Some parts are taken from the first book, HP and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone :)


On Friday morning, Ari had high expectations for the much-awaited Potions class and the wolf teacher. Ari followed the Gryffindors down to an unfamiliar part of the castle which was located deep underground. Far away from the rest of the school's welcoming brightness, the Potions classroom was cold and dark, just as Ari would picture an evil villain's lair. She couldn't find any skeletons or a throne made of bones or an operating table with Frankenstein's body, but she did see jars on the shelves filled with mysterious fleshy things. She shivered. Talk about spooky!

Ari sat down at an empty table nearest to the shelves and tried to take a closer peek at the weird jars. She had to do a double take for one of them because she was pretty sure she saw something that looked like a brain. But before she could get a closer look, the classroom door banged open and she jumped. Ari jerked her head around to see Professor Snape enter the classroom, looking as intimidating as the day they first saw him at the staff table. She watched closely as he stalked up to his desk, his black robes billowing behind him like a big storm cloud. He even had the villain walk down pat!

The professor started class by taking roll call, making each person shrink with the sharp enunciation of their name. When he got to Harry's name, though, he paused and looked right at the glasses boy.

"Ah, yes," the professor said. "Harry Potter. Our new… celebrity."

Harry stared blankly at Snape. Across the room, there was the muffled sound of laughter. Ari recognized the pointy blond boy she had seen at the welcoming feast — Malfoy — plus his boulder friends, snickering behind their hands.

Ari frowned. So it wasn't just the students, but the professors were singling out Harry too now, huh? Because after spending the past week at Hogwarts, ninety percent of what Ari heard when walking through the halls was about Harry. He really was famous, as the twins had said. But after overhearing people's conversations and learning the true scope of why Harry was famous in the first place, Ari suddenly felt really bad for him.

Fred and George had talked about Harry defeating the most evilest wizard in the world, You-Know-Who, but there was more to the story than that. You-Know-Who had also killed Harry's parents when he was a baby, then tried to kill Harry as well. But the curse failed and it rebounded against You-Know-Who, killing him instead. No wonder Harry had acted so weird the first time Ari asked him about his backstory. She would hate it too, if the sole reason for your fame was basically having your parents murdered, but you survived by some twisted miracle. Ari herself already felt sad enough losing her mother, she couldn't imagine how she would feel if her father died, too — and because of her, for that matter. At that point, Ari wouldn't be sure if she should feel glad to be alive, or guilty.

As Ari was absorbed with her musings, Snape had finished with everyone's names and put the register away. Then he prowled around the room like a hungry cat looking for prey and waxed lyrical about bewitching the mind and ensnaring the senses. Ari wondered what in the world he was rambling on about, and then she suddenly realized he was talking about potions. If she didn't know better, she would have thought he was reciting a love poem or something. What a weirdo.

"Potter!" Snape broke off from his speech with a sharp snarl, making everyone jump. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Ari turned to look at Harry, who turned pale and exchanged a glance with the redhead beside him. Both of them looked as confused as Ari felt, but Hermione's hand shot up in the air, so fast it made her entire hair tremble.

"I don't know, sir," Harry finally said.

Snape sneered. "Tut, tut — fame clearly isn't everything."

And did Snape think that Harry wanted all that fame? Or maybe he was like Ari, and didn't know anything about Harry's backstory.

"Let's try again." Ignoring Hermione's hand and keeping his predatory gaze on Harry, Snape continued, "Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

What the heck was a bezoar? Everyone looked stumped. Malfoy and his friends laughed harder than ever, while Hermione's hand stretched up even farther.

"I don't know, sir," Harry said again, and now his cheeks were growing steadily redder.

Snape continued leering at him. "Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?"

Ari rolled her eyes. Did he really expect people to study for things over the summer holidays in the first place?

"What is the difference, Potter," Snape continued, ignoring Hermione's still-quivering hand, "between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

At this, Hermione stood up, her hand stretching towards the dungeon ceiling. Harry's face turned redder still, Malfoy and his friends shook with silent laughter, and Snape's sneer intensified. And quite frankly, Ari was fed-up of sitting around and watching Snape do all this useless questioning. She wanted Snape to teach, and for them to learn, not be asked questions they didn't know the answers to!

"Er, Professor?" Ari said loudly, and Snape turned to her. Before he could say anything, she continued, "don't you think this is kind of a waste of time? I mean, we don't know any of these things, so it's not really—"

"Be quiet!" Snape ordered. His eyes were like black, bottomless pits swallowing her whole. "I was not aware I gave you permission to speak. That's a point from Gryffindor for interrupting my class."

"Well, I'm just saying—"

"And that's another point," Snape said, his voice dipping to a snake's hiss. "And if I hear another word leave your mouth, it'll be a detention."

Snape glared at her, and Ari glared right back at him. And then she realized all those people hadn't been lying one bit when they said Snape was a bad teacher. No, he was more than a bad teacher. As the class went on, Ari could confidently say he was the worst, most horrible person she had ever met! She never thought in her wildest dreams she would ever meet someone more annoying than Sam, but here she was!

It started when Snape went around the room, splitting everyone into pairs and ordering them to brew a potion together. But Snape got to Ari last, and he told her that he had paired everyone up and she was the last one over.

"Looks like there's no room in this classroom for you, misfit," he said, his lips twisting in a mean smile. "Guess you have no choice but to leave."

"No!" she cried, her heart plummeting. "I'm not gonna leave! I wanna make the potion! I'll do it by myself, if I have to!"

"You really think you can manage that?"

"Yes, yes, I can!"

As Snape opened his mouth to retort, there suddenly came a small voice. "Sir, she can work with us. We can have a group of three."

Ari whizzed her head around to look at the dark-skinned boy sitting at the table adjacent to her. He was looking up at Snape nervously, but when Ari looked at him, he flashed her a small smile.

"Yeah, let me work with him!" Ari ordered, turning back to Snape.

Snape let out a savage snarl, glaring at Ari with his feral Doberman eyes. "Fine then! Work with them for today, you entitled, disgusting brat —"

And then after muttering a bunch of bad words under his breath, Snape turned and stalked away. But Ari was too excited to finally work on a potion to care about him. She had endured far worse insults from Sam, after all. She turned to the dark-skinned boy, who smiled more fully at her.

"Hi," the boy said. "My name's Dean."

"Hello."

"What's your name?" asked Dean.

"Ari."

"Nice to meet you, Ari," Dean said. Then he glanced at the person sitting across from them, and Ari gasped when she saw the big-headed Hermione girl scowling at her.

"And I guess I have to work with you, too," Hermione said, with all the enthusiasm of being force-fed dog turds. She shoved her huge beaver teeth from her lips. "And you already know my name. It's Hermione Granger."

"Yeah, I know."

But they had to stop talking then, because from the other side of the room Snape barked at them to shut up and get to work.

They flipped to the right pages in their textbook while Hermione got out her cauldron. "It's so cute and fat, huh?" Ari said as she stroked the sides of the cold metal bowl. "You know, I wanted to buy a shiny gold one at the cauldron shop, but I couldn't. I could only get one of the boring gray ones."

"Yeah, the first-years can only have pewter cauldrons," Dean shrugged. "I guess since it's cheaper."

"Step away," Hermione commanded bossily, snapping out her wand. "We need to start the fire."

"Ooh, we're going to start the fire?" Ari repeated eagerly. "How are we gonna start the fire?"

"Like this," Hermione said. She readjusted the cauldron on the stand and poked her wand at the bottom. Ari gasped when she saw the bright orange flames flicker underneath the cauldron — it was just like the stove at home! Only, instead of any knobs or whatever to control it, the flames had just appeared out of nowhere!

"How did you do that?" Ari demanded, bending down to inspect the flickering flames. She reached out to touch it and at once felt the scalding heat. She screamed and yanked her hand back. "Ouch! It burned my hand!" And then she lifted up said hand for them to see.

"Oh, wow, who knew touching fire would burn your hand!" Hermione scoffed, rolling her eyes to the back of her head.

"I wanted to see if the fire was real!" Ari said defensively. "And it is, it's actually hot! But how did you light it up in the first place? The fire just appeared out of nowhere! Can you show me how to start it again? I wanna try it out, too!"

"No, not now," Hermione snapped, looking around. "Everyone else is already getting started. We need to get started with the ingredient preparation right now, or else we'll be behind and we won't be able to turn in a completed potion by the end of class!" Her hair sprang up agitatedly.

"Okay, okay," Ari rolled her eyes. "Hold your horses, bighead."

"Should we go get the ingredients?" Dean asked quickly as Hermione started to retort.

"Yes," Hermione answered, still glaring at Ari. "I've already got the list. I'll go get them."

And then she went to the ingredients store. Ari turned to Dean. "She sure is bossy, huh?" Ari said. "And a show-off."

Dean laughed nervously. "She's just smart, I guess."

"And a show-off."

A minute later, Hermione returned with an armload of ingredients and dished them out while reading the instructions. "Dean, you can do the snake fangs," Hermione said. "And you, Ari — you can slice the onions."

"I wanna crush up the snake fangs, though!" Ari protested. "Snake fangs are funner, and besides, I'm really good at crushing things!"

"Okay, fine," Hermione said tightly. "You crush the snake fangs, and Dean can do the onions. And I'll prepare the horned slugs. Read the instructions carefully, by the way — we only need six snake fangs. You hear that, Ari? We only need six snake fangs. Exactly six, no more, no—"

"Yeah, yeah!" Ari cut over her. "Six snake fangs, I know already! I'm not deaf!"

Ignoring Hermione's huge eye roll, Ari got the mortar and pestle, counted out six snake fangs, and started to crush them. See! She could do it after all. Take that, Hermione!

They worked together in silence for a while. Making potions was rather like cooking, Ari realized, where you had to prepare the ingredients and then add them to the pot. And knowing just how amazing she was at cooking and whipping up delicious dishes, Ari knew she would be amazing at potion-making, too. So she was unsurprisingly proud when she finally ground up the snake fangs and could add them to their potion.

"Wait, no, don't—" Hermione began in a shriek, as Ari poured all the contents of the mortar into the cauldron. Hermione whipped her bushy head toward Ari, her huge eyes bulging out in a death stare.

"What?" Ari demanded. "The instructions said to add them first, didn't it?"

"No, the instructions said to crush them to a fine powder!" Hermione retorted, her hair springing out even more. "The fangs weren't crushed enough! There were still pieces left over!"

"Nuh-uh!" Ari declared, stamping her foot. "I crushed them up really good, I made sure of that!"

"It's fine," Dean said, looking nervously at Hermione, who had slapped her face in her hands. "It shouldn't be a big deal."

Hermione removed the hands from her face and growled something under her breath, shooting Ari another angry glare as she did so. Ari rolled her eyes. Just why did she have to be so hot and bothered all the time?

Hermione stirred the cauldron and Dean continued chopping up his onions. "Anyway, this class seems pretty interesting, doesn't it?" Ari chattered now that she had nothing to do. "I've always wanted to make potions, like one of those alchemy people with their big beards. Like the big beard Headmaster — ooh, do you think he could be an alchemist?"

Instead of getting a response, she heard a low hiss behind her. "There is too much chit-chat over here." She whizzed around to find Snape looming over them. His sharp eyes glared right at her. "I thought I very explicitly ordered you to keep quiet, but it seems you are too incompetent to follow even the clearest and simplest of rules. That's another point from Gryffindor, and detention."

"But—" Ari began hotly.

"Shut up!" Snape barked, a vein in his forehead throbbing dangerously.

She glared at his fuming tornado face, and he glared back at her. Once the tornado spun away, she turned back to Dean and Hermione. "That Professor Snape seems pretty mean, huh?" Ari said once Snape started harassing another group a few tables down. "He keeps yelling at us, even when we're just trying to have some fun! And why do you think he was asking all those questions earlier? Were we really supposed to do summer homework? Was that something I missed?"

"Could you just be quiet?" Hermione snapped instead of answering her question."Before you make us lose even more points" — she looked frantically around the table and shoved a wad of spiky green stems toward Ari — "here, crush up these nettles. And remember, crush them thoroughly!"

And Ari, more than happy to show off her superb crushing skills again, crushed up those nettles like her life depended on it. A few minutes later, Snape circled around again and mocked Ari's crushing skills, and she retorted that if he was so great, then why didn't he show her how to do it? That earned her another point from Gryffindor, plus a hair-zapping death stare from Hermione. But it was totally worth it.

Ari was happy when she was done with the nettles and could add the nettles to the mix, too. The potion bubbled and gurgled promisingly, and soon it was a deep orange color.

"Ooh, the color is so pretty!" Ari exclaimed as she bent her head over the cauldron. Entranced, she watched the deep colors swirl around like paint mixing. "I've never seen anything so orange. It's like fire, or a sunset, or a volcano!"

"But it's not supposed to be orange," Hermione said through gritted teeth, pushing Ari out of the way. "The instructions say it's supposed to be green after we add the nettles."

"Oh, really?" Ari asked, watching as Hermione slowly stirred the cauldron. "But why? Do you think you might be stirring it wrong? Can I give it a try?"

Hermione glared at her, but before Ari could wrest the stirrer out of Hermione's hands, there was a huge hissing sound from across the room. Ari turned her head and gasped when she saw someone's cauldron had melted, which she didn't even think was possible, because those things were some thick metal! Some of the potion got on one boy and painful-looking boils popped all over his skin. After Snape ordered the boy to go to the hospital wing, he wheeled on Harry and started yelling at him for messing up the boils boy's potion. And Ari, who was fed-up with enduring Snape's horrible bullying for the past hour, decided to take matters into her own hands. She was going to be the underdog hero of the story and stand up to the big bad wolf!

"But Professor, that's so unfair!" Ari exclaimed indignantly as she strode up to Snape's back. He suddenly stopped shouting and looked at her over his shoulder. "It was Boils Boy who messed up his own potion, not Harry! So if you're going to blame anyone, blame Boils Boy!"

"Oh, so it's you again, isn't it?" Snape snarled, wheeling around to face her, so fast his black hair whipped around like a cyclone. "You just never seem to be able to keep that mouth shut, can you, you idiotic brat?!"

"And you can't, either!" she retorted. "You're always screaming at us — insulting us, even when we've done nothing wrong—"

"And that's another detention!" Snape barked, looking like a rabid dog about to strike. "Don't you ever tell me what to do in my classroom! Just how many times do I have to repeat it for you to understand, you wretched child?! Or perhaps — this will help you get it through your thick skull!"

And he swiped up a bottle of something from the table and winded his arm back like he was about to throw it. Ari screamed and scampered away back to her station.

"Did you see that?" Ari exclaimed to Hermione and Dean once she had re-emerged from underneath the desk. "He almost threw that jar at me, but I ran out of the way! I'm so sporty, aren't I? I could be a professional runner!"

"For goodness' sake!" Hermione snarled as forcefully as Snape. By now, her hair was vibrating so hard it was giving off sparks. "Can you just stand still for one moment? The last thing we need is you running around and knocking over other people's cauldrons and getting us in even more trouble!"

"But I'll be fine!" Ari protested. "Just watch me!"

And just to prove it, she stayed at her station for the rest of class. They were able to successfully finish preparing the ingredients and wrap up the potion. It had been mostly fun making the potion, and while Dean was okay to work with, Hermione had been way too bossy and annoying. She was so annoying she could rival Sam. And of course, Snape was just the cherry on top of the cake. Between Sam and Hermione and Snape, Ari wasn't sure which one of them was more annoying. Since she couldn't choose, she decided to dub them as the Annoying Triad from now on.

So Ari couldn't be happier when the bell finally rang and she could finally leave. Ari followed the Gryffindors as they hurriedly packed up their things and made a beeline for the door. But then she saw Snape looming at the front of the room, watching all of them leave, and she decided to impart some final words of wisdom.

"Hello, sir," she told a scowling Snape as she passed by his desk. He glared at her, and she smirked. "It's me again. I just wanted to let you know, your class was okay, but I think you're a horrible teacher. Well, goodbye, sir."

She backed away as Snape's face suddenly twisted up like there was a giant worm underneath struggling to get free. "Oh, you think you're so clever, don't you?!" the wolf howled. His eyes were possessed with wild bloodlust as he lunged forward, claws outstretched. Ari let out a squeal as she felt the tips of his claws rip through the hem of her robes. She managed to wrench free and fled the classroom by the skin of her teeth.