Stairs. It was still the morning of the first day and Taylor was starting to despise them.
According to Hogwarts: A History, there were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: Wide, sweeping, narrow, moving, disappearing, rickety. Some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up.
And Taylor was starting to hate every single one of them.
She arrived in Ravenclaw’s tower breathless and sweating. Luna was kind enough to supply the password, because Taylor was too busy breathing sweet oxygen. But there wasn’t time to dawdle. The return to the dorms took longer than expected on account of getting lost half a dozen times.
They had ten minutes to find the dungeons, and somehow she didn’t think it would be enough.
As it turned out, they weren’t the only ones lost. Near the great hall, and five minutes away from the start of class, Penny came to rescue, literally. She was leading a group of wide-eyed first years. Most were of Ravenclaw, but there were also a few dressed in yellow and black; Hufflepuff colors.
Taylor joined the crowd. Security in numbers as they say. If they arrived late, it’d be most of the class and the professor would probably take pity on them, right?
As it also turned out, they didn’t need to test the professor’s pity. Penny knew shortcuts and pathways that avoided most of the pitfalls Taylor and Luna suffered in their journey away from the Great Hall. It took only three minutes at a brisk jog to arrive at the classroom. The gaggle of students filed inside, with Penny greeting everyone and even high-fiving a few others.
It was colder there than up in the main castle and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls.
Mira and Harriet were already inside, sitting together in one of the many double tables. Taylor claimed a table for her own and Luna sat with her.
Penny, and most of the other students, sent strange glances toward Taylor, but whatever it was they found interesting, no one seemed willing to bring it up.
A low murmur of excited whispers filled the room. Taylor managed to get her breathing under control and wipe the sweat away from her forehead. She still felt icky under the robes and tired from running all the way across half the castle to reach the classroom, but she’d done it. She was proud of it.
The potions professor swept into the room with a dramatic swish of his black robes. It felt like he just appeared out of nowhere, but he had walked from a small door near the teacher’s desk. The classroom door banged close, conversation died, and without even glancing at the students, the professor took the register.
“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making,” he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but every word was clearly audible in the graveyard silence that had fallen over the class. He had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. “As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many—” he’d been sweeping his eyes over the children and stopped when on Taylor.
His face turned into a sneer, and he glided closer, looming over her.
“What is this?” The professor hissed.
Taylor opened her mouth, but was unsure what he was talking about. Across the room a few students sniggered. Luna was looking valiantly ahead.
“You think this class is a joke?” His disdain was almost palpable. “Ten points from Ravenclaw,” he hissed on her face.
There were gasps from the children around. Some from hufflepuff looked amused, while others looked spooked. Ravenclaw kids were a mixed bag. A few looked sympathetic, but others looked angry: At her for losing points or at Snape for being a jerk, she wasn’t sure.
It was so unfair. Taylor’s mood turned, she hadn’t even done anything. Her nostrils flared and she had to hold back some nasty words and more than a few nasty bugs.
From the top of her head, Nap hooted menacingly, spreading her wings, and all blood drained from Taylor’s face.
“Get rid of it,” the potions professor demanded.
“She’s not an it,” Taylor said before her brain could process the words.
“It is what I say it is.”
“Then you’re wrong.” Taylor’s voice was flat and unyielding.
"Detention," it was another hiss that silenced the murmuring kids.
Taylor scowled, prepared to defend herself, to argue, or do something. A gentle squeeze from Luna calmed her down.
Perhaps satisfied over his victory, or deemed it below his attention, the professor finished the introductory speech for the class. Taylor was too annoyed to really pay attention. It really wasn’t fair.
“Hebert!” Professor Snape barked. “What is the precise effect of adding bundimun secretion to a base of boomslang skin, and why would any competent brewer never do so?”
Taken by surprise, Taylor took too long to think of an answer. It wasn’t anything that had been explained in the potions manual (she’d really read it thrice), but she could connect the dots. One would dissolve the other and most likely cause an explosion.
She opened her mouth.
“You don’t know, eh?” Snape mocked. “Name the ingredient that distinguishes a Calming Draught from a Draught of Peace, and explain why substituting one for the other would be catastrophic.”
That one was another question that hadn’t been explicit on the manual. It was just a guess, but the peace draught had a warning about it affecting the brain and the syrup of hellebore would make the effect stronger, and that could be fatal.
“Syr—” She started to say, but Snape interrupted once more, the sneer never leaving his face.
“Since someone thought they didn’t need to read the books before classes started, I’ll give you an easy one. What is the function of a bezoar and from which animal is it typically harvested?”
Poisons and the stomach of a goat. The answer popped up in her head fast and easy, but she could see in his eyes that he wouldn’t let her answer. Taylor scowled and crossed her arms.
“Five points from Ravenclaw,” he said. “Bundimun secretion is a powerful magical corrosive that eats through organic matter. Boomslang skin is a potent magical conductor used in transformation potions. Combining them creates an accelerating volatile reaction activating its magical properties unpredictably, risking an explosion or uncontrolled transfiguration effect on whoever is nearest.”
He paced around the room.
“The distinguishing ingredient which appears in the Draught of Peace but not the Calming Draught is the syrup of hellebore. Substituting it incorrectly would matter because the Draught of Peace affects the nervous system at a deeper level. Getting the concentration wrong, or using it in the wrong base, risks sending the drinker into a permanent stupor rather than simply calming them.”
Snape had returned to the front of the class, staring at the silent students along his beaked nose.
“A bezoar is a stone found in the stomach of a goat. It acts as an antidote to most poisons.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Why aren’t any of you writing that down?”
Things didn’t improve after that. Snape grouped the students that weren’t already sitting in pairs and ordered them to mix a simple potion to cure boils. He offered no explanation, no commentary on ingredients, no dos and don'ts, nothing at all.
Taylor pushed the broiling anger away from her chest. A quick check with the book, and a small discussion with Luna, they set to gather the ingredients from the cabinet, and prepare the potion. They divided the work thusly: Taylor would work the ingredients, making sure everything was in order according to the book and keeping the timings, while Luna did the actual mixing.
Meanwhile, the professor swept around in his long black cloak, looming over students, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticising everyone. The words were harsh, unkind and more than one student burst into tears. Thankfully, Taylor didn’t gather any additional attention from the professor, although the way he belittled every student only made her angrier.
Luna and Taylor’s plan worked surprisingly well. There was one hairy moment when Taylor almost forgot to pull the cauldron out of the fire: her spy bugs on Hero-Harry and his gang had all died suddenly in one of the greenhouses, and the spike of pain in her head before the bugs died made her wince. Across the castle on the same side as the greenhouses, every bug she could feel picked up the echo of something screeching. Distracted by that ongoing development, Taylor missed the timing to remove the cauldron from the fire, but Luna picked up the slack, plucking the cauldron and its boiling soup away and tossing inside the last ingredient. Their potion ended up being almost exactly as described in the book.
Still, that didn’t seem to please the potions master.
When the class ended, the man vanished every potion with disparaging comments of “rubbish, waste” and those were the kind ones. No one, Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff, managed to craft a potion to his standards. There were more than a few sniffles from the kids, most coming from the other Ravenclaw girls and a few of the hufflepuff students.
Taylor packed her parchment, quills, gloves, cauldron and marched out of the room. Or tried to. Snape was there to block her on the way out.
“You’ll serve your detention at eight o’clock tonight, in my office.” His voice was the same carrying whisper from the start of the day. “And if you ever think of bringing it again to my class, don’t even bother showing up.”
She left without answering.
Outside, her dorm-mates waited.
“He’s worse than a strigoi,” Mira said as soon as they were clear of the dungeons and far enough away that Snape wouldn't hear. Her voice had an odd accent. Clearly she wasn’t from around here, but Taylor couldn’t place the accent.
“He doesn’t know how to teach,” Harriet agreed. “I think he’s the worst professor I ever had, and I went to muggle school.”
“He’s a bully,” Taylor grumbled.
“Maybe he’s lonely and sad?” Luna offered in her same dreamy voice.
Four pairs of eyes looked at her. Taylor walked closer and gave Luna a one armed hug, to which Luna leaned into. Mira looked unbothered and Harriet looked uncomfortable. Nap flapped her wings and nested on Luna’s head.
After potions, they had history of magic. It was another class Taylor was excited about. She’d heard during breakfast it was taught by a ghost. There were so many things she wanted to ask them. The dourness from potions class chipped away with the growing excitement.
History of Magic class had been a disaster. In some ways, worse even than Snape’s class. At least in potions class there was a practical segment. Professor Binns droned on in the most boring voice ever. Worse yet, he recited directly from the book. It was a waste of time. Taylor could read by herself just fine. Thankfully the ghost didn’t seem to mind Nap attending class too, or maybe he hadn’t even seen her.
Ten minutes into the class and Taylor had conked out. She had more interesting things to do than listen to a ghost drone on about something she already knew.
For the remainder of the History of Magic class free period, Taylor worked with Dum, and co. The first thing she did was migrate their temporary nest from the previous tower to Ravenclaw’s tower where her dorm was. Easy access to her friends was paramount. She set them to create a nest under the conical cap of the tower. From what she could see, there wasn’t any easier way to get there, the only hatch was locked and hidden in the ceiling of the room below, tucked under the decoration. The place was perfect. Large, out of the way, and a breeding ground for spiders, and now pixies.
The nest reconstruction finished at the same time Binns finished his boring regurgitation. For a moment, Taylor wanted to unleash her power, all at once. There were a lot of more classes happening at the same time, and here she was, stuck in a classroom wasting time. She pushed those urges away, filing it away for consideration later in the day. She liked the idea of listening ahead in classes, but she’d have to be smart about it.
Students filed out of the room and towards the great hall. This Wednesday morning had gone long enough and it was finally lunch time.
Taylor sat in the great hall adding food to her plate, still looking unhappy with the classes. It was a magic school. Why were the professors doing their best to kill all the magic?
“We have Charms with Gryffindor in the afternoon,” Luna consoled.
Taylor bit into her food with more gusto than was necessary. One could only hope Luna was right.