Author's note: I'm just going to leave here a brief disclaimer saying that although I gave this chapter a quick glance-over, I haven't actually read it since I proofread it over a week ago. So. Please point out any terrible mistakes, and I will fix them as soon as I have the time.

I hope that you enjoy this chapter. Please review!

SheilaRegulusBlack: Thank you very much!

Guest: To be honest, I find Snape most fun to write when he is in a very bad mood. With Petunia, my interpretation is that he remembers she wanted nothing to do with Lily, but he also remembers that she wrote Dumbledore asking if she could come to Hogwarts; he figures that raising Harry is the fulfillment of a childhood dream, and that perhaps the death of her sister softened her up, and those two things combined overrode her rejection. And he hasn't seen her in a couple decades, so he has no reason to believe otherwise. Yes, first potions class in this chapter! As always, thanks for the review!

Warnings: Swearing

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I referenced pages 101-104 of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone while writing this.

Potions with the Potter Spawn

Four days. Severus had gotten four, blissfully—and relatively, for it was difficult to forget that there was a James Potter lookalike running about the school—Potter-free days. But this morning, first-year double Potions was at the top of his schedule. Making matters worse, it was a Gryffindor/Slytherin class. Of course. Severus had repeatedly asked Dumbledore not to arrange classes in such a way, but the Headmaster insisted that it would "foster inter-House relationships." As far as Severus was concerned, inter-House relationships had been in the toilet since his Hogwarts years, and probably long before that, too. It seemed to him the only relationship the Gryffindor/Slytherin classes fostered was the one which made children more likely to jinx each other in the halls.

Despite his feelings of dread—most days were horrible, but this day was going to be particularly bad, he just knew it—the Potions Master banged into his classroom exactly on time, his black robes billowing out around him. Combined with the chill of the dungeons and the walls lined with scare-factor jars of pickled animals, he managed to craft quite the terrifying first impression.

Without preamble, he began taking the register, pausing at the name of a certain Saviour.

"Ah, yes. Harry Potter. Our new celebrity."

At this, he heard Draco and Draco's sycophants, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, snigger behind their hands. He'd never cared much for Crabbe's or Goyle's fathers, both Death Eaters with few intelligent thoughts and with whom he'd had mercifully little interaction.

After finishing with the register, he set down his parchment and stared at the assembly of students, launching into the speech that he'd perfected over nine years of first-year first Potions lessons. He rather enjoyed giving it. Although he spoke in barely more than a whisper, he knew that they could hear him all the way to the back of the room. He knew how to keep a class silent without effort and was not afraid to utilize this knowledge. Part of him wondered how much that had been influenced by Minerva's teachings, which he still recalled vividly from his adolescence. She, too, possessed the Gift of the Lecture and was fond of letting her students know right away that she was not a professor to be crossed.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic."

Early on in Severus's teaching career, one unfortunate individual, not realizing that their new professor had the hearing of a bat, had thought it wise to whisper to her friend about Potions being a useless subject that hardly counted as magic. He'd given her a tongue lashing and detention and inserted a snide acknowledgement of the opinion into his speech the next year.

"I don't expect you will really understand"—variations on a theme—"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."

He'd gotten a couple of angry letters the first time he'd used that closing line, some eleven-year-olds with fragile egos writing home that their teacher was doubtful of their intellectual capabilities. Word had gotten around to Dumbledore—of course—who had disapproved of calling students "dunderheads" to their face. He hadn't ordered Severus to stop, though, likely deciding that it wasn't a battle worth fighting.

The monologue was greeted with total silence. A few of the Slytherins grinned in anticipation, while the majority of the Gryffindors looked intimidated. One young lion, a bushy-haired muggleborn named Hermione Granger, perched on the very edge of her seat and looked overly eager to begin. Severus had heard things about her from the rest of his colleagues, all glowing reviews, saying that she was a very bright and talented witch, always ready with the answer. Personally, he thought it more show-offish than impressive, and since meeting James Potter, he had acquired a dislike for show-offs. He understood the need to know things, but one did not have to be obnoxious about it.

Speaking of James Potter… "Potter!" Severus barked. He could see that Potter was startled to be singled out. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

The Granger girl's hand shot up, but Potter's forehead creased. He glanced at the latest Hogwarts-age Weasley, with whom he was evidently friends, as though Ronald were any more likely to know the answer.

"I don't know, sir," Potter admitted.

Severus made a disapproving clicking noise with his tongue against his top front teeth. "Fame clearly isn't everything," he sneered. "Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

Granger's hand was still up in the air, and she was waving it around now. But he did not frankly care if she could explain how to make Polyjuice Potion; he was only interested in making James Potter's son squirm. He liked imagining that James Potter could see this little scene from the afterlife. It gave him a vindictive thrill.

"I don't know, sir."

"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter? What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

At this, Granger actually stood up, her hand stretching towards the dungeon ceiling as she tried to get her teacher's attention.

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

The imp—but he took the opportunity to dock points.

"Sit down," Severus snapped unforgivingly at Granger. "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?" he added impatiently, when the class just stared at him. "Why aren't you all copying that down?"

There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. This was another reason he hated teaching: Students never thought to come prepared, never thought to unpack their supplies before they had need of it. Hunting for writing utensils wasted valuable class time, during which Severus could have been trying to drill actual knowledge into their thick skulls.

Over the noise, he said, "And a point will be taken from Gryffindor House for your cheek, Potter."

Better to start small for small infractions, in this case anyway. He didn't want Minerva at his throat when Potter complained to her about the injustice of deducting, say, fifty points.

Neither Severus's mood nor the students' competence improved as the lesson continued, and Severus had developed quite the migraine by the time they arrived at the practical segment. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching and criticizing as the students tried to brew a simple boil cure. None of them displayed any aptitude for the "exact art of potion-making," with the exceptions of Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy. Uninclined to praise a Gryffindor, Draco was the only one whose efforts he acknowledged. Severus suspected that Lucius might have given his son a bit of Potions tutoring before he came to Hogwarts, not wanting Draco to disgrace himself in the class of the family friend and Head of House.

Severus was distracted from drawing attention to Draco's perfectly-stewed horned slugs by a loud hissing sound and clouds of green smoke: In record speed, Neville Longbottom had managed to melt the cauldron of one of his fellow Gryffindors into a twisted blob. The duo's potion dripped onto the stone and began burning holes in people's shoes. The floor would have some new scorch marks.

Within seconds, the whole class stood atop their stools. Longbottom, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up on his appendages.

Severus already had a pre-formed dislike of Longbottom—irrationally, for it wasn't actually Longbottom's fault, he was angry that the Dark Lord had targeted Lily and James instead of Frank and Alice; if the Dark Lord had thought Neville to be the boy in the prophecy, Lily might still be alive—and this display of stupidity caused Severus's dislike to grow.

"Idiot boy!" he snarled. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?"

Above a certain temperature, the quills and the snake fangs interacted in such a way that drew the residual acid from the fangs. The fangs them became flammable if the molecules latched onto those of the dried nettle. But one didn't necessarily have to understand the chemistry to avoid melting a cauldron—all that one really had to do was read the instructions correctly. They were written on the board, specifically because he did not trust the textbooks. Somebody really needed to write better ones.

It's not rocket science, for fuck's sake! he wanted to say, but didn't: it would get back to Dumbledore, and while Dumbledore put up with a lot from him, Severus knew that cussing out children crossed the line.

Exasperated, he vanished the acidic mess with a nonverbal Evanesco, a spell at which he was extremely practiced, as he often had to use it in his classroom, at least below NEWT level.

Longbottom continued to whimper as the boils took over his nose.

"Take him up to the hospital wing," Severus spat at Seamus Finnigan, who was supposed to have been working together with Longbottom on the potion. Apparently both the children were illiterate.

Then, because he was annoyed, and Potter was conveniently stationed next to Longbottom and Finnegan's desk, and he really did hate the Potter spawn, he said maliciously, "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."

Potter opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again without a word. Severus heard a dull thud as the Weasley boy kicked his friend's leg underneath the desk.

"Don't push it," he heard Weasley advise as he swept away, "I've heard Snape can turn very nasty."

His back still to the class, Severus pinched the bridge of his nose, deciding not to justify that sotto voce remark with a response.

Children were an infuriating species.