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Harry Potter and the Junior Year Abroad
Meanwhile, Back at the Castle
By Ishtar
Ginny Weasley was every bit as much an early bird as her brother was a night owl. The time between dawn and breakfast was her time. During the school year, she took advantage of it to finish her homework in an empty common room, but now, at the beginning of the year, she had free time. Carefully, so as not to awaken the other girls, she dressed and slipped out of the fifth-year dorm, taking her books for the morning classes with her. Once the door was closed behind her, she was free to walk without having to tiptoe, and bounced down the stairs to the common room. Crookshanks and a young kitten one of the second-years had brought were waiting for her in the common room, Crookshanks looking on with amused tolerance while the kitten played pouncing games on the tassels of the rug before the fireplace. As soon as Ginny arrived, however, the ginger tomcat leaped down from the ottoman where he had been curled, and walked over to the portrait door. The kitten followed after him. Ginny opened the door and let both of them out into the hall, and cats and girl made their way to an entrance on the south side of the castle, where the doors were standing slightly open, as they always did in the morning when the weather was good.
Out on the south lawn, long shadows danced about as the castle's cats pranced and played. Whenever the weather permitted, the cats could be found outside at sunrise and sunset. There were a surprising number of them, more every year, as they were a popular pet and familiar animal and, unlike toads and owls, were easy for children living between the Muggle and Wizarding worlds to acquire and explain. The undisputed queen of the cats was Mrs. Norris, who ranked both because of her seniority and her nasty temper. Every year she put some young upstart in her place and kept control of the Hogwarts clowder. Among the toms, Crookshanks and Millicent Bulstrode's big black tom, Balthazar, kept order. Ginny sat on the bottom step of the short flight leading to the south entrance, and enjoyed playing with the younger cats, swishing a long stem of grass or a twig back and forth for them to attack, while the older cats meowed more sedately at each other. She sometimes imagined the cats were having meetings, and wondered what they talked about. Maybe some day she'd get up the nerve to ask Professor McGonagall, since she'd seen the grey tabby with the distinctive markings joining the other cats on several occasions the previous year.
But Ginny's mornings were no longer private to her and the cats. A long two-legged shadow fell across the closely cropped grass, as a young man faced the sun rising over the Forbidden Forest and spread his arms wide in what appeared to be a greeting, chanting softly in an unknown tongue. Then he pulled a small pouch from inside his shirt and took a pinch of some kind of powder from inside it. He let the powder fall from his fingers, sprinkling it in the morning breeze. Then he bent to touch the ground with his fingers. His ritual done, he picked up the book bag lying near him on the ground, and turned to re-enter the castle. Only then did he become aware of his audience.
"Good morning!" said Ginny, waving as he approached the steps. "I don't usually see anyone else up this early."
"Good morning," responded the older boy. As he approached and was no longer silhouetted against the sun, Ginny could see that her morning companion was Cheveyo, one of the exchange students. They had been introduced when the American students first arrived, but hadn't had a chance to speak much. The Indian boy wore his black hair short and sort of spiky on top, and was dressed in blue jeans and a red t-shirt. There was a leather pouch, decorated with a beaded design, hanging from a thong around his neck, and his fingertips were stained yellow. "At home I rise to greet the sun each day. It's a little harder here. They put the rooms down in the basement for some reason and I missed the dawn for the last two days. I had to charm an alarm clock to wake me before sunrise."
"I hope you don't mind that I was watching when you did … whatever it was you did."
"I've gotten used to it at school. There are a lot more people there than at home. Then again, many of them are doing the same thing. Greeting the sun is a fairly common ritual among us."
"Is it a Muggle-born thing?" she asked, curious.
His lip twisted slightly. "It's a tribal thing. Both Mundanes and Mageborn among us do it — those that keep to the old ways, anyway. Not everyone follows tradition."
"Oh. Well, if it bothers you, I'll find someplace else to sit in the mornings."
"Not on my account, please. I am only a guest here; it would be impolite of me to ask you to interrupt your own ritual."
"This isn't a ritual," Ginny said, as she swished a stick for the crowd of kittens that had gathered at her feet.
"It isn't? You come here often and it gives you peace; that's enough. I think the lawn is big enough for both of us," he said, gesturing at the wide expanse of grass.
"And the winter will chase us both indoors soon enough anyway. You can't do — whatever it was you were doing, when you're hip deep in snow."
"It gets that bad here? I was hoping it would be different from Minnesota." He sighed. "Where my family lives, we don't get much snow at all, and I've never really gotten used to the stuff."
They spent a companionable half-hour playing with the kittens and talking about the differences between Arizona, Minnesota and Scotland, and between Quidditch and Quodpot, until it was time to go in for breakfast. Cheveyo was a fan of the Tuba City Thunderbirds, an all-Indian Quodpot team that consistently placed in the bottom third of the league, but he had hopes that they'd show better this season. "You sound like my brother," said Ginny, laughing. "He roots for the Chudley Cannons and swears every year they're going to make the playoffs, and every year they finish in the dungeon."
"I'm surprised Ron hasn't spoken to me since classes started," said Cheveyo. "We have several classes together. He was friendly enough on the train."
"It's probably because you were Sorted into Slytherin. Ron's kind of funny about Slytherins in general. He'll come around eventually," assured Ginny. And if he doesn't, I'll wallop him one, she promised herself. Cheveyo seemed quite nice. "So how are you getting along down in the dungeons anyway?"
Cheveyo shrugged. "I don't think they've exactly figured out how to treat me so far. Malfoy spent most of the first evening trying to interrogate me about my family lines, but gave up when we couldn't agree on terminology. The two behemoths that follow him around answer everything in monosyllables and we're not in any of the same classes. Nott keeps trying to make conversation about curry. He obviously thinks I'm the other kind of Indian, but at least he's being polite. That's better than the seniors, anyway. That Pucey fellow called me a half-breed."
Ginny gasped. "Half-breed? Or half-blood?"
"Does it matter? It's an insult either way. He had to have half his teeth replaced when I got done with him. I gather he's not well-liked. Malfoy said that was already his fourth set. Then the next night he woke up to find I'd left a feather token on his pillow, and now he's afraid to look at me. I don't know whether it's because he's afraid I'll curse him, or because I was able to get past his warding spells and sneak into his dorm in the middle of the night. I don't particularly care, as long as he keeps his mouth shut."
By this time, they had made it around to the entry hall that connected to the Great Hall. It was crowded with students, all of whom were trying to get in to breakfast first. "Ginny! Ginny!" Hermione called, squeezing through the mob. Ron followed behind her. Hermione waved her brown-covered book excitedly. The letters spelling out "Messages To Hermione" were flashing gold on the cover. "He wrote! He wrote! Do you have yours?" Ginny squealed and dove into her book bag. "No, no! Not here! In the Great Hall!"
Pushing and jostling, they made it into the Hall, and Ginny realized that Cheveyo was shielding her from the worst of it the same way Ron was shielding Hermione. They made it all the way to the Gryffindor table before Ron realized the Slytherin was with them. "Hey! What's he doing here?" he said indignantly.
"Keeping your sister from getting squashed," replied the dark-skinned boy coolly. "And now I'll take my leave. Ginny, perhaps we'll meet again some morning soon?"
"I'll look forward to it," she replied with a smile. With a grin and a wave, Cheveyo disappeared into the crowd again, this time to fight his way toward the Slytherin table.
"What do you mean, you'll look forward to it?"
"I said I'll look forward to it. He's very nice."
"Nice?! He's a Slytherin!"
"Ronald Weasley! Stop being such a prat! You thought he was a good fellow yourself when you first met him!" Hermione interjected.
"That was before he was a Slytherin!"
"But nothing's really changed about him. You only don't like him because he's got a green badge now," put in Ginny. "And look, he's getting just as much trouble for associating with us. He told me he already had to punch Pucey once. He may have to again."
Ron and Hermione looked over to the Slytherin table, where Pucey and Cheveyo were nose-to-nose glaring at each other until Malfoy and a Slytherin seventh-year whose name they did not know broke the two up. Cheveyo sat down next to Malfoy, while Pucey made a dramatic show of leaving the Great Hall rather than eat with the American boy.
Ron grumbled as he allowed Hermione and Ginny to talk him down from his rant, then when breakfast appeared on the table, he seemed to forget all about it. Hermione put her brown message book next to her plate. "Now, shall we see what Harry wrote?" Ron pulled his own out of his bag, the gold "Messages To Ron" legend flashing.
Ginny's bright pink book attracted more attention; Parvati was sitting next to her and grabbed her hand so she could see the title better. "'Messages To My Love'? Oooh, I guess we just found out who Harry's sweet on!" Despite Ginny's blushes and protestations that her book was only that way because it was an afterthought, Parvati refused to believe it. By the end of breakfast, the new titbit of gossip was all up and down the Gryffindor table, and by lunch, Ginny knew, it would be all over the school.
The three read their letters eagerly; the letters they had written to Harry were probably the longest they had ever written before, and they found that his was just as long and chatty. All three of them found their neighbours at table leaning over to try to get glimpses of their letters. "Hey, gerroff!" said Ron, elbowing away a fifth-year boy on his left who was becoming excessively chummy. "We'll read some of it in the common room tonight, okay? None of the personal bits, mind you." The fifth-year complained that if they hadn't wanted people to see, they shouldn't have brought the books down, but moved away so that Ron could eat in peace. The three swapped their books around so they could see each of the postscripts, but there was neither time nor privacy to discuss anything right now.
They compared schedules, but during the one period that Hermione and Ginny were free, Ron had an appointment with Professor McGonagall. "The first week? What did you do?" asked Ginny in surprise.
"I didn't do anything that I know of," said Ron grumpily. "She said she had some things she wanted to talk to me about before things really got started for the year. Dunno what it's about, really. I'll be able to tell you later, I guess. We could meet in that half-hour break before dinner."
"Myrtle's bathroom?" suggested Hermione.
"Do we have to? That place is really creepy," Ron complained.
"It's still one of the only places in the school to get privacy," said Hermione sensibly. "Unless it bothers Ginny," she said, suddenly realizing that the younger girl might have problems with a place so closely connected with the difficulties of her first year.
"I don't really remember it all that clearly," said the redheaded girl. "Let's meet there and if it bothers me we can go somewhere else, okay?"
"Good. Ron, you're going to be late for Potions if you don't leave now. It may be General Potions, but Snape probably isn't going to be any nicer than he is for the Advanced."
Rolling his eyes, Ron joined the crowd leaving the Hall for their first classes.
0o0o0o0o0
Ron straightened his robes nervously as he waited for the exact moment of his appointment with Professor McGonagall. It was the first personal meeting he'd had with the stern Transfiguration professor, aside from the career counselling meeting, which didn't count since everybody had one in fifth year. With a touch of trepidation, he knocked on the oaken door. For one brief second he hoped that she might not be there, but then the door opened and she welcomed him in.
"Thank you for coming, Mr. Weasley. There are several things I wanted to see you about."
"Um, if it's about my grades, I can promise you I'll be doing better this year, Professor."
"No, it's not about your grades. They are adequate for a Prefect, and more than adequate for the Quidditch Captain," she said, smiling slightly as she passed the silver badge to the stunned redhead.
"Quidditch Captain? Me?" he stammered. "But I've only been on the team one year. Shouldn't it be Katie?"
"Most of the rest of the team are also short-timers. Miss Bell is the only player who is senior to you, and she didn't want to be Captain this year because of N.E.W.T.s. She isn't dropping the team, mind you, but she didn't feel that she could dedicate herself to being Captain and maintaining her study load. She spoke highly of your Quidditch knowledge, however, and believes that now you are past the initial nervousness of being on the team, you will do well. You should speak to Madam Hooch about arranging tryout and practice times as soon as possible, of course. I've grown accustomed to having that Cup in my office, Mr. Weasley. Do try not to disappoint me."
"I'll do my best, Professor."
"That is all I can ask. Now, about your Prefect duties, I feel it is only fair to warn you that you are being placed on probation there. Not because of your grades, but because of the way you performed — or rather, didn't perform — your duties last year. You displayed a notable tendency to shrink from disciplinary matters and delegated most of those to Ms. Granger. Now that the possibility of having to discipline your older brothers is past — and yes, I know that was a large part of the difficulty — I trust that you will be able to shoulder your share of the responsibilities. Being a Prefect is a leadership position, and the privileges granted to Prefects must be balanced by actions performed. This is especially important in this time of crisis. If there is an emergency, the students will look to their Prefects for direction and for aid, and you must be ready to take charge if the Professors are busy elsewhere. Are you prepared to do that?"
Ron gulped and nodded. If his mother heard he lost his Prefect badge, he could expect Howlers every morning for a week, and he would do almost anything — including honest work — to avoid that.
"Good. I realize that due to the strains of last year's events, I was not able to give you as much supervision as I should have. This year that shall be rectified, as I will be holding weekly meetings with all six Prefects of my House in order to organize routine duties as well as emergency procedures. There will also be monthly meetings with the Prefects of all the other Houses to deal with inter-House matters."
Ron began to think he might actually be grateful to Hermione for insisting that he get, and use, a schedule book this year.
"And finally, Mr. Weasley, I was wondering … would you care to join me in a game of chess?"
"What?" he croaked.
"Chess. I'm assured you've heard of the game before. Indeed, your reputation is such that I believe you're one of the few people in this school who can give me a good game."
"You play?"
"Really, Mr. Weasley. Who do you think set up the game you played first year? That was my chess set you played then. Literally, since I simply enlarged my personal set. It's learned how to challenge me when playing solitaire over the years, and to my knowledge at that time there was only one other person in the school who could have passed it — and it wasn't Professor Quirrell. You were a welcome surprise, and I find I'd like to play you again."
The Professor rose from behind her desk and stepped over to a small table with two chairs flanking it, and a chess set ready to play on the top. In Ron's agitation about the meeting, he hadn't even noticed it when he entered the office. Now he changed chairs gratefully. He felt much more confident when there was a chess set involved.
"Since you are my guest, you may take white," said McGonagall. Ron poked at one of the pawns and was surprised when all it did was fall over. "This is a Muggle chess set, Mr. Weasley. It will be a more competitive game without the pieces suggesting tactics, don't you think?"
"Especially since the pieces are usually wrong," Ron muttered, making his first move.
"They are, aren't they?" McGonagall chuckled. "Some of them bloodthirsty, some of them timid, and all giving conflicting advice. Sometimes it's calming to just play the Muggle way." She made black's first move, and the game was joined in earnest.
Some time later, a soft chime sounded to alert the intent players that it was almost time for dinner. The rapid exchange of moves by this time had slowed down as the game advanced, and still neither player had a clear advantage.
"Let's continue this game another time, shall we?" said the Professor, conjuring a domed glass cover to protect the board. "It's almost time for dinner, and there are still a few items I want to talk to you about. Would be interested in entering the Muggle chess community? There are many more good players in the Muggle world than in ours, and I think you would benefit from it. You might even be able to get a ranking and compete in tournaments. Did you know that some Muggles can even play chess for a living?"
Ron just gaped at her; he'd never heard of such a thing.
"Indeed," she confirmed. "Some are quite famous for it. I don't know if you could reach that level, but you won't know unless you try, do you?"
"How … how would I …"
I participated in a chess club in Edinburgh some years ago, before I came here as a teacher, and I'm still in correspondence with friends I made then. I could introduce you to them, bring you to a few of their events, and you could see if you liked it. Perhaps you could represent the school in one of their student tournaments. I'd advise you to ask one of the Muggle-born students to bring you up to speed on basic Muggle technology, though, so you won't seem too out of place. What do you think?"
"I think … yes! It sounds wonderful!" Ron was overwhelmed by it all.
"Excellent. I'll get a formal permission from your parents, of course, and I'll write to my friend about you. I'll let you know as soon as I hear anything. Now, one last thing and I'll let you head off to dinner. It relates specifically to my class. I know you're not an unintelligent boy, nor untalented, and yet I've been watching you struggle with Transfiguration for five years now. You did manage to earn an E on your OWL, although I suspect that was mainly due to Miss Granger's influence in forcing you to study, am I correct?"
Ron nodded, slightly shamefacedly.
"Do you have any idea why you find this subject so difficult?"
"Well, it's just … it's all the steps and levels and correspondences and things that you have to remember. Some of them just don't seem to make sense, and I can't keep them all straight in my head. Hermione can, and she can get them to stick with me just long enough, but when she's not around I get all confused again."
McGonagall cocked her head and steepled her fingers. "Perhaps you should try looking at Transfiguration in a different way."
"What do you mean?"
"I teach the subject the way I do because most students can achieve at least some level of skill with it. I have always been aware, however, that others learn in different ways. Miss Granger is excellent with anything that requires rote learning, memorization, and so on, but has a little difficulty with forming original concepts. Your friend Mr. Potter's father, on the other hand, couldn't remember a correspondence chart if his life depended on it, but had an intuitive grasp of transformative steps that I have rarely seen. His superlative results on practical exams got him past many a dubious grade on theory. As for you, I think handling Transfiguration as a series of chess problems may be helpful. Try thinking of the differences between the starting point and the goal point as opposing chess pieces. With every move you make from the starting point, you will change one aspect to match the goal point. The idea is to do it in the fewest number of moves possible. Do you understand?"
She watched as Ron considered it, staying silent so as not to interrupt his train of thought. Finally his eyes widened. "Yes, I think it does work. If I just … and then …" His hand started twitching in a way that resembled making chess moves in the air.
"Let us see, then." McGonnagal took a small stuffed animal off a shelf where it was tucked in between two books. It was a simple dog shape, made of blue and white checked fabric with shoebutton eyes. "Gingham dog to calico cat, Mr. Weasley."
Ron drew his wand and looked uncertainly at the toy for a moment, then started drawing the tip of the wand through a jerky movement that didn't resemble any of the standard wand movements at all. With each jerk, the dog changed, first changing color, then pattern, the smooth cotton changing to a shaggier furry fabric, then losing dog characteristics and becoming more catlike, then with the final step, changing from a stuffed cat to a living one.
"That is quite a spectactular morph change, Mr. Weasley. Every step was complete and correct." The cat looked up at her and barked rather sharply. "Well, perhaps there are a few more steps yet to include. But all the rest will be practice, and I believe eventually you will be able to do it fast enough that the intervening stages aren't visible." With a flourish of her own wand, she reverted the cat one step, back to being a toy, and handed it to Ron. "Over the weekend, I want you to practice with the dog-to-cat sequence. Stuffed toy dog to living cat, both ways, find the minimum number of changes and be prepared to demonstrate to the class. This supersedes the homework I gave yesterday."
"You mean I don't have to do that essay?" His eyes lit up.
"I believe this work will be more beneficial to you in the long run. Don't worry, there will be essays enough in the future. Now if you would care to walk with me to the Great Hall, dinner awaits." Ron walked along at Professor McGonagall's side. He'd wound up missing talking to Hermione and Ginny after all, but — clutching the stuffed cat — he thought it would be worth it.
0o0o0o0o0o0
To say that Severus Snape was not happy was, perhaps, the understatement of the year. For years now, he had been grooming his Slytherins to dominate in Potions classes. He'd given them encouragement, advance warning of test material, even private tutoring, in some cases for years, and what did he have to show for it? This particular Friday, it meant he had a sixth-year class that was larger than ever before, but only had one Slytherin in it. He hadn't expected Crabbe, Goyle, or Parkinson to make it into the Advanced class, not by any stretch of the imagination. Teaching those three had been as painful as teaching Longbottom; perhaps more so since he hadn't been able to yell at them as they deserved. But the OWLs for this group had surprised him. Zabini, Greengrass, and Davis — the students to whom he had devoted the least attention — had all earned O's, but then Zabini and Greengrass had promptly run off to America on this stupid plan of the Headmaster's to coddle Potter by providing him with the equivalent of the Grand Tour. Bulstrode and Nott had pulled A's and were now taking the General Potions course, with its much less demanding curriculum. But Malfoy, his star pupil, had disappointed him terribly by testing only at the E level — and a low E, at that. He had been prepared for the Headmaster to ask him for the favour of placing Potter in the Advanced class, in return for which favour he would have placed Malfoy there as well, but then the Potter brat had the gall to receive an O and earn his way in fairly - how that happened, he had no idea — and then added insult to injury by going away for a year. So Malfoy was now also labouring in the Gulag of the General Potions class, much to his chagrin. The one American student who had been Sorted into Slytherin had opted not to take Advanced Potions, although he was qualified, deciding to take an Introductory Healing Techniques seminar Madam Pomfrey was offering instead. The net result was that Tracey Davis, a perfectly unexceptional girl of perfectly unexceptional background, was the sole Slytherin in the sixth-year Advanced class.
Countering this was the usual gaggle of Ravenclaws, enhanced by the Americans sorted into that House, a couple of Hufflepuffs, and no less than five Gryffindors! Granger he'd resigned himself to, and Potter was off on his little holiday trip, but somehow Dean Thomas had turned up on the list of students earning an O on his OWLs. This was completely unexpected, but Snape could see in retrospect that he had spent so much time trying to rein in Granger and keep the Terrible Trio of Longbottom, Potter and Weasley from destroying the classroom that he'd never even noticed the Thomas boy working quietly away at one of the back tables, getting decent test grades and turning in excellent potions. In addition, he had all three of the Gryffindor exchange students.
There must be gods somewhere, and they must hate him. That was the only explanation.
He was not, however, going to let this little setback throw him off his stride, and so he swept into the classroom with his usual style and glared at the assembled students. His Hogwarts students seemed suitably cowed; the rest — well, the rest would learn. As expected, everyone had clumped together in groups by House, resulting in Miss Davis standing alone at a work table at the far right of the room. "I want everyone to choose a lab partner for the rest of the year. I don't want anyone working with someone from your own House, and I want each American student to have a Hogwarts partner." There was a bit of disorder as people scrambled about to try to pair up in appropriate combinations while he looked on impatiently, but soon enough they got straightened out. There was one group of three, and somehow Davis had become partnered with Granger while he wasn't looking. He couldn't think of a reason to break that pairing up, so let it stand. If anything, it would guarantee Davis a passing grade. He couldn't figure out why Granger looked so smug, though. It was almost like he'd played into her hand, and that made him exceedingly uneasy.
He dismissed the feeling, and moved on to the next step in his routine. It was Snape's custom to start the first sixth-year class by asking each student questions which could be expected to appear on the N.E.W.T. exams, intended to demonstrate how much they still had to learn. Some students got them, but most didn't; in either case, it tended to put them on their toes for the first few lessons. This worked quite well, as usual — until he hit the Americans. "Miss Pereira — what would I get if I added asphodel to a tincture of wormwood?"
The olive-skinned girl didn't even hesitate. "Assuming you were using a silver cauldron, you would have the second stage additive to the Draught of Living Death. Any other kind of cauldron and you've got a Mundane intoxicant with long-term neurotoxic qualities. Sir."
Snape blinked. "Very good, Miss Pereira. Miss Johanson, what is the difference between aconite and wolfsbane?"
"They are both the same plant, sir, also known as monk's hood, genus aconitum, species napellus, and the active element for the Wolfsbane potion."
"Miss Mayeux, where would I look to find a bezoar?"
"In that cabinet, third shelf, on the left in the wicker basket," said the black girl, pointing at the smaller of the supply cabinets.
"I meant in its natural state, Miss Mayeux," Snape said with gritted teeth.
"You should have said so," the girl responded with the same slightly absent tone that the Lovegood girl used when she was at her most aggravating. "You'd find it in the stomach of an ibex or goat, of course. Or in the stomach of a sheep, but the quality isn't nearly as good."
Snape was fairly sure Rob Watson was Muggle-born, so didn't expect him to be able to get the next question. "Mr. Watson, during what phase of the moon should knotweed be picked for use in the Polyjuice potion?" He could see Granger's eyes widen as she realized the trick in the question, but she managed to refrain from trying to volunteer the answer.
Watson was leaning back in his chair casually. "You'd pick it during the full … no, wait a minute, you don't use knotweed in Polyjuice. You use fluxweed, picked during the full moon."
He'd been putting off the second American boy as long as possible, as he was unsure of the pronunciation of the alien name. "Mister … Eng … Enguyen," he said, pronouncing it as spelled on the roll sheet, "Why are most healing potions brewed from a flobberworm base?"
The boy seemed almost bored as he answered. "Healing potions for internal use require a neutral protein to bind the active substance to the patient's cellular structure, and flobberworm protein is the only one that has not been shown to promote anaphylaxis in any known individual. And my surname is pronounced 'When', sir," he added helpfully.
"If it's pronounced 'When', why don't they spell it 'When'?" muttered Snape irritably as he made a note on his list.
"My grandda said that English spellings of foreign words were a plot to get people to give them up," said Allysia Kirkland. "Given how my great-grandma Siobhan's name was spelled, I think he's probably right."
"I am not interested in your grandda's linguistic theories, Miss Kirkland!" Snape snapped.
"I'm sorry, it was my turn and I thought that was my question."
"It was most certainly not your question. However, given your interest in translations, Miss Kirkland, would you care to translate Mr. Nguyen's answer into plain English for us?"
"Sure. Nobody's allergic to flobberworms, so everybody can use a flobberworm potion."
Taylor glanced at her with what seemed to be mild reproach. He had answered the question quite precisely, he thought.
"Of course. Thank you. I brought up the subject of flobberworms because we will be spending the next several weeks learning how to brew various healing potions, and will require large quantities of flobberworm base. Rather than waste time brewing it fresh each week, each of you will make one large cauldron of it now, and we will preserve it to be used in smaller quantities in coming weeks." With a flick of his wand, the directions appeared on the board, and two large crates of live, exceedingly healthy flobberworms appeared at the front of the room. They were, in fact, the same flobberworms that the previous year's third-year students had spent several months nurturing to full size.
Sally-Anne Perks, one of the Hufflepuff students, blanched. "Those are live flobberworms, sir."
"Yes, Miss Perks, they are. The fresher the better with flobberworms, and you don't get much fresher than this." He picked up a wriggling worm. "Many potions ingredients come from animals, Miss Perks, and you can't always count on being able to use powdered parts that won't offend your delicate sensibilities. You will need to be able to kill and prepare them properly yourself. If you can't do that, perhaps you should rethink your class selections." With a practised pinching movement, he removed the head of the flobberworm with his fingers and flicked it to land on the worktable in front of Miss Perks, who flinched away from it. He tossed the flobberworm's body to land next to Miss Davis's cauldron. "You'll need at least ten flobberworms apiece. Proceed."
Snape always found it useful to observe sixth-year students as the realities of where potions ingredients came from sank in. Until this point in the curriculum, ingredients were either in pre-processed form such as dried or powdered, or, in some cases, fresh but processed by students on detention. In sixth year he started teaching the students how to process their own ingredients. Which included killing things. He almost always lost two or three girls at this point, and this year was no exception. Miss Perks managed to last through beheading three flobberworms before she turned green and fled from the classroom; he doubted she'd be back. Two of the Ravenclaws were also quite disgusted by the process. They should consider themselves lucky he hadn't started the year with dissecting something cute and fuzzy instead of the inherently unlovable flobberworms. That would come later in the term.
About half of the Hogwarts students opted for knives to behead the worms instead of using their fingers. The American students, with the exception of Kirkland and Watson, used their fingers to pinch off the heads, and it looked like they had done it before. Perhaps this lesson was taught earlier in the American curriculum? He'd have to check. Kirkland and Watson both pulled short wooden sticks out of their potions kits and systematically pithed each flobberworm before removing the heads. Then all the students set about opening the worms to remove the contents of the digestive tract — he lost one of the Ravenclaws at this point — and prepared to stew the remainder of the body.
From here on, everything progressed as expected, until it was time to put the completed cauldrons of potion base on the stasis shelf. Flobberworm base tended to degenerate rapidly, so the shelf was the best way to keep large amounts of it stable until it was needed. To his surprise, all of the Americans pulled small vials of a greyish-brown powder out of their kits and sprinkled a small amount into their cauldrons.
"What was that? I didn't tell you to add anything else!" He snatched the vial away from Pereira, who had the misfortune of being at a front-row table. He sniffed suspiciously at the powder, then shook a small bit of it out into the palm of his hand to take a closer look at it.
"It's just the standard stabilizer," said Pereira, puzzled by his actions. "Equal parts of jet and amber, reduced to fine powder."
"Standard?"
"Yes, it was discovered about five years ago, and is now standard for use with flobberworm and other animal protein potion bases in the United States. It keeps them from going bad for extended periods of time, and the ingredients are neutral so it doesn't interfere with any later steps in the brewing process."
"It was written up in the American Journal of Alchemy and Thaumaturgy," put in Johanson helpfully.
"I'm sure you read that regularly," Snape sneered. He'd allowed his own subscription to lapse several years ago, preferring to follow the less experimental European journals. He returned the vial to the American girl. "Very well. Those of you who used this stabilizer, place your cauldrons on the regular storage shelf. The rest of you, put your cauldrons on the stasis shelf. We will compare results next week. For the future, however, I do not, repeat, do not, want any of you to add anything to potions unless I clear it first, is that understood?" On receiving their assurances, he dismissed the class.
0o0o0o0o0
"Where are my slippers? They're supposed to be right here, and they're not!"
It was Saturday morning, and Parvati was making sure all the girls in the dorm were up, as she dangled off the edge of her bed to search beneath it for something that was obviously not where she wanted it to be.
"Where did you see them last?" asked Hermione with a yawn.
"I was wearing them in the Common Room last night."
"Somebody miss Last Call?" asked Allysia, poking her head out from between the curtains of what had been Lavender's bed.
"I think you left them under the sofa down there," said Maria, giving up on the effort to stay asleep.
"The house elves are supposed to bring things like that up," whined Parvati.
"I'll go get them for you," said Hermione, more to shut Parvati up than anything else, and she opened the door to the stairwell.
"Hey, Hermione, forget you're a Mage?" Allysia called, and flourished her wand in the general direction of the door. "Accio Parvati's slippers!" Despite the difference in pronunciation — the Americans pronounced the Summoning Charm 'ack-see-oh' instead of 'ah-shee-oh' — a pair of fuzzy slippers obligingly flew into the room to land on Allysia's bed, and she tossed them casually to Parvati.
"Thank you!" Parvati chirped, putting on her slippers and bathrobe before heading out to the girls' showers.
A short time later, Allysia found Hermione in the Common Room, looking for her own favourite quill. "Definitely no Last Call. Accio —"
"I'll do it myself," snapped Hermione. "Accio quill." The missing item flew out of the crack between cushions in the sofa. "What's this Last Call, anyway?"
"We don't have house elves to straighten things up, so last thing in the evening, somebody does a spell which returns everybody's items that they didn't put away properly. Mostly the older students take turns doing it. It teaches the younger students to clean up after themselves."
"By returning their stuff? Seems to me like they'd come to depend on it."
"Well, not when it dumps your missing shoes, books, crumpled bits of notepaper, and candy wrappers into the middle of your bed. It doesn't take too long to learn to pick things up, usually." She waved at the mess that was the Common Room after only one week. "Looks like your house elves may need a little help here. You're a Prefect — why don't I teach you the spell and then you can teach the other Prefects and take turns with it until everybody gets the idea?"
"That sounds great, I'd appreciate it," said Hermione. Judging from the shape of the Common Room, the house elves needed all the help they could get.
0o0o0o0o0
On Monday morning, when the post was delivered, a seriously overburdened owl flew laboriously into the Great Hall. Ginny nudged Ron, drawing his attention to it. "Looks like somebody didn't pay enough for postage. Wonder whose it is … whoops, there it goes!" Package and owl parted company in midair, and the bundle split open on impact with the stone floor in front of the teacher's table. A number of purple-and-green covered journals bearing the initials AJAT spilled out. Professor Snape jumped up from his seat and hurried around the end of the table to gather up the journals, while the owl swooped down at him and pecked him with annoyance. Snape ignored the angry bird and swept out of the Hall, his arms full of books. The owl flew over to his place at the table and made off with what was left of Snape's breakfast sausage, to the general laughter of the students.