At breakfast the next day, I waited anxiously for some sort of letter from Father. But no letter came.

"Maybe it'll arrive at lunch or dinner," Hermione said, as we left the Great Hall and walked to Potions. "Or maybe you're just overthinking things, and you won't get a letter at all."

"Yeah, maybe..." I said, not entirely convinced.

We got to the Potions classroom down in the dungeons, choosing seats near the middle — a compromise between Hermione wanting to be at the front, and me wanting to be at the back, where people were less likely to notice me.

Professor Snape started the class by taking the register, making sure all of the Gryffindors and Slytherins were there. He gave me an unreadable look when he got to my name, and I looked away as I answered with a quiet "here".

When he reached Harry Potter's name, he paused.

"Ah yes," he said softly. "Harry Potter. Our new — celebrity."

Draco sniggered behind his hands, but I shot him a look and he shut up at once.

Once everyone down to Blaise Zabini had confirmed their presence, Snape looked up at us all with his cold, empty black eyes. I suppressed a shiver of fear.

"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 I caught every word — 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. Some people were giving each other surprised or sceptical looks, and next to me, Hermione was on the edge of her seat, looking 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?"

Hermione's hand shot into the air, but Harry just looked confused. The mixture of those ingredients had rung a faint bell at the back of my mind, but I couldn't remember what it was that they actually made. Was it some kind of antidote? Or, no — maybe a sleeping potion?

"I don't know, sir," Harry said.

Snape's lips curled into a sneer, and he ignored Hermione's hand.

"Tut tut — fame clearly isn't everything."

That's hardly fair, I thought, frowning. Harry was raised by Muggles, and this is his first ever Potions class. And he didn't ask to be famous!

"Let's try again," Snape continued. "Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

Hermione stretched her hand as high into the air as it would go without her leaving her seat, but Harry clearly didn't know the answer. Draco, along with some of the other Slytherins, was now shaking with laughter, and he didn't even stop when I sent a death glare at him.

"I don't know, sir," Harry said again.

"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?" Snape said, still ignoring Hermione's quivering hand.

Personally, I thought that that question had been quite easy — a bezoar was a stone found in the stomach of a goat — but Snape surely couldn't expect Harry to know that.

"What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

At this, Hermione stood up, her hand stretching towards the dungeon ceiling.

That's not at all a fair question! They're exactly the same thing!

"I don't know," Harry said quietly. "I think Hermione does though, why don't you try her?"

A few people laughed, and Seamus Finnigan, one of the other Gryffindor boys, winked at Harry. Snape, however, wasn't pleased.

"Sit down," he snapped at Hermione.

Hermione did so, looking a little hurt. I gave her a reassuring look.

"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 of aconite. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?"

There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Over the noise, Snape said, "And a point will be taken from Gryffindor house for your cheek, Potter."

Things didn't improve for my house as the lesson continued. Snape put us all into pairs — I was with Hermione — and set us to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching us weigh fried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticising almost everyone except Draco, who was his godson, and me, who he was probably avoiding so he didn't incur the wrath of my father. Not that Father would've cared, but Snape wasn't to know that.

Snape was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Draco had stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid-green smoke and a loud hissing sound filled the dungeon. Neville had somehow managed to melt Seamus' cauldron into a twisted blob, and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people's shoes. Within seconds, all of us were standing on our stools, whilst Neville, who'd 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 whimpered as boils started to pop up all over his nose.

"Take him up to the hospital wing," Snape spat at Seamus. Then he rounded on Harry, who'd been working with Ron Weasley next to Neville. "You — Potter — why didn't you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he'd make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That's another point you've lost for Gryffindor."

"How can it've been Harry's fault?" I said softly, my sense of fairness kicking in.

Snape turned to look at me, his creepy black eyes seeming to bore straight into my soul.

"What did you say, Miss Malfoy?" he asked in a silky voice.

I knew this voice all too well — it was the same voice Father sometimes used when he was about to get really, really angry with me. But there was no turning back now; Snape surely wouldn't take "nothing" as an answer.

"I said, how can it have been Harry's fault?" I repeated, a little slower this time as I made sure each word was perfectly pronounced. "He was too busy concentrating on his own potion to notice what Neville was doing."

Snape sneered.

"I think I'll take ten points for your impertinence, Miss Malfoy, and if it continues, you will be getting a detention."

I twitched slightly, knowing that getting a detention would only fuel the anger Father was certainly still feeling about my sorting.

"Now get on with your potions, all of you," Snape snapped.

There was the collective noise of everyone stirring themselves and starting to work on their potions again, and in the midst of it, Harry sent me a brief, but clearly grateful, smile. I smiled back, a warm feeling taking hold of me. Perhaps being a Gryffindor wasn't so bad after all.

***
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