Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Rewritten - A Harry Potter Fanfiction

Chapter 13: Curiosity Killed the Cat

The tale of how four first years had tackled a cave troll filtered through the rest of the school the following day. Harry and Ron were heroes among the Gryffindor's who all envied them their adventure. Indeed, by the end of breakfast next morning, Harry and Ron viewed the whole experience as an adventure and were quite eager to have another one.

Friday was double Magizoology followed by double Herbology in the mornings. Harry and Ron worked with Irene and Hermione which improved not just his and Ron's learning but also the marks that they got in class for the day's work. They had a much more enjoyable lesson as well, laughing at Harry's witty remarks and jokes and Ron's lively responses. It was the first time either girl had giggled in a class. Kettleburn and Sprout gave them disapproving looks, but for once, Irene and Hermione weren't competing to impress teachers. They were content to do the day's work without trying to attract attention and even helped each other out.

Harry went to lunch in good spirits. After a rushed meal, they went to the Main Courtyard at Hermione's suggestion. Setting themselves down on a bench under the shade of a towering oak, they spread out their homework. There wouldn't be time for it after their detentions. Harry had expected homework to be easy with two nerdy friends but Hermione absolutely refused to let Harry and Ron copy, saying it was unethical and wouldn't help them to learn. She also prevented Irene from loaning her essays to Harry and Ron with a combination of reproachful looks and not so soft muttering.

But the girls agreed to look over the essays Harry and Ron wrote, which, Harry quickly realized, was good as getting the answers from their essays. He cobbled together a roll of parchment on Shrinking Solution for Snape. Hermione looked it over and told him everything he needed to add to it. By the time the bell rang, Harry was holding in his hands the best piece of homework he'd ever done.

Flitwick was a little frosty with them in Charms that afternoon and didn't award points to Irene and Hermione like he usually did even though they mastered the Cleaning Charms faster than they had anything else. Harry supposed he was still unhappy about them risking their necks against the troll.

The last lesson for the day was Potions. Snape was a lot worse than frosty. When they'd settled themselves down, (Snape had told them to stick to the same seating arrangements for all of their classes with him which meant Harry was stuck at the same table as Malfoy) he shut the windows and let down the blinds as usual, and then turned to face them.

"Until Halloween, we were focused on learning to follow Potion recipes perfectly. After two months of lessons, most of you," his eyes lingered on Harry and Ron, "have learnt to weigh and measure ingredients and add them at the appropriate times. We will therefore, move onto the more difficult area of Potion correction."

It quickly became apparent to Harry, as the lesson progressed, that Snape had chosen to begin this topic simply to punish them. Potion Correction was far tricker than anything they'd attempted so far. Unlike brewing potions, you could not simply follow a recipe. You had to have an understanding of the effect each magical ingredient produced, how the effect varied as quantity of the ingredient varied, what effects different combinations of ingredients produced, how changing the proportions of those combinations affected the potion and much more to be able to correct potions. Hermione told Harry and Ron in whispered conversation that Snape had given many lectures on these things in the last two months. As Harry had never listened to a single word during Snape's lecture hours, he was completely lost.

Snape finished expounding on the correction of incorrectly brewed Deep Slumber Potion and then set them to work. He handed out incorrectly brewed versions of the Potion which they had to fix. Each of the Potions he handed out had been fouled up in a different way, so, no one could copy anybody else's method.