Well, this was my first idea for lucyy's marvelous competition. I'm sure most of you know the Harry Potter books... so I don't really need to give much additional information! Anyway, this is Harry's first potions class, and how it would turn out differently if I had been there. Or rather, not that differently since this was just my first idea and I got really hung up on sticking to what was in the book. I get like that sometimes. Anyway, this really isn't very good and I'm considering taking it off - so please go and look at Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone...and Lillie 2. That is much better!
I sat at the back of the potions class, nervously flicking through my glossy new textbook as we all waited for the teacher to arrive. I knew that this potions class would be taken by the tall, greasy and intimidating Professor Snape. This instilled an anxiousness that was mirrored in everybody else in the dungeon, if the nervous mutterings that surrounded me were anything to go by.
Everything at Hogwarts was – there was no other word for it – amazing. All the old paintings with subjects that moved and talked! For over an hour on the first night, I had had a long and detailed conversation with the painting of a reasonably young wizard called Mozart. He played me some of his pieces on the piano, and clapped ecstatically and beamed when I recognised some.
The lessons, although nothing at all like the maths, science and English ones I was used to, were enthralling. I found the Transfiguration lesson the easiest, although judging by the other students’ expressions, I was the only one with that opinion. Professor McGonagall, the Transfiguration teacher, is also my head of house. Even though Gryffindor seems like a good one, from what I heard on the train I would have thought I might have been put into Ravenclaw, but I don’t question the Sorting Hat’s decision.
The murmur of quiet voices died the moment the large doors swung open and Snape swept into the room, his black robes trailed through the air behind him. I watched him as he made his swift way up to the front of the class, and it wasn’t until he turned around and glared at us all that I realised that, sitting along from me, was that small, skinny boy with untidy black hair.
Harry Potter, so I’d been told by almost everybody here. He was sat next to a very red-haired boy called Weasley – I had already met his brothers, Fred and George – and I saw Professor Snape glare particularly viciously at Harry.
Snape began to take the register, and I just managed to stammer a shaky, “Yes, sir!” when he called my name. A few calls of “Here, sir,” later, Snape hesitated, his upper lip curling.
“Ah, yes,” he said softly, “Harry Potter. Our new – celebrity.”
Some large boys sniggered; I glared at them from behind, and noticed the bushy-haired girl to my right doing the same. I caught her eye and we shared a short, small smile.
“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making,” began Snape. Again, I noticed him rest his narrowed eyes on Harry for another moment. “As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death – if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”
I’m not a dunderhead, I thought angrily. In fact, I was perfectly ready to prove to this gently-terrifying teacher. Again, I met that bushy-haired girl’s eye, and I could tell we were thinking the same thing.
“Potter!” said Snape suddenly. “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”
I resisted the temptation to lift my hand into the air like that girl was; I peeked across to her books, and saw the name Hermione Granger written in a small, neat hand on the top one. However, I also knew the answer to Snape’s question. Not entirely, however, but I remembered reading it in the textbook; those two ingredients made the Draught of Living Death. I smiled knowingly to myself as the silence in the absence of Harry’s answer lengthened uncomfortably.
“I don’t know, sir,” he finally mumbled.
Snape’s lips twitched in half a smile, half a sneer. “Tut, tut – fame clearly isn’t everything.”
Harry looked embarrassed, and Hermione’s hand twitched impatiently in the air, but Snape ignored them both.
“Let’s try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?”
The stomach of a goat, I thought instantly. This seemed like such a simple question, I was stunned when the Potter boy did not answer. Hermione stretched herself taller.
“I don’t know sir.”
“Thought you wouldn’t open a book before coming, eh, Potter?”
Harry averted his eyes, looking instead down at the desk under his nose, as Hermione stretched even higher into the air; I stifled a grin.
“What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?”
Hermione, clearly desperate to prove she was not a dunderhead, stood up, her hand reaching up perilously high.
“I don’t know,” said Harry quietly. There was a gentle undercurrent of defiance in his voice, and I sucked in a breath, certain that Snape would not miss this. “I think Hermione does, though, why don’t you try her?”
His sheer cheek compelled me to titter ever so quietly. The moment the risky sound passed my lips, I knew it was a mistake. Snape fixed me, and the others who had laughed, with his glare – he had eyes like two black holes, they were so dark and strong in their ability to hold others’ gazes.
“Sit down,” he snapped at Hermione, who slid back down into her chair with the air of a scolded cat. “For you information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren’t you all copying that down?”
The silence was suddenly broken by the sounds of the whole class rummaging for their quills and parchment. Well, not the whole class. Hermione and I had, of course, already written Snape’s little speech down. Our eyes met again, and she said, tentatively, “Hi.”
“Hello,” I replied, just as shyly.
“...will be taken from Gryffindor House for your cheek, Potter.”
A minute later, Snape came around and put us all into pairs. He allowed Harry and the Weasley boy to work together, and then paired a boy called Neville with another called Seamus. Then, moving further along the row, he paired me with Hermione.
“I’m Lillie, by the way,” I said as she pulled her apparatus out of her bag with an impressive speed; I began setting up my cauldron.
“I’m Hermione.”
We didn’t say much else for a while – we were both concentrating on the potion. It was really rather simple, and it took me back to the odd experiment we had done at primary school. Hermione quipped my chopping once, and I corrected the level of heat she had set under the cauldron, but we both took the criticism as advice and smiled, sharing the odd sarcastic but friendly comment.
I decided I could really, really like this girl. We seemed so alike – apart from our hair, as mine was deadly straight.
The potion needed to simmer quietly for one minute and seventeen seconds, so I took the time to glance around at what everybody else was doing. From what I could see, ours was by far the best, especially compared to the one being prepared by Neville and Seamus to our left. They did not seem as adept as Hermione and I were at concentrating and attention to detail. Suddenly, I noticed Neville about to add the porcupine quills to his potion, but his cauldron was still on the fire.
“Wait!” I said hastily, and he jumped, dropping the quills on the floor, where they rolled away under the desks. “Neville, right? You have to take the cauldron off the fire before adding the quills.”
“O-oh,” muttered Neville, turning bright red. “Sorry. Thanks.”
“No problem,” I replied brightly, smiling. I turned back to our cauldron and watched as Hermione stirred it before completing the final step. Snape called us to attention then, to observe how well a silver-blond haired boy had stewed his horned slugs.
When he came around a minute or two later to see how we were getting on, Snape could not find a fault with our potion. I turned to Hermione and saw that she was beaming ear to ear; I must have been, too.
Snape made a non-committal noise as he peered into Neville’s cauldron but said nothing – until he reached Harry’s. He stared intently at the glimmering potion for a long minute before he spoke.
“You have clearly not stewed your horned slugs on a high enough heat. Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. That’s another point you’ve lost for Gryffindor.”
When the lesson ended, about an hour later, I neatly packed all my things into my bags and turned to leave, fully prepared to do my homework alone up in the Gryffindor common room. However, waiting for me outside in the corridor, was Hermione.
“Do you – do you want to start on the Transfiguration essay? I remember you were in my class,” she asked.
I was surprised, but immensely pleased. “Yeah, I’d love to!”
So we set off up the corridor to the Entrance Hall, right behind Harry and the ginger-haired Weasley he called Ron. Ron glanced around, saw Hermione and me and groaned quietly. He nudged Harry and whispered, loud enough for us to hear, in a voice that suppressed a groan, “Oh no, now there are two of her.”
Hermione’s previously bright expression slumped, and she looked upset.
Furious, I called out a sharp retort. “At least that’s better than there being two of you. Then there would be twice as many useless lumps – and that can never be good.”
It worked. Ron looked annoyed, but I didn’t care one jot – because my new friend smiled gratefully at me. Hermione and I laughed all the way up the stairs, and were still giggling as we passed the portrait of the Fat Lady and entered the Gryffindor common room together.
This was surprisingly entertaining. Most fan-fics I used to read of Harry Potter were written before certain books came out, predicting what they would be like, so to write one that includes the actual plot of the first book and your own twist on it is something to be proud of, especially since you did it so well!
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