Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not my property. There are a million brilliant and witty ways to say this (and some that are not so witty) and I can't think of a good one. So you will have to suffer. Mwa ha ha ha haaaaaa!
It's 8:30 PM and I have a try-out for a master class tomorrow morning, but dammit, I REALLY wanted to post this.
Thank you to all the wonderful people who have found it in their good souls to review this piece of...erm..."junk." Here's some cookies for your browser. (hands cookies)
Note: I had something really insightful and interesting to say, but I forgot what it was. Damn.
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Professor Snape is frightening. Really, really frightening, especially when you follow potions directions in the wrong order.
I'm an adolescent male. I'm sort of what you might perhaps call a "class clown." I don't get frightened easily. I also have this thing called "a complete lack of respect" for my teachers. So I find it kind of fun to mess with Snape.
Ella likes to egg me on. She doesn't find him remotely frightening. One time, (and I swear this is true) she actually gave Snape soap, and he didn't even give her detention. That girl is a master. She is nearly as mischievous as I am, yet she has never been given detention, not once. In contrast to me, who barely has an evening when I'm not writing lines or scrubbing Stinksap off the greenhouse walls. (That is a very, very long story, which needs an entire chapter to have justice done to it.)
I like Mountain Dew. I dunno if maybe you've noticed, though, but Mountain Dew kind of has a side effect. Yeah, Mountain Dew has a lot of caffeine. And I don't know if you know this, but caffeine makes you hyper, especially if you're a male adolescent like me. And the sugar? Well, the sugar doesn't help.
One time, I gave Ella some Mountain Dew. That was a mistake. Ella's kind of a tiny girl. She's four foot eight, (oops, American units. She's about 143 cm) and rather thin. And she's a hyper little critter when she's not laced with caffeine. Three sips of the stuff and I couldn't keep track of her for more than ten seconds.
One day in potions class, we were supposed to be brewing calming draughts. (Owen likes to call it the "chill-pill potion." I still have not convinced him that this was only funny the first time, and he can stop saying it now.) Only nobody in our class had made one successfully. So Snape kept making us do it over again every time, until someone made a passable calming draught.
Owen had had the idea of following potions directions in reverse order for a long time, but he wasn't brave enough to try it. Ella and I, however, are rather brave fools. I am brave, perhaps to the point of stupidity. I, the infamous troublemaker, had to try it, at least once. And I figured, "Hey, why not, right? Snape doesn't scare me."
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"Lacewing flies, stir counterclockwise six times, add powdered root of asphodel, stir clockwise three turns," said the book. (Of course, this was only written in the book. The book didn't actually say anything. However, you really never can be sure at Hogwarts, so I was just clearing that up.) Right. Stir counterclockwise three turns, add the asphodel, stir clockwise six times, add the lacewing flies. It was easy.
First the potion turned black and oily. Then it was clear, sticky and bubbly. The asphodel caused it to emit orange steam and turn sunshine yellow. Stir counterclockwise, and add the lacewings. Then an odd thing happened. The potion turned neon green and fizzy. Owen, in one of his rare acts of stupidity, stuck his finger in it and tasted. Ella followed suit.
"Bloody hell! You've made-"
"Mountain Dew!" Ella interrupted. She started laughing hysterically. Owen looked surprised.
"So I guess that would be the opposite of a calming draught," he said with a tone of mild incredulity. A rather loud, carrying, tone of mild incredulity it was, too.
"Mr. Whitby?" said a very menacing voice.
"Yes sir?" I said in my most innocent voice.
"I am sure you are aware that it is not acceptable to follow potions directions in reverse order."
"Sir, I simply was curious as to what would happen."
"Mr. Whitby, a week's worth of detentions."
"Yes sir."
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I will not follow Potions directions in reverse order just to see what happens.
I will not follow Potions directions in reverse order just to see what happens.
I will not follow Potions directions in reverse order just to see what happens.
My arm was getting numb. I smiled, though not because my arm was numb. I can just imagine going home to my mum and saying "Guess what I learned at Hogwarts this year! How to make Mountain Dew!" I am so lucky my mother has a good sense of humor.
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I'll give you a cookie if you review. I'll give you two cookies if you can tell me who Saint-Saens is, and I'll give you THREE cookies if you tell me what country he's from. FIVE cookies if you name one of his "works."