Before Ari could do her exploring of the forbidden third-floor corridor, she first got a talking-to from Professor McGonagall after class one day. Ari froze up when Professor McGonagall called Ari over to her desk, thinking she had already discovered Ari's plans to break into the third-floor door — but thankfully, the Transfiguration professor just said that Ari should stop by the Owlery after classes, since someone named Hagrid had managed to fix up her owl's broken wing.

Ari got a good start when she heard that, because admittedly, she had totally forgotten about the existence of her pet owl. But she hurried and stopped by the Owlery after school, where a humongous man with a big tangled beard and a huge fur coat was already waiting for her. Ari gasped when she saw him, because he was no other than the same person who had led them off the train and sailed across the lake with them.

"H'lo, there!" the big man called out, waving his huge hand. "Yeh must be Ari."

"Yeah!" Ari exclaimed in delight. She stared up at the man's gargantuan form. He was so tall her head just came up to his belly. He was even bigger and rounder than Crap and Boil combined, but he didn't seem as mean as them. He was wearing a big, bright smile that made Ari smile back. "I know you! You're the big person who met us after we got off the Hogwarts train!"

"Yeah, yeh remember!" The man gave a hearty chuckle, making his entire belly jiggle. "The name's Hagrid, I'm the gamekeeper of this school, it's nice ter—"

"Ooh, gamekeeper?" Ari cut in. "What's that?"

"Ah, it's someone who looks over the school grounds and makes sure everythins' up and runnin'," he explained. "I've also got a knack for watchin' over and tendin' to various creatures — such as your owl over here. I heard his wing got in a bit of an accident before he came here, yeah?"

"Yeah," Ari said. Only now did she notice the tiny owl perched atop Hagrid's huge shoulder, his dark feathers practically blending in with Hagrid's giant beard. "The shopkeeper I bought him from said his wing was broken and he wouldn't be able to fly for the rest of his life again."

"Ah," Hagrid said, creases appearing in his brow. "It was a pretty bad injury, but nothin' unfixable. Jus' give him the right healin' spells, and some attention an' love, and he'll be good as new. Isn' that right, boy?"

He cooed and stroked Prince's tiny head with his giant finger. To Ari's surprise, instead of biting Hagrid or flying away, Prince actually stayed still as Hagrid pet him. What was more, he actually seemed to be enjoying it, and was closing his eyes and everything. It was a sharp difference to the crabby, unlovable owl Ari once knew. Wow! Maybe Hagrid had taken care of Prince so well he had given him a personality transplant.

But when Ari tried to pet Prince, the owl snapped loudly with his beak and tried to bite her hand off. Ari screamed. "EEEK! He bit me!" And then she showed Hagrid her swollen red finger.

"Oi, Prince, don't bite Ari like tha'!" Hagrid chided, shaking a finger in Prince's face. "Tha's not very nice! Now say sorry!"

But instead of expressing his remorse, Prince just rolled his eyes in a very Snape-like way. Ari gasped. "He rolled his eyes at me!" she said furiously.

"Ah, did he?" Hagrid rumbled, leaning his head to get a better look at Prince's face. But the moment Hagrid looked at him, Prince closed his eyes again and made an expression of utter relaxation. What a little cheater!

Ari felt quite annoyed, but more than that, she was also kind of unnerved. She had never really noticed it before, but Prince resembled Snape in a lot of ways. Everything from the mean personality to the dark coat and sneaky eye rolls. Maybe Prince was a reincarnation of Snape. The thought made her shudder.

Ari was glad when Hagrid let Prince fly away to get his food and she didn't have to look at him any longer. Prince could fly really easily now, like his broken wing had never existed. Within seconds, he had already disappeared over the treetops.

"Ahh," Hagrid gave a long sigh, his eyes suddenly shiny and wet. "They grow up so fast!" he said in a choked voice.

"Uh-huh," Ari said unenthusiastically. Her mind was still on her Snape-reincarnation theory.

"Be sure ter come and visit him from now on, yeah?" Hagrid said, looking down at her. "Yeh don't have ter come every day, but just enough so he sees yer face and can talk teh yeh for a bit. I reckon that'll help him warm up ter yeh a bit better."

"Okay," Ari said, feeling a squirming of guilt. Maybe that would explain Prince was mad at her. She hadn't been the best owner recently. After all, what kind of owner forgot their pet existed? A real bad one, that was for sure. But she vowed she would do better from now on, and would come to visit Prince and care for him like Hagrid had said. Even if her owl was a reincarnation of Snape.

"But anyhow," Hagrid said lightly, "how are yeh doin' at Hogwarts so far, Ari? Do yeh like it?"

Ari brightened again. "Oh yes, it's great!" she exclaimed. "It's really fun. Everyone's really nice, and I like all my classes. Except for Potions. That's the class Snape teaches. And he's really annoying and mean. He gave me a 0.1 on my essay."

Hagrid's mouth dropped open. "He gave yeh a 0.1 on yer essay?" he repeated in stunned disbelief.

"Yeah!" she said heatedly. "He gave me a zero on my first essay, and then a 0.1 on my second one. It's terrible."

"Did yeh try talkin' to him, ask why he gave yeh that score?" Hagrid asked, frowning.

"Yeah, I talked to him," she rolled her eyes. "But all he did was insult me and call me a bunch of names. That's what he always does, you know, he just insults and yells at me everyday. And all the other students, too. It's real annoying." She scowled.

"Aw, cheer up," Hagrid said genially. "He can be rough with his words, but don't let it bother yeh. If yeh're workin' hard and learnin' the material, then that's all that matters."

"I guess," she sighed. "But I still don't like it. He's still a bad teacher. He doesn't teach us anything, and just goes around insulting everyone's potions. I dunno why he hasn't been fired, honestly."

"Dumbledore trusts him," Hagrid said, his voice firm. "And if Dumbledore trusts him, then we've gotta trust him, too."

Ari made a face. She had already gotten a bad feeling about Dumbledore when Professor McGonagall first mentioned him, and now with Hagrid's declaration she could only feel her skepticism for the headmaster growing even more. Dumbledore must have been weird and crazy as Snape if he could trust someone like him. Ari wouldn't have been surprised if the two had some secret lair in the hidden third-floor corridor and were hatching a plan to take over the school someday.

Ari was in a bad mood for the rest of the afternoon. And to sink her spirits even lower, she remembered that she had a detention that evening with Snape. But she didn't want to go. She was tempted to just skip her detention — oh, never mind detention, she would have been willing to skip the rest of her Potions classes and never look at Snape's greasy face one more time while she was at school. He was the only thing ruining her perfect fairy tale here at Hogwarts, and it was just so maddeningly unfair. She would have done anything to get rid of him once and for all, and finally have the blissful life that would've been held back from her otherwise.

And it wasn't like she hadn't tried to get along with him, because she had. She had had hope with Snape at first — she thought she had seen some glimmer of redemption within him once, a light that she had wanted to reach out and touch. But that feeling went down the drain as fast as it had come. Now she wanted nothing more to do with Snape. If she wanted to be with mean people, she already had her brother, and he was already insufferable enough. Snape was ten times worse.

She picked at her dinner that night, lost in her thoughts. Beside her, Neville didn't say much either. He just kept scraping his fork against the plate and checking his watch, and every now and then he would wipe the sweat off his face.

"I've got to go now." Neville's voice interrupted Ari's musings, and she looked at him. His face was pink and shiny, and he mopped his forehead with his napkin. "I've got detention."

"Detention?"

"Yeah," he said, checking his watch. "With Snape. At six o'clock."

"Hey, I've got detention with Snape too!" she exclaimed excitedly, and Neville gasped. But then she stopped and made a face. "Well — I mean, had, I guess. I had a detention with him. 'Cause, I don't wanna go anymore."

"Huh? You don't want to go anymore?" Neville repeated, blinking.

"That's right," she said defiantly, lifting up her chin. "I don't wanna go 'cause I've had enough of Snape, and I don't want to be with him longer. So I've decided to skip detention. And skip the rest of my Potions classes, too."

"You're going to skip Potions?" Neville gasped, his eyes bugging out. "But don't you have to take Potions to pass the year?"

"Yeah, I know," she said. "But I'll get Professor McGonagall to make an exception for me. Like how she made an exception for Harry and gave him a broomstick and a spot on the Quidditch team. I'll just ask Professor McGonagall to give me a private Potions tutor, or something, so I won't have to take Snape's class anymore."

"Oh… okay," Neville licked his lips. "Do… do you think she'll make an exception for me, too?"

"Maybe!" Ari said brightly. "We can ask her together."

"Yeah, that sounds good," Neville smiled tensely, squirming in his seat. "It'd be amazing if I didn't have to take Potions with Snape anymore. A dream come true."

"Totally." She smiled dreamily as she imagined a life with her new Potions tutor. Unlike Snape, her new teacher would be nice and patient and help her along every step of the way. And of course, her new teacher wouldn't give her 0.1s on her essays and throw tantrums every five seconds.

"Well," Neville suddenly squeaked, and Ari was startled out of her reverie again. He checked his watch again, sweat descending from his brow like waterfalls. "Ten minutes left. I'd better go now."

"Okay," she said. But then she frowned, suddenly considering something as she looked at Neville's strained, wet face. "On second thought… Maybe I should go after all. I mean, it wouldn't be nice of me to make you go to Snape's detention by yourself, huh? If he's gonna torture us, we should at least face it together."

"Yeah, we should!" Neville said quickly, his face brightening.

And so Ari told herself that she would submit to Snape's orders, just this once. Once tonight was over, she vowed she would never go to another detention or Potions class for as long as she lived. So there!

Ari and Neville walked down to the dungeons together. The dungeons looked extra gloomy and depressing at night, and the shadows only deepened the doubt in her heart. "What do you think he's gonna make us do?" Ari asked Neville.

"I dunno," Neville answered. "Last time he made me clean out some old vials."

"Well, that's not so bad, is it?" Ari said. "Way better than being hung and whipped."

"Wha?" Neville squeaked, his voice raising up a few octaves.

"Yeah," she said casually. "Sometimes he hangs people up on the ceiling and whips them for detention. Fred and George said so."

"O-oh," Neville said in that same high-pitched voice.

They reached Snape's classroom a moment later. Snape was sitting at his desk and glared at them as they came in, and she glared right back at him. He thought he was just so great, sitting in his evil villian's pose and intimidating them, huh? Well, little did he know that this would be Ari's last time she ever stepped foot in his stinky classroom. So once she was done with tonight, he'd never be able to scare her again!

For their detention, instead of whipping out his torture devices, Snape just made them cut up some frogs. Aside from Ari and Neville, there were two older-looking boys she didn't know also serving their detention. The four of them had to disembowel a vat of frogs apiece and separate their organs into jars.

It was hard, gross work, the grossest thing Ari had ever done in her life. That record had previously gone to cleaning the toilets, but now she could confidently say disemboweling frogs were even grosser even that. The frogs' stiff, rubbery, dead bodies were already enough a turn-off, but they also gave off the nastiest odor Ari ever had the misfortune of whiffing in her entire life. Like a cross between rotten flesh and poop. She had barely gotten through her first frog, when the nauseating smell hit her like a truck and she began gagging.

"Ugh, this is too hard!" Ari complained, setting down her knife. "It smells so bad! My nose is burning up! I think I'm gonna die!"

"Spare the theatrics!" Snape's crabby voice sounded behind her, and Ari jumped. "You've barely sliced open your first frog, and you're already whining and kicking up a storm like an overgrown toddler. What's next, screaming for your milk bottle and soiling your nappies?"

She made a face. "I'm not—"

"Shut up, you disgusting brat, and get back to work!" Snape hissed, the vein in his forehead doing its manic tap dance.

Goodness gracious, what a violent old toad. Grumbling silently to herself, Ari picked up her knife again. She continued slicing open the frog's rubbery skin and extracting its lumpy gray organs with every last bit of self-discipline inside her, all while resisting the urge to puke. But a few more minutes later, the texture and smell just became too much to bear again, and she couldn't hold it back anymore.

But first, she needed to jazz it up a bit. "Professor!" Ari said in a choked voice, thrusting her hand in the air. "I need your help!"

Snape got up from his desk and glided over to her workstation. "What is it now, little brat?" he scoffed, stopping beside her chair.

And then she let go of the puke she had been holding in her throat and hurled it over the front of Snape's robes. Bullseye!

At once, Snape recoiled like a spring. "DIS-GUS-TING!" he erupted so forcefully the jars on the shelves rattled. "FILTHY SLIMEBALL! NASTY PIECE OF—" followed by a bunch of colorful insults. Then he whipped out his wand and began cleaning off his robes.

"Thanks for your help, Professor," Ari snickered, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. "You're a really good puke catcher."

He looked up at her, his entire face vibrating. For a moment, he seemed too furious to speak. "Oh, you impudent brat!" he barked, his forehead throbbing so violently she thought it might explode. "You think it's just so funny, eh, to be a human-shaped cesspool and spray your bodily fluids over me like that?!"

"Yeah," she said unabashedly. She grinned into his livid, spasming face. "I didn't know you could scream that high, sir. You should try out for the opera."

"Shut UP!" he screeched, spittle flinging from his mouth. "I will not have any of your cheek! Twenty points from Gryffindor!"

She rubbed her eye. "You spit in my eye, sir."

"Good!" he snarled, spraying her face with some more spit. "Now you know how it feels to be on the receiving end of your geyser mouth!"

"What's geyser mean?"

"SHUT UP!" he screeched again. "Just shut up! I'm sick and tired of your whiny little voice! I'm just about the end of my rope, do you hear me? Step out of line one more time, and you'll see what I do to thankless, attention-seeking liars much as yourself." With that, he snatched the knife off her table and held the blade balefully over her head.

"Okay, okay, calm down," she said hurriedly, taking the knife back from Snape. Goodness gracious, there he went with his death threats again!

She made an incision in the frog's flabby belly, shuddered, then stopped. She looked over her shoulder at Snape, who was glaring daggers at her. "But sir, are you sure this is a good idea?" she asked. "What if I cut the frogs too much and I throw up again?"

He pursed his lips. "As long as you're not sick over me again, then I have no problem with it."

She smirked. "And what if I'm sick over you again?"

"Then I'll put a bucket over your head and kick you all the way to the landfill, right where you belong!" he hissed.

Ari highly doubted Snape had enough leg power to kick her to such a distance, but she didn't want to take her chances. So she started slicing into her second frog. Five minutes later she started gagging again, but since she had already emptied out most of her stomach from the first round, nothing really came out. What a pity. She had been hoping she could throw up over the frogs this time and make another statement.

Ari had just started cutting into her fifth frog when the two older students already finished cutting up all their frogs. They sure were speedy! Snape checked their work, and the students left. Sometime later, Neville also finished, and he flashed Ari one last sympathetic look before leaving the classroom.

Then Ari was the only one left, grinding away at the disgusting dead frogs. Her fingers were grimy and achy, her nose was burning, and her stomach hurt from retching so much. Multiple times she was tempted to just call it quits and let Snape deal with the unfinished frogs, but the thought of Snape taking her knife and cutting her open next propelled her to keep going. It was a endless, torturous struggle, and it felt like forever by the time she finally cut up her last frog. Yet she couldn't deny the sense of relief and achievement she felt. She was finally finished and free at last.

Before she could leave, though, Snape had to come over and check her work, like he had done with everyone else. Ari watched him impatiently as he inspected each of the jars, eager to be dismissed already so she could go to her dormitory and relax. Her stomach was feeling a bit tight and cramped from all that gagging earlier, and she just wanted to lie down. But when she looked at Snape, a devilish idea suddenly formed in her mind.

"I've got something to tell you, Professor," she smirked as Snape set down the jar of frog brains. He looked warily at her, and she let out a big belch. Then another. And one last smaller one. She grinned and patted her stomach. It was feeling a lot better already. "Okay, that's it."

He screwed up his face in an expression of the utmost revulsion. "You," he growled, "are absolutely vile."

"What's vile mean?"

"It means extremely disgusting."

"Oh. Okay." She gave a fart.

"For God's sake!" Snape hissed, fanning the air. "You're just hooting and tooting from both ends now, are you?"

"Yeah!" she giggled. "Do you want me to do it again?"

"NO!" he shouted, jumping back. She burst out laughing. His eyes crackled with fury as he thrust a long finger toward the door. "Twenty points from Gryffindor, you filthy biohazard! Now get out! I don't want your toxic fumes contaminating my classroom a moment longer, do you hear me?"

"Yes, sir."

She hesitated, then sprang up and unleashed one last surprise burp into Snape's face. He recoiled with a shout and with that, she took her grand escape from the room. His shrieks echoed all the way down the corridors, and she cackled under her breath. Ahh, that had been one satisfying detention! It sure felt it good to settle the score with Snape and hear his screams! Now maybe he would think twice before being a big bully and giving her another 0.1 on her essay!


The next afternoon, Ari gathered with Fred and George and their friend named Lee Jordan in the common room and recounted her exciting detention adventures. They all laughed their hearts out when Ari told them how she puked all over Snape and made him scream like a baby. And then they guffawed even more when she talked about how she had burped and farted in his face.

"Wow, Ari, you definitely had a lot of guts to do something like that!" Fred chortled, slapping the armrest of the sofa. "Literally!"

George laughed. "All our time here at Hogwarts, and not even me and Fred have been able to puke on Snape — at least not yet!"

"Aw, no!" Ari exclaimed. "You totally should. It's so funny to hear him scream. And it's so satisfying, too. You just load it up in your mouth, take aim, splat — 'DIS-GUS-TING!'" She mimicked Snape's high-pitched shriek.

The boys laughed. "Maybe we should try it out someday," Lee said. "It's like our Snape target practice, but life-sized."

"Target practice?" Ari echoed.

"Oh, yeah," George said, exchanging smirks with the others. "We like to play darts. But instead of using a dartboard, we just hang a picture of Snape's face on our dormitory wall."

"It's a fun game we like to call 'Impale the Snape,'" Fred snickered. "And you get one point for hitting his face, five points for hitting the eyes or mouth."

"Bonus points if you hit the nose," Lee added.

Ari snickered. "Well, he's got a humongous nose, so it should be easy to hit."

"Yeah, totally," Fred smirked. "He's got an absolute unit of a nose. Makes you wonder what other things he's got at that size."

"What other things?" Ari asked.

"Oh, nothing," George chortled, punching his brother's shoulder. Fred and Lee howled with mirth, and Ari stared bemusedly at them.

There was a loud sniffle beside them. "Ugh, you all are just so immature." Ari turned around and saw Hermione sitting in the armchair next to them, looking at them with a revolted grimace similar to Snape's. "If you're going to joke about those kinds of things, can't you at least do it quietly? Some of us here are actually trying to be good students and study."

"Oh, sorry, Hermione," Fred smirked. "Don't mind us. Just trying to have some fun around here."

"Yeah!" Ari exclaimed excitedly, straightening up in her seat. "Did you know I puked all over Snape in detention, Hermione? And then I burped and farted in his face?"

"Oh, yes, I heard," Hermione growled, clenching her quill. "Considering it's all you've been talking about for the past ten minutes, I heard it loud and clear!"

"And so did Snape," Ari snickered. "URRRP! I burped in his face at the end of detention then made a run for it. He was totally bamboozled. Didn't even have time to react."

"The burp-and-run!" George said, spreading his hands out. "The oldest trick in the book, but it works like a charm!"

Fred smirked. "Just emit your noxious fumes in your opponent's face, and they'll be confounded for days to come."

"Exactly!" Lee exclaimed. "Who needs wands when you've got the power of flatulence!"

"Ah, I feel one coming on now!" Fred said eagerly, massaging his stomach. "Wait for it, wait for it—"

And then he opened his mouth and gave a huge, reverbating belch. The four of them burst into raucous laughter.

"For crying out loud!" Hermione snarled over their guffaws. She suddenly got to her feet, stuffing her piles of books and parchment into her backpack. "Come on, Neville, let's go to the library. We're not going to get anything done in this kind of setting!"

"Oh, hi, Neville!" Ari said, suddenly noticing the boy sitting in the armchair beside Hermione. "Did you see me puke over Snape in detention yesterday? It was really funny, huh?"

"Oh, yeah, ha-ha," Neville gave a strained laugh.

"It's not funny," Hermione said through gritted teeth. "Unsanitary and crass would be more like it. Your behavior was completely inappropriate."

"Speak for yourself," Ari said dismissively. "Snape totally had it coming, when he made us disembowel those dis-gus-ting frogs like that."

"And you could have chosen to go to the washroom and do your business in a proper place," Hermione snapped, her hair springing up, "but no, you just had to intentionally be sick over our teacher and make us lose forty house points!"

"Exactly," Ari smirked.

Hermione rolled her eyes to the back of her head. "You know what, I'm not going to waste another moment trying to reason with you," she growled, flashing Ari and the boys a disgusted look, like they were all dead ants stuck on the sole of her shoe. "Perhaps Professor McGonagall can better deal with you lot — oh yes," she added smugly at their shocked faces. "She will be hearing about this, and she will be giving you all a good talking-to and putting you under control. Because while you might think it's okay to lose all our house points and throw our house into complete disgrace, the rest of us with common sense and good faith do not!"

And with that forceful declaration, she stomped out of the portrait hole, Neville at her heels. "Well," Fred said once Hermione was gone. He stared at the others with wide eyes. "She's certainly something."

Ari rolled her eyes. "She's always like that. Super crazy. I bet she's Snape's long-lost daughter or something."

George snickered. "Yeah, Ron told us about her. He didn't seem to like her very much."

"Who does?" Ari scoffed. "Can't believe Neville's actually hanging out with her. Hope he's okay."

"Eh, it's fine," Lee said. "They're little first-years. They're all like that. But they eventually grow out of it. Or… at least some of us." He grinned at the twins.

"Growing up is overrated," George smirked, patting his stomach. "Let's just burp and fart all day."

"Hear hear, brother," Fred said. He opened his mouth and belched.

"I can beat you," George said. He gave an even bigger burp that wafted garlic air all over their faces.

"Amazing!" Ari exclaimed, whiffing the air. "It smells like I walked into a garlic farm!"

George grinned. "That's what you get when you eat chili for lunch."

For the rest of the afternoon, they compared their garlic burps and farts and laughed their hearts out. A few other people in the common looked at them weirdly, but the four of them didn't pay them any mind. Who cared if they were going to lose all their house points and put their reputation to shambles. Ari would rather have that than to be an annoying, stuck-up know-it-all whose only joy in life was snitching to the teachers and bossing people around.