Hearth II James Potter

Chapter 10- Snape's Near Rendezvous in the Broom Closet

The next couple of months were uneventful. James's group continued to terrorize the echoing halls of Hogwarts; most recently they had found a way to cast a spell that conjured up rain clouds and thunderstorms above certain students' heads. Y/N barely escaped that one, but Lily and Dorcas had been caught up in one and were fuming by the time they got to Transfigurations. McGonagall was not impressed in the slightest, waving the clouds away with a flick of her wand and drying the students, then proceeding to assign the whole class extra reading in punishment.

Y/N had become quite popular amongst the houses, respectively. She was one of the only people in the first year that was willing to intermingle with the other houses, other than Lily of course. Lily, though, was much more reserved in the matter, choosing to stick to Y/N's side as much as possible when they were socializing. The Slytherins, outside of Severus, steered clear of her and the Gryffindors, which didn't much bother her. It surprised Y/N how easily it was for her to open up in the new environment; at first all she could think about was her brother and how out of place she felt. Now, she felt like she was home.

She was sitting in the library, preparing for the tests that were coming up before the holidays. Lily had joined her, sitting across from her at the table, and even managed to drag along Severus to help them study for potions. Well, help Y/N specifically, since Lily was a great potioneer, only second to Severus himself. Even now Lily was reviewing some of the most difficult potions of the semester and Y/N was having Severus explain the same potion four times over to cram any bit of information she could. She was doing relatively well with Severus, who was much better at explaining the process than Lily. When she had asked Lily to go over the steps of the forgetfulness potions she had just read them aloud but failed to go in depth about what each ingredient and movement. It was like she was reading from a script and wasn't able to actually conceptualize someone not understanding the written procedure. Severus on the other hand liked to talk down when he was teaching, which was a little demeaning, but it got the job done. She was more likely to pass her exam now that she got his help and honestly once he got into the flow of tutoring he became almost kind.

"Now, what do you do after adding the valerian sprigs to the cauldron?" He asked, closing the Magical Draughts and Potions so that Y/N wouldn't be tempted to cheat.

Y/N looked up, eyebrows scrunched in concentration. "You stir it three times."

"In what direction."

"Counterclockwise."

"Why?"

Y/N put her head in her hands, and began to rub her temples as if she would soothe out the information. "To stimulate the valerian root an' lethe water. If you stir clockwise the potion will turn a dark green an' make you sick."

Severus nodded. "Good," he opened the book back up, scanning the pages for more questions to ask. "And what is the last ingredient to be added?"

"Mistletoe berries," Y/N answered, perking up a bit at his compliment.

"Yes."

It continued on for the whole morning: Severus would go over the potions and then quiz Y/N until she got a splitting headache. Lily spent that time studying Defense Against the Dark Arts and Herbology, both subjects leaning towards her weaker side. Contrarily, Y/N excelled at Defensive magic, receiving praise multiple times that year from Professor Fernsby. He even claimed she was the most talented witch in the past decade when it came to his class. When she heard that Y/N used that tidbit to gloat to Lily for about a week. Every defensive spell attempted by the redhead would be intercepted by Y/N who insisted she should demonstrate as she was better qualified. It only worked for a week though because after other first years heard word of her prowess they started almost immediately hunting her down for tutorage. After that Y/N stopped bragging and would run at the mention of defensive magic.