Love, Potions and Legacies: Fifth Year (UPDATED)

Chapter 1: Time for a tutor

"Miss L/N, please stay behind after class." Snape says to me in a cold, quiet whisper over my shoulder as he lowers the test paper in his hand down onto the desk in front of me.

Fucking great.

Not even a week into my fifth year and already I was messing up. I was sure the man had it out for me. I'd revised Potions over the summer but clearly from his tone, it hadn't been enough to save me from his harsh grading. I look down, hiding my face from Daphne, feeling embarrassed. I sigh and turn the paper over slowly until I see the grade. It wasn't even at half marks. I turn it back over quickly before any of my friends can see it and try to awkwardly hide my feelings of disappointment in myself as everyone packs up to leave as it's the end of the day.

Once Snape had reminded me of how useless I was at his subject, I quickly skulk my way back through the corridors to my dormitory, throwing a quick excuse to my friends sat in the Common Room that I need to speak to my parents and rush away up to my room. I throw my bag down and jump on my bed, burying my face in my pillow as hot tears start to roll down my cheeks.

Professor Snape had never been a teacher to mince his words but I was pretty sure there was no need for the way he had spoken to me about how bad my test score had been. He had given us all a test of our knowledge after the summer holidays, to assess us before we start to prepare for our Potions O.W.L. I had only been back at school for three days. Three days into my fifth year at Hogwarts and I was already crying. This was some sort of new record and of course it was Snape that had made me cry.

My test score was so low that he'd assumed I'd done no reading over the summer holidays or any of the prep work expected for fifth year. It wasn't true, I'd done it all, spending hours at the kitchen table over the holidays with my Dad, both of us trying not to get frustrated with the other about it all. Dad had even dusted off his old cauldron and stood beside me, trying to get me to learn some of the potions ahead of the semester. Clearly, the hours of nervously chopping ingredients and being quizzed by my short-tempered Dad hadn't been worth it. Mum had even tried with me too. She had been a Ravenclaw at school and her teaching technique was a little softer than Dads' but she would let me off the hook as soon as I got too frustrated. By the time September first came around, I'd come to the conclusion I just wasn't a natural potioneer. It just didn't come naturally to me, unlike other subjects like Care of Magical Creatures.

What hasn't helped is that now exams are serious. They aren't just for the end of the year, these ones actually matter. My O.W.L. grades affect what N.E.W.T's I can take and how I do in those affect my choice of career. So unluckily for me, being an ambitious, studious Slytherin, I'd developed bad exam anxiety. Snape definitely knew, he'd seen me doing breathing exercises before and during tests but he never offered me real help for it as my Head of House. He would just roll his eyes when he'd see me stressing over a test or act like he hadn't seen me at all.

It wasn't my fault that even just class tests made me nervous. I panicked when he'd put the paper down in front of me, my mind going blank and I could barely remember anything that I had actually read. Then on one question, I'd stormed ahead with a long, full winded answer only to see that I'd written it under the wrong question. I'd always found Potions to be my most difficult subject, I found it harder to remember everything in Potions compared to my other subjects, which didn't help. It was all too confusing, every potion required so many steps. So many do's and don'ts that I would forget which are which.

Another problem I've always had was that I lived in constant fear of Professor Snape. Despite being a Slytherin, he wasn't particularly warm towards me. He had a sneery, condescending manner that always kept me on edge whenever he was around. Ever since first year, he seemed to hold all of us in contempt. The short of teacher that probably realised this was not how he wanted to be spending his life and was taking it out on all of us. As I wipe my cheeks and roll onto my back, I can hear his cold, derisive words replaying in my head.