The Girl Who Hid | ✓

|2| Trolls

There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: Wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. There were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot.

Friday was one of the first days that Hermione and I didn't get lost on our way to breakfast! It was also the first day that I had gotten a letter from Lupin, he was happy I had gotten into Gryffindor like my parents.

After breakfast, I walked with Hermione to our first lesson: Potions with Professor Snape. By the glare he had given me, I didn't think he liked me much.

Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. It was colder here than up in the main castle, and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls.

Snape started the class by taking the roll call and gave me a funny look when he said my name. Then, he paused reading Harry's.

"Ah, Yes," he said softly, "Harry Potter. Our new... celebrity."

Draco Malfoy and his friends, Crabbe and Goyle, sniggered behind their hands. Snape finished calling the names and looked up at the class. His eyes were black, cold, and empty and made you think of dark tunnels.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potionmaking," he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but I caught every word; Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "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."

More silenced followed his little speech. I looked over to Hermione who was at the edge of her seat drinking in every word he said. Harry and Ron, on the other hand, gave each other weird looks with raised eyebrows.

"Potter!" said Snape suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Next to me, Hermione's hand had shot into the air.

"I don't know, sir," said Harry.

Snape's lips curled into a sneer.

"Tut, tut— fame clearly isn't everything."

He ignored Hermione's hand.

"Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

Hermione stretched her hand as high into the air as it would go without her leaving her seat.

"I don't know, sir."

"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?" Snape looked as if he were enjoying Harry's ignorance. "What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

At this, I raised my hand, Lupin had told me all about that. Next to me, Hermione stood up, her hand stretching toward the dungeon ceiling.

"I don't know," said Harry quietly. "I think Hermione and Maisey do, though, why don't you try them?"

A few people laughed; Snape, however, was not pleased.

"Sit down," he snapped at Hermione, I quickly put my hand down in my lap. "For your 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?"