Chapter 12
DISCLAIMER - None of these delightful characters are mine, all belong to JK Rowling.
***** AUTHOR'S NOTE - The words in black are direct quotes *****
"There will be no foolish wand waving in this class…"with robes of ebony roiling in in his wake, Professor Snape swept into his dungeon classroom, drawing all eyes to him and silencing the banter that was being exchanged as the students took their places behind the rows of benches.
Luna, sitting in the second row watched as he reached the front of the room, felt the nervous energy that held the class in a subdued rapture. The Professor stood stock still and cast his eyes around the room, a faintly disdainful look in his face as though he already found them wanting. Gertrude Gormely, another First Year Ravenclaw, seated beside Luna gulped audibly.
He addressed them, his voice quiet, almost caressing the words as he spoke them, delivering a sophisticated speech that introduced Potions as a subtle and highly skilled art form. He did not need to call the class to order, his very presence held them in his thrall. Luna, like her classmates and the First Year Hufflepuffs who were paired with them for Potions listened as he spoke of brewing glory and putting a stopper in death.
When a boy called Ben Thatcher, who was in Hufflepuff dropped his quill and bent to retrieve it, Snape stopped speaking. He watched with narrowed eyes as the boy bent from his stool to pick up the fallen quill, unaware of the scrutiny. Then, as he straightened, the hush that had fallen began to weigh on him and he looked up at the Professor. Still, Snape maintained his silence and his watchful study of the boy. Uncomfortable beneath it, Ben reddened, shuffled, stared intently ahead, determined to prove his attentiveness.
"Powdered root of asphodel. Perhaps you could enlighten us as to it uses, Mr. Thatcher?" Snape asked languidly.
The boy's colour deepened further.
"Uh, No, Sir, I can't. I don't know what they are," he admitted awkwardly.
Snape took a step towards him. Ben seemed to shrink.
"Let's try another. The juice of the stembellum plant is used to heal what exactly?" the question was rapid fire.
Ben swallowed. Looked around him, as though half hoping to find the answer on the unforgiving stone walls, the fear in his eyes glinting.
"I… I don't know Sir," Ben said in a trembling whisper.
"Well, I am sure you will know this. What is a bezoar, Mr. Thatcher?" Snape's eyes bored into the boy who by now was close to tears,
"I.. I don't know, Sir," this time, it was a barely audible squeak.
Snape turned on his heel, strode back to his place at the top of the room, the perfect execution of boredom.
"I can see how you came to think what I have to say is beneath your attention. I look forward to you dazzling us with your intellect again in the future, Mr. Thatcher," the Professor snapped as the boy visibly breathed now that he was released from the skewering focus of the older wizard.
"Powdered root of asphodel,, when combined with wormwood makes a powerful infusion, known as The Draught of the Living Death. Stembellum juice, also known as Lavender Syrup is a common cure for web toe and the bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat. It will save you from most poisons. Have you been stunned, young man, or is there another reason you are not writing this down?" Snape rapped out and the class were galvanised into a flurry of note taking.
On her own stool, Luna clutched the elegant, silver quill. She hadn't taken her eyes off Snape through the entire exchange. Now, she dropped her gaze to the top of the scarred bench in front of her. She didn't look his way again, spending the rest of the lesson deftly and diligently following his instructions as he outlined how to brew a simple antidote to toothache.
She felt rather than saw him approach her bench and when he bent to inspect the contents of her cauldron, all she saw were the tapering fingers of his right hand as he lifted a spoonful of the potion to look at it.
"Very good, Miss Lovegood," he was less than mildly interested and had moved to the next cauldron.
Glad that it had not been she who had drawn his ire in the class, Luna packed up with the others as the lesson ended. She felt the spreading relief of the students at the prospect of imminent escape from the dungeons and Ben Thatcher was the first to leave. Snape had humiliated him to make a point and Luna felt bad about that. It hadn't been fair, it certainly wasn't an equal altercation.
The Professor was at his own desk, his head bent as he straightened a sheaf of parchment before him. Luna exited without another look and went to her next class, The History of Magic, a far less contentious experience, if leaning to the side of dull. That was her last class of the day and as the Ravenclaws made their way to their common room, Luna at first made her way with them but half way along the corridor, changed her mind and instead of going on to the tower room, she retraced her steps downwards, following aged stone steps to the lower quarters of the castle.
This time, the dungeons were quiet, no other students milled about this section of the castle. As Luna let herself into the classroom, Snape was emerging from his store at the rear of the room. He looked up as the door opened, unsurprised to see his young charge standing uncertainly on the threshold. The incident with the Thatcher boy earlier had her almost primping with censure.
"Did you forget something, Luna?" he asked mildly.
"I thought you might like some help," she replied, taking a half step forward.
Snape hid his expression, lowering his head so the fall of his hair shielded the shadow smile. Help boiling himself in oil, he imagined was the unspoken offer though as always, Luna's demeanour was polite and serene.
"Of course," he indicated the bench before him with a sweep of his hand and the invitation drew her into the room but she didn't speak further.
She spent the next forty minutes in a silence that was not uncomfortable but was laden with unsaid things just the same. Snape let it endure, watching as the girl busily filed away vials of ingredients, with scrupulous attention to his briefly spoken guidelines.
Finally, mindful of the approach of supper time and that the Great Hall would soon be filling up, he looked down at her as she lifted her wand, experimentally casting a spell to close the crystal jars of various dry powders on the shelf behind his table.
"So how much work are we going to have to do here before you get to the point and tell me what's bothering you?" he asked.
At last, her eyes flickered to him, surprise skimming across her face. Then, her resolve fastened, she reached a decision, he read it on her face. She was ready to talk to him.
"Nearly everyone here is afraid of you," she said.
He didn't say anything in response to this observation and Luna saw no trace of affront in his expression. But his eyes were speculative. He took a slow breath.
"And it's like you want them to be. I don't understand that," she frowned.
"Nor must you. Being well liked is not an ambition of mine, Luna. That's all you need to know about it."
"I know that you are not unfair. But I saw what happened in the lesson and that didn't match what I thought I knew and that bothers me," she said.
"I can give you a little advice. Always look twice at what you think you know. Trust what you do know. What others think should not sway you from that," his eyes were steady on hers.
"People are always writing off my dad as a kook but I know he takes his work seriously. That's been good enough for me. And I know I trust you. That's good enough too," Luna looked up at him, into the familiar face, so serious but kind.
She thought at first that she had angered him, the muscles on his face tightened, his lips thinned. However, when he spoke, his voice was gentle.
"Let's consider it this way. On the one hand, I am your guardian, on the other, I am a teacher in this school. They are two very different roles, Luna. We may get along better if we can keep them separate."
"Yes," Luna nodded, an understanding dawning.
"It is not being disloyal to find that you don't like what you see of me in either role, child," Severus nodded at her and Luna felt like he'd pulled a thorn from her flesh.
Snape was not going tell her that the exchange with the Thatcher boy was a decades old strategy of his. Make an example of one at the outset, establish control, authority. Instead, he rose a questioning eyebrow.
"You ready for supper, now?"
Luna nodded thankfully. She was starving, she realised and her tummy gave a growl as if to underline the fact.
"And Luna?"
His voice stopped her as her hand fell on the handle of the dungeon door.
"In any of the roles I fulfil, I am here if you need me."
Wondering why she had ever thought badly of him, Luna looked back and gave him a smile that was completely open and full of sun.
She was to learn that others in the school certainly had no trouble thinking the worst of the Potions Master. That week alone, she encountered a group of Gryffindors who were clustered outside the Great Hall, comforting a shell shocked looking second year who was speaking in trembling tones about a detention that same evening with Snape.
Then there was Neville Longbottom, the boy she had encountered on their first evening at Hogwarts. Neville was is Gryffindor and they and Ravenclaws were paired for Herbology. Luna caught up with the boy as he walked across the lawn, his face whiter than the fluffy clouds that skudded across the early autumn sky.
"What's up, Neville?" Luna asked.
She was slightly out of breath as she was carrying an earthenware pot from which sprouted a stout little plant, with rather sharp, pointy leaves, which kept jabbing Luna underneath her chin as she walked. He barely looked at her, his eyes were glued the ground.
"He might actually do me in, y'know. Pr..Pr..Professor Snape," Neville said tremulously.
"He said that my peaceful sleep draught was the worst he's ever seen. He said if I didn't poison myself before the year was out, he'd be amazed." Neville actually whitened further as he recounted the Potions class he had just exited.
Luna said nothing. Again, there was the needling sensation of disquiet at her guardian's acerbic classroom demeanour. Neville was hardly a match for the formidable Professor.
Neville looked up, really looked at her this time and dismay flickered on his face.
"You're his ward, aren't you? You won't tell him what I said will you?" the boy was sounding almost panicked.
Luna shook her head.
"Well of course not. Mine went all lumpy, who am I to talk? Or to remind him of who isn't a star pupil at potions?"
Relieved, Neville noticed the plant. His gloomy appearance lifted as he looked at it.
"That's a Green Star, isn't it? Wherever did you get one of those? They are actually rather rare," he eyes the plant appreciatively.
Glad that the conversation had moved away from the Professor, Luna explained how she had grown the plant from a seed she'd had from her garden at home.
"I left it here over the summer and when I got back, it had fairly grown!" she puffed.
Chivalrously, Neville reached over and took the plant, giving himself a nasty prod on the hand as he did so.
"Thanks. I'm taking it to Herbology as I think it needs to be re-potted but I've no idea how to do it without getting shredded!" she said.
On the Friday afternoon before the appointed supper with her guardian, Luna was in the courtyard in front of the school, enjoying the way the evenings were turning slightly crisper as autumn deepened. She had her Googlehoffs on, her hopes were high that the shadowy corners of the pillared space would be teeming with star crest colonies.
Instead, her interest was drawn by a cluster of Gryffindors, whom she recognised straight away, though she had only spoken to one of them, the brown haired girl, whom she had briefly met in a bathroom between lessons. Hermione Granger was one of a knot of three students, the other two were Ron Weasley and Harry Potter.
Suddenly, the one with the untidy dark hair turned and Luna was looking into the curious emerald eyes of 'The Boy Who Lived'. She smiled shyly and drew a little closer to the trio.
Ron Weasley's mouth fell open slightly as he glanced at her. He had clearly heard of the editor of The Quibbler and was caught off guard at meeting his daughter, Luna understood at once. It was not the first time that she had encountered this reaction on meeting someone for the first time.
"Hi Luna. Harry, Ron, this is Luna Lovegood. Luna, this is Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter," Hermione said in a polite exchange of introductions.
Harry was the first to marshal his bewildered expression. It took an elbow in the ribs from Hermione for Ron to close his mouth.
"Um, what… Er are those sunglasses?" he was squinting at her, tilting his head slightly.
"Oh no, they are my Googlehoffs. You know, star crests," Luna replied, glancing up into the murky recesses of the arch far overhead.
Ron and Harry followed her gaze and then exchanged a look of utter confusion.
Hermione cleared her throat and the boys' abandoned the star crests, though Ron looked like he had been ready to ask another question.
"He's a git, that Malfoy, that's what," he said bitterly instead, resuming the conversation they had been having.
"Best ignore him, Harry. You don't want to get in trouble," Hermione said with a certain degree of primness.
Luna could tell right away that this advice was already being disgarded by Ron and Harry, who exchanged another look Hermione had not caught. One which clearly showed their agreement that she was a girl and had no idea of what she was talking about.
"Uh, yea, yea, sure Hermione. Right enough," Ron said suddenly, drawing a puzzled look from Harry.
"The last thing we want to do is get ourselves into any trouble or anything," Ron continued, talking very quickly now.
The three of them seemed to grow awkward suddenly and more to put them at their ease than anything Luna nodded at the little jar that hung suspended between them. Within burned an iridescent blue flame, floating in the empty jar and radiating a nice, warm glow.
"That's lovely. Did you conjure it?" she looked up at Harry who shook his head and pushed his rounded glasses further onto his nose with a nudge of his finger.
"I did actually. I read about it in our Charms textbook," Hermione said.
"Oh, how clever. Professor Flitwick showed us but it is awfully difficult," Luna said appreciatively.
Hermione looked rather pleased at this but Ron's expression was turning to dismay as a shadow lengthened from behind them.
He had turned around just in time to see the approach of Professor Snape who was standing almost over them, his hands clasped behind his back, the look on his face cool but slightly suspicious.
"And what are four First Years doing in the shade on a day like this?" a brow arched as he looked down at them, his eyes gliding from one to the other. They lingered a millisecond longer on Luna but his expression did not change.
Luna had moved a fraction so the jar was hidden from his view behind her back. She looked up into his face, looking admittedly rather disconcerting through the lens of the Googlehoffs.
"We were talking about Charms, Sir. I was just going to ask if everyone in Gryffindor got the homework done for Professor Flitwick," Luna supplied.
"Well, you would all do better to get yourselves to the library if homework is on your minds. Hanging around like this, people will think you are up to something," he said.
His eyes had landed like flint on Harry, who met the stare with an easy look of his own. Snape held Harry's gaze a little longer, a strange but silent exchange that none of them understood one bit. Had he seen the flame before Luna had managed to hide it?
But, apparently satisfied that no mischief was afoot, Snape lifted his head, turned on his heel in a graceful arch and moved back in the direction he had came, his footsteps tapping out a rapid rhythm against the stone flags.
Hermione looked at Luna gratefully.
"Thanks," she said, her eyes warming.
"I'm not sure if we are meant to do magic outside of the castle."
"Neither am I. Best not learn the hard way, my dad always says," Luna returned mildly.
It appeared she had said the right thing and the self consciousness that had hung between them melted.
"Is it true the Gray Lady is in hiding because Peeves pinched her handkerchief?" Ron asked.
Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Oh Ronald! Stuff and nonsense! A ghost can't have a handkerchief stolen!" Hermione said with an air of supreme confidance.
Luna laughed out loud.
"I'm not sure but what we heard is that she is hiding because of a rumour he wants to kiss her," Luna went on and suddenly the four of them were giggling and it was perfectly ordinary and unremarkable and Luna thought it was wonderful.
Somehow, it was like she had passed some sort of test, one that she did not even know she was taking. Yet, it had changed things and she was no longer Luna the outsider, she was Luna, who had friends. This was magic, the kind they didn't teach in classes, the kind that changed lives. Hogwarts had already begun to teach Luna things she only now realised she had been so hungry to learn.