The Boy who died - Ready for Anything

The first potions class

POV of Parvati Patil

When we arrived in the dungeons, we found Bella talking to a dark-skinned Slytherin boy I recognized from the Sorting Ceremony. His name was Zane Blishwick. As we joined them, he eyed us suspiciously. However, since Bella greeted us happily, he said nothing. We were just starting to talk about what the first lesson might be about when the door to the class room opened and Professor Snape told us to come in. Dungeon really was the right description for this place; I certainly didn't feel comfortable.

The tables were arranged in three rows, with four double tables in each row. For some reason, I didn't feel like sitting in the front row in this class, so I headed for the last row. Ariana, Hermione, and Bella followed me. I shared a table with Bella, and Ariana and Hermione sat at the table to our left. Lavender and James sat to our right.

The classroom filled up, and I noticed that the general tendency was for the Gryffindors to sit in the back rows, while the Slytherins, except for Bella of course, sat in the front. I noticed that Veatrix had also sat in the front, next to Draco Malfoy.

As Snape began to speak, the entire class immediately fell silent. Although we hardly knew him yet, his reputation for not tolerating nonsense and for being strict to maintain order in his classroom had preceded him. He explained that we would always work on a potion in pairs this school year and threatened to assign us different partners if we disrupted his class or didn't work properly. By now, I was glad to be sitting in the back and hoped it would mean he wouldn't keep too close an eye on us if we chatted a bit.

Since Snape didn't seem to be saying anything important at the moment, Bella and I did just that. I was just asking her how her first evening after the Sorting Ceremony had been and learned that the Slytherin common room must be somewhere nearby. She told me that their common room was decorated in green and silver, the Slytherin colors, and everything was bathed in a greenish light because the room was apparently under the lake. I noticed Hermione, who was sitting to my left, nudging me subtly just as Snape noticed our little conversation.

"It seems you don't think it's necessary to pay attention in my class, Miss Black and Miss Patil. Let's see if you already know everything. Miss Black, what do I get if I add powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Bella looked at him in shock and then shrugged: "I don't know, Professor."

"Second question: Where would you look if I asked you to find me a bezoar?" Bella gave me a desperate look out of the corner of her eye, which I returned helplessly; I didn't know the answer either. At the same time, I noticed Hermione to my left fidgeting in her seat. Oh, if only I had listened better when she had told Ariana and me what she already knew about the subject...

Snape looked at Bella with a scrutinizing gaze and asked her a third question: "What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?" Hey! I actually knew that! So something from earlier had stuck after all. I quickly scribbled the answer on my notepad, which Bella glanced at and gave the correct answer: "There is no difference, Sir."

He seemed suspicious, wondering if someone among us had prompted her with the answer, but nodded nonetheless.

"Very well, Miss Black, at least you have not proven yourself to be completely ignorant. For your information: An infusion of wormwood and powdered root of asphodel produce a powerful sleeping potion known as the Draught of Living Death. The bezoar is a stone found in the stomach of a goat, which will save you from most poisons."

Finally, he turned back to the entire class, and we could breathe a sigh of relief. I was a little puzzled as to why he had questioned Bella and not me. As far as I knew, Snape was known for favoring his own students over those from other houses. However, he didn't seem to particularly like Bella.

But I didn't have time to think about it any longer, as we were now instructed to open our books and brew a potion. Snape wrote the page number on the board. Page 34. Listlessly, I opened the book and began slowly flipping through the pages from back to front. The book had 500 pages; this was going to take a while. I noticed Hermione giving me a reproachful look, so I started searching for the right page a bit faster. "Cure for Boils," I read the title. "Well, that sounds incredibly exciting."

Reluctantly, I began reading the ingredient list, taking the needed ingredients out of my bag, and placing them in front of us. While Bella weighed the dried nettles, my first task was to finely crush snake fangs in a mortar. We filled some distilled water into the cauldron and heated it. When the thermometer indicated that it had reached 80°C, we added the nettles and the powdered snake fangs and stirred carefully 7 times clockwise and 5 times counterclockwise. A few minutes later, we added the horned slugs, which needed to simmer in the cauldron at low heat for a quarter of an hour.

Bella and I took the opportunity to chat a bit. We talked about our childhood, and I learned that Bella lived with her mother in an apartment on the outskirts of London.

We also talked about how much we were looking forward to our first flying lesson, which was to take place the next day. Although we had grown up in the magical world, neither of us had ever flown before. My parents were almost never home to teach me, and when they weren't there, there was no broom to try it alone. For Bella, the problem was that they didn't have a big garden like we did in the countryside. There was no way to learn to fly without Muggles noticing in the city. We agreed that we were also particularly looking forward to the first Quidditch match of the season. It was a shame that first-years weren't allowed on the team, but maybe we would be good at flying. Then we could still try out for our respective house teams in the upcoming years.

If Hermione hadn't reminded us, we would have completely forgotten about our potion. Grateful that she had saved us from potential trouble with Snape, we took the cauldron off the fire and added the last ingredient, porcupine quills, and stirred the potion clockwise for two minutes according to the instructions. Just as Bella was about to pour the potion into a small vial to hand it in for Snape to test, there was a loud bang and the whole room was filled with greenish smoke. Neville Longbottom and Seamus Finnigan, both Gryffindors, had apparently done something wrong and got quite a scolding from Snape. It ended with 5 points being deducted from Gryffindor. Well, the school year was off to a great start...

Bella finally poured the potion, labeled the vial with our names, and handed it in at the front. After Snape assigned us homework to write an essay on the effects of the Cure for Boils, we were finally allowed to leave. We would get the grade for our potion in the next class after Snape had tested all the potions.