His love for Potions I ✔

Chapter 8: Assignments and slugs

Harry went by the potions classroom after Defense, and after a minute eyeing the door as if it would eat him, decided that he might as well get it over with.

There was no one inside. The classroom was clean, quiet, and empty. Harry looked around, and thought, Well, I do know where his office is now.

He knocked on Snape's office door and tried to convince himself he wasn't going mad.

"Enter."

Harry edged inside.

"What are you doing here, Potter."

"I wondered if, um, you wanted any help with the cleanup this year, professor."

"In a word? No."

Harry eyed the floor, thinking about pink elephants.

"Was there anything else?"

"No, professor."

"Then I'm sure you can find another tree to mangle if you try hard enough," Snape said in something very close to a hiss.

#

Professor Snape held him back after Potions class, the second week in. Harry hadn't gotten back his summer assignment with the rest of the class, and he had a sinking feeling about this.

"Professor?"

"I am confused. Nay, puzzled, by this embarrassment of an assignment," Snape said, handing it back to him. T, for Troll. Oh, dear. "I expect you thought that the boy-who-lived did not need to apply himself to his work?"

"No, professor, it was-"

"Be silent."

"But, professor-"

"If you cannot follow a simple instruction, you have no future in potions, nor in Hogwarts."

Harry bit his tongue, and didn't yell.

"So. You failed to complete your assignment to a reasonable standard. Do you offer any excuse?"

Did that mean he was allowed to talk?

"Well, I've got one, but you don't want it," Harry muttered not-quite-under-his-breath.

The silence in the classroom was absolutely frigid.

"No, professor," Harry said, after a minute. "No excuse."

"I expect this from Neville Longbottom. Indeed, I expect it from most of your classmates. They do not care, nor value, the subject I am attempting to cram into their tiny little minds." Snape swept back to his desk, turned, lifted his chin - perhaps the most animation he'd ever seen on the man. "Very well. Your excuse, Potter."

What?

"Um. Er. My uncle locked my books in a closet?"

"Which led to you completing the assignment at the end of the summer?"

"I went to stay with Ron."

"For how long?"

"A couple weeks?"

"My summer assignments are not such that they take more than two weeks to complete, Mister Potter."

"But I had other-"

Snape interrupted, "And you will continue to fail if you do not make your work a priority."

There wasn't much Harry could say to that.

"I hope you are thoroughly disgusted with yourself, Potter," Snape said. "You may go."

It was only later, when he was being interrogated by Hermione about what Professor Snape had wanted, and her comparing their assignments and the marks they'd received, that he found that Professor Snape was being unfair - that he'd done as well as Ron, and been graded far more sharply.

Hermione's meltdown about how she should have done better, why wasn't she getting the advanced criticism - well, it soothed something in his soul that he didn't know was burning.

#

Draco joined the Quidditch team, Ron gave himself slugs, and Harry learned a slur.

"Apologize to Hermione," Harry said the next day, in the same courtyard. He kept his voice down, on the theory that Draco was slightly less awful without an audience.

"I'm sorry, Potter, I can't hear you when you make no sense."

"Apologize to Hermione, or I won't be your rival anymore."

Draco looked Harry up and down, and snorted. His minions lurked in the background.

"As if you have a choice."

"I do, because I can tell everyone you're Hermione's rival for top of the class. Competing with a muggleborn witch." Harry didn't add 'and losing.'

Draco went an interesting puce color.

"She insulted me first, Potter."

"So you'll be being the gentleman or something. I don't care why you do it. You can insult her all you like, just as long as you don't call her a-"

Draco eyed him.

"Call her that," Harry finished.

"You," Draco said thoughtfully, "Will owe me a favor."

"Because I wanted you to not be a-" giant git, "Because I wanted you to act like a decent person?"

"To Hermione Granger? You will owe me a favor. Say it, Potter, or get out of my way."

"Fine. I'll owe you a favor."

This was probably a terrible idea. But watching Hermione as she gleefully set Draco's elegantly calligraphed apology note on fire was really wonderful, somehow.