A/N: When I originally wrote this, I was studying for the next SAT, so that explains some of the esoteric vocab sighted in the past chapter and this one. After all, the best way to learn a word is to use it.

Guest: Indeed. And here is that next chapter you requested! ;)

Credit to LordVortex for informing me of the Happy/Merry Christmas thing. I now shamelessly steal that information and use it for my own wicked ends.

Last updated 12/29/2019

Chapter Six
Growing Friendships

What is it that I always speak of here? Of philosophical notions, the ramblings of an old man? Well, it is no matter. I write here as I will, even as I recount my own story below.

In any case, I would like to discuss Professor Snape, and the subject of friendships – no matter how unrelated the two appear to be. Perhaps the connection is that both can be swallowed with a pill – a grain, forgive an old man – of salt.

Growing Up

If Hermione's excellence caused him to feel the stirrings of jealousy and resentment, it was Neville's ineptitude that drew out the deep feelings of sympathy within Danny, and a desire to form a sort of tight bond based on the commiserations of inevitable failure. The dual nature of this, however, was that when faced with Neville's failures, he felt a frustration akin to facing his own. It was not a pleasant feeling, and so no such bond was formed.

Instead, they remained looser friends, able to easily strike up a conversation, but neither having a genuine interest in the other's going-ons. Neville was flattered for the attention and Danny grateful for a friend, but it was impossible to forge a deeper friendship within the mere week they had known each other.

So it was that he approached Seamus and Dean, two boys who seemed to have become as inseparable as Harry and Ron. That is, not too tightly bound, but nevertheless close companions, one always by the side of the other.

"Hello," Danny said lamely, his excuse running through his mind. I was just wondering if you wanted to…

What was it that he had wanted to do with them? He couldn't remember, not when they both had turned to look at him so, however kindly their expressions seemed.

So, instead, he said: "What's up?"

It was such an American thing to say that it made Danny cringe, but Seamus at least seemed to take it in stride.

"Well," he said, making a show of looking up at the common room ceiling, inspecting it closely with a hand resting thoughtfully on his chin. "I do suppose," he said slowly, "for the time of this year, on the date of this time, the sky would be up there, but I'm afraid I just can't, tragically, see through ceilings to tell you for sure." Then he let go of the pretense, grinning stupidly at Danny. "But maybe that's not what you meant. You're a Yank, right?"

That's right. He had told them after the Sorting Ceremony, when everybody had been sharing their familial stories.

"Yup," he said, grinning stupidly back. "Born in America, lived in America." He shrugged self-deprecatingly, making a joke of it. "So if I guess if you ever want to know anything about America, I'm the place to go!"

"And if you ever want to know about Britain," Seamus echoed mischievously, "I suppose we're the place to go!"

He matched Danny's tone and expression so perfectly that all three couldn't help but laugh.

"I have lived here for over two months," Danny said crossly, trying to keep the smile from his face. "So I'd like to think that I know more than you, about both places."

"Oh?" Seamus raised an eyebrow. "Is that a challenge?"

"I think we can beat you on that," Dean added smugly.

"Really?" Danny said, allowing his skepticism to leak into his voice. "What do you know about America?"

"What do you know about Britain that I don't?" Seamus countered.

"Well," Danny said, delaying, "For one, I know a secret society of wizards lives here."

They were unimpressed. Danny held up a finger, as if to say, But wait! There's more.

"And, I also know that you say 'Happy Christmas' instead of 'Merry Christmas.'"

They looked at each other.

"That's more an observation on America though," Dean complained.

"Alright," Danny said, warming up to this now. "Well, did you know that there's an area somewhere north of London that's supposedly a hotspot for ghosts?"

Again, they traded looks. Seamus seemed curiously eager enough about it, but Dean was more suspicious.

"Isn't Hogwarts north of London?" he said. Danny was startled.

"Oh!" Now that he thought about it, that was entirely possible. "I suppose that makes sense…" Too much sense. It meant his parents had been right in detecting ghostly activity.

He blushed, embarrassed. His hand reached to rub his neck.

"Well. Well, uh," he searched for a rebuttal. "What do you know about America that I don't?"

"There's a Salem Witch Institute." Dean smirked at him. "School for girl wizards."

"I guess I didn't know that," Danny conceded. "But that's because I'm muggle-born?"

"Still, that means we win," Seamus said, grinning. Danny frowned at him.

"No, now wait a moment. Dean was the one who said that. You probably didn't even know about the… school in America either, and you started the bet."

"Yeah, of course," Seamus waved his protests away as if they were mere thin air, "But Defense Against the Dark Arts is starting soon. You don't want to be late, do you?"

Danny frowned. The abrupt topic change had hardly been subtle, but Seamus was right. It was very easy to become lost in Hogwarts, and so leaving the common room ahead of time was always a good idea. Even then, the moving stairs, trick steps, and Peeves all combined made the journey difficult.

"I suppose..." he said reluctantly, "Just let me get my books."

After all, that had been an implicit invitation to walk with them, right? Hermione had already gone ahead, so it would be nice...

When he returned, they were waiting for him. The three casually stepped through the portrait door, walking as naturally as if they had been friends all their lives. There was, of course, the natural difficulty of walking as a trio: hallways always seemed to crowded or too small, and one member was usually either in the front or in the back, but nevertheless, they proceeded smoothly past the trick steps, up the hovering staircases, and without a single sighting of Peeves. Apparently, the two had already gathered a rather extensive knowledge of Hogwarts' infrastructure and knew the go-to's and the desperately-avoid's.

This, Seamus explained to him, had not been the case on the day they arrived September 1st. In fact, the two had ended up nearly entering the sealed off the dreaded third-door corridor – and what a tragedy that would have been! Luckily, Sir Nicholas, who had been wandering about the area, had warned them off before anything too drastic had happened.

Other misadventures involved the Weasley twins, who Danny realized must have been the two redheads watching the enlarged spider in the train. It was from them that the two had learned most of their greatest, most valuable nuggets of knowledge.

"Forgive me if I won't impart all of our secrets to you yet," Seamus told him grandly. "We do have our pride, you know."

"How many secrets could you have learned in a week?" Danny wondered aloud, a challenging note in his voice.

Seamus laughed, a sort of sniggering, unpleasantly high-pitched noise.

"From the Weasley twins, you could learn any number of things in a day," he said.

When the conversation moved on, Danny was left to wonder if maybe he shouldn't have dismissed those redheads as insane on the train.

So it was that with Dean and Seamus' almost intimate knowledge of the castle that they arrived at class in a sole ten minutes, a significant improvement to what would have taken Danny alone half an hour or more. The Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom was located in the more secluded recesses of the castle, sequestered and hidden as if the professor had chosen it knowing that some great dark creature would be pursuing him. Even with Dean and Seamus there, they had almost walked past it, so obscure was the entrance.

The inside of the classroom was not much better, and the professor seemed to be the least impressive of all.

Professor Quirrell had a nervous demeanor, shaking his hands repeatedly and his eyes suspiciously darting from student to student. A turban was wrapped hastily around his head, and Danny found himself again wondering at the oddities of wizards. It was safe to say, however, that Professor Quirrell did not "dress to impress" (as those honeycoated voices of his old kindergarten teachers would tell him to, his mind mentally cringing at the memory of those sickly sweet tones). Instead, his attire was quite ramshackle, and, well, Danny was anything but impressed.

"Danny!" Hermione greeted him brightly as they entered the classroom. Then she inspected his companions, almost quizzically. "Hello, Dean, Seamus."

"Hello," they chorused. The two almost shifted uncomfortably under her gaze, and Danny was suddenly painfully aware of her reputation as a know-it-all, someone who was largely avoided by her peers. A painful tug in his usually apathetic child's heart sent him boldly striding to the seat next to her.

Dean and Seamus followed him. The seats, fortunately, were set up in rows, so that there was plenty of space for many students at the same table. Danny could see that Hermione had saved a seat for Neville to her right, and was glad that no one would be excluded.

They sat in silence for a while, the only students so far in a vastly empty classroom with a teacher closely watching them, before Hermione finally spoke up.

"I heard this class is cursed," she offered tentatively.

Danny looked at her owlishly. Cursed?

"Cursed?" his voice echoed, just a bare whisper. He glanced at Professor Quirrell to see if the topic seemed to bother him, but the professor barely reacted. He noticed some other students entering, looking at their table curiously.

"Oh yes," Dean jumped in eagerly, almost smiling. "I heard that every year, they have to hire another professor to teach the class because something always happens to the old one." There was a slight, almost imperceptible, emphasis on the "heard" that told Danny that it was likely the Weasley twins that had told him.

"Deaths, mysterious sicknesses, a sudden prank that makes the professor not come back," Seamus said, and there was a smirk clear on his face. "I wonder what'll happen to him." He jerked his head towards the front of the room, just to make it clear who exactly he was talking about. Obviously, he had also noticed Quirrell's ramshackle and nervous demeanor, and did not have very much respect for the teacher for it.

This time, there was a visible reaction on the professor's face. Danny panickedly slapped his hand over Seamus' mouth, even as Hermione scolded him for saying such a terrible thing.

Seamus' eyebrow lifted inquiringly at Danny, and he sheepishly removed his hand.

"Is that a thing you Yankees do often?" he asked, making a show of wiping his mouth.

Danny scowled at him, fully intending to tell him to shove off – a distinctly British phrase that was sure to impress. But before he even opened his mouth, he spotted Neville hovering by the doorway, and all thoughts of rebuttal fled. He waved him over to the seat Hermione had been saving.

"Hey," he said, after the boy had sat down.

"Hi," Neville said, looking at their tablemates. Seamus didn't hesitate.

"Neville," he said in a mock-whisper, leaning towards Danny so as to get a better view of the boy, "Did you know that Americans apparently say 'Merry Christmas' instead of 'Happy Christmas'? Isn't that strange?" He shot a pointed look at Danny.

Neville blinked.

"Really?" he said. Then a realization seemed to come across his face, and he turned to Danny. "Your accent – you're American, aren't you?"

Danny struggled to hide his annoyance.

"Yeah, but I've lived here for over a year."

"Why'd you move?" Neville asked curiously.

"Well…" He was saved from answering by a sudden influx of students rushing through the door in a last-ditch effort to not be late. A moment later, class had officially begun.

"H-hello," Professor Quirrell began. "I-I will be t-teaching you D-defense Against the D-d-dark Arts this year. Th-this class will…" And so it went. It was sometimes difficult to understand the man, what with his stutter.

Danny idly wondered how he could teach them how to defend against the "dark arts" when the professor couldn't even say the words properly.

Then he berated himself for his insensitivity. If Quirrell had some disability, or perhaps even trauma, it was none of his business. He steeled himself against the urge to scorn the man, and set himself to try to earnestly listen to his professor's quivering voice.

But it was hard to hold on to his determination when he could hear Seamus' quiet snickers beside him.

When Quirrell mentioned practicals as a major focus for the class, however, Danny paid attention. Defense Against the Dark Arts, Quirrell told them falteringly, was all about the application of magic.

It was with a sort of quiet fear then that Danny fingered his wand in his pocket, rolling his joints around the smooth wood nervously, thinking of that wrong feeling he had had in Transfigurations. Magic was such an illusory prospect; there was no way to just force it to work. What if, Danny just pointed the wand, thought the right thing, said the right words, and nothing would happen? As far as he could tell, he could not coax magic to existence. It was out of his control.

That made magic probably one of the most terrifying things he had experienced. He worried that he wasn't good enough for it.

Danny suddenly recalled what Hermione, Dean, and Seamus had told them about the curse on the DADA position. He looked up at the stuttering mess at the head of the classroom, suddenly seeing him in a new light.

Was this what it was like, to be cursed?

No, he dismissed the thought. It's not the same. He probably doesn't feel any different, and my problem couldn't possibly be a curse.

It didn't even feel like a problem, to be honest. Not in the solid, more tangible way that the word "problem" seemed to suggest, a challenge to surmount. Instead, it was abstract; Danny simply had an issue, something that had occurred and he didn't particularly want to happen again. Maybe if he ignored it enough, it would go away.

Either way, he was relieved when, an hour later, Quirrell dismissed them from class without asking them to utter a single spell – that was a treat that the professor had decided to leave for the next lesson.

Growing Up

The next morning found him in Potions class – a double session with the Slytherins and their head of house, Professor Snape. It was bound to be interesting, or so the whispers of his peers promised. Danny, for one, hoped that the "interesting" would, for once, be kept to a minimum.

When he arrived at the classroom, deep within the melancholy darkness of the dungeons, he faced the excruciating decision of whom to sit with. Dean and Seamus were already paired, so there was no awkwardness on that front, fortunately. Hermione had already arrived to class early, which was only typical, and there was a depressingly empty seat next to her. Danny knew that if he sat next to her, Neville wouldn't have a friend to partner with.

So it was with some hesitation that he strode over to the seat beside Hermione. A cauldron was already set up on the table, ingredients neatly organized around it. A potions book with a neatly bound notebook on top lay to the side, and so Danny hastily brought out his own.

Neville was one of the last ones to enter. Danny could see the indecision on his face as he entered to find a classroom with only the sparse unfamiliar face with a desk that remained open to him.

It didn't take long for Danny to realize that there were only nine Slytherins and eleven Gryffindors. Which… made for an awkward situation.

Neville ended up paired with a pale-faced stringy boy, who Danny would later discover was Theodore Nott. His worried glances ever so often at their table were fruitless and unfounded; Nott appeared to be a perfect gentleman, for a Slytherin. (Already the title held sort of a soiled, slimy connotation in his mind.)

Finally, the professor entered the classroom, charcoal cloak billowing behind him. The attention of the room snapped to him, the idle clishmaclaver silencing in his wake.

"Welcome to Potions class," Professor Snape sneered as his gaze roamed their faces, looking almost bored even as he maintained an expression of perfect contempt. "Now, I expect you fools to understand that when I call your name, you are to answer. No funny business. No pranks." His steady gaze bored into them, and as a collective entity, the first years shrunk back. The professor's mouth twisted as if he were recollecting a sour memory.

He picked up a piece of parchment. "Lavender Brown," he called out softly, a quiet presence that demanded respect nonetheless.

For a moment, there was silence. Then, from the Gryffindor side of the room (for the students had naturally formed a split along the center aisle, save for Neville who had been stuck with the Slytherins), a girl's voice squeaked, "Here!"

And so it went. It seemed a testament to each and every student's willpower to speak up and inject more volume into their voice. Danny's own trial had been a pathetic, sad thing, to rival even Lavender's girlish squeak.

Then Professor Snape reached Harry's name.

"Ah, yes," he said silkily, with so much velvet that it could have cut a saw in half, "Harry Potter. Our new… celebrity."

Snickers from the Slytherin side. Danny glanced suspiciously at Theodore Nott, but found, whether to his relief or disappointment he didn't know, that he had not been one of those who laughed.

Instead, it had been a blonde-haired boy and two thick-set… blobs next to him who were the perpetrators. Danny narrowed his eyes as he watched them. He didn't like the look of them.

Far too reminiscent of the bullies that had tortured him in Amity.

Danny scowled, remembering Dash.

Professor Snape's voice drifted to his ear, the snickering long since faded to silence. Danny returned his gaze back to the Potions master, inexorably drawn in despite himself. The professor had the talent of keeping a class silent without effort, and despite Danny's usual limited attention span, he was able to catch every word.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making," Professor Snape began, eyes roving over the students, periodically making eye contact. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you to understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate powers 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."

Danny felt an unfamiliar urge as he listened to the speech. A thirst to do well, to prove himself. Somehow, Snape's words had snaked their ways inside him, embroiling him into the focused undercurrents of his focused, yet soft, words. There was a certain power in words spoken like that. Danny would only realize that much later.

"Potter!" Snape barked suddenly, and Danny jerked ramrod straight at the abrasive loudness of the call, compared to the soft velvet of earlier. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Neville had hunkered down, trying to hide himself behind the desk without actually moving. Hermione's hand conversely had shot up. Harry looked stricken.

"I don't know, sir," he said.

Professor Snape sneered at him, lips curling into a rather unpleasant expression.

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

Hermione's hand went unnoticed, or – if Danny was understanding the situation correctly – ignored. The three Slytherins who had been snickering earlier were now laughing full heartedly, and the teacher wasn't doing anything. No, worse, the teacher was the one causing the injustice now.

Danny felt a helpless anger begin to burn inside of him.

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

Hermione's hand stretched higher. Neville winced, as if seeing what was coming. The Slytherin's laughter grew more boisterous.

"I don't know, sir," Harry said.

"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?" the Professor said, an ominous smile playing on his lips, his eyes as cold as ice.

Danny shrank back. Couldn't he do anything? It felt almost like it was him that was the target and not Harry. Except worse, because Danny was willingly doing nothing against this blatant abuse of authority.

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

Hermione's hand crept higher.

Danny's eyes flitted between her, and Harry's panic-stricken face.

"I –" Harry began.

Danny stood up, his chair scraping loudly and gratingly against the dungeon floor. His hands angrily slammed into the table.

He realized, when everybody's eyes turned to him, including the Professor's charcoal, abyss-like eyes, that he didn't know why exactly he had stood up, or what he would say.

Almost dizzily, he realized that Hermione's hand had dropped to her side, and that she was now staring at him with very large eyes. He briefly glanced at her before meeting Snape's dark black, finding a strange sort of strength within him that stopped him from averting his eyes.

"Mr… Fenton, is it?" the professor asked after an eternity had come and gone.

"Yes, sir," Danny said, equally soft. He didn't move. He didn't dare move, for fear that this mysterious courage would suddenly desert him. Is it really possible? Can I really help someone, do something right?

"Sit down," the professor said, dark eyes filled with disdain.

Danny stumbled down into his seat, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He realized his knees were trembling.

I just faced down a teacher, he thought in a sort of hazy shock. It didn't feel real.

"For your information," Snape lectured, as if nothing had happened, "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." He stared at them sharply, eyebrow raising. He snapped, "Well? Why aren't you copying that down?"

While everybody else was rummaging for their quills and parchment, Danny simply opened his notebook already laid out in front of him with shaky fingers, a dim buzz of gratitude in his chest for Hermione's preparedness.

Soon, all the first years were being put to work. The task was to create a simple potion to cure boils, but Danny privately thought it was very complicated. He was glad that Hermione seemed to enjoy potion creation, because despite his curiosity for everything magic, the potions textbook remained inscrutable to him.

Frustratingly enough, the Potions master seemed to favor the blonde-haired Slytherin boy who had laughed at Harry. From the professor's praise (or so a lack of criticism had been interpreted as with a teacher such as this one), Danny had quickly learned his name: Draco Malfoy, pureblood heir to a vast fortune.

Great, Danny thought sarcastically, quickly recovering himself. A bully for a teacher, and now he's pansying to the rich kid.

Professor Snape was busy praising Malfoy's "excellent example of stewed horned slugs", when Neville's potion suddenly turned an ugly shade of shape and exploded all over the potions desk, stone floor, and, unfortunately, Neville.

A loud hissing noise marked the demise of Theodore Nott's cauldron. Neville, drenched in mystery potion, was moaning in pain as angry red boils sprouted up on every surface of revealed skin.

Danny winced in strained sympathy, and quickly snatched his feet from the ground when he realized that the slowly spreading potion was making holes in his shoes.

"Idiot boy!" snarled Professor Snape, clearing away the spill with one wave of his wand, and Danny let his feet fall to the floor. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?"

Neville whimpered, and Danny wanted to yell at the man, telling him his friend was in pain. His foot involuntarily stepped forward, as if he were about to stand up, and the Potions master spun to him.

"You! Take him up to the hospital wing," he ordered, before looking at Nott, who had been Neville's partner during this mishap. "Tell me what happened."

Danny didn't stay to listen to Nott's response. He immediately rushed to Neville, half carrying him to the hospital wing as he supported his friend's weight. Madam Pomfrey, the Hogwarts nurse, met them with a horrified gasp, hastily rushing Neville to a bed while she ran to grab some potions.

After Neville was situated, Danny remained standing. There was a brief silence.

"Thank you," Neville said so quietly that he almost couldn't hear.

Danny smiled.

"Just feel better, Nev."

It is suffice to say that bonds between friends strengthen in times of hardship, and in this strange instance, Professor Snape was the cause.