His love for Potions I ✔

Chapter 18: Snape's sarcasm

Harry's first successful magical candy recipe was for little multi-colored sugar dots that melted on your tongue and let you blow iridescent bubbles. He wouldn't have managed it at all, except he explained what he wanted to Fred and George and they came back with a couple half-finished plans of their own, and somewhere in there he got boiling sugar in his hair and had to go to the hospital wing, but Harry couldn't quite bring himself to care.

The candies were banned from three classes within a day, after Harry passed them on to Fred and George to pass out to people to test.

#

"Professor Trelawney says I'm going to die," Harry commented to Professor Snape, during the fourth straight tutoring session where Professor Snape hadn't actually let him touch anything. Not that he minded sitting on his hands and watching magic happen, but not talking made him feel invisible, and that made him feel trapped. No thank you.

"And you've begun seeing death omens everywhere?"

"Well. Yes."

"I avoid her," Snape said evenly. "Whenever I remember she exists, I have a powerful urge to kill her."

As Professor Snape seemed entirely serious, Harry decided to never, ever bring up his divination professor again. He didn't really want to be the one who tipped Professor Snape over the edge.

#

"-and then he rearranged his name to say I Am Lord Voldemort, and I stabbed the diary with a basilisk fang. I might have missed a few things during that last part, I was bleeding and Fawkes crying on me was pretty distracting."

"If you keep yourself out of the hospital wing this year, Potter, I will show you how to make Fossilizing Fog out of powdered basilisk eyes."

"You mean - from that basilisk?"

"Are you aware of another basilisk that has been killed recently? They are not common beasts."

"...I didn't really want to kill her. There just wasn't time."

"Save your sympathy, if you will."

"Slytherin didn't really get lucky having Voldemort as their heir, did they?"

"You picked up the persistent habit of naming the Dark Lord from the headmaster, didn't you."

"He said it was a good idea. That we shouldn't be frightened of a name."

"Fear is a healthy trait. It shows you are paying attention."

Harry didn't really have anything to say to that, but thankfully his teacher didn't expect him to.

#

Harry looked curiously at the goblet. Lupin smiled.

"Professor Snape has very kindly concocted a potion for me," he said. "I have never been much of a potion-brewer and this one is particularly complex." He picked up the goblet and sniffed it. "Pity sugar makes it useless," he added, taking a sip and shuddering.

"Why --?" Harry began. Lupin looked at him and answered the unfinished question.

"I've been feeling a bit off-color," he said. "This potion is the only thing that helps. I am very lucky to be working alongside Professor Snape; there aren't many wizards who are up to making it."

Professor Lupin took another sip and Harry had a crazy urge to knock the goblet out of his hands.

"He's brilliant at potions," Harry said cautiously, not sure how to put 'and has murder in his eyes every time he looks at you.'

Luckily or unluckily for Harry, Professor Lupin smoothed over the awkwardness as if it had never existed, and Harry was left wondering if he should warn Professor Lupin or beg Professor Snape for the recipe.

#

"Are you poisoning Professor Lupin?"

Snape's lip curled.

"If only, Potter. If only."

This was not particularly reassuring. Harry hesitated, then plowed on.

"I heard you talking to Professor Dumbledore, on Halloween. About how you thought someone inside the castle was helping Black."

Snape took a pinch of blue powder and flicked it into the potion he was working on, turning it a delicate lavender. One of the maddening things about watching him work was that it was readily apparent that while he expected Harry to stick to the recipe, he wouldn't know a recipe if it bit him. If it said to dice, he crushed. If it said measure two tablespoons precisely, he threw in a handful. If it said stir for five minutes, he stirred for five repetitions of an obnoxious song instead. It was hateful.

"You told me about-"

"Potter."

"But, Professor... he helped Voldemort kill...."

"He will die," Professor Snape, in a tone that came eerily close to gentle, "And it will be a painful, horrible death. Be content with that."

Getting to know Professor Snape this year was really not comforting at all.

#

"Those lessons Professor Snape's been giving you, has he said anything at them about Professor Lupin?" Ron asked after Snape's disastrous turn as their Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.

Harry frowned.

"Not really. He mostly has me watching him work while he talks about discipline."

"Sounds mental."

"He's the only Potions professor we have," Harry said, a little defensively.

"I know, mate, but I worry about you. He's had it in for you since first year, and now he agrees to teach you? It doesn't add up. It's not like he's being any nicer. Bed pans."

Harry clapped Ron on the shoulder and changed the subject to Quidditch, determined to cheer his friend up. And added werewolves to a short mental list entitled 'Severus Snape Wants To Murder'