Chapter Three
On Friday morning, when the hundreds of owls started to swoop inside, a half-black barn owl dunked and dropped a small package with an envelope attached to the top. The owl landed in front of him and stole a piece of bacon off of his plate.
"What you think your parents sent you?" Draco asked, already having unwrapped his own daily care package. His mother sent him candies, baked pastries, magazines, and seemingly random little objects she thought he'd enjoy. Harry didn't know where the boy put everything.
"I don't know." Harry admitted, unwrapping it carefully.
Draco let Crabbe and Goyle pick food out of his package. "Want anything?" He offered.
"No thank you." Harry said.
Inside of his package, he found an assortment of lollipops, a package of Every Flavor Beans, a few Chocolate Frogs, and, buried underneath a Herbology magazine, a wide wooden box.
"What's that?" Draco asked, peering inside. He quickly became distracted. "Harry, really? Herbology? Can I have the Chocolate Frogs?"
Harry nodded. Draco grinned and swiped all three, tossing one each to Crabbe and Goyle. Both of the gluttonous boys caught them eagerly, adding them to their pile of sweets. Harry felt dim amusement.
He looked back inside of the package and ran his fingers across the wooden box. He knew very well his mum hadn't sent it, but why would his dad?
'There's plenty of familiars around the castle.' His mind whispered. 'And now you have tools. Why can't you play?' He thought of the owlery.
"Hey, you okay?" Draco questioned.
Harry blinked. He turned to stare at him. "What?"
"Your face got all weird. Like," Draco gestured at him. "I don't know. Just, weird. Are you okay?"
"Yeah." Harry said. "I'm good. Thank you." He gave a quick smile.
Draco shrugged. "Okay. Come on, we have time to drop the packages in the dormitory before class." He said.
Harry nodded and stood.
Double Potions with the Gryffindors came first for the day. Draco rambled on about how stupid Professor Quirrell was, how much better it'd be if Professor Snape was the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor. Harry half-listened, mind occupied with his box and eyes catching every familiar hanging around their owner.
Suddenly, Harry became curious. "Do you know Professor Snape?" He asked.
"Father knows him. He visits the manor sometimes." Draco said. "Father hired him to tutor me last summer. He's really strict, but he's brilliant. Unlike Professor Quirrell, the stuttering buffoon." Harry thought anyone would be better than Quirrell.
Potions was held inside of one of the dungeons, not very far away from the entrance to the Slytherin dormitories. The walls were lined with complete animals inside of glass jars, which amazed Harry. He wondered if the professor was like him. He wasn't able to keep himself from tapping one of the jars.
"Please keep your hands to yourself."
Harry looked at Professor Snape, who had suddenly appeared next to him with a heavy glare. Despite being the Head of the House of Slytherin, Harry hadn't seen him very much except at mealtimes. Draco said he was brilliant, and Harry thought he could agree. "Why do you preserve the entire animal?" He asked.
"To preserve certain anything useful internally I haven't bothered to remove." Snape answered, snappish.
"Wouldn't that damage the usefulness then? Why not remove them, then preserve them?" Harry asked.
"The liquid inside of the jars keeps the animals in a state before death. It would, however, damage anything internal." Snape grunted, black eyes examining him carefully. "Why are you so curious?"
"I preserve organs a lot." Harry admitted. "I didn't know there was a way to preserve an entire animal. These are very pretty, though I prefer just the organs myself, but then they aren't very useful except for being nice to look at."
Professor Snape's widened slightly before narrowing. "Boy, these aren't meant to be pretty."
"Oh. It's just for your potions then?" Harry asked. It wasn't like him, then. It was just for the job, not the hobby.
"Yes." The man said.
"Oh." Harry repeated. He shrugged. "Okay, then. I'm going to go sit down, sir." He then walked over to Draco, who was staring at him with wide eyes.
Draco shoved his shoulder. Harry felt offended. "What was that for?" He rubbed the spot, frowning.
"Whenever I asked him a question, he'd insult me." Draco said. "I don't think he did once."
Harry shrugged.
Professor Snape took roll at the beginning of class. Draco whispered to him which names weren't pureblood, and occasionally if his father knew someone in their family. He didn't understand why, but Draco thought these things were very important. Harry assumed they were, because the rules and gossip Draco's mouth flowed with often came out of other Slytherins. It contradicted, though, because his family never spoke much about any of it and cared for nothing if you halfblood, pureblood, or a muggleborn.
When he finished, his began a long speech that seemed rehearsed.
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making, as there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death - if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach." Professor Snape finished his speech with a sweeping look across the room.
For a moment, their eyes met. The professor's eyes narrowed, calculating, suspicious. Cautious.
"Potter," Snape called. "What is the different between wolfsbane and monkshood?"
"They're the same plant." Harry answered immediately. He knew a little about it, because his mum used it to brew Remus' Wolfsbane Potion.
"Good, a point to Slytherin." Snape declared.
Draco nudged Harry, giving a wide, approving grin.
"Now, Potter, let's see if that was a fluke. What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" Snape asked.
Harry tilted his head. He said. By pure luck, he knew the answer. "A sleeping draught."He said. The Draught of Living Death was used for hand surgeries to put the patient to sleep. With it, they were given two to three doses of Numbing Potion leading up to the surgery.
"The Draught of Living Death, to be exact. Another point to Slytherin." Snape rewarded. "Mr. Malfoy, since you seem to pleased, care to tell me where I could find a bezoar?"
Draco perked, sticking his nose in the air. "The stomach of a goat, sir." He said.
"Name one of its purposes." Snape ordered.
"It can cure most poisons." Draco said.
"Point to Slytherin." He said. Looking pleased, Snape turned his eyes towards the Gryffindors. Harry noticed Ron Weasley and two other Gryffindors looked very annoyed, and one, which he remembered as 'mudblood' thanks to Draco's previous commentary, looked disappointed. She must've wanted to answer a question herself.
Professor Snape set them out into pairs to begin brewing a potion to cure boils. Another shine of good luck came to Harry, he was paired with Draco.
"Crush the fangs for me." Draco said, handing Harry his mortar and pestle. He imagined crushing a finger inside of the mortar, wondered if it would look like wet snow with chunks of flesh as the ice and the blood as water. Or, if it'd come out as a paste. He had never crushed anything before and, suddenly, he wanted to. Luckily for him, he got to crush teeth. Wasn't quite the same as meat though.
For the entire process of brewing the potion, Harry simply obeyed what Draco told him to do. He crushed the fangs into fine powder, lit the fire underneath the cauldron, and simply watched while Draco stirred.
"Good." Snape complimented just as Harry removed the cauldron from the fire. "Malfoy, unlike most others in this class, you took the cauldron off just in time before you ruined the effects of the horned slugs."
"Harry helped a lot, too." Draco supplied.
Snape turned his eyes towards him, as though he didn't quite believe it.
A loud hissing filled the dungeon. Harry turned to look at two Gryffindors as their cauldron melted and their potion spewed green smoke. Harry quickly jumped on top of his stool, as did everyone else in the class. The potion burned into the shoes of those who weren't quick enough to avoid the quickly-spreading, acidic creation.
One of the Gryffindors had gotten completely drenched in the potion, quickly sprouting angry red boils. Snape swooped in and angrily cleaned the ruined potion. "You added the porcupine quills before removing the cauldron off the fire, didn't you?" He questioned.
The Gryffindor whined and nodded.
Snape sneered. "Take him to the Hospital Wing!" He ordered another Gryffindor, who quickly rushed to Neville's aid.
The next hour was very uneventful. Draco finished their potion, likely earning them both a brilliant grade, and Harry turned a sample vial labeled with their names to Professor Snape. The class was given instructions to read up on the potion they'd be brewing next week; Sleeping Draught. Far simpler than the Draught of Living Death.
"I think this'll be my favorite class." Draco declared as they left.
"I like Herbology." Harry said.
"Defense would be better if it wasn't taught by Quirrell. Luckily, he probably won't be here next year." Draco said. "Herbology's okay."
"Why don't you think Professor Quirrell will be here next year?" Harry asked.
"No Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor has lasted more than a year since, like, the 1950's." Draco said. "No one really knows why, but it's a curse, probably placed by some professor who got fired."
Harry thought that was curious. "Do they die?" He asked.
"Sometimes," Draco said. "Sometimes, they go missing, or they quit, or something happens to them or someone they know. Shocking, that people are still taking the job." Harry had to agree.
So, the third chapter! I feel like the story is pretty damn boring tbh. But I've put in a little bit of conflict in the next chapter and something major is gonna occur in the fifth chapter. I've got the greater chunk of Harry's first year figured out, now I'm figuring out what I'm gonna have him go through in his second year. I've decided something will happen during the summer Voldemort-related, too. I'm thinking of putting in a dueling competition during his second year, sponsored by the Ministry of Magic (of course), not quite sure yet... Agh, a lot of this story is totally undecided, but there's certain things that I WANT to happen and what I believe NEEDS to happen and just so much and it's like, agh
This chapter was only 1.6k words. Not too bad, I suppose, but I did want it to be longer. Ah, what can ya do?
fun fact of the day? FUN FUCKING FACTS OF THE DAY (because this is a story where Harry's got some mental problems, let's hear about people who had mental problems, officially diagnosed or suspected)
*Ted Bundy's first dog was a collie named Lassie.
*Jeffrey Dahmer loved animals, he had an aquarium and one of the few photos of him smiling is when he was petting his grandmother's cat.
*Long before becoming a serial killer, Richard Ramirez would go hunting and feed the raw meat to his dog
*One of the Columbine shooters, Eric Harris, had a dog that had trouble with seizures. The other Columbine shooter, Dylan Klebold, would take his shift at the pizza place they both worked at so he could be with his dog.