AN: Busy Thursday this week, so here is the update a day early. I don't own Harry Potter.
Chapter 5
Potions is shared with the Gryffindors and taught by the head of Slytherin himself. Snape clearly has a flair for the dramatic, making an abrupt entrance with his robes sweeping around him like a black wave. She bites her cheek to keep from smiling as she wonders how long it took him to write his speech about stoppering death. She sits a little taller, nervous, but eager to prove that Snape won't need to waste his derision on her.
"Potter!" says Snape suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
Harry exchanges a glance with Ron Weasley. They both look baffled, so she raises her hand. The answer is Draught of Living Death. It's the most powerful sleeping potion there is. They won't brew it until seventh year, but it's mentioned in a footnote in their first-year text.
To her disappointment, Snape ignores her entirely, his eyes still trained on Harry.
"I don't know, sir."
"Clearly, fame isn't everything," Snape sneers. "Let's try again, Potter. Where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"
She stretches her hand even higher. She knows the answer to this, too. Bezoars come from the stomach of a goat, which, frankly, sounds disgusting to her, but 101 Magical Herbs and Fungi reference it as the quickest antidote to most poisons.
"I don't know, sir."
"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?"
Her disappointment is turning into irritation. It seems that Snape doesn't really want his questions answered. If he did, he would stop picking on Harry and call on her. She knows he sees her, she's sitting in the front row with her hand reaching up so high it almost reaches his shoulder, he can't not see her.
"What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
In a burst of rage, she stands up, slamming the hand that isn't raised against the desk as she does so, making several other students jump. She's aware of Malfoy snickering at her desperation. She flushes slightly, but holds her ground.
"I don't know," Harry says quietly. "I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try her?"
"They're the same, sir, along with aconite," she says before Snape can respond. More giggles join Malfoy's.
Instead of praising her for her knowledge, Snape gives her a ferocious glare. "Sit down, Granger," he snaps. As she sits, she glares right back at him, feeling stung. His demeanour makes it clear that he is not particularly kind, but she'd expected him to at least be fair.
She's so busy seething that she doesn't hear anything more that the man says until he takes points from Gryffindor "for your cheek, Potter." Those words make her start, and she feels a pang of guilt. She didn't mean to cost Gryffindor points, she just wanted to make Snape see her. She flashes him a weak smile.
"Thanks for trying," she whispers. He shrugs and tries to smile back, but the expression is marred by his knitted brows and the hurt still shining in his eyes.
Things don't improve much as the lesson continues. When Snape orders the students to pair up for the practical portion of the lesson, she finds that none of her housemates want to work with her, not even Greengrass or Davis, who she's marked in her mind as potential allies. For better or for worse, none of Neville's housemates want to work with him, either, so, naturally, they end up together. Neville looks nervous enough to wet himself (which is probably why nobody wants to partner with him). His disposition is only increased when Snape begins pacing the rows, peering over their shoulders and making the occasional sound that is obviously an expression of distaste. The only student he praises is Malfoy, whose ego definitely does not need the boost.
"All he can do is take points," she whispers, eyeing Neville's shaking hands as he sloppily slices dandelion leaves into ribbons. "In the grand scheme of things, that's not that scary, right?"
"No talking!" Snape barks, surprising Neville to the point where his knife clatters to the floor. In his haste to pick it up, he bumps a nearby desk, losing his balance. His arms pinwheel, cartoon-style, as he tries to keep himself from falling. One hand catches the edge of their bubbling cauldron, and it capsizes. There is a loud hissing sound as the unfinished potion begins eating acid holes in the stone floor. The other students hurry to climb onto stools, like a high-stakes game of musical chairs. Neville is less lucky, angry red boils springing up wherever the potion splashed him, which is everywhere.
"Idiot boy!" Snape snarls. He clears away the noxious potion with one wave of his wand. "I hope those boils teach you a lesson about being careful in the lab."
Hermione can't stop herself from saying, "It was an accident, sir."
"Be quiet, Granger!"
She has half a mind to argue, but she loses her nerve when she notices how his hands are balled into fists, one still holding his wand. She told Neville that all the professor can do is take points, but that isn't strictly true. Snape is both bigger and more skilled than any of them, which doesn't count for nothing; although there are probably laws against attacking children, even in the Wizarding world, those laws never stopped her parents in the muggle world. So, she does as told and falls silent.
Snape turns to the nearest Gryffindor, who happens to be Seamus Finnegan. "Take him up to the hospital wing," he orders, and Finnegan wastes no time helping Neville up and hurrying them both out of the classroom. "The rest of you, back to work, and try not to fail as abysmally as Longbottom."
She glances at the clock behind Snape's desk. There's only an hour left before double transfiguration, which won't be enough time to prepare the ingredients and brew a whole new potion. But the look that Snape gives her suggests he expects her to try, so, suppressing a sigh, she returns to the storage cupboard and begins collecting the materials to begin anew. Not surprisingly, Snape gives them a zero, vanishing the incomplete potion with a sneer. Malfoy and his friends give her haughty looks as they leave.
She's just sliding her bag over her shoulder when Snape says, "Granger. A word," and she freezes. On his way out, Harry gives her a look that can only be interpreted as Good luck, mate.
Snape stands in front of his desk, arms folded and scowl in place. She tries not to shrink back from his bottomless black stare. She's hyper-aware that they are alone.
After a staring match that feels like an eternity, Snape says, with deceptive calm, "You would do well to mind your mouth, Miss Granger."
She takes a deep breath. Her heart is beating in her ears. She scrunches her toes inside of her shoes to keep herself from fidgeting. "Why didn't you let me answer the questions at the start of class, sir?"
"I didn't ask you," Snape says coldly.
"I was the only one who knew the answer!"
"I didn't ask you. You should learn your place."
Those are words she's heard before. The bad memories give her the courage to raise her chin and ask, "Because I'm a mudblood?"
"Don't use that word."
"Why not?" she challenges. "Everybody else does. Why shouldn't I use it first when it's what I am?"
"It is not what you are," snaps Snape, eyes flashing with some unidentifiable emotion, "and if I hear that vile name pass your lips again, you will be serving detention with me. Anyone who uses that word is a fool." He spits this last decree with such vehemence that she doesn't doubt he means it.
There's silence as she tries to puzzle out this turn of events. "It won't happen again, sir," she says eventually, still frowning.
Another pause. His cold eyes seem to be assessing her. When he speaks, he is calmer. "You'll get farther if you avoid showing all your cards at once." From anyone else, the words might have been advice or encouragement. From him, she doesn't know what to make of them. "Now go. Professor McGonagall is waiting for you."
She begins to leave, but then he calls her back once more: "Granger? My office, seven o'clock tonight."
"Yes, sir."
As she walks down the empty corridors in search of the transfiguration classroom, she shakes her head. Snape is turning out to be a harder character to pin than she'd originally thought.