"You've been talking about that since last night." Susan groaned as we walked to Transfiguration. "You're thinking too much about it. I don't think Professor Snape hates you and I don't think he was staring at you. You've seen him. He scowls at everyone at meal times."

"Then explain why he got up so quickly after I saw him looking at me." I insisted.

Susan stopped dead in the hall and turned to me. "Ruby, stop. He was probably just done eating and went to take care of…Snape-y things…I don't know, I'll have him today and I can tell you what I think of him."

We continued down the hall and entered the Transfiguration classroom. McGonagall was already standing in the front of the classroom. Susan and I took or seats in the second row.

"We will get right to business today because the spell you will be practicing is very complex." She began "We will be taking a lifeless rock and turning into a dog. Everyone should already have a rock on the table in front of you. I will be walking around to make sure no one is bitten."

By the end of class I had a Jack Russell on my desk with only one stone ear. Susan had only managed to get her rock to bark but she couldn't get it to stop. One Hufflepuff boy's rock grew a mouth and latched itself onto his finger. McGonagall was able to get it off but the boy was sent to the hospital wing to grow a new finger.

"Have fun with potions." Susan winked at me. "Are you going to actually show up to lunch today?"

"I will never have fun with potions again." I crossed my arms and made a fake pouty face. "I'm just going to work harder to get him to like me…it's a problem. And yes, I will definitely be at lunch today."

Susan and I waved goodbye to each other and I headed down to the dungeons again.

I took my seat in the back again. Professor Snape stepped out of his office and stood at the front of class. Without saying a word he flicked his wand and the parchments of the Belladonna uses flew through the air and stacked themselves on the table beside him.

He made a flick of his wand and the instructions and ingredients for Oculus Potion appeared on the board.

"The Oculus Potion as you all should have read about as part of your homework," Snape made a show of looking at me and a few of the other students followed his gaze; I felt my cheeks blush and I looked down to my cauldron. "Will restore the drinker's sight and it also counteracts the Conjunctivitis Curse. This potion has many stages and I will be able to tell immediately when you make a mistake. Though, at this level I should expect that I will be seeing twelve vials of deep orange potions on my desk by the end of class. Get started."

I read through the instructions on the board twice before I started my potion. I began by adding ground unicorn horn until the potion was a grass green color and stirred it clockwise until it turned a royal purple.

I looked up to see that the board was being blocked by a cloud of red smoke. Snape made a swoop with is wand and the cloud of crimson smoke was gone and the cauldron it had been billowing from was empty. The professor didn't say a word but shook his head at the student in a disappointed manner.

I added the stewed mandrake and my potion turned a lovely turquoise. I avoided looking at Professor Snape and concentrated only on my potion. By the end of class I placed a vile of pumpkin orange potion on his desk. I looked at the other vials and felt fairly confident that mine was the closest to what it should have been. Penelope Abernathy placed her vial of a manky yellow liquid next to mine and quickly turned to leave the classroom her head hanging.

I walked back to my desk to collect my things before leaving. I turned to see Snape pick up my vial and turned it over in his hands.

"Don't you have somewhere else you need to be Miss Winston?" He said without turning around still studying my vial.

My heart jumped into my throat and I turned quickly to leave, the last thing I needed was for him to have an excuse to kick me out of his class.

After a few weeks I had a pretty good feel for all of my classes and a good homework rotation schedule. Professor Edgewoode the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was a nice mannered very knowledgeable man and I was beginning to enjoy that class most of all. As for potions class, as long as I kept quiet and paid attention Snape wasn't so bad. He gave me grades of mostly E's and A's on my homework and potions. The grades seemed fair enough and even if they weren't I wasn't going to take a chance by confronting him about it.

I was working on my Transfiguration homework in the Ravenclaw common room when Susan burst in. She slammed her bag on the table and made me jump. I snapped my head up to look at her; her face was beet red.

"I hate him!" She shouted at me.

"Woah, calm down, you hate who?" I asked.

Susan threw herself dramatically in the chair across from me and started digging in her bag. She ripped out the parchment with her potions homework written on it and she slammed it down in front of me. "He gave me a T! Can you believe that I mean—it's not funny, Ruby!"

I brought my hand up to stifle my giggle. "I'm sorry I know it's not funny. I just thought that grade was a myth."

"Well apparently it's not and that stupid, arrogant, git thinks that I deserve it!" She picked up the parchment and ripped it in half.

"Now I'm not trying to take sides because I don't like him either…but is it possible you could have done something to make him angry?" I rushed to make my question sound less accusatory. "Only because he seems like the type to let personal dislikes get in the way of his grading."

Susan opened her mouth and then closed it. "It wasn't my fault, Mark Wizenby made a joke under his breath and I started to giggle while Snape was talking about the effects Polyjuice Potion could have when animal hair is used instead of human hair. I think he was talking about someone who accidentally used ferret hair instead and…well I sort of burst out laughing. But he shouldn't give me bad grades because of that!"

"Susan, I honestly think he likes you. If that would have been me I wouldn't have to worry about getting a 'T' on an assignment because he would have kicked me out of his class for good without even a second thought. You'll be fine. I'm sure this is a one-time only occurrence to make sure you understand he doesn't like goofing off in class."

She looked down at the T on her paper; her expression still extremely sad.

"Can we please talk about how much you seem to talk to Mark Wizenby?" I smirked at her.

Her cheeks turned red and one of her blonde curls fell in front of her face. "He's just nice that's all."

"Are you sure that's all? Because don't you two sit by each other in all the classes you have together and he seems to like to make you laugh."

She smiled. "He did ask me if I wanted to go with him to Hogsmeade if there's an outing this school year. I really hope there is, I do want to spend more time with him outside of classes and I hope You-Know-Who is killed or something so the staff won't be worried about a student being hurt."

I grinned at her and went back to working on my homework.