-Only My Subconscious Cares.-
-2-
-My Brain Can Play Bass Guitar... Badly.-
In all my life, have I never met a man as moronic as Professor Slughorn. He spent the first five minutes of his class expressing how he was a materialistic wanker, and then the next ten telling us that he was very overqualified for this job and the class should feel lucky to have him as a potions professor. He 'boomed joyfully' as one might say, and said something about Professor Snape being entirely too dreary to have as a teacher. My head never rose from the paper as I made a dossier on him. It looked like this by the end…
Name: Prof. Stuart 'Sluggy' Slughorn
DOB: 13th August 1934
Starsign: Leo
Education: 'Wittle Wizarding wizzes' (1936-1945)
Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry (1946-1953)
Potions Apprenticeship (Groulda Myoren, 1954-1960)
Potions Masters (Chee-Yo Mang, 1961-1965)
Lives: Forty-five minute walk from Hogsmeade, close to magical village of Scuttleburg. ("Big white house- can't miss it.")
Blood: Pure
Appeareance: Mid-70's, Wrinkled, 5'10", brown eyes, grey hair (Pulled back into a ponytail), early70's style robes, a lot of gold jewellery.
Enjoys: Reading, spending money, getting drunk and making 'contacts', making his house look like a murder scene
Dislikes: 'Childish disputes over parentage', Professor's Vector, Snape and Trelawney
Connection to Dumbledore: Professor Dumbledore was an apprentice while Slughorn was in Hogwarts.
Potions: -Is the love of his 'miserable life'
-Studied it since he could read
Entrance to Slug Club: -Parentage (If he liked your parents, you're in.)
-Grade Entry (If you achieve good grades, you're in.)
-Money Entry (If you are particularly loaded, you're in.)
-Connection Entry (If you've got good connections, you're in.)
-Politics Entry (If you've got influence in politics, you're in.)
In the end, he's not at all as great as he says he is, after the quarter-hour Sluggy intro, he sets us to work on finding antidotes to an unlabelled poison.
I didn't notice myself walking up to grab my poison until I was back at my seat and day-dreaming of the time when Professor Snape first bullied Harry. 'A Bezoar stone will cure most poisons…' And before I knew it, the stone was sitting in front of me. Simply amazing. Like the time where I figured out that a Basilisk was the creature petrifying everything. I'm simply amazing. Although why you'd want to cure someone that you've just poisoned, I have no idea. It's almost like shooting someone in the stomach four times and rushing them off to the emergency ward to have them fixed. Comical.
Lavender was angry with me for not sharing answers. Almost like when Ronald was beetroot purple in the face, lecturing me about 'real friendship', when the next day, he didn't tell me someone had taped 'resident know-it-all' to my back. If he thought we had real friendship, then why did he commit suicide without saying goodbye? Not that it really matters- I'd have had to try prevent the joyous event from ensuing. 'No, Ronald! Don't do it!' 'But Mione, he's gone!' 'And so is Moldyshorts!' 'But this is Harry, Mione!'- Sounds like the ignorant hothead. I brushed Lavender off with a not-well-thought-through insult involving the mockery of crystal balls and tea-leaf reading… I see! I see with my inner eye! I see pain, death and suffering!- It's called life, Trelawney, maybe we could dig out your inner eye with spoons- just so it hurts more.
Somewhere between Potions and Transfigurations, I noticed that the serpent ring was still on my finger. Looking at it intently, I suddenly remembered how I acquired it. It was in a detention (Shocking, isn't it?) with Professor Snape and he left the ring on the desk. I loved the look of it, like I would have a serpent wrapped around my little finger. I pilfered it, and have worn it ever since- even in Potions class. If the snarky bastard ever noticed, he never mentioned it. In fact, maybe he wanted me to have it. Perhaps it's cursed and it will make me slowly slip into my world of ignorant bliss.
If I were paying any attention at all, I'd realise that I'm working in Transfigurations. Professor McGonagall is having us turn cushions into animals, she mentioned that we should start small. Small compared to what? A dragon? A Basilisk? Lion cubs are small- and it'd be true to my Gryffindor colours. Almost like the time where Harry swallowed one of Fred and George's experiments and could only roar like a lion for five days straight. Of course they had a cure, they just thought it would be funnier to leave him roaring.
Soon enough, there's a litter of lion cubs at my feet and I have no idea how they got there. The idea of suddenly transfiguring six cushions into lion cubs is similar to finding out you're a father. 'Oh bollocks! You're kidding me right?' - No, sir. The DNA results were conclusive-.
The rest of the day passed in a blur. A fast, magical blur. Like those Muggle pictures, where they have still pictures that they move very, very, very fast until it looks like it's moving? It's akin to that. Having no idea how I completed my homework and what I ate for dinner, I stared blankly out the tower window, hoping that they spelled the windows to prevent suicide-attempts. Not for myself, of course, but for that self-absorbed Ginevra Weasley. 'I'm going to jump!' 'Don't do it!' 'Okay!'.
An explosion and a chorus of 'Yeeeeees!' filled my subconscious and alerted my conscious. I looked up, feigning interest, seeing Fredrick and George Weasley handing out some kind of unlabelled candy. In the thought of self-preservation, I escape the common room, taking to a nice wandering around the halls- not that I was paying my direction any attention in the slightest. I vaguely recall breaking into Professor Trelawney's tower and tipping all her Sherry onto her piles of overstuffed cushions (And set them alight). Filch must have been busy shagging that strange cat of his, because usually Mrs. Norris has an eye (Nose or sixth-sense) for every misdeed. But one as insipid as a squib can hardly expect to find a significant-other of the same species.
By the time I returned to my bed, it was well past midnight and there were at least four more fires destroying the inside of Trelawney's tower. Damn shame that.
Breakfast the next morning brought a pounding headache and a furious headmaster. I ignored him completely- realising that it was more than likely about my extra-curricular activities. I paid more attention to my headache, wondering where I could find some kind of drug to stop my brain from thinking it can play the bass guitar (Badly). Somehow I ended up with my school bag open and my packet of sacred Muggle codeine in my hand. Popping two of those, I was blind, deaf and dumb to the world. The table rose up to meet my face and I decided that a short nap wouldn't be out of the question.
Author's Note: Hey, dudes! I had a positive response, I guess (an alert and a favourite story) so I posted up chapter two. My chapters are fairly short for this story, but I like it that way. The information on Slughorn was entirely fictional, I only assumed he was a Leo because he's quite eccentric and 'boomy' as one would say (God I hate him.). Anyway, as I mentioned in the summary this is an SS-HG, and I'm about to get to the point (I swear.)
-Enjoy, Kiddies! Remember- Reviews make plot bunnies multiply :)