His love for Potions I ✔

Chapter 14: Professor Remus Lupin

It was really too nice a day for Harry to be inside, but he had one last errand to run before term ended. Hopefully, this wasn't a terrible idea. He finally tracked the potions professor down doing a sweeping patrol of the green outside the school.

"Professor?"

"Yes, Mister Potter?"

"Um. Can I threaten my relatives with you?"

Professor Snape just looked at him.

"Only, it would really help with being able to do the Potions homework, and they know I can't do magic at home now."

"Homework is insufficient reason to threaten Muggles, Potter," Snape said, sounding tired. "These relatives would be Petunia Evans and her husband?"

"And my cousin Dudley."

"You may threaten the Muggles in my name if you are in mortal peril, and not before. 'Severus Snape has a vested interest in my survival,' or something like that."

Harry grinned.

"I'm not sure I'll phrase it like that, but, thanks, professor. You know Aunt Petunia?"

"No, I do not." Snape hesitated. "We met, briefly. Many years ago."

"So she'll know who I'm talking about. Great!"

"Why me, if I may ask?"

"Well, you're my scariest professor."

"And yet you never listen to a word I say. Obviously I am not trying hard enough."

"No, no no no, you're terrifying! Really intimidating, everyone says so. You really don't need to try any harder."

Snape smiled a small, crooked smile.

"Have a good summer!" Harry said, and beat a hasty retreat.

#

Running away from home was definitely the best decision Harry had ever made. Two weeks of exploring, reading, trying to convince himself not to buy a Firebolt and, let's not forget, getting lost in the Apothecary for four hours. He tried imagining what Hermione and Ron would say, and settled on imaginary Ron saying, 'Cor, it's just like Hermione in a bookshop.' It made him smile. He bought regular Potions supplies, as well as extras of things he'd needed last year and didn't have, like sugar for magical candy recipes and extra beetles for red coloring. After agonizing over a self-stirring cauldron and then visualizing Snape's probable commentary on people who needed the help of self-stirring cauldrons to make third-year recipes, Harry gave up on deciding what to buy and picked up a catalog for owl order.

With last year's example in mind, Harry redid his painstakingly drafted essay on Shrinking Potions twice before giving up on figuring out how to improve it any further. He didn't bother with Occulmency practice - it wasn't as if attempting to clear his mind and fill it up with Quidditch tips had helped with Aunt Marge, and he had to assume your average dark wizard would be more trouble than his Aunt Marge - at least, he assumed so. His mind was, as a disdainful footnote in the textbook had put it, 'chaotic, full of fire and principle, antithetical to proper restraint.'

Thankfully, a conversation he struck up with Florean Fortescue put paid to any tendency to sulk, because nothing could ruin the happiness he felt when he got to come behind the counter to see how one of the less proprietary ice creams was made, in a fantastic combination of cooking, potion-making, and clever application of the cooling charm. Harry practiced his cooling charm on a glass of lemonade, and the ice didn't melt all afternoon.

"It may not be changing the world or handling dragons," Mr. Fortescue confided in him, "But seeing a sad child smile when I hand him a sundae with a dancing cherry on top makes me think I'm making the world a little bit brighter in my own way."

It provided a pleasant diversion from thinking about Sirius Black and whether or not he was going to die or trying to talk himself out of brooding over not having bought a Firebolt, right up until Ron started talking about Honeyduke's on the train, and Harry realized his new interest in wizard's candymaking was just another way his relatives were managing to make his life more difficult than it already had to be.

Perhaps it was with all this in mind that upon having a horrific encounter with a Dementor and being fed chocolate, his first question for Remus Lupin when he returned from making sure the Dementors had left the train was, "Do you know the recipe for this?"

Remus Lupin's humble apology that he wasn't sure, really, didn't ruin Harry's determination to figure it out. He'd always liked puzzles and candy, and puzzles made of candy seemed like a slightly more adult interest. He was a whole thirteen years old, after all. It provided a good distraction from Draco's expert teasing, which Harry hadn't grown fonder of by being away from him for a whole summer.

#

Professor Lupin looked particularly shabby next to all the other teachers in their best robes.

"Look at Snape!" Ron hissed in Harry's ear.

Professor Snape, the Potions master, was staring along the staff table at Professor Lupin. It was common knowledge that Snape wanted the Defense Against the Dark Arts job, but even Harry was startled at the expression twisting his thin, sallow face. It was beyond anger: it was loathing. Harry knew that expression only too well; it was the look Snape had worn for most of Harry's first year, and only looking at Snape now made Harry realize that he hadn't seen it since sometime near the beginning of his second year at school. These days Professor Snape varied between angry, tired, and blank around Harry. When had that changed? It was going to bother Harry, he knew it was, even if he didn't have time for another worry.