Dunderhead - A Harry Potter story: Snape becomes Harry's mentor

Chapter 24: HELP IN POTIONS

"Pay attention, Harry!"

Hermione's angry whisper jolted Harry out of his meandering thoughts as he, Ron and Hermione sat in Potions, the second to last lesson of the day. Harry had been thinking about the final lesson of the day that had yet to come, Delores Umbridge and Defence Against the Dark Arts. Although it was not defensive magic, and they were not even practicing magic. Harry could not find it in himself to concentrate on the age potion that they were brewing this afternoon and Hermione was losing her patience with him accordingly.

"Sorry." He grunted, not feeling particularly genuine in his apology, and it must have shown because Hermione ignored him for the next ten minutes. Ron, who was sat on the other side of Hermione, looked tired but he was at least giving the work his attention and Snape was, as usual, striding the aisles and looking for students to bully and berate.

Neville had been a target three times already in the first half hour of the lesson. Harry, Ron and Hermione had looked for the girl who had helped Neville so nicely in the last potions lesson but she had been absent. Neville was feeling her loss keenly despite her being a Slytherin, and no one in Gryffindor could honestly blame him when Snape was as vile to the boy as he was.

"Tell me Longbottom, have you swapped intellects with that toad of yours?" Snape asked in a carrying whisper as the Slytherins turned around in their seats to smirk at Neville.

"No, Professor." Neville replied in a shaking voice.

Harry was proud of Neville for keeping the stammer out of his reply this time.

"Then why is this cauldron's contents orange? It should be a dark purple. If I were to feed this to you, do you know what would happen, Mr Longbottom?" Snape enquired as though genuinely curious.

"No, Sir." Neville repeated, shamefaced and reddening by the second.

"You do not seem to know an awful lot this afternoon, Mr Longbottom." Snape hissed, mimicking the boy cruelly. "For your delight, Longbottom, my feeding you this potion would likely cause irreversible damage. You would be either reverted to a pathetic child or an aged, probably as equally dim witted, old man."

Neville cowered beneath Snape's penetrating glare, trying not to visibly shake and Harry's heart went out to him while his anger went out to the tall, thin and evil man looming over him.

"Potter!" Cried Snape suddenly without looking his way, "you will attempt to amend Longbottom's potion."

Harry, resigned to his fate as the less than adequate saviour of Neville today, gathered his things and walked over to the seat next to Neville. He began to unload his equipment, all under the eye of Severus Snape. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Snape open his mouth - no doubt to say something cutting to Harry - when the dungeon door opened and in walked the girl who had been helping Neville last lesson. She did not offer up an apology to Snape for her lateness but merely handed him a note. It was folded and bearing the headmaster's signature on the front. Harry wondered what the note said for it to be from Dumbledore. The whole class watched Professor Snape's reaction to this, expecting a scathing remark or at least a rebuke because even if the girl was in his House, everyone knew that Snape looked down upon outright disrespect, and arriving late was disrespectful. Snape ordered the girl to find a seat and shoved the parchment letter into one of the numerous, hidden pockets of his black robes before rounding on Harry again.

"Mr Potter, please explain to me why you have not been gracing this class with your attention, as limited as it is." He demanded.

Harry gathered himself together to look into the man's eyes. They were black and cold like tunnels. Harry had had this thought once before and he thought that the simile suited the man perfectly. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again, Sir." He said flatly. Refusal to let the man taunt him or have reason to mention Harry's falling apart in their most recent Occlumency lesson kept Harry's temper below the surface.

Snape smirked at Harry. It was a sickening sight. However he looked up when he saw the red-haired girl who had arrived late unloading her bag onto the work station next to Neville. He said nothing but glared at her for a bit. Harry thought that the Professor was probably willing the girl to look at him out of anger alone, but she remained (rather admirably, Harry couldn't help thinking) focussed as she set to work. It seemed that they had blinked and she was already on the second stage of the potion and Harry wondered if she had made the potion before; she certainly did not appear to need the instructions, so fast had she caught up.

Snape swept to the front of the class and sat down at his desk, glowering. Neville was still shivering but he turned to Harry and offered up a weak smile. "Sorry, you're lumbered with me, Harry."

"Not at all." Harry said quickly. "I'm sorry, I probably won't know what to do to correct whatever you've done." He added.

Both boys grinned pathetically. They looked at Neville's potion together and sighed. "I haven't a clue to be honest, Neville", Harry groaned, "I'm not terrible at this subject, but once my concentration goes I'm a bit useless." He said. He was using up the last of his pride for this afternoon, he thought grimly, but Neville would not make fun of Harry. In fact it would be laughable considering that Neville had no concentration to begin with, especially whenever Severus Snape was in the same room as him.

"I'm sorry to distract you," said a voice, "but would you like any help?"

It was the girl with hair the colour of blood. She had black eyes, just as Neville had described last time.

Harry nodded for Neville's sake because the boy was looking a bit frightened and obviously wasn't going to be able to reply in the next few seconds.

"Yeah." Harry supplied gratefully.

The girl glanced once at the Professor sitting at his desk before she gracefully moved her seat along so that she could look into the depths of Neville's potion. She did not frown as Snape had done but smiled. And it was not a mean smile either. Although it looked odd on her face for reasons Harry could not describe.

"The problem is that the potion went wrong after the first two instructions", and she pointed at Neville's open textbook where the stages were written down with the method. "I think that the five grams of caterpillar may have been confused with the one fruit bat tongue instruction. The bat tongue is quite acidic, you know, they eat a lot of fruit so it makes sense that they have an acidity when used as an ingredient, and too much has made the potion turn orange." She said in a low voice.

Neville was staring at her in wonder and Harry had a strong desire to laugh.

"Right. Thanks." Neville said with a blush.

"You'll need to know how to put it right now." The girl stated. She did not say this with any hint of egotism but rather as a teacher might to a student they were helping learn from a mistake. "If you pass me the textbook - thank you - then you'll find in the index page a section on reactors and their components." She flipped to the back of the book.

She looked up at Harry as Neville found the correct page as she had shown him and Harry smiled sheepishly at her, thankful for her help. Oddly, the girl looked away from his gaze quickly and Harry thought that maybe she was shyer than she seemed.

"It tells you what reacts with different ingredients to reverse effects according to different potions." Neville whispered, looking happier than Harry had ever seen him in a potions class. "Why on earth don't I know that these helpful bits exist in the textbook?" Neville wondered aloud.

The girl looked amusedly at Neville. "I think that, foremost, Professor Snape does not stretch himself to, uh, teach... well. Secondly, book reading and how to navigate your way through a book isn't something that students are taught anymore."

"Thanks", said Neville, "I'm sorry, I'm a real idiot at this." He added glumly. But the girl shook her head sharply; "No, you're not. How can someone call another person stupid for not knowing how to do something if they were never taught? No one humiliates a child for not knowing how to feed itself neatly. They'll make a mess until they learn how not to."

"I'm not a child though." Neville smiled.

"Of course, not," the girl said quickly, "but the principle of the anecdote stands, no one can have a large degree of competence in something that they were never taught." She reiterated kindly.

Harry thought briefly about his competence in Parseltongue and wondered, perhaps for the hundredth time, how he could have honed a skill that he had never been taught.