Disclaimer: Bathsheda Babbling belongs to JK Rowling.

Chapter 8: Babbling

The Potions Master

Bathsheda Babbling took a moment to look the book over curiously before she started reading: "Chapter Eight: The Potions Master." Everyone turned to look at Snape, but he appeared as stoic as ever.

"You know," Hermione said as they heard more of Harry's first impressions of Hogwarts, "It really does sound like that book is written for a muggle or muggle-born audience. A lot of the things it describes as amazing and fantastical are things that are mundane to people who were raised in this world."

"So…you think it might be an actual book on the market in the future?" Harry said.

"As opposed to some kind of weird magical construct? I think so," she replied. "Although I still don't get the dream thing. But I suppose we'll find out in a year or so."

"Filch found them trying to force their way through a door which unluckily turned out to be the entrance to the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor. He wouldn't believe they were lost, was sure they were trying to break into it on purpose and was threatening to lock them in the dungeons when they were rescued by Professor Quirrell, who was passing."

"Whoa," Harry said. "He was already sneaking around up there."

"Not surprising there," Hermione said. "Actually, I'm more surprised it took him so long to act."

Filch was not happy about his description in the book: "The students all hated him and it was the dearest ambition of many to give Mrs. Norris a swift kick."

"That's it! Detention, Potter!" he shouted.

"Mr. Filch, you can't give Potter detention," McGonagall said. She sounded annoyed. "It was four years ago, and he didn't even write the book!" That got some quiet laughs from the students.

Professors Sinistra, Sprout, Flitwick, and McGonagall were described in a mostly positive light, aside from Flitwick falling off his stack of books, which he took in good humour. The Harry in the book complained about Binns and Quirrell, but that was no surprise. The real kicker, though, was Snape.

"At the start-of-term banquet, Harry had got the idea that Professor Snape disliked him. By the end of the first Potions lesson, he knew he'd been wrong. Snape didn't dislike Harry—he hated him." That didn't give Bathseda any pause by itself. Probably half the school felt that way about Severus. Even when he singled Potter out in the roll call, it wasn't too worrying, but when he singled Potter out further for a pop quiz, there was definitely something shady about it.

"'Potter!' said Snape suddenly. 'What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?'" She paused, puzzled for a moment. "I'm a little rusty, but I think that's a sixth-year question," she said

"It is," Pomona confirmed. "If you're trying to make a point, Severus, I don't see it."

"I don't believe we need to investigate my teaching style," Severus replied.

"I think that's up to the High Inquisitor to decide," Bathsheda said sardonically. "And whether we need to or not, the book's doing it." Though admittedly, his next question in the book was a first-year topic, but it was still the first lesson, and his third was a third-year question. Amusingly, Miss Granger claimed to know the answers to all three.

"'Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?' Well, it's not like he's required to, Severus," she muttered just loud enough for the other teachers to hear it. But later, when he berated Longbottom for messing up the potion and injuring himself and then took a point from Potter for not warning the boy when it was clearly Severus's own job, that was when it was obvious there was a problem.

"Goodness," Pomona said, not loudly, though some of the students would surely still hear it. "Severus, that does sound an awful lot like you've got a grudge against the boy in particular.

Severus rolled his eyes: "I certainly single out students other than Potter, Pomona," he shot back. "I merely have no patience for arrogant fools."

"Mr. Potter is neither arrogant nor a fool, Severus," Minerva argued. "You'd see that for yourself if you weren't so prejudiced."

"Potter is arrogant in the extreme, Professor McGonagall," Umbridge countered. "He could use a bit more cutting down to size, and if Professor Snape is willing to do it, I see no problem here. Please continue, Professor Babbling."

"And you have nothing to say about Professor Snape's unprofessional behaviour?" Bathsheda asked. "Did that come up at all when you audited his classes?"

"His classes were quite satisfactory."

"And his unprofessional behaviour towards Mr. Pot—You know what, never mind. Minerva, do you have the power to fire him?"

Snape turned and looked at Minerva expectantly, but Minerva hesitated in considering her decision. "I understand you sentiments, Bathsheda," she replied, "but I don't think it would be productive right now. However, Severus, we will be having a discussion about your teaching practises later."

"If you insist, Minerva," Snape grumbled.

"Fine," Umbridge huffed. "Now, if we can get back to the reading…?"

Bathsheda sighed and kept going. Harry and Ron next visited Hagrid, which was nice and uneventful, the worst thing that happened being Hagrid's inedible rock cakes. She couldn't help but feel a little relieved that the man wasn't there to hear his cooking criticised. In any case, Hagrid was evasive when Harry asked why Snape hated him, but it wasn't hard to figure out. She didn't doubt that Potter himself knew by now the animosity that Snape had held for his father in their school days. Bathsheda had been a new teacher herself at the time, but she still remembered it well.

The other oddity was the article on the Gringotts break-in that Potter just happened to spot, which revealed that it had just happened to take place hours after he and Hagrid had been there, and Hagrid had emptied that very same vault. That might have been a coincidence by itself, but since this book seemed to be following narrative rules, she suspected it wasn't. Hagrid was uncharacteristically evasive about that as well.

"Something seems odd about that," Hermione said to her friends.

"What do you mean?" asked Ron.

"Why was the Philosopher's Stone hidden in Hogwarts, for one?" she said. "I mean, it was supposed to be safe at Gringotts, so how did they know it wasn't? I don't think the goblins would advertise that. And even then, hiding it here it definitely put the students here in danger."

"Yeah, it did, and that's not all," Neville spoke up.

"It's not?" she said.

"No, that vault wasn't even the highest security vault they've got at Gringotts," he told her. "Some of the oldest families' vaults have that goblin finger trick plus a dragon."

"That's right," Ron said. "So why wouldn't Flamel get the highest security? It's not like he didn't have money. He made gold!"

"Good point," Hermione agreed. "And for that matter, why couldn't Flamel keep it safe himself?"

"Huh?"

"Well, think about it. Flamel was over six hundred years old. I'd have to look it up, but I'm pretty sure he was older than Gringotts itself. He did just fine protecting the Philosopher's Stone until then…I need to write this down."

Harry and Ron chuckled as Hermione wrote down yet another set of questions. Most of these weren't as urgent as yesterday's but they were still of some concern regarding what everyone had been doing that year:

1. Why could Flamel not keep the Philosopher's Stone safe when he presumably had before for large parts of six hundred years?

2. Why did Voldemort try to steal it in 1991 and not 1981?

3. How did Flamel and/or Dumbledore know it wasn't safe at Gringotts?

4. Why wasn't it under the highest security at Gringotts?

5. Was there really no safer place to hide it than in a school full of children?

And then, as an afterthought, she added one more, which shocked her friends when they worked through the implications:

6. Is Nicolas Flamel really dead?