If I owned Harry Potter, this story wouldn't be set in Verdana (and the Pottermore e-books wouldn't be in Times New Roman, either).

Chapter Six

The Potions Master

Hogwarts Castle was a very strange place indeed. When Percy the prefect had led the first-year Gryffindors to bed, Harry had fought back his sleepiness and paid close attention to the route. He'd honed this skill in the labyrinthine back halls of shopping malls, grocers, office buildings, a hospital or two, even a police station once. It had been two years since he'd gotten lost anywhere.

Harry got lost three times on the way down to breakfast.

Hogwarts, Harry soon realized, didn't really have a layout, not in the way Muggles would understand it. Everything moved around on its own, seemingly according to the castle's whims. After the second time he got lost, Harry had thought about drawing a map, but by the end of the next day, he'd realized he couldn't—any map would have to be as magical as the castle itself.

Still, if you let go of the idea that the castle should have a strict floor plan, you could learn how to get around. You just had to keep the day of the week, lunar phase, and current House point leader in mind.

Harry enjoyed most of his classes, particularly Charms and Transfiguration, though he was surprised to find that both were harder than he'd expected. Harry had to want the spell to work, of course, but his holly-and-phoenix-feather wand was pickier than that: it also demanded careful attention to wand movements and pronunciation. He could fudge these things a little bit by wanting it harder, but that only got him so far.

Fortunately, Hermione stuck to his side like glue, and she had an eye for detail. After she got the spell working for herself (and she was always the first to get it working), she would turn to Harry and point out the little wobble he was introducing in the flick, or the way he was slurring the third syllable, or how his concentration seemed to waver when the matchstick started to shift. He wasn't always the second to get the spell, but he always got it, and that's what counted.

Defense should have been another class like those two, Harry sensed, but the teacher made all the difference—Quirrell belonged in a therapist's office, not a classroom. The ghost teaching History of Magic was even worse—his class was used as a study hall at best and a dormitory at worst. Astronomy was held at midnight on the tallest tower; Hermione had been so busy remembering her telescope and textbooks that she forgot her cloak, and Harry had to lend her his. Herbology was basically high-stakes gardening; Hermione wasn't especially good at it, but Harry was, and during their fist class he'd discovered that Neville Longbottom was even better.

And then there was Potions.

Harry hadn't forgotten the pain that had shot through his scar when the hook-nosed teacher looked into his eyes; he just didn't want to call attention to the man immediately after Hermione had noticed Harry's scar hurting. The next morning, though, he sat near the Weasley twins and pointed out the man as he filled his plate at the teachers' table.

"That's Professor Snape," George (Harry was guessing) told Harry, and he instantly knew he'd be trouble.

The pseudonymous Wizard of Oz had dedicated an entire chapter of his book to Albus Dumbledore; the author seemed to think he was well-intended but growing senile, and his hiring of Severus Snape was, if not Exhibit A, at least Exhibit C. The man hadn't even had the decency to pretend he'd been bewitched when he'd carried out atrocities for Voldemort; Dumbledore had simply explained that his terrible crimes were committed to maintain his cover, and he had enough political power to ensure the Wizengamot would accept that excuse. Complaints against Professor Snape had been piling up ever since, but Dumbledore ignored them, simply insisting, "I trust Severus Snape."

As the author had pointed out, that didn't mean anyone else had a reason to trust him.

The book had been published a few years before, and Harry had hoped Snape's reputation had caught up with him in the meantime, but apparently not—here he was, comfortably roosting at the teachers' table, spearing black pudding on his fork.

"He's a foul git," probably-Fred said.

"If you aren't in his house—"

"—Slytherin, that is—" Fred interjected.

"—it's just a question of whether he dislikes you or loathes you."

"We're in the second category, of course," Fred said brightly.

"Don't worry if he takes points off you," George said. "It usually means you're doing something right."

"Unless you were trying not to get caught, of course," Fred said.

"Too true, brother," George said.

When his first class with Snape rolled around, it went about as well as Harry had feared. Snape targeted him from the get-go, singling him out during roll call and then giving him a verbal pop quiz immediately.

"Potter! What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

What? Next to him, Hermione's hand had shot up, but Snape ignored her.

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

"Tut, tut—fame clearly isn't everything. Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find a bezoar?"

This one Harry remembered from the textbook's introductory chapter on brewing safety. "They come from the stomach of a goat, sir, and neutralize most poisons."

"And when Granger here starts foaming at the mouth because you exposed her to something toxic, are you going to look for a goat?" Snape sneered. "Each of you should have a bezoar in the top left compartment of your brewing kit. Every time you sit down to brew, you should check that it's there, before you begin."

Harry fumed internally. He felt sure that had been a trick question, and if he'd answered with his potions kit, Snape would have called it cheek.

"Perhaps, Potter, you can give us a more useful explanation of the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

Harry racked his brain trying to remember. Did Snape expect him to have memorized One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi? Finally, he said, "I don't know, sir."

"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, Potter? For your information, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death, and monkshood and wolfsbane are the same plant. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?

As everyone searched through their bags for quill and parchment, Snape said, "Two non-answers and one useless one. A point will be taken from Gryffindor for your ill-preparedness, Potter."

They soon began brewing, but that didn't seem to soften Snape's mood. He swept through the dungeon, praising the Slytherins and brutally critiquing the Gryffindors. Snape was just crowing about Malfoy's preparation process when Neville yelled in pain—Seamus's cauldron had somehow melted into a misshapen blob, and a caustic red liquid had gushed out of it, drenching Neville and spreading across the floor. Everyone jumped up onto their stools, trying to avoid becoming the next victim of the potion.

Snape stalked toward the boil-covered Neville, his face twisting into a snarl. Neville saw him and seemed to fold in on himself. Harry saw what Snape was about to do—

You can get help from people who need help.

—and he "tripped" over his own feet, landing on his side in the acidic potion.

Harry couldn't help it—he cried out in pain. The potion felt like fire on his skin, and when he lifted himself off the floor by his elbow, the sensation of needles being driven into his flesh was added to the mix.

Snape whirled around. "Clumsy fool!" he snapped at Harry. "Do you lean against the walls when you walk to class, too?"

The Slytherins laughed, and Harry gritted his teeth against the pain.

"Granger, take Potter up to the Hospital Wing. Finnigan, you take Longbottom too."

Hermione held her tongue until the four of them were climbing the stairs to the next floor. "I know that was deliberate, Harry. Why did you do it?"

Seamus and Neville stopped at the question. The truth, Harry realized, would be embarrassing to Neville, but he could shade it slightly…

"Snape already hates me," Harry said. "I reckoned he might as well yell at me instead of Neville."

Neville looked surprised. "Thanks, Harry."

"Anytime, Neville."

They continued on together, but only one of them knew that Snape had made an enemy that day.

—

The school nurse clucked her tongue when she saw Harry and Neville's burns.

"What happened?"

"First Potions class," Hermione said. "Neville's cauldron sort of melted and spilled a caustic mixture on the floor…"

"The Cure for Boils?" she said, directing Harry and Neville to side-by-side hospital beds.

"Yes," Hermione said.

"You probably added the porcupine quills while the cauldron was still on the fire," the nurse told Neville. "That releases the magic in the quills too quickly; it melts through the cauldron, and since you haven't added the horned slugs to neutralize the acidity, the brew hurts much more than it helps. It's an easy mistake to make. Fortunately, it's easy to fix, too—just take a properly brewed dose and you'll be fine."

She walked to a store cupboard and pulled out two bottles.

"Why Professor Snape starts with that potion I'll never understand—there are potions just as easy to brew that don't do half the damage. Here," she said, handing a bottle each to Harry and Neville, "drink it down. Bottoms up."

Harry drank his dose, and immediately wished he hadn't. The potion tasted like incredibly thick snot, yet he felt like it was stinging his throat on the way down. He gagged and reached for a glass of water the nurse offered him. After a moment, though, the pain in his side faded, and he watched as the boils on his arm first seemed to deflate, then tighten to the normal shape of his arm, and finally fade from an angry red to match the rest of his skin.

"That should do it for both of you," she said once a particularly stubborn bump on Neville's cheek had finally disappeared.

"Thank you, Madam—" Neville started.

"Pomfrey," she said.

"Thanks, Madam Pomfrey," Harry added.

Hermione checked her watch. "I suppose we should go back to class…"

"Oh, no you don't," Madam Pomfrey said. "I'm holding these two for observation for a little while longer, and I haven't given any of you four a physical yet…"

—

Hermione's planning obsession, Harry had discovered during the last week, was worse than he'd feared. That would have to change.

Harry had needed to cajole her mightily, but Hermione had finally agreed to put off their Transfiguration essay until Saturday morning. He'd used the twin weapons of obligation (he'd promised to take tea with Hagrid, and invited Hermione along) and reward (he had a trunk full of books he hadn't even glanced at from his postal vault, and promised to let her borrow anything that caught her fancy if she helped him sort them out). Her resolve crumbled at the thought of getting her hands on books full of interesting and advanced magic. And so the two of them climbed the stairs to the boys' dormitories, Hermione for the first time.

"It's a little messy," she said as she looked around Harry's dormitory.

"Ron Weasley doesn't really watch where he puts things," Harry replied, fishing through his pockets for his keyring, "and Seamus doesn't seem to be familiar with the concept of a 'hamper'."

Hermione giggled, then picked up the photo propped against Harry's bedside lamp. "Are these—"

"My parents," Harry said as he turned the key. "Be careful—it's the only one I have." The trunk popped open, and Hermione set the picture down carefully before joining him.

The titles ranged from the mundane (Charm Your Own Cheese) to the interesting (Travels with Trolls) to the pompous (Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy) to the intriguing (Secrets and Lies). They were nearly done when Harry checked the time and realized it was getting towards three o'clock.

Harry locked up the trunk and the two of them headed down to Hagrid's house. The visit was pleasant, but only three things stood out. The first was the expression on Hermione's face when Harry introduced her as his friend. The second was the way Hagrid evaded Harry's questions about why Snape hated him. The third was a newspaper cutting Harry found, detailing a break-in to an empty Gringotts vault on the very day Hagrid had emptied Vault 713.

Harry didn't tell Hermione about this until they were on their way back to the castle.

"I don't know," she said, biting her lip. "It does seem like an unlikely coincidence, but it could just be a coincidence. Besides, where would they have moved it? Gringotts is supposed to be the safest place in Britain, isn't it?"

"Hagrid said…" Harry's brow furrowed as he tried to remember. "He said that the only place safer than Gringotts was Hogwarts. And he said that he was emptying it on Hogwarts business. What if it's...what if it's inside the castle?"

Hermione scoffed. "Honestly, Harry. If the item in that vault was so valuable that dark wizards powerful enough to break into Gringotts were after it, why would the teachers hide it in a school? They'd be putting the students in terrible danger!"

Harry sighed. "You're right—it doesn't sound like a very good plan."

But he couldn't help but think that, if Dumbledore was as mad as some people said, maybe it didn't have to be a good plan.

—

Hermione was so nervous after dinner that she dropped Notable Magical Names of Our Time three times while they sat together in the common room. Harry finally took pity on her and suggested they start on their Transfiguration essay a little early.

Still, he thought, it was a start.

Harry finished his essay that night, but Hermione wanted to look up a few references to expand hers, so they split up the next morning. Hermione headed to the library, while Harry headed towards Gryffindor Tower to test a theory.

Though Hogwarts's layout changed constantly, there were a few common patterns. One was that each classroom was off a short corridor with two other doors. He'd seen students waiting outside one of the doors, which he guessed led to the teacher's office; the other he assumed was a storeroom.

Once, though, when he and Hermione got lost on their way back from Charms class, Harry had noticed one of these corridors that looked disused—though the floor was still being swept, the silver doorknobs had tarnished, and there were a few cobwebs in the corners. He'd never seen a student in that corridor, either, and he'd made a point to pass it a couple other times since.

Now he stepped into the disused corridor, grasped the tarnished handle he assumed led to the classroom, and stepped through the door.

The desks and chairs in this classroom had been pushed to the side walls and piled up; a life-sized model of a human skeleton stood in a corner, and yellowed, curling posters attached to the walls showed the layouts of organs and arteries and veins. The chalk board at the front of the room was blank. Everything was covered in a thin, undisturbed layer of dust. Perhaps once Healers and nurses like Madam Pomfrey had been trained in this room, but the class had been moved or discontinued.

Just in case, he knocked on the door to the office before entering, but there was nobody there—only a desk, a few chairs, an empty filing cabinet, and a bookcase with a few volumes that were incomprehensible to a boy with only a week of magical education (and, in one case, because he couldn't read Latin). He'd been correct that the other room was a storeroom; it mainly seemed to contain anatomical dummies of various sorts covered in sheets, but more usefully, it included a mop and bucket. Harry left the mop in the classroom, then carried the bucket to a nearby loo and filled it with soap and water. Then he carried the bucket back to the classroom and got to work.

An hour later, the classroom was, if not up to Aunt Petunia's standards, at least not likely to make him sneeze every time he set foot inside it. Harry then reached into his rucksack. He pulled out his dartboard and a package of Velcro strips he'd brought to Hogwarts for just this purpose, and stuck the dartboard to the wall.

Finally, he walked to the middle of the room and started practicing. He'd never thrown the collapsible knife from the Diagon Alley curio store, after all—best learn its balance before he needed to use it.

—

"Finish your essay?" Harry asked as he grabbed a corned beef sandwich and some chips at lunch.

"Yes," Hermione said. "I'm glad I took the time to chase down those references—Switch's explanation of the clockwise rotation turned out to gloss over some important details. What did you do?"

Harry shrugged. "Explored the castle, mostly."

"Did you find anything good?"

"I think so," Harry said. "We'll have to see."