Chapter three - Potions class

On her third day at Hogwarts, Gina had potions class, given by professor Snape, according to her time table. Following the directions professor McGonagall had given her, she descended the stairs off the Entrance Hall down to the dungeons, walked through a dark corridor past three doors and turned left. She suddenly stopped in her tracks. Right in front of her, standing face to face with her, was the black-haired man she had seen in the Entrance Hall.

His eyes are black, she thought, and she felt as though lightning hit her when they looked at each other, up close this time. His gaze was so intense she had to force herself not to look away. He didn't blink once and she mimicked him automaticity.

'You are miss Aldaya,' he said after a moment. He had a low and delicate, rather articulate voice.

She stared at him. 'You're the Potions master.'

He didn't respond.

'Come in,' he said curtly. Gina followed him into the classroom, giving her head a little shake. It was dark, neat and very cold in the classroom. She could see jars filled with ingredients on the shelves lining the walls, many of them in formaldehyde. Combined with the closed shutters on the windows it gave the classroom a rather creepy look. The rest of the class were already sitting silently at their desks. A cauldron was placed next to each of them. Just like in Herbology, there were only twelve students.

'Sit down. You are not brewing the potion the rest of the class is today. Let's determine your... knowledge first, shall we?' Snape sounded a little sharply and gave her a calculating look that made her wonder if he had had anything to say on her admittance to his class. 'I will be with you in a moment.'

He turned his back on her and Gina sat her bag at the desk next to a bespectacled boy with brown spiky hair. He smiled at her. Gina nodded back distractedly and sat down.

She listened to the instructions professor Snape gave the class, staring at his strong and very slightly feminine features, noticing that the students were much quieter and politer than in the other classes she had taken. Snape, she soon noticed, was an intelligent and sarcastic man, and he seemed to have very little patience for his students. Gina was starting to feel nervous, and not only because Snape had just warned them the seventh year curriculum was likely to give half of the class fits of hysteria by the time the exams would be approaching. There was something about him that made her feel... uneasy.

When Snape had sat the class to work, brewing a Wound-Cleaning Potion, he walked over to her desk, stopping right in front of her. His eyes bore into hers. Gina swallowed. She thought of everything she had leaned about intimidation techniques at the Royal House. It had mostly been about rude, provocative journalists and how to cope with dominant delegates. Surely Snape wasn't acting like this on purpose?

'Tell me, miss Aldaya,' he said slowly in a low, menacing voice. Why would one need a Scintillation Solution?

Gina hesitated. She wasn't even sure what a Scintillation Solution was. Was it un solución de centelleo? She took a guess.

'To stimulate brain activity after damage or paralyzation of the cerebellum.'

'And for what type of potions would you need lovage?'

Gina had to guess again that lovage was levístico in Spanish, as that was the only ingredient she could think of that sounded anything like it.

'Confusing and Befuddlement Draughts... and certain healing potions, like a calming potion for the stomach. You could use it in Energy Enhancing potions too, as an replacement for Cochlearia officinalis.'

He nodded slowly.

'A Double H-replication potion needs to...'

He urged her her finish the sentence with an impatient hand wave when she just stared at him.

'Um. Be stirred every half hour for 12 hours? Let rest 48 hours after that? Be bottled in brown glass? Be drank with an accompaniment? I don't know what you want to know,' she stopped herself, mumbling.

He didn't say anything.

'How would you call a Draught of Living Death without it's core ingredient?'

'El fiasco.' Gina had blurted it out.

Snape didn't smile.

Gina thought, which was hard with the man staring at her like she was una fiasco herself. She had never felt so dumb or so nervous in class before. She had no idea if any of her answer were adequate or not. Would he send her away if he thought she was too dumb to take his class? She took a deep breath and answered in the calmest voice she could muster. 'Well... the core ingredient of the Draught of Living Death is Asphodelus. Without it, the ajenjo, the Artemisia absinthium I mean, wouldn't have anything to balance it out. So... so you could use that draught as an antiseptic, I guess. It wouldn't be pretty though.'

'I did not asked for your opinion.'

They looked at each other.

'Brew me an Double H-replication potion, miss Aldaya. Class three. You should have enough time to finish stage one.'

She let go of her breath when Snape walked over to the students in the front.

The bespectacled boy leaned towards her when Gina got out her scales. He looked at her with big eyes. 'You should be careful with professor Snape,' he whispered. 'He is no joke.'

'I'll manage,' she said with a faint smile.

'I'm Jonathan Belby by the way, Ravenclaw. I'm also in the Triwizard Tournament,' he whispered, looking proudly. 'And this is Andre Fawcett, and Tarjei Boot.' He indicated a tall boy with ginger hair and freckles and a broad shouldered, dark-haired boy sitting on his other side.

'Ah, an opponent,' Gina said smiling. 'I'm Gina Aldaya. Nice to meet you.'

It was her.

Severus felt strangely elated and... was it a little nervous? He would have her two to three times a week in his classroom now. This was wonderful. He had never felt elated, or any faintly positive emotion, if he was honest, about any student taking his classes. Sure, he disliked the Slytherins less than the others. And some Slytherins were... alright. And Jaust was actually quite talented. But Severus didn't like children, with their high pitched voices and their silliness. And most of this students were, giggly, wide eyed, stuttering children. But miss Aldaya was... different. She was composed. She looked him full in the face. And to his delight, wasn't a brainless pretty girl. She was sharp, knowledgable and able to think a potion, it's ingredients and their purposes through. He had overheard his colleagues talk about her in the staff room, saying she was intelligent and seemed hard working and polite. But he wanted to see for himself.

Repressing the urge to walk over to her, he sat down at his desk, contenting himself with looking at her from a distance. To his surprize, she had started working without opening her book, working with steady, certain hand movements. He wondered if he should have given her an even more difficult potion to brew. He would see about that in an hour.

Gina got to work, doing her best to concentrate on her potion instead of professor Snape who, after sitting at his desk for a while prowled through the classroom, making comments here and there.

He had asked her to brew a complicated potion, timing and the right heating, cooling down and stirring was crucial. She had never felt so nervous at a Potions class, which in Spain was taught by a kind, lumpy witched called señora Calera. Gina had loved her classes, and had always gotten a lot of compliments from señora Caldera, Gina being quite an enthusiastic and intuitive potioneer. She started to think she would better get used to not getting many compliments for her potions anymore though. She watched Snape scoff at a Ravenclaw student a few desks away. Or any.

At the end of the lesson, Snape scooped a little of her potion in a flask, holding it up to the light. He didn't at all look as though he was going to toss around compliments. Gina wished he had asked her to brew him Elixir to Induce Euphoria. He would be undoubtedly more pleasant if he was slipped some.

'Tell me,' miss Aldaya, Snape said slowly. 'What did you do wrong?'

Gina had forgotten to add at least one ingredient, but she didn't want to admit it. So she bluffed.

'Nothing.'

'So this is a perfect Double-H replication potion to you, is it?'

'It... it could do with a hint more Solanaceae to counter-effect the lack of Impatiens capensis and... Solanaceae, to be honest,' she said, closing her eyes. She had just remember which two ingredients she had forgotten to add to the potion, and she couldn't for the life of her come up with the English terminology.

'What did you use instead of the belladonna and jewelweed?' Snape asked curtly.

'Valariana, Impatiens noli-tangere and Agastache,' she said softly.

Snape looked at her thoughtfully. 'That is not a bad solution, where you not to have acess to belladonna or jewelweed. But it is not perfect. The Agastache does not counterbalance the poisonous properties completely nor does it have the same splitting abilities.'

Gina nodded. She just realised Snape had asked her to brew a helix-potion because of the question she had had difficulty answering. He also wasn't finished.

'I noticed you haven't opened your book,' he said in a cold voice.

Gina wondered if he wanted to see if she would brag. She didn't respond.

'Why haven't you opened your book?' Snape snapped.

'I-'

'You would have known this if you actually read page 246.'

'I can't read the recipes,' Gina said, deciding to be honest. 'I only know the names of ingredients and preparation techniques in Spanish and Latin. And the recipes in my Spanish books differ to those of Advanced Potion-Making.' She didn't have the faintest clue what the English textbook said. She had to stop herself from asking which potion was on page 252. She could be a wise ass too.

'I see.'

'That I can speak English doesn't mean I also know the names of a thousand ma-' She stopped herself just in time, having wanted to swear. '-plants...'

She thought she could see the corner of his mouth twitch.

'Well,' he said slowly. 'You have something to do for the next three weeks don't you?'

Gina rather thought he found her confession amusing. He had a sneering smile on his face and looked down at her with a look that said only too clearly she had confirmed the low expectation he had of her. Being a very proud witch, Gina wondered why this didn't bother her more.

'You will continue with the rest of the class from now on.'

How? Gina thought feeling slightly desperate.

Snape had turned around and walked towards his desk. 'You will write four feet on the properties of Aconite,' he said to the class. 'I want at least fourteen uses for it and a detailed description of the risks of using this plant in potion making. To be handed in next lesson.'

No one complained.

Gina, still feeling rather shocked, stared at Snape's back until Jonathan gave her a poke and hissed she needed to write down her homework. She began to search, absent-mindedly, for a quill.