Harry Potter: Reborn as Draco Black Chapter 10 10 — Potions

"Now then, listen carefully..."

Penny began her briefing when we reached the Potions classroom and found it locked. She did not seem at all surprised by this.

"...Professor Snape arrives five minutes before the lesson begins. The most important thing to rember: do not argue with him, and do not call out answers without being asked. He asks questions at the start of his lessons, and if you know the answer, simply raise your hand, sit calmly, and wait to be called on, or not called on at all. Unfortunately, Potions falls on your first full day, so there was simply no chance to advise you to read a few chapters beforehand."

Penny paused briefly, then continued a mont later.

"Professor Snape is very strict and will not tolerate any nonsense in his classroom. Please take the lesson seriously: for many sought-after careers, such as Auror, Healer, Dragonologist, Curse-Breaker, and many others, Potions will be required at least to O.W.L. standard. And now I shall leave you in the care of Mr. Black, Ravenclaw."

"Penny..."

I called to her before she could hurry away.

"Yes?"

"I need to get to Professor Flitwick's classroom about two hours before dinner. I could probably find my way on my own. The route is not complicated, but he said you would take ."

"Of course..."

She nodded.

"...I have nothing on at that ti anyway, so I am happy to help. But what is this about? Have you already managed to get yourself into trouble?"

"He's been given an exam covering the first two years!"

One of the girls decided to tell Penny the full story on my behalf.

"Is that so?"

Penny looked at questioningly, and I gave a confirming nod.

"Are you confident about it?"

"Yes."

"Well then, congratulations. That is quite an achievent. If you pass with top marks..."

Penny pressed one finger to her lips and tapped it thoughtfully a couple of tis.

"...I will be your attendant for a week!"

She raised the sa finger in the air as though a marvelous idea had just occurred to her.

"Penny, I appreciate the gesture, but I already have an attendant and I am perfectly satisfied with her services. Perhaps you can think of sothing else?"

I tilted my head slightly.

"What? Oh! Yes, sorry..."

Penny glanced over my shoulder, at Daphne, I presud, with a slightly guilty expression.

"...I got a little carried away. It is not every day one sees a first-year with his own personal attendant, who is himself paying rather costly tuition at Hogwarts."

"But tuition is free!"

Hermione could not stay out of it.

"So then, what should the wager be..."

I saw Penny's eyes flicker briefly towards the voice coming from behind , but she clearly decided to focus on the question she considered more pressing. I anwhile found myself reflecting that over all these years my mothers had never quite managed to dislodge Snape from his teaching position. Not that they had put every possible effort into it, but still...

The short of it was that Dumbledore had been extrely reluctant to move his personal spy, and at a family council we had concluded that it would be simpler to open a preparatory school, sowhere that anyone who needed a particular subject could acquire the necessary skills, even if they had failed their O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s.

"Suppose I... well, I really don't know..."

Penny looked at with a charmingly helpless expression.

"How about this: if I pass everything, you greet every morning for a year..."

I paused for a couple of seconds, my gaze drifting briefly over Penny's figure, which was already fairly well-developed. She turned slightly pink, and I could see indignation gathering in her expression, ready to be expressed.

"...with a kiss on the cheek."

Her eyes went wide with surprise.

"And if I fail the professor's examination, I will cover your visit to any establishnt in Hogsade every weekend."

"Just mine, or mine and my friends'?"

I shrugged.

"Yours and, say, two or three friends of your choosing."

It made very little difference to either way. My pocket money for the year, which my mothers had given , ca to nearly a thousand Galleons, more than enough for that, with a great deal left over. Well over half, in fact. And if I had sohow underestimated Penny's appetite, I could always ask my mothers to send a little more. After all, I had left almost all of it at ho and brought only a hundred and fifty Galleons with .

"Deal!"

Penny extended her hand, and I seized the mont. I took it at a slight angle and pressed my lips to the air just above it rather than shaking it. The prefect turned pink. Then I turned back to the first-years.

"Miss Patil, would you do us the honor?"

I nodded towards the joined hands, and Padma stepped forward and separated them neatly.

"Thank you."

"Yes, thank you, and I promise you will be invited to our little outings at least once a month, all on Draco's account."

"Thank you..."

"...though I rather think it will be you who ends up kissing him on the cheek every morning for a year."

"Excuse ?"

"Well, he has already demonstrated several spells in class and Professor Flitwick was more than satisfied. They have also already discussed certain arrangents that Mr Black..."

"That will do, Padma."

I smiled at the girl from India, and she gave a slightly flushed nod.

"...Draco, will be taking on once he has passed the examination."

"You tricked !"

Penny wore an expression of exaggerated indignation.

"Tricked you? No..."

I shook my head with a faint smile.

"...I rely entered into a wager knowing the outco in advance. But..."

I made a show of glancing at my watch.

"...if you like, we can continue this conversation later. Right now you have a lesson to get to, and I should keep an eye on our first-years."

"Tch..."

She gave a slight toss of her chin, doing her best to appear thoroughly displeased. But a mont later, she smiled at nonetheless, gave a nod, and set off at a brisk pace. I turned back to the group.

Before long, the Hufflepuffs joined us, brought by their prefect. I couldn't fathom why they could possibly have gotten lost on the way, unless they had been taken back to their common room first and led here from there. Quite possible, now that I thought about it. In any case, no one delivered a speech at the door. The Hufflepuff prefect simply brought them and stood slightly to one side, smiling quietly as his first-years chattered away among themselves.

"Into the classroom..."

I barely noticed Snape's arrival at the very edge of my awareness. Even that much was enough to tell that he trained regularly, though he was still a very long way from matching Filch's absolute silence. He was probably not attempting anything of the sort, though. More likely, he was simply maintaining a solid level of physical fitness, since standing over a cauldron for long stretches at a ti was demanding enough on its own.

I held the Ravens back with a gesture to let the Hufflepuffs file in first, then we followed and took our seats. Daphne and I each chose separate single workstations for brewing alone; the others mostly settled at the two-person benches.

"In this classroom there will be no foolish wand-waving or silly incantations."

Snape spoke with a slight air of condescension, directed not at the activities he was describing, but at us, the children.

"As is customary, I do not expect many of you to appreciate the... precise science and subtle art of potion-making."

He made a great show of surveying the class. Snape himself was dressed in a black dueling coat beneath a black cloak left open at the front. The effect was... well, to my eyes it was rather theatrical; this effort to strike dread and reverence into a roomful of children so they would not misbehave. Though that was only how it seed to Daphne and , having sat through Mum Bella's lessons on more than one occasion; she could be considerably more frightening whenever she chose.

Though even Bella rarely resorted to it, preferring to present material in a way that made us want to pay attention of our own accord.

"However, those select few... who demonstrate aptitude..."

Snape paused dramatically, his gaze moving across us. I noticed it linger on and on several other students, apparently on the Ravenclaw side. I expected him to say sothing, but he chose not to interrupt himself.

"...I can teach to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses. I can tell them how to brew fa, bottle glory, and even stopper death."

The words were well-chosen, delivered with precisely the right inflection, and produced exactly the right effect. I suspected even Daphne and I might have felt sothing, were it not for Bella. And Mum Cissy, for that matter, could command a room far more effectively still.

"Potter!"

I turned my head just enough to see Harry set down his quill and quickly get to his feet.

"Ah, our new celebrity..."

A few of the Hufflepuffs snickered at that.

"I imagine you think rather highly of yourself if you feel free to ignore and sit there drawing."

"Sir..."

"Well then, let us see what you have to say for yourself..."

A sardonic smile curved Snape's lips.

"Professor Snape, your speech moved so much that I wanted to write it down, so I would never forget what Potions is capable of."

Snape's eyes widened fractionally in surprise, and I realized Harry was not so simple. Perhaps Snape's speech had genuinely moved him so deeply that he wanted to record it.

"We shall see..."

As I had anticipated, the professor was not easily fooled. He drew his wand from its holster, summoned the parchnt Harry had apparently been writing on, and read through it quickly. Harry happened to be sharing a bench with Hermione.

"Hmm... so it is..."

Snape shook his head and returned the parchnt to Potter's desk with a casual wave of his wand.

"...though if I were you, Mr. Potter, I would consider taking penmanship lessons. Any essay written in a hand like that will receive no higher than Poor from ."

"I beg your pardon. Poor?"

"Miss, kindly do not call out from your seat..."

Snape visibly winced in Hermione's direction.

"...however, I will excuse it this once and this once only. Normally, the grading system used at Hogwarts is explained by my colleague Professor McGonagall, but as you have co to directly from Charms, and Professor Flitwick does not typically give marks during the first month..."

A note of disapproval was audible in the professor's voice.

"Outstanding (O), Exceeds Expectations (E), Acceptable (A). These are the passing grades. Below that cos Poor (P). That is a failing grade, but it does not require a retake. Dreadful (D) and Troll (T) are outright failing grades and require a retake. I would like you all to rember this: if you receive a D or a T on a practical task, you must co to on Friday three hours before dinner to brew the potion again. If you receive either of those grades on an essay, you must bring a revised version to the following lesson, along with whatever essay I set for that lesson, and the revision must be twice the length of what I originally assigned."

"Is that clear?"

"Yes."

A rather subdued chorus rose from the first-years.

"Good. And I do not wish to hear that you did not know a D or T required a retake, did not know when to co, or did not know you had to rewrite an essay. One more thing..."

He looked over the class with a slightly appraising eye.

"...This applies particularly to Ravenclaw. Every year there are clever students who, instead of writing an essay, simply copy out a chapter or splice together paragraphs from various books and consider themselves clever for it. Such an essay, like one written in illegible handwriting and covered in ink blots, will receive no higher than a Poor from . Is that understood?"

"Yes."

Another chorus answered him.

"Potter, I do not believe I gave you permission to sit down..."

Snape made Harry stand again.

"...now then, let us find out whether you opened your Potions textbook before the start of term. We shall begin with sothing straightforward. What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

"Er... I don't know, sir..."

Snape winced slightly.

"Very well. If I asked you to find a bezoar, where would you look?"

"Er..."

Harry looked uncertain.

"...if I am not mistaken, a bezoar is found inside a goat?"

"Acceptable..."

Snape gave a faint nod that was almost like encouragent, and I was genuinely surprised. Harry had clearly opened the textbook at so point before term began.

"What is the difference between Monkshood and Wolfsbane?"

"I am sorry, sir, I don't know."

"Well... your answers suggest that you at least opened the textbook. One point to Ravenclaw. Had you answered all three questions, you would have earned three points for your House. Now, everyone please write down the correct answers..."

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