, at the moment, have any real cause. The brat was doing a good job of being maddeningly vexatious without actually breaking any rules.
"For your information, Potter," he all but growled at the brat, "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 that 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." Though he was very nearly spitting in the boy's face, Potter continued to look unaffected. His eyes were hard and cold and utterly unintimidated by Severus' most violent glare. It was… maddening.
"Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?" he snapped at everyone else who was watching in silence.
There was a sudden scramble for parchment and quill, but Potter didn't move. He just continued to meet Severus' eyes calmly.
HPPOV
When they were paired up to brew their very first potion, Harry got stuck with Ron, which necessitated several whispered corrections when Ron did something wrong. Honestly, Harry was sure that Ron at least, had not bothered to crack open a single book before term started. Snape stalked around the room while they brewed, spewing sharp criticism at pretty much everyone except Draco, whom he seemed to like. So, Draco was evidently good at potions. Harry mentally added another point to his Draco over Ron tally, and desperately wished the blonde had been a Ravenclaw so that he could have been friends – or at least friendly – with him without ruining the public imagine that he was working so hard toward.
And then there was a loud hissing sound and copious amounts of green smoke filling the classroom. Neville had somehow managed to melt Seamus's cauldron into a twisted blob, and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people's shoes. Within seconds, the whole class was standing on their stools while Neville, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.
"Idiot boy!" Snape snarled. Harry's eyes shot up to the Professor's face as he waved his wand to clear away the spilled potion. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?" Harry was surprised to see what he thought was fear underlying the man's anger. That was shockingly more human than Harry would have imagined and he entertained the idea that the man really did care about keeping his students safe.
"Take him up to the hospital wing," Snape 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 not to add the quills?" Ah, that was more expected. Now he just looked vindictive again. "Thought he'd make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? Five points from Gryffindor!"
Harry just stared at his professor. He might care about his students' lives, but Harry wasn't so sure if that extended to him. Of course, he hadn't been able to keep an eye on Neville when he'd been so busy keeping Ron from destroying their potion. And he was much more worried about breaking out in boils himself.
An hour later, they left the dungeons after turning in a passable potion that just seemed to make Snape angrier. Harry might have to work on being less competent in that class so that Snape had something relatively harmless to growl at him about. Whatever made him comfortable. And the further it was from the truth, the easier it would be for Harry to handle.
"Cheer up," Ron offered. "Snape's always taking points off Fred and George."
Harry nodded mutely. "Any idea on what his detentions are like?" Before he'd left the room, Snape had advised him to be back at eight for his detention.
Ron shook his head, "I wouldn't trust anything Fred and George told me about it anyway."
Harry nodded. Maybe he'd have to ask the pair himself. He'd like some idea of whether tonight's punishment was standard or special just for him.
After the double Potions class, they had the rest of the day free, so Harry headed for the library immediately after lunch for his first marathon study session since arriving at Hogwarts. He was going to have to devote some time this weekend to working on homework that he'd been ignoring all week, but he wasn't too worried about it. Thus far, none of his classes had been very challenging. Not in the theory aspect, at least. The practical was another matter entirely, though his practice with some of the easier stuff this summer had obviously been enough that he could at least match Granger in most of it.
He finally felt like he was making some progress on his study into the mind arts. He'd managed to find one book that described in more detail what it was to use the mind arts and have them used on you. There still wasn't enough there to actually learn how to do much of it, but he did find that being the subject of Legilimency could feel like a pressure behind the eyes, though it varied person by person. Some people, apparently, described it as a slight dizziness, a faint prickling, or even a mild ache, though being the subject of a less experienced Legilimens could evidently be extremely painful, and even leave the mind broken if it was done with a lot of power and no finesse.
That was unnerving, considering that Harry always had such terrible headaches in Defense class, but he soon found that it was probably unlikely that he was the subject of an unskilled Legilimens. Evidently, only those who were very skilled were able to do it without verbally casting the spell, and he knew that he'd have noticed if someone had done that.
What he really wanted to know though, was how to block it. That was, apparently, called Occlumency. Unfortunately, apart from the fact that it was some sort of passive magic involving meditation and something called a mindscape, there was nothing to be found about how to actually do it. That was due to the fact that it was considered borderline Dark magic. Legilimency was even worse, and legal only for licensed individuals, mostly aurors who used it in questioning.
He was faced with a dilemma though. He needed to learn this, as he was convinced that Quirrell had been Legilimizing him every single Defense class – even if Harry didn't know how he was able to do it without eye contact. He figured that he had a few choices. First, he could try to go to his Head of House or the Headmaster with his suspicions. He didn't even really consider that option. First, he didn't trust adults in general to actually help him. Second, he didn't trust the headmaster specifically, and suspected that his Head of House would go straight to Dumbledore if she didn't dismiss his claim out of hand.
His other options… He could wait until winter break and try to find something in Diagon, or even venture into Knockturn Alley. That had some potential, but Knockturn Alley might be somewhat dangerous and he really couldn't imagine waiting that long. Defense class was a nightmare with those terrible headaches and the necessity to not think about anything besides school work the entire time. He didn't dare to let his mind wander to anything else even for a moment, and he was constantly paranoid that it had, as well as being paranoid that Quirrell had sensed that he was paranoid, and always worrying about why Quirrell was doing that and what he'd do with any information that he did glean.
Option three was to get into the Restricted Section and look for more information in there. That seemed like his best choice at the moment. The problem was that he was trying to lay low and not let Dumbledore find anything incriminating or non-Gryffindor about him. If he got caught in the Restricted Section, that could be a serious problem. Still, of his available options, that was the best. So he just had to be smart and not get caught. He wished he could just try to get a pass, but from what he'd heard, no one under fourth year ever got a pass for the Restricted Section. That meant he was going to have to exercise extreme caution, which meant taking it slow.
Which, unfortunately, meant dealing with Quirrell for a while longer.
On his way down to dinner, Harry managed to get hold of the Weasley twins and drag them aside for a quick chat.
"What's up, ickle Harry?" one – Fred, he thought – asked.
"Yes, what can we do for you?" the other added
"I've got detention with Snape tonight," he admitted, then waited while they both congratulated him on getting a detention in his first week of school, then waxed poetic in mock concern over Ron not managing such a feat. "Right," he nodded when they finally wound down. "Well, I was just wondering what I could expect to happen during the detention," he admitted.
"Oh, it's not that bad," Fred said immediately. "Our first detention with Snape-"
"–yes, we managed to get it together–"
"-he had us milking scorpions for their poison-"
"-while they were awake-"
"-and stinging."
"He let us have the antidote though," George added, "so it really wasn't too terrible."
"Once last year," Fred started again, "we had to pluck spider eyes from live tarantulas."
"But again," George provided, "plenty of antidote."
Harry stared at them blankly.
"Near the end of last term," George said after a moment of silent staring, "he harvested our fingernails for ingredients."
Fred nodded his agreement, his face twisted into remembered agony, "It was horrible. But, he did give us a potion to grow them back. See?" They both turned their hands to display ten perfectly normal fingernails apiece.
Harry stared at them some more, his expression completely blank.
The twins stared back, their expressions calculating.
"Very interesting," Harry said at last. "Now, are you going to tell me the truth, or should I just go ask someone else?"
The twins both adopted simultaneous indignant expressions and started going on about how insulted they were at being doubted. They went on for several minutes while Harry patiently waited. Finally, they just stopped and exchanged a look. Then they nodded and looked at him again. "We're very impressed by your Great Harry Potterness. How did you know?"
Harry considered lying, but then he figured that it was unlikely anyone would believe this pair if they did tell the truth about something. After a quick glance around ensured that there were no portraits or curious students close enough to eavesdrop, he answered. "I've been tortured before, and I promise that I wouldn't describe it like you did," he said flatly.
Both twins blinked several times and exchanged a meaningful look before considering Harry again. "How about this," Fred posed. "We'll tell you the truth if you promise to back up our story when Ron gets his first detention with Snape."
Harry smirked a little at that. "Deal." Ron had said that he wouldn't believe Fred and George, but if Harry seconded them, it is very likely that he would. And it sounded funny. It was hardly his fault that Ron was dumb enough to fall for it.
George shrugged, "He just makes us prepare potions ingredients and scrub out cauldrons."
"Of course, they are the nastiest that he can find," Fred added.
"Or he has us preparing potion ingredients."
"Also the nastiest that he can find."
Harry smiled. "Thanks, guys."
"Don't forget your promise!"
"I won't," he assured them before hurrying off to dinner. As soon as he was done eating, Harry made his way to the library to cram in a little more reading before heading for the dungeons. He used the parseltongue passages to get there more quickly as Ron wasn't trailing him for once and the corridors were pretty empty. Slytherin's passages did not move like a lot of the others in the castle, and they were more plentiful the lower one went in the castle with the majority of them being in the dungeons. He imagined that one could get anywhere in the dungeons without ever crossing a standard corridor.
He arrived outside Snape's office door almost ten minutes early, having not wanted to take any chances on being even one minute late. He was absolutely certain that Snape would love any reason to punish him and Harry had no intention of wasting any more nights in detention than absolutely necessary.
Harry was a little surprised when he was merely told to scrub out cauldrons. It wasn't pretty and there did seem to be an awful lot of them, but he'd mostly been expecting something worse than other students would have to do just because Snape seemed to treat him as though he were special – in a very negative way, of course. He obviously didn't complain in any way, shape, or form, but he did sneak glances at the professor throughout the evening as he tried to figure out how the man could possibly hate him so badly.
By the time it was over, Harry was mostly convinced that Snape had either been one of Voldemort's followers that managed to escape Azkaban, or he had just been a devout sympathizer. Either way, he suspected that it was his supposed defeat of the Dark Lord that had made the potions master hate him so much.
He wasn't quite sure how to feel about that. Of course, there was the fact that he didn't credit himself with having defeated Voldemort, being that it seemed impossible that he could have had anything to do with it, being a baby and all. Even assuming that it had been his fault somehow though, how was he to take it that Snape hated him for it? He spent a few moments trying to imagine how he'd feel if some baby was credited with killing a man that he followed like that. Then he had to stop because he couldn't imagine ever being in that position. He didn't like the idea of being a follower of anyone or anything. He'd spent enough of his life at the mercy of others. There was no way he'd ever submit to something like that willingly.
Snape didn't release him until after curfew, but Harry had no difficulty returning safely to the tower without encountering Filch since he used the Slytherin passages to do so. When he curled up in bed that night, he decided that he'd keep an eye on Snape. He needed to know more about the man to decide how he felt about the man's attitude and what he should do about it.
A/N: Wow. I totally missed updating yesterday. It was a bad day health-wise and I completely forgot about updating this. So Thank You to AlexZapol, whose review was what jogged my memory.
This chapter ended up quite a bit longer than I expected. First draft was like 6,000 words, I think, but then I just kept thinking of bits that needed to be added. Severus' POVs in this chapter were entirely added after the fact because I just adore him. The final word count ended up at 9,867 (not counting my notes).
I hope you've enjoyed this late edition and I shall attempt to be more punctual next week. As always, enormous love to all my reviewers. You inspire me to keep writing and posting every week.
Next Chapter: Flying lessons and Halloween.