His love for Potions I ✔

Chapter 3: Neville and Christmas

Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger was almost as bad a textbook as Professor Snape was a professor. The text was dense, the diagrams were old-fashioned, and Harry had to ask Hermione what half the words meant, and she eventually admitted that when she'd first read it over the summer, she'd had to use a dictionary to look up a lot of the longer words, which weren't used anymore in the muggle world. It explained a lot about how well everyone did in Potions class, Harry thought.

Luckily for Harry's temper, which grew shorter with every chapter he struggled through with no further luck at actually learning something from the book, good potion brewing involved a lot of crushing things, slicing things into small pieces, and making things blow up. The latter Harry hadn't realized you could do on purpose, but Fred clued him in. ("I think otherwise little Harry-kins is going to melt the good cauldron, George, and we can't have that.") Being able to make red and orange fireworks whenever he got too frustrated by alchemical theory went a long way towards reminding him of the long game.

Harry throwing his textbook across the Gryffindor common room one winter night brought the laughter and talk through the room to a grinding halt. It was Neville, keeping a wary eye on Harry, who retrieved it and dusted it off, offering it to him with a uneasy gleam in his eye.

Harry glared at him.

Neville swallowed, and said in a rush, "Fantastic beasts and where to find them."

"...what?"

"You should read Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, instead. The profiles list what potions include parts as ingredients, like dragon's blood. 1001 Herbs and Fungi does, too, but you'd like Fantastic Beasts better."

"I would, would I?"

"Yes. So you should stop scaring everyone, and read something else," Neville said, and then turned pale and wide-eyed, apparently pretending very hard that he hadn't said anything.

Harry looked at Ron, whose shoulders were hunched and who was pretending not to be there, and winced. Hermione was apparently engrossed in a book, but her hair was covering her face, not pushed back behind her ears the way it normally was.

"Sorry, guys," he said.

He went to get his other books, leaving his classmates to their own tasks and games. As he climbed the stairs to fetch his things from his trunk, Harry couldn't help thinking, Neville's a really good friend.

#

It said something a little sad about Harry's life that someone trying to knock him off a broomstick at a Quidditch match didn't quite top his priority list. If anything, it was reassuring, because the rest of Hogwarts was so interesting and wonderful that he'd begin to think it was all a lovely dream if his favorite professor weren't quite possibly trying to murder him. Christmas coming 'round topped his list, with the possibility of two weeks of flying, brewing, researching Nicholas Flamel, and working on memorizing everything in 1001 Herbs and Fungi out of sheer spite. Harry hadn't really found very much time to sleep lately.

"Do you think Professor Snape would like a Chocolate Frog?" Harry asked Ron, the week before Christmas break.

"Well, I suppose if he could poison it and give it back to you," Ron said. "Why?"

Ron was under the impression Harry went looking for trouble. It wasn't fair. One troll and one (five) tiny incident with Goyle trying to knock him down the stairs, and suddenly Harry was a trouble magnet.

"It's Christmas," Harry said. "You can give professors things at Christmas, can't you?"

"Not ones who are trying to kill you."

"We aren't sure about that."

Ron gave him an incredibly unimpressed look, and Harry ended up promising not to try to come up with a present that would convince Snape to teach him Potions and not murder him.

It seemed like that would be a bit of a leap in terms of Christmas presents anyway. Maybe a love potion...?

A little reading about love potions later, Harry decided to reserve that idea for an emergency.

#

Two days before Christmas Break, Vincent Crabbe caught Harry as he was falling down the stairs. They fell over in a pile, and then Harry scrambled up and away, and Crabbe pushed himself up - and up, and up - to his feet.

"Malfoy's looking for you," Crabbe said, looking up the stairs at Goyle.

"Right," said Goyle, trotting down the stairs, expression still stuck on 'agreeable troll.' Harry put his back to the wall.

"You shouldn't push him down the stairs," Crabbe said, as they walked away without looking at Harry.

"But we hate him."

"If Malfoy wanted him pushed down the stairs, he'd do it himself."

"...no, he wouldn't."

"Well, he'd talk someone into doing it, but the point is, he doesn't want-"

They were out of earshot. Harry sagged back against the wall, and looked forward to Christmas break even more than he had been.

What did Draco want, if he didn't want Harry pushed down the stairs? One more mystery in a pile that was getting no lighter.