18-Oct-1991

Harry stared at the spiteful man who strutted around the classroom. No matter what he did, Snape always found a reason to blame Harry for what was going on, taking points, threatening detention, or generally being a bully. And Harry had learned what it took to deal with bullies a long time ago.

First, avoid at all costs. Avoiding a bully saved energy, and energy was precious when food was limited. If possible, simply never interact with or be in the same area as a known bully. Always be alert, and take the long way around any setting where the bully is likely to be.

Second, minimize contact when avoiding was impossible. With a strict aim of having as little to do verbally or physically near the bully, their ire would invariable fall on others – leaving Harry able to quietly blend into the background. Well-proven techniques such as staying behind the bully, or otherwise out of the line of sight, helps minimize contact and conflict.

Third, contain the opportunities for the bad behavior. If you have no chance to avoid or minimize contact with the bully, then the next best bet was to never do anything to trigger the bully. Never take their favorite food, book, seat, pencil, rock, gerbil, or what-have-you that they want to dominate utterly. This is the tricky rule, since you have to observe the bully sufficiently to understand their motivations, desires, and objectives. Once you know what the enemy wants, you can determine how to best help them achieve it – if the price is acceptable.

Fourth, destroy the bully. When all else fails, and there is no path to avoid, minimize, or placate, then the ultimate step is required – total and utter destruction. In the process of this, as Harry already knew, a series of careful escalations would give the bully an opportunity to re-think their life choices and perhaps change their behavior. But as Harry learned from the Dursleys, no bully really changes their behavior – and a series of escalations could risk them figuring out who is causing their bad luck. And then you risk being destroyed, not the bully.

Harry learned years ago to be a very, very good observer. Keen observation up front saved pain and hunger later. He knew that the quicker he can read people, recall an area, and replay who does what . . . the more likely he would have a better day. And he had to do it every single moment of every single day, in public and in the that miserable house. Harry learned to be quick, silent, and sharp because there was no alternative worth considering.

Magic, though, was something new, something different, something wholly unpredictable. Over the course of the past several weeks, Harry had steadily watched everything in this class. He was fascinated by the idea of potions, and how very small changes could turn into big impacts. When Ron became too annoying, Harry would get lost in a shuffle of people and skive off to the library or talk to the paintings. He found it easy to read more about the basic interactions and sequences of ingredients – something the bully instructor could not be bothered with doing.

And while he watched, he understood that the first rule of bullies was dead: he was required to take the class, and the other students said it could not be skipped. The idea of minimizing contact was equally dead, since he had to be in the room multiple times per week, in the direct line of sight of the bully, thus the second rule was useless. The third rule had promise for a while, but now also seemed dead. The past several weeks were a clear demonstration that the problem with the bully was Harry – for no reason he could understand. No other students had any ideas other, noting that even the general dislike of Gryffindors was taken to a whole new level with Harry in specific. So now he was down to Rule Four, destruction.

Living with the Dursleys had taught him to be subtle when he needed to apply Rule Four. Ensuring that the wheel on Vernon's car would have lug nuts just loose enough had been hard to work out. After he spent that scorching summer day day washing and waxing, with no food or drink, he felt it was a fair return. Thankfully, three days later, all four tyres finally came off during a high-speed drive on the M1, and now Vernon needed a driver, not a car. And the driver was always nice to Harry, so Vernon had to be more careful in how he talked to Harry.

Snape paced past him again, heading behind Harry finally. So Harry carefully turned the heat up even higher. He ensured the cauldron was tipped slightly away from his notes and books.

Dudley had taken a different kind of anti-bully lesson. He always took Harry's food, because he always blamed Harry for everything that Dudley did which caused problems. And Harry was tired of going hungry all the time, having to clean up Dudley's mess all the time, and be the punching bag for Dudley all the time. So a carefully prepared meal which included a serving of mostly antifreeze poured into the cups of both Dudley and Harry with a dash of his sport drink mix to round it out. A strategically dropped dessert dish as everyone was sitting down to eat, a solid beating and removal to the cupboard, and Bob's your uncle. Or, in this case, Dudley's on dialysis and a kidney waiting list, with some long-term lung damage. Avoiding Dudley was easy now, and there was no evidence of what went wrong.

Harry heard Snape yelling at some poor students behind him, so he turned the heat up even higher. Looking around, as everyone was finishing their final stages of Forgetfulness Potion effort, he confirmed no one was paying attention to what he was doing. Harry quickly put a handful of finely ground porcupine quills into the top of the cauldron, and gave it a quick two-fold crossed stir, noting that the color darkened and there was a hint of bubbles forming at the bottom.

With one final clockwise stir, Harry sharply called out, "Professor Snape! I think I've made a mistake somehow!"

Harry knew it would be blood in the water to a shark, and he was rewarded with what he would swear was a loud chortle before stomping feet and a swirling cloak appeared at his work area.

"What is this, Potter?!" Snape bellowed. "Are you so incompetent that you can actually foul this incredibly basic potion?! Look at how hot you've made it!"

"But sir," Harry said, gesturing to the potion, "it's only just a bit darker than called for, surely it can be salvaged?" Harry deliberately cowered slightly, shrinking into himself, and looking down at Snape's feet – which he knew would be Bully Enticing Gesture #3B.

Snape stooped ever closer, staring directly at Harry, opened his mouth to yell further – when the potion exploded in a geyser, covering Snape from head to toe, as well as filling the bully's mouth with no small amount of scalding hot goop. Snape fell backwards, screaming and crying and clutching at his face.

Harry jumped in a dramatic way, accidentally knocking the entire cauldron over onto Snape's head as the other students started panicking and screaming. "Help!" Harry called frantically, "what should we do?!"

Snape's screams quickly trailed off as he lay on the floor, twitching violently. A rather foul odor as though an open urinal was in the room quickly became noticeable.

Harry knew porcupine quills were basically inert to the potion, but added expansion to the potion base under heat to increase volume of the result – it was well documented in the library materials. The more ground the quill and the higher the heat, the faster the expansion. Neville's mistake earlier in the year gave him the insight into the sequencing needed for this little improvised bully attitude correction.

"I'll run for the nurse," called Hermione as she started to run out of the room, while Draco ran over to Snape and tried to lift him off the mess on the floor.

According to the library materials, the key ingredient to control the strength of this particular potion was the amount of mistletoe berries. Harry had happily increased the concentration of the potion to cover approximately 50 years. It was hard for him to tell how old wizards and witches were, they aged very differently from the muggles he observed. With an internal pat on the back, Harry felt that another bully had been stopped, one way or another.

- Fragments of Thought -

AN:

I find it hard to believe that after starting Potions instruction in 1981, Snape went 10 full years without any students exacting a permanent sort of revenge on him. After all, in the canon works of the JKR books on Years 1-7, it's a regular occurrence to destroy cauldrons, tables, harm others, etc. through potions accidents. It doesn't take much to realize this is an opportunity waiting to happen, and it doesn't even take a genius to work out which sequencing of ingredients and steps will have the most destructive result.

At least this version of Harry left the canonical child-abusing bastards alive .. this time. He was also kind enough to do his bully-halting in a single step, rather than taking the illustrious bastard apart one piece at a time – or in Snape's case, one potion at a time.