Yeah, Harry was right in his decision to stay the fuck away from that boy. He was a disaster waiting to happen. Harry nodded and decided to go to the great hall. This little encounter had ruined his appetite. He did his best to push back any thoughts of his detention and Longbottom. He was excited to come back to class, especially with the duelling club session in the evening.
Harry did his best to pretend as if the detention didn't happen. It was the first time being in a life or deaths situation and it had left a mark on him. He really didn't want to face it, nor have anything to do with Longbottom's frankly suicidal adventures.
Not for the first time, Harry wondered about the sanity of Gryffindors in general. Longbottom looked completely untroubled from almost dying. Maybe he was just too young to realize what just happened to him, what he almost lost, but it was still very farfetched.
Harry shook his head and decided to stop thinking about Longbottom entirely, or anything related to him really, even Hermione. Harry had barely spoken to the muggleborn in the last few months, but they were on somewhat friendly terms. They were barely more than partners in potion class, and there was a bit of awkwardness between them, but enough to be a bother. Choosing to forget about former friendships, Harry decided to see what his schedule was for the day, especially since he was excited to go back to class.
Of course, Harry's excitement withered away when he realized that his first class after a week in the infirmary was with Snape. Sighing in exasperation, he was immediately joined by his friends, and they all started to eat their breakfast.
Afterwards, they slowly walked down to the dungeons for the practical potions class and sat in their assigned seats. Hermione was still there waiting for him. When Snape entered the classroom with his cloak billowing without there being any wind – Harry was sure that he charmed it to act like that – and just proceeded with the lesson. Honestly, Snape wasn't that bad of a teacher. He tended to let people make their own mistakes instead of stopping them and scaring the living hell out of them later. No one here made the same mistake twice, even if the guy was an ass about it.
Snape rarely involved himself in the theoretical lessons, but he does make a few comments while explaining mistakes. Yeah, he was harsh, and very petty to be so gleeful at messing with students, but if he hadn't done an acceptable job, he would have been fired long ago. Potions were critical in many prestigious careers, and having underqualified potion brewers was a bad thing for everyone. Still, the number of Hogwarts graduates holding potions NEWT was lower than when Slughorn was teaching, although they tended to be more competent. No one really liked it, but the headmaster had vouched for him, and he wasn't doing too bad of a job for people to make a fuss and risk opposing Dumbledore of all people.
As usual, Harry did his best to brew the required potion, a basic bruise healing balm. They had moved on from traditional simple potions that you would drink to other ones that are applied directly or taken differently, like balms and pastes. It was interesting because you could use ingredients that are toxic to eat but have very specific properties to the touch. People have been trying to find a way to avoid drinking potions – since, you know, they taste horrible – and developed many remedies with alternate methods to ingest them. Harry had read that more than a few ambitious muggleborns have tried to make magical pills that the user would swallow but none were successful. It was considered to be a fool's errand in the potions community.
While brewing, Draco, who was on the table to his left, spoke up mockingly, "Oh, Potter, you finally woke up from your nap. It's a shame that you missed our trip to Hogsmeade. We had so much fun. It was such a shame that you weren't there."
Oh, right, the Hogsmeade trip. Since Slytherin had won the House Cup the previous year, first and second year Slytherins were allowed to have two Hogsmeade trips throughout the year. The first one was supposed to be the previous weekend, and Harry had missed it. It wasn't really a big deal; he didn't really miss much, especially when he could go there anytime during the Summer. He was not planning on returning to Privet Drive anytime soon and since he didn't want to be discovered by the ministry and he didn't want to stop using magic, he was going to need to stay in the magical world. He was probably going to stay in an inn and buy a few ageing potions to hide his age.
Back to the annoying blonde Slytherin, Harry simply raised an eyebrow, "Are you seriously picking a fight with me again?"
The boy paled, shook his head, and went back to work on his potion. He didn't even speak for a bit. Damn, Harry really had traumatized the boy. He hadn't even hurt him or anything. Still, at the end of the lesson, when Snape claimed his balm to be "Acceptable", he proved how much of an asshole he really was.
He slowly stalked towards Harry's desk, and spoke up with a soft voice, "Potter, as you have not submitted any of your assignments in the last week, you have until tomorrow at ten in the morning to bring them to me, completed. I have granted you this extension from the goodness of my heart. If you are even a minute late, I will give you a zero in every single one of them."
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