When they returned to the entrance hall later, the Gryffindors were all supremely confused how they had lost such a significant portion of jewels in their hourglass. It didn't take long for news to spread — and Ari had no doubt who had spread it in the first place — that a certain Gryffindor first-year had intentionally puked all over Snape and made them lose forty points.

It didn't take much time before people started to glare at Ari, whisper behind their hands, and all in all avoid her like the plague. But some people like Fred and George and Lee, recognized Ari's talents and congratulated her for giving Snape a taste of his medicine. These were the small number of her supporters who worshipped her like their queen. She enjoyed congregating with her disciples in the common room and bragging about her exploits against Snape. It was good to know that there were people out there who appreciated her contributions against tyranny.

While she tried to just focus on the positive attention and ignore the naysayers, she had to admit it was kind of wearing her down. Namely, Professor McGonagall was acting a bit standoffish these days. While she would never say anything overtly negative to Ari's face, the professor would always purse her lips when she saw Ari. That part was a bit unfortunate, but Ari figured Professor McGonagall would loosen up sooner or later and go back to her regular old self.

And of course, if Professor McGonagall was miffed by what had happened, Snape was utterly, catastrophically apoplectic. These days, he looked absolutely feral at the staff table, with his eyes bulging out and his hair standing on end. Whenever Ari caught his eye, she would make exaggerated retching motions, and then his face would start spasming like he was having a stroke. Ari got a real hoot over that. She had no doubt that she had forever imprinted that particular memory into his mind. She couldn't wait to go back to class and re-traumatize Snape some more.

"I wonder what we're gonna do for Potions today?" Ari remarked to Neville the next morning during breakfast.

Neville stopped mid-chew and gulped. "I dunno."

"Maybe we'll brew another potion," Ari said, toying absently with her spoon. "Or maybe we'll cut up more dead frogs and I can puke over Snape some more." She snickered.

"Ha-ha-ha," Neville choked out.

Just then, a few older-looking people arrived at their table and were about to take the empty seats across from Ari and Neville. "Wait, no, not here," one person suddenly said to her friend. She grimaced at Ari. "That's the girl who threw up over Snape and lost us forty points."

"Oh, God, you're right," a girl grumbled, flashing Ari a look of similar disdain. "Let's get out of here."

And then wrinkling up their noses like Ari had some sort of contagious disease, the upper-years quickly shuffled to the other side of the table.

"Looks like I'm a celebrity around here, huh?" Ari giggled to Neville once the upper-years had left. "They all know me!"

"Ha-ha, right," Neville said stiffly. He seemed quite distracted, and kept wiping his forehead and checking his watch.

"Is it time to go?" Ari asked.

"Yeah," Neville said, looking at his watch again. "Ten minutes left till the bell."

"Let's go, then!" Ari bolted up excitedly from her seat. Neville got up more slowly and tailed sluggishly behind her.

They reached Snape's dungeon a few minutes later. Snape wasn't inside, but the Slytherins were already seated. They all gave Snape-like grimaces the moment Ari walked in. She just stuck her tongue out at them.

As Ari sat down, she suddenly heard a very loud drawl. "Urgh, look, it's the puking grub. Invading our space and spreading her germs everywhere. What a complete disgrace."

There were chuckles, and Ari whipped her head around. She spotted Malfoy talking to Crap and Boil, and they were all sneering knowingly at her. "Oi, idiot," Malfoy called. "It's amazing how you still have the nerve to show your face around here after what you did to Professor Snape. That man doesn't get paid enough to deal with vermin like you."

She wrinkled her nose. "Look who's talking, Albino rat."

The Albino rat's face turned pink with fury. Ari smirked. "Oh you—" Malfoy began, but that was when Snape swooped through the door like a bat flying into a cave. Ari jumped. What in the — just where did he come from?!

"What is going on here?" Snape demanded, noticing Ari's shocked face.

"It's her fault, Professor," Malfoy simpered, pointing to Ari. "She called me an Albino rat."

"Five points from Gryffindor," Snape said without missing a beat.

Ari pointed to Malfoy. "He called me a puking grub, Professor."

"And he's right," Snape said, a nasty smile spreading over his face. Ari's mouth dropped open. Malfoy smirked smugly, and the other Slytherins chuckled. "Five points from Gryffindor for a certain someone's lack of decorum."

"But—" Ari began indignantly.

"Five points from Gryffindor, nasty brat!" Snape hissed, his eyes flashing. "Unless you want to lose twenty points before class has even started, then I suggest you zip up that filthy little mouth right now!"

He punctuated each word with a violent jab of his finger, and the Slytherins laughed even more. Ari scowled. Great, so she'd lost another fifteen points, in addition to the last forty Snape took off! How many points had she lost in total…? Fifteen plus forty was — she counted in her head — fifty-five! Oh, no! She had lost fifty-five points in the span of less than a week!

She gulped and broke into a cold sweat. Now, fifty-five points sure was a lot! She felt a brief, delayed surge of panic. It was like the magnitude of the depleted points were finally catching up to her.

Well, at least Hermione and the other Gryffindors weren't here yet to witness her losing those fifteen points, so that was something. Ari didn't need a reason for her housemates to antagonize her even more.

A few minutes later, the Gryffindors filed in and took their seats. Shortly after that, the bell rang. Snape prowled around the room and passed back their homework. Ari got a 0.11% this time — better than a 0.1%, but she was annoyed that she still couldn't even get a single point. But this time, she didn't even bother trying to complain about it, since it'd be useless either way.

Once everyone got their scores back, Snape did his daily speech on what a bunch of useless dunderheads he had to teach and how his job would be much easier if they all just ceased to exist. He glared pointedly at the Gryffindors as he said this. Neville blushed and squirmed under Snape's unyielding stare, while the Slytherins hooted with glee.

When Snape had finally insulted and glared everyone down enough to make them shake and sweat, he got started with the actual lesson. They were to brew another potion, much to Ari's delight. Because she always loved it when they were able to get out their cauldrons and make something with it.

Too bad Snape wrote all the potion instructions on the board, and with his cramped, nonsensical handwriting, Ari could barely understand anything. And even when she had finally deciphered everything, the instructions were still confusing and made her head spin. It was impossible to differentiate between the ingredients, find the correct measurements, and complete the right procedures. She tried, she really did, but in the end, her potion didn't look anything like the instructions had described.

She wiped the sweat off her face and looked around. Everyone else seemed to know what they were doing, and were busily chopping up their ingredients and stirring their cauldrons. She felt a bit disoriented, and frustrated. How did they all know what to do, and she didn't?

Ari's frustration only grew when she spotted Hermione's cauldron a few tables down. Her potion was a pretty bubblegum pink. Ari wondered how Hermione had managed to get her potion to look so nice. Ari's own potion was an unappealing brown-yellow color, and had a few mysterious chunks, too.

"Tut-tut." Snape's cold voice sounded above Ari's head, breaking her out of her observation. His face was twisted in a vindictive sneer as he stared down at her gloopy potion, then her. "Did you happen to fill up your cauldron with something from the septic tank?"

She scowled. There he went with his daily barbs on her work! "No," she grumbled. "It's a potion."

"And the sky is green."

The Slytherins chuckled, and Ari scratched her head. "But the sky's blue."

"Exactly, dunderhead," he said silkily. He picked up the stirrer and ladled some of her potion up, then let it dribble back into the cauldron so everyone could see the brown chunks she had made. "The sky is not green, in the same way this blasted abomination cannot be called a 'potion.' 'Toxic waste' would be a more appropriate name. After all, toxic waste is all a filthy biohazard like you is good at making, hm?"

Snape flashed her a mean smirk, and she narrowed her eyes. "If you say so," she said. And then she bent over and made exaggerated retching noises over Snape's feet.

"For Merlin's sake!" he scoffed, barely even flinching this time. He must have gotten so used to her retching attempts in the Great Hall he had become practically immune to them.

She straightened back up. The slimy smirk had been wiped off his face and he was now glaring at her with enough force to kill. She batted her eyes innocently. "I'm just showing off my toxic waste making abilities, Professor."

"And your little pantomime there was most unwelcome!" he snarled, his hair zapping up wildly. "Try as you might, brat, but I am not going to put up with any more of your insolence today! Cross me one more time, one more time, I tell you, and you will regret you ever had the nerve to open your geyser mouth. Do you understand?"

He made an ominous slashing motion at his throat, and she stiffened a bit. Well well, someone sure was angry today! "Yes, sir."

After giving her one last lethal glare, Snape turned to leave — but then he glanced at her crappy potion, and paused. "And ah, yes — that will be ten points from Gryffindor for defiling the art of potion-making with this atrocity." He waved his wand over her cauldron, making the brown chunks disappear, before sweeping away.

Ari looked around to see what the Gryffindors would think of her losing them another ten points. However, to her surprise, most of them were grinning at her. Except for Hermione, of course, who was glaring at Ari like she had committed some mortal offense. And in the front of the room, Malfoy was muttering to Crap and Boil again while flashing Ari venomous looks. But Ari ignored them all and continued making her potion.

However, a few minutes later, the directions just got too confusing to bear again. And this time, Ari gave up altogether trying to follow along. So she tried a new tactic. And that was adding in random combinations of ingredients and experimenting to see what it would make. It was much funner working this way, she realized. She was no longer bogged down by the instructions, and was free to do and make whatever she liked. So she went wild by tossing in a few purple insects, a handful of tiny devil horns, a squirt of gooey orange juice, and then some plump green berries.

Before long, her potion began to sizzle and crackle threateningly. Ari thought she saw some sparks coming off the surface as well. She tried stirring the potion a bit, but then the whole cauldron started to vibrate. Ari gasped and dropped the stirrer. Now that was weird!

Before she could decide what to do next, the cauldron gave one almighty lurch. FWOOOM! A gigantic mushroom cloud shot up from the cauldron and burst through the ceiling. Ari screamed and jumped back.

Within seconds, putrid black smoke from the mushroom cloud filled the entire room and made her lungs sting. It was complete pandemonium. People started screaming and crying, and there was the noise of various items crashing and shattering. Ari coughed and covered up her nose with her sleeve, unable to breathe. She looked around wildly to see how the others were faring, but she couldn't see anyone or anything through the dense smoke.

"QUIET!" Snape bellowed over everyone's screams. "BE QUIET!"

The smoke started clearing up. A few moments later, it disappeared altogether, and the air was safe to breathe again. She saw Snape sweeping around the classroom, waving his wand and making the smoke disappear.

"Wow, Professor, did you see that?" Ari burst out, looking up at the ceiling. There was a big black mark where the mushroom cloud had shot through. "I just made the whole cauldron explode!"

Snape stopped mid-stride and whirled around to face her. "For the love of God!" he barked. His face was jerking in all sorts of weird directions and his eyes were different sizes, and his whole head pulsated like another cauldron about to explode. "So you can't make a potion, but you can somehow turn your cauldron into a nuclear weapon, eh?!"

"I guess so!" she giggled.

"Twenty points from Gryffindor!" Snape spat, his deranged eyes zapping out a message in Morse code. "And detention! I want a twelve-inch essay about the composition of this potion, indicating where and how you went wrong, due by the end of class. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then get to it!" he snarled. Then he whizzed around and faced the rest of the class, who had been silently watching their interaction. "Well?! What are you all doing, standing there and gawking like a bunch of comatose idiots? Get back to work!"

And then everyone scrambled back to work. Ari noticed Malfoy and his friends snickering with each other and muttering behind their hands, all while flashing Ari gleefully derisive looks. It wasn't hard to figure out what they were talking about.

Then Ari glanced at Hermione, and she did a double take. Because the bushy-haired girl had an uncanny resemblance to Snape just then, with her hair bulging out and her eyes flashing with mad fury. Ari smiled and waved. Well, it looked like she had lost Gryffindor a total of eighty-five points now.

Snape suddenly rapped his wand on Ari's table, and she jumped. "Where is that essay?" he demanded. "I want to see that essay!"

Ah, yes, the essay! Ari quickly got out her quills and parchment, then blinked at the blank page. How many inches did she have to write again?

"Twelve inches," Snape hissed behind her, and she jumped again. "Listing the composition of the potion and where and how you went wrong."

She frowned. Twelve inches, huh? That sure was a lot. And she had to do it all in one sitting! She had never worked on an essay for that long, and wasn't sure if she would be able to finish it. Or rather, if her attention span would be able to last that long. Usually, she did a single twelve inch essay within the span of a few days, with lots of breaks in between.

But now that she had nothing better to do and was forced to work on this essay, she had no choice but to begin the slow, tedious process of writing. For the first part of the essay, she just deciphered Snape's instructions on the board and wrote it down, step by step. Then for the part where she had to describe why she messed up, she wrote that she had been in too much of a hurry and hadn't been paying attention on which ingredients to use.

She measured out her essay with a ruler, and with a sigh, noticed it only measured up to nine inches. So she added some fluff about how it had been hard to read Snape's handwriting, and it was even worse because she was sitting in the back of the room and always had to squint at the board. That covered up the three inches pretty well, and what was more, the bell rang by the time Ari finished up all twelve inches of her essay. Perfect timing!

She went up to Snape's desk and gave him her essay, and he read over it. She expected him to check over it quickly and dismiss her. But to her dismay, he looked at her over the parchment and did his judgmental eyebrow-raise. "Is there any chance you were falling asleep as you wrote this?" he asked.

"No," she said defensively. "I was wide-awake. And I put a lot of effort into it."

"Stop lying," he curled his lip. "You have so many careless mistakes scattered throughout, I don't even know where to start. You omitted step five that describes stirring the cauldron three times clockwise. And it's twenty milliliters of frog blood, not eighty. And just what in the world is this unholy string of gibberish? 'V-A-L-O-N-W-S-R-G-S?'"

He looked up at her with an expression of scornful disbelief and she rolled her eyes. "The ingredient in the second step, obviously! You said we have to add five valonwergs or whatever they're called."

His sneer deepened. "You mean Valerian sprigs," he said, enunciating each syllable carefully.

"Oh," she said, squinting at the spiky writing on the board. Valonwsrgs… Valerian sprigs… "So that's what it said."

He rolled his eyes. "Really, I don't believe anyone could be this idiotic even if they tried. How in the world do you go from Valerian sprigs to whatever incomprehensible alien language this is?" He jabbed at the page.

"It's not my fault!" she whined. "Didn't you read the last part of my essay? I said I couldn't follow the instructions good 'cause your handwriting was bad, and also 'cause I was sitting in the very back so I couldn't really read the board."

"Excuses, excuses," he said coldly. "Here's some food for thought: instead of blaming other people for your own ineptitude, why don't you own up to your mistakes and make the effort to fix your behavior?"

She scowled. "But I did own up to my mistakes," she grumbled. "Before I wrote that, I said I wasn't paying attention and that I'll be more careful in the future."

"And clearly, your promise is null and void," Snape retorted, crumpling up her parchment into a ball, "because this essay is just as flawed and hastily done as the mockery of a 'potion' you just polluted my classroom with. Start over. I don't want you leaving this room until you've eliminated all your silly mistakes and written an accurate, thorough twelve-inch response to this prompt."

Her mouth dropped open. "W-what?!" she sputtered, and Snape's sneer widened. "But that's gonna take so long! It took me two hours to write this essay! It's gonna take me another two hours to write another!"

"Then so be it," he said smoothly, folding his arms on his desk. "I don't care how long it takes, as long as you learn your lesson and turn in a proper essay."

"But — can't I at least go to my dormitory and write it?" she asked desperately. "I mean, I can't concentrate too good here, I can bring it back to you by next—"

"No," he cut in, his eyes flashing. "You must understand, idiot, there is something called a deadline, and there are sacrifices you must make to meet these deadlines. You can whine and put off the task as much as you'd like, but in the end, it will only do you more harm than good. Nobody is going to change their ways just for you, because contrary to what you think, little brat, the world does not revolve around you. And this is the first step to drilling that lesson through your thick skull."

She stared at him, too flabbergasted to speak. She could feel the indignation bubbling up inside her like lava. But underneath that, she could feel something else, something painful and prickly, something made her feel small and stupid and powerless.

Snape was staring at her, his eyes gleaming. "Start over," he said quietly. He pointed to the desk directly across from his own. "And since you complained of not being able to see while sitting in the back, why don't you actually do something to fix it? Sit right here. Now you won't have any excuse to say that you can't see the board clearly."

She looked at him in dismay. "But!"

He silenced her with a withering glare. She scowled even more deeply. Great, just great! So her sitting-in-the-back excuse had totally backfired on her, and now she had to sit next to Snape! Bleurgh!

She was so disgusted that she was tempted to throw up over him again for real this time to assert her dominance, but her stomach was woefully empty. She was very hungry, actually, but because Snape was holding her hostage, she couldn't go to lunch and fill her belly.

She stomped up to the desk in front of Snape's and set her things down. "Remember, dunderhead," Snape said as she sat down. "Twelve inches, listing the composition of this potion, and where and how you went wrong with it. I want everything to be written clearly and correctly. You will stay here until the conditions are satisfied, no matter how long it takes. Is that clear?"

"Yes," she growled.

There was a pause, and Snape narrowed his eyes. "What are you supposed to address me as?"

She clenched her teeth. "Sir."

Sir of the warty toads, she corrected silently. She came up with all sorts of creative names in her mind as she stirred her quill furiously in the inkpot. Stupid bat head, greasy big-nose, vile puke catcher—

"That's enough," Snape's sharp voice interrupted her internal monologue, and she jumped. His sharp eyes bored through hers. Had he actually heard her insulting him in her mind? "You've gotten enough ink on your quill, now write with it."

Ari lifted her quill out of the inkpot and scraped the nib against the rim. Then she looked up at Snape's instructions on the board and began writing. From up here, the words did indeed look bigger and clearer, but it still took her a little while to fully decipher Snape's horrible handwriting.

This time, she formed her words carefully on the parchment and reread each line before writing it down. She wrote it as 'Valerian sprigs' this time, and fixed the measurement to twenty milligrams of frog blood, and not eighty. And she made sure to match each line on the board with her line on the paper, so she didn't accidentally skip another line.

As she wrote, her stomach kept growling and it was hard to concentrate. But with all her self-discipline, she forced herself to keep writing down each line until slowly, her parchment began to fill up with her words.

Her hand was cramping terribly by the time she finished copying all the instructions. And she still had to list the reasons why she had messed up her potion. With a sigh, she set down her quill and massaged her aching hand.

"You stopped," Snape said, not looking up from the parchments he was working on.

She made a face. Did he really have to watch her each and every move? "Yeah, I know," she said. "My hand was hurting. I'm just taking a break."

He didn't respond and continued scratching away at his parchment. Ari tried to look at what he was writing. He seemed to be grading a bunch of essays and was scribbling red ink everywhere. She wondered if he was giving 0.11 percents to those poor souls, too.

"It's been a minute," Snape said. She jumped and looked up at him. His eyes were narrowed. "You've rested long enough. Now get back to work."

She picked up her quill and re-dipped it in the ink pot. For this section of the essay, she wrote something similar to last time, in that she hadn't been focusing enough on her potion, and had been too confused and lazy to follow the instructions. And now she included a part where she wouldn't blame other people for her mistakes and would do her best to fix her behavior for the future by using her self-discipline. There. She was sure Snape would love that part.

"I'm done now, Professor," Ari announced once she had written down all twelve inches. She gave her parchment to Snape, who put it up to his nose and read over it, while she massaged her aching hand.

"How is it?" she asked impatiently when Snape remained silent, the parchment still held to his face. "Is it good?"

"It's fine," he answered tonelessly, lowering the parchment. She barely had time to marvel in his praise before he said in a sharp voice, "I expect that this isn't just empty blathering of a dunderhead, and you'll actually follow through with your words next time we're in class?"

"Yeah, yeah," she scoffed, and Snape raised an eyebrow. "I mean, yes sir. I'll follow through with it."

He continued staring at her, his eyes narrowed. He stared at her for so long Ari wondered if they were having a staring contest. "Can I go now, then?" she broke the silence, and jiggled her foot restlessly. "I'm starving."

"Very well," he said. He looked away at last as he re-immersed himself in his parchments. "You're dismissed. You'll need to head straight to class. The lunch block is over."

"Huh?" Ari said, stopping her foot mid-jiggle.

"It's a quarter past, dunderhead. Lunch has been over for fifteen minutes now."

"What?!" she exclaimed, her mouth dropping open. "But that's not fair! I didn't even have time to go! And I'm starving! I didn't get to eat anything! I'm going to starve to death!"

"Don't be ridiculous," he scoffed as he wrote something down with his quill. "You're not going to starve by missing a single meal. You can wait until dinner."

"But still, I'm hungry!" she exclaimed, putting a hand to her stomach. She had never missed a meal in her life, always having three square meals a day. Now that she knew she wasn't going to be able to eat lunch, she was suddenly starting to feel kind of clammy. And her head was spinning. "And I haven't eaten anything for like, hours, and I worked so hard, and now I'm feeling really weak, and oh, I'm gonna faint—"

And then she slipped off the chair and banged onto the ground. "For God's sake!" Snape snarled. She cracked open her eyes. He had left his desk and was looming over her. "Idiot child! Just what do you think you're doing?"

"I told you, sir, I'm gonna faint," she said weakly. Her whole body felt like jelly. "I can't move anymore. I'm gonna die."

He rolled his eyes to the back of his head. "You are not going to die," he scoffed. "This melodrama is utterly unnecessary. Get up."

She climbed unsteadily to her feet. Snape waved his wand, and a plate appeared in his hand. He waved his wand again, and then a bunch of sandwiches appeared on the plate. Ari gasped, feeling her strength return at once. Food!

He handed her the plate. "Stopper your mouth with that so you can stop going on with your idiotic declarations about dying."

"Yes, sir," she said, taking a sandwich and stuffing half of it in her mouth.

Snape grimaced. She could almost hear what he was thinking: dis-gus-ting! "Don't you dare get any crumbs in my classroom," he said sternly. "Take that outside."

She held the plate toward him. "Arn'yo gon' haff nee?" she asked, her cheeks bulging with food.

"No."

"Buh yo din' haff lun eetuh."

"Worry about yourself, dunderhead," he rolled his eyes. "And don't talk with your mouth full. It's disgusting."

She gave a huge gulp. "You mean dis-GUS-ting!" she corrected, and his face froze. She smirked. "You remember that, Professor? You screamed that when I—"

"Yes, I know, dunderhead!" he barked over her, his eyes rekindling with that traumatic flashback. Ari snickered heartily, and he bared his fangs. "You've overstayed your welcome! Get out!"

He shepherded her toward the door and flung it open. "Bye," Ari said as she stepped out. He held her backpack to her she grabbed it with her free hand. "Thanks. And thanks for the food, too."

"You're welcome," he snapped. "Now leave me alone."

And then he slammed the door in her face.