The Potions Master
‘There look.’
‘Where?’
‘Next to that other Slytherin of course.’
‘Wearing the broken glasses?’
‘Did you see his face?’
‘Did you see his scar?’
Whispers followed Corey from the moment he left his dormitory next day. People queuing outside classrooms stood on tiptoe to get a look at him, or doubled back to pass him ik the corridors again, staring.
Corey wished they wouldn’t - he had felt all his confidence all his bravery of being here disappeare after it being all people do - as he tried to find his way to classes.
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.
Then 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 uust solid walls just pretending. Corey wasn’t as excited about all this anymore, he had no idea where anything was anymore.
Everything seemed to move around a lot, which made it difficult to find anything which Corey didn’t appreciate at all. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other and Corey was sure the coats of armour could walk.
The ghosts didn’t help, either. It was always a nasty shock when one of them glided suddenly through a door you were trying to open. Only the other Slytherins were the ones to point Corey in the right direction, but that still didn’t happen often.
And then there was Perves the poltergeist, who was worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you met him when you were late for class. He would drop waste-paper baskets on your head, pull rugs from under your feet, pelt you with bits of chalk or sneak up behind you, invisible, grab your nose and schreech, ‘GOT YOUR CONK!’
A little under Peeves, while not as bad, was Argus Filch, the caretaker. Corey had noticed he didn’t seem to like anyone and he yelled at a lot of people for seemingly no reason. Filch owned a cat called Mrs Norris, a scrawny, dust-coloured cat with lamp-like eyes, she was very cute in Coreys opinion. She patrolled the corridors alone.
She seemed pretty intelligent, because everytime someone broke a rulre, apparently, she’d whisk off to Filch, who’d appear, wheezing, two seconds later. Filch knew the secret passageways of the school better than anyone (except perhaps the Weasley twins) and could pop up as suddenly as any ghosts.
The students all seemed to hate him, which Corey understood, but they also seemed to hate Mrs Norris and Corey had also heard some people want to kick her, to Coreys anger and confusion. And then, once you had managed to find them, there were the lessons themselves.
There was a lot more to magic, as Corey quickly found out, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words. They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every Wednesday at midnight and learn the names pf different stars and the movements of the planets.
Three times a week they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology - which they had with Ravenclaw - with a dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout, where they learnt how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi and found out what they were used for.
Easily the most boring lesson was History of Magic, which was the only class taught by a ghost. Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staff-room fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him.
Binns droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dates and got Emeric the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up. Professor Flitwick, the charms teacher, was a tiny little wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk.
At the start of their first ledson he took the register, and when he reached Corey’s name he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight. Professor McGonagall was again different. Corey had been quite right to think she wasn’t a teacher to cross.
Stricht and clever, she gave them a talking-to the moment they had sat down in her first class - the Slytherins had Transfiguration with the Hufflepuffs.
‘Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts,’ she said. ‘Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned.’ Then she changed her desk into a pig and come back again.
Corey was very impressed and couldn’t wait to get started, but was also a little (lot) scared of Professor McGonagall. But they weren’t going to change furniture into animals for a long time, which was fine.
After making a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle. Corey didn’t think anyone had made a difference to their match by the end of the lesson.
The class a lot - maybe even everybody - had been looking forward to was Defence Against the Dark Arts, but Quirrell’s lesson turned out to be a bit of a joke. His classroom smelled strongly of garlic, which everyone said was to ward of a vampire he’d met in Romania and was afraid would be coming back to get him one of these days.
His turban, he told them, had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but Corey wasn’t sure he could believe that since he still hasn’t found anything about zombies being real.
But maybe Corey missed something since he got really bad headaches in Defence Against the Dark Arts. Corey was very relieved to find outthat he wasn’t miles behind everyone else. Lots of people had come from non-magic families and, like him, hadn’t had any idea that they were witches and wizards.
There was so much to learn that even people like Malfoy didn’t have much of a head start. Corey made his way down to the Great Hall on Friday, with Blaise.
‘What have we got today?’ Corey asked Blaise as he took some bacon. ‘Double Potions with the Gryffindors,’ said Blaise. ‘Oh, okay -‘ Corey got interrupted by the post arriving.
Corey had got kind of used to this by now, but it had given him a bit of a shock on the first morning, when about a hundred owls had suddenly streamed into the Great Hall during breakfast, circling the tables until they saw their owners and dropping letters and packages on to their laps.
Corey had Rex in his pocket most of the time, but he hadn’t really told anyone about Rex yet, not even Blaise. He wasn’t sure what he would do if a teacher found out about him.
Would Corey get expelled? Corey would rather die then have to be back to the Dursleys forever. Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. It was colder in this dungeon then other places in the castle and there were pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls.
Snape, like Flitwick, started the class by taking the register, and like Flitwick, he paused at Corey’s name. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said softlt, ‘Corey 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. Corey knew he was scared of Snape - like with McGonagall. ‘You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art potion-making,’ he began.
He spoke in a volume that Corey appreciated - even if he didn’t like Snape that much - since all the other teachers were so, so loud. Like Professor McGonagall, 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 silence followed this little speech. Hermione Granger was on the edge of her seat and looked desperate to start proving that she wasn’t a dunderhead.
‘Potter!’ said Snape suddenly. ‘What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?’ What in the fuck did any of that mean. Corey glanced at Blaise who had narrowed his eyes at Snape, whatever that meant. Corey was maybe (definitely) panicking a little bit.
‘I-I don’t know, sir,’ said Corey quietly feeling like talking was suddenly the hardest thing in the world. 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 airas it would go without her leaving her seat, but Corey didn’t have the faintest idea what a bezoar was.
He tried not to look at Malfoy, Crabve and Goyle, who were shaking with laughter. Why was he being targeted like this? Did Snape really just hate him for no reason?
‘I don’t know, sir.’ He said even more quiet, it was almost painful to get out. ‘Thought you wouldn’t open a book before voming, eh, Potter?’
Corey was looking down at the table, he was attempting (and failing) to keep his breathing calm and collected. Corey had looked through his books at the Dursleys’, but did Snape expect him to remember everything in all of his books? If so he was going to fail every subject and fall behind.
Snape was still ignoring Hermione’s quivering hand. ‘What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?’ At this, Hermione stood up, her hand stretching towards the dungeon ceiling.
‘I don’t know,’ said Corey suddenly feeling angry. ‘I think Hermione does, though, why don’t you try her?’ A few people laughed. Snape was not pleased, though.
Which made Corey regret saying anything. ‘Sit down,’ Snape snapped at Hermione. ‘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 aconite. Well? Why aren’t you all copying that down?’
There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Things didn’t get better for Corey as the lesson continued. Snape put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils.
He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticising almost everyone except Malfoy, whom he seemed to like. He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Malfoy had stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon.
Neville had somehow managed to melt Seamus’s cauldron into a twisted blob and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people’s shoes. Within seconds, the whole class were standing on their stools while Neville, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.
‘Idiot boy!’ snarled Snape, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. ‘I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?’ Neville whimpersd as boils started to pop up all over his nose.
‘Take him to the hospital wing,’ Snape spat at Seamus. ‘And a point from Gryfffindor for your stupidity.’ Corey felt his anger rise, that just wasn’t fair, he felt extremely bad for Neville. Corey felt that they were friends.
As Corey and Blaise walked back to their common room, Corey thought about how unfair Snape was against seemingly random people. Why did he target him and Neville? Corey didn’t get any by points taken, but Corey was pretty sure it was only because he was a Slytherin.
And he would probably have gotten points taken from him, like Neville, for not being able to answer. When they came to the wall where the door to the common room was, ‘Draught of Death’ Blaise said and walked through with Corey right behind him. Corey went right into his dorm.
He drew the curtains in his bed and took his hand in his pocket to let Rex wrap around his arm. ‘Hey, Rex.’ Corey said, unsure of himself. He felt the more he stayed with other people - witches and wizards - the more he felt himself be more and more insecure.
‘You ssseem troubled?’ Rex asked worried.
‘I don’t know, I like it here, I do, it’s just people expect so much from me, but they won’t even tell me what. They were suprised when I was sorted into Slytherin, but they won’t tell me why since it was always an option. Professor Snape, my potions teacher hates me, even though I haven’t done anything to him and he hasn’t even told me what I did wrong. It just seems that everything I do is wrong and unexpected, but I can never seem to figure out what I’m supposed to do instead.’
Corey felt himself crying, but he didn’t care, it felt good to get it off his chest. Rex nodded in understanding.
‘I know it’s hard, but I will help you in any way I can. We can get through this, because what other people think about you obviously isn’t right, but they don’t define you.’ Rex comforted. Corey felt better, he always felt better by talking to Rex.