As Hylan walked over, a Slytherin student muttered under his breath, voice dripping with mockery.
“Look, the Chimera Club’s back together.”
“What’s the Chimera Club?” asked his helpful sidekick.
“A beast made of a goat, a lion, and a snake.
Fitting description for certain people, don’t you think?”
The speaker shot a quick glance at Hylan.
Seeing no reaction, he put on a brave face and turned back to his friend.
The few who heard him burst out laughing.
“Chimera Club” was their private nickname for Hylan and Hermione.
Just the two of them.
They kept their voices low, but Hylan caught it anyway.
Eleven-year-old witches and wizards weren’t exactly masters of subtlety.
He hadn’t heard the words, but the smirks and sidelong glances told him everything.
Nothing friendly.
So he flicked a note across the room.
Not to the two who’d been talking.
To Theodore Nott.
Ever since losing his hair, Theodore had taken to wearing his pointed hat at all times.
It made him hard to miss.
He’d been enjoying the show with a grin on his face.
The moment he saw Hylan’s note sailing toward him, the grin vanished.
Hands trembling, he unfolded it.
Two short lines.
“Mr.
Nott, quick question.
Has your hair grown back yet?
Also, if those two little rats next to you gossip about me again, I’ll be asking you for a dueling practice session.”
First the hair.
Then the dueling.
The combination was unmistakable.
A threat.
Theodore’s face twisted with indignation.
What did this have to do with me?
I was standing here minding my own business.
Did I say a word to you?
I didn’t say anything!
He thought all of that.
But under Hylan’s calm stare, Theodore folded.
He reached over and smacked the two offenders.
“Shut your mouths,” he hissed through gritted teeth.
The two young wizards stared at him, baffled.
What’s his problem?
We weren’t even talking about you.
Why are you freaking out?
They were about to snap back when the classroom went dead silent.
The temperature seemed to drop several degrees.
They looked toward the door.
And saw a greasy-haired bat sweeping into the room with barely contained menace.
The two wizards shut their mouths instantly and sat up straight.
Snape’s face was tight.
He didn’t speak right away.
He let the silence press down on the students’ nerves.
Only when the tension had swallowed every inch of the room did he pull out the roll and begin calling names.
When he reached Harry, he paused, as expected.
He read the name in a strange, drawn-out tone.
“Ha-rry.
Potter.”
“Ah.
Our new…
celebrity.”
Snape flicked his eyes toward Harry, then finished the roll at speed.
“Potions is a precise and rigorous discipline.” Snape’s voice was barely above a whisper, but every student heard him.
The room was that quiet.
“This course requires none of your foolish wand-waving.
And I do not expect you to truly understand the beauty of a softly simmering cauldron, its white smoke curling, its delicate fragrance rising.”
Snape gripped the edges of his black robes with both hands, like a bat folding its wings.
“I can teach you…
how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even…
put a stopper in death.”
He stretched the final words to nearly twice their normal length.
The Slytherins didn’t care about any of that.
They sat with their chins lifted high, as if that might earn his notice.
Snape’s mouth twisted.
He swept a contemptuous look across the Gryffindor side.
“Provided, of course, that you are not the usual sort of dunderheads I so often encounter.”
Before anyone could react, Snape fixed his stare on Harry and fired off a rapid question.
“Potter!
What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Tut, tut.
Fame clearly isn’t everything.” Snape’s lip curled.
“Let’s try again.
Potter.
Where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Then tell me the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane.”
By now Snape had moved directly in front of Harry, staring into those emerald-green eyes.
He appeared to be looking at Harry.
He was thinking of someone else entirely.
For a single moment, his face stayed rigid, but something flickered deep in those cold eyes.
Hylan watched from the side, thoroughly entertained.
A classic number.
Title: Reformed Dark-Tattooed Bad-Boy Teacher Confronts Reckless Scar-Faced Problem Child.
“I don’t know, sir,” Harry said quietly.
“Hermione clearly knows the answers.
Why don’t you ask her?”
Snape slowly shifted his gaze, then spun around to glare at Hermione, whose hand had been straining in the air so long she was practically standing.
“Put it down!”
“Mr.
Hylan Prewett.
Ah…
how could I have forgotten you?
The rising star of Slytherin.”
Snape took one last greedy look at Harry’s eyes, then turned to Hylan.
“Please.
Enlighten our esteemed Savior.”
Now it’s my turn?
Hylan, mid-popcorn, straightened up at the sound of his name.
He spoke evenly.
“Powdered root of asphodel and wormwood infusion produce a powerful sleeping draught.
The Draught of Living Death.
A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat.
It acts as an antidote to most poisons.”
“As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant.
Both are names for aconite.”
“It seems not all famous people are undeserving of their fame.” Snape got in one more jab at Harry, then let a mocking smile cross his face.
“Well answered.
Though anyone who bothered to open the textbook beforehand would know how simple those questions are.
Only a fool would fail to answer them.”
“Five points to Slytherin.”
Snape clearly wasn’t done.
He seized the chance to twist the knife in Harry one more time, then turned his glare on Hermione and Hylan.
“But, Prewett.
Perhaps you can explain why you are sitting with a Gryffindor.”
Several students who’d been glaring at Hylan and Hermione all along now watched with gleeful anticipation.
Finally.
A professor noticed.
Hylan lifted his head and met Snape’s eyes.
“Professor Snape, Hermione is my friend.
Does studying together violate any school rule?”
“Don’t you have any Gryffindor friends of your own?”
The rapid questions made the corner of Snape’s mouth twitch.
Gryffindor friends?
He’d been tormented by Gryffindors throughout his school years.
Yet his best friend had been a Gryffindor too.
Only…
he’d lost her.
He stood frozen in silence.
Students began to wonder if Snape had been hit with a Body-Bind Curse.
Then he finally spoke, forcing the words through clenched teeth.
“Begin.”
Snape paired them off and distributed the ingredients.
He deliberately assigned Hylan and Hermione to the same group.
To ensure enough materials, Snape gave every pair three sets of ingredients.
Except Hylan.
He got two.
“I hear Slytherin has acquired a Charms prodigy.
Dueling classmates on day one.
So, Mr.
Prewett.
Perhaps you’re a Potions prodigy as well.
Why not show me?”
“One missing set of ingredients.
Is that too much for you?” Snape said.
A few students started jeering.
“Surely that’s nothing for the great Mr.
Prewett.”
“One less set means one less chance.
This Slytherin’s about to embarrass himself,” Ron said with a smirk.
Hermione frowned, worried.
“Are two sets enough?
What if something goes wrong…”
“It’s fine.
Two sets are plenty.” Hylan took the ingredients and smiled.
“The two of us working together.
How could we fail?”
Snape was right about one thing.
Hylan did have the Potions Prodigy trait.
“You’re right.” Hermione’s confidence returned.
They’d never failed at anything together.
Not once.
The students began their potions.
Snape swept through the room, black robes trailing behind him.
Whenever he spotted a mistake, his criticism was merciless.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.
I wish you would squeeze those barren brains of yours.
Even a single drop of intelligence might prevent you from producing this…
this disaster.”
“What is that supposed to be?
Syrup?
Start over!”
“The color is impure.
Dump it out and begin again!”
Snape prowled every corner of the classroom like a great bat.
Wherever he passed, groans of despair followed.
He did, however, offer genuine praise for Malfoy’s method of stewing slugs.
But before anyone could look, Neville’s cauldron suddenly belched a plume of green smoke.
A loud hissing sound followed.
In an instant, his cauldron warped and twisted from the heat.
The potion inside erupted, spraying straight toward Hylan.