Serpent's Bloodline: Legacy of the Basilisk

Severus Snape was sure that something was wrong today.

It was his first lesson of the year with the fifth-year Gryffindors and Slytherins this year. But something was somehow… different… wrong maybe - and Severus could not figure out what had changed so suddenly that he felt disturbed.

So he stood in front of his classroom and looked at the class, trying to place his feeling of wrongness…

What in Merlin's name was wrong with this silent brewing class?!

Harry was standing in the classroom. In front of him was his bubbling cauldron. Next to him were Hermione at his left and Neville at his right. Ron was situated next to Hermione. Harry had been the one to arrange his place - simply because he remembered all too well Hermione's kind help to Neville, a help that in all these years unfortunately had not helped Neville at all…

"No Ron!" Hermione hissed at that moment. "Don't do it like that! It says crushing - can't you read?!"

Like Harry had thought - no help at all. But on the other hand it was Ron…

Harry ignored them both.

He knew that Hermione tried to channel a genius in every class she was taking - but he also knew that her potion was slightly off. Of course for a beginner it was definitely good enough - but every potion master in the world would feel ashamed if he had produced something like that…

Still Hermione acted as if every brewer should be proud of her result.

Harry squeezed the next ingredient to get the juice. He did not even look at the instructions on the board.

"Harry! You have to slice it - can't you read?!" Hermione hissed.

"I can," Harry answered. "But I do not need to read wrong instructions."

And with that he entered the juice of his ingredient in his potion. It turned a lovely sky-blue color. Then he stirred and golden stripes started to mar the blue.

Without looking up and also without stopping stirring, Harry reached with his left hand to Neville and stopped him from adding an ingredient.

"The nettles first, Neville" he said without looking up. "And wait another two minutes. Your potion does not smell as if it has simmered enough."

Neville next to him blinked.

"But… but the instruction says…" he stuttered.

"You forgot the frog-blood earlier" Harry answered absentmindedly. "When you add the nettles first and then add the frog-blood you can remedy your mistake. Just don't add the Asphodel until you have added the frog-blood or your cauldron will blow up. Your potion is simply not stable enough without it."

"Harry" Hermione said in that moment. "You forgot to add the flour!"

"It's used as a stabilizer, Hermione" Harry answered shrugging. "I don't need it. My potion is stable."

"But…"

Harry just added the next ingredient to his cauldron. The healing balsam they were brewing turned silver with green streaks. Harry looked at it critically and then smelled in the air.

"All right" he murmured, reaching out again, this time to Ron to stop him from cutting his ingredient.

"No force, Ron" he told his friend while he was still concentrated on his own potion. "Think simply of it as butter in the sun. You don't need strength to cut nearly molten butter."

"Uh… okay, Harry" Ron said, changing his way he held his knife. Then he scrutinized his ingredient critically before he started to softly cut it.

Harry instead reached in his robe and extracted a little bag. He opened it and threw some herbs in his potion.

"Harry!" Hermione hissed horrified. "Peppermint?! Are you crazy?!"

The class was silent.

The class was silent!

Suddenly Severus Snape knew exactly what was wrong with this class! Normally Draco Malfoy would have tried to taunt Harry Potter at this point of time! And normally the imbecilic Neville Longbottom would have nearly blown up his cauldron at least three times by now!

That was wrong with this class!

Severus Snape searched for Longbottom between the other students and found him next to Potter - a Potter who did not read the instructions at the board!

"Imbecilic, arrogant boy!" Severus Snape muttered to himself and strode over to Potter just to see the boy taking out something out of his robe and throwing it in the potion in front of him.

Dunderhead!

"… Are you crazy?!" he heard Granger hiss horrified and he hurried over to stop the dunderhead Gryffindor from blowing them all up…

"Are you crazy?" Hermione hissed.

In that moment Snape entered the hearing range of the table.

"Potter!" he growled. "What are you do…?"

Harry stopped Neville from stirring.

"The Asphodel first, Neville" he said, stirring his own potion.

Snape instead stood in front of his cauldron gawking.

"What have you done, Potter?!" the potion master finally hissed.

Harry looked up from his cauldron, extinguishing the flame beneath it with a wave of his hand.

"I brewed, sir" he answered respectfully. "I did as I was told, professor."

The professor just stared at the potion in Harry's cauldron.

Severus Snape was not sure what to think.

The potion was perfect.

The potion was perfect!

How by Merlin's soggy underpants could this arrogant Gryffindor… this dunderhead Potter!… create a perfect potion?! Severus Snape would have been able to understand if the potion had been brewed better than normal. He even could have accepted it if Potter had created the best potion in class today - wonders happened after all. But a potion master standard perfect potion?! No way by Merlin and Morgana could Potter produce something like that… !

His eyes met the eyes of the boy and he struck.

"Did I do something wrong, professor?" Harry asked innocently. The answer was a Legilimency attack by Snape. Harry just met Snape's eyes and let his professor's assault splatter against his shields - not that his professor knew that his attack failed.

For his professor it looked like Harry had no shields. Innocent childhood memories were flying openly for the professor to see through Harry's mind. But these memories were nothing that someone could use against Harry. They were innocent. The real troublesome ones were buried behind Harry's invisible shields.

His professor searched Harry's mind for deception. But he did not find any of that.

"Did I make a mistake, professor?" Harry asked softly and respectfully. The man stared at him and withdrew from Harry's mind.

"No" he answered while sounding as if he was tortured to death. "Your potion is decent." And with that he turned and stalked back in front of the class.

Harry grinned and stopped Ron absentmindedly from stirring in the wrong direction.

"Lower the heat, Neville" he told his other companion. "Ron, wrong direction. The other way round. And just three times, not more."

Both boy's blinked and corrected their tasks.

"Harry…" Hermione said. "Did he… did he just call your potion decent?!"

Harry knew that this was a first. Not even the Slytherins received a 'decent' from the potion master. But Harry also knew that boasting was the wrong thing to do now, so he just shrugged and extracted some shrunken vials from his robes. He un-shrunk them and started to fill the vials with his potion. One of the vials he charmed unbreakable and brought it the potion master. The others he stowed away in the many pockets of his robe.

When he gathered his things to wash up he heard a vial falling on the floor.

"Don't worry, sir" he told the professor when he turned and found the potion vial he had given the sour man on the floor. "I know that mistakes like that happen to the best of us. Luckily there is a charm to prevent the breaking of the vials."

"Potter…" Snape hissed, grinding his teeth.

"Yes, professor?" But the sour man said nothing else and Harry simply turned around to gather the rest of his things. He brought them to the sink and let them soak in water.

Severus Snape was watching him the whole time with grinded teeth.

He wanted the child to squirm under his gaze, but the arrogant Gryffindor just started to wash up, absolutely unaffected by Severus Snape's stare…

"Potter!" Severus Snape finally growled. "Detention! Tonight after dinner!"

Not that he had a reason to give a detention - except that there had to be something wrong with the way the boy had produced his potion!

The boy was absolutely horrible at potions - and even if the Headmaster claimed that the Dark Lord was starting to possess the boy there was no explanation. The Dark Lord might be a lot - but he definitely was no potion master. Decent in potions, definitely. But a master, never…

And the potion in Severus Snape's hands was nothing less but master standard…

So the only thing Severus Snape could do was to give the boy detention and rile him up. To his utter surprise the reaction to his unjust detention was anything but what he thought it would be…

Harry knew he had done nothing to get the detention - and even Snape seemed lost to find a reason for the detention. Still, Harry just inclined his head.

"Yes, sir" he answered, still respectfully.

For a moment his teacher looked at him utterly flabbergasted. Harry knew why. Snape had hoped to rile Harry up - instead Harry had not reacted as he had hoped.

"And twenty points from Gryffindor!" Snape added nastily.

"Yes, sir" Harry said and returned to his seat. He was just in time to stop Hermione from letting her next ingredient fall in her cauldron.

"Caution, Hermione. It would do no good if you would let it fall in the potion. This one has to be stirred in." he told her while thinking about something totally different - namely the reasons of a sour potion master and his hatred for Harry.

Hermione blinked.

"Harry, how… how do you suddenly know…" she stopped when Harry suddenly threw his hand out. Two gold glittering runes shot through the classroom and a shield sprang up around the potion of Theodore Nott from Slytherin.

Not a second too late. The next second an explosion sounded through the dungeons and one moment no-one could see anything but smoke. Then Snape waved his wand and the air cleared again. He stared at his Slytherin with absolute loathing in his eyes.

The cauldron was ash but Theodore Nott wasn't injured. A golden shimmering shield shielded him and the rest of the class from the potion and the rest of the cauldron.

"Nott" Snape hissed. "Detention. Tonight."

The Slytherin shook under the gaze his Head of House sent him.

Harry growled but stayed silent.

"Your potion is ready, Neville" he finally said his voice still slightly shaking with rage. "Bottle it up. It's not perfect but it's usable. Ron, stir again counter clock wise and then also bottle up. And Seamus - when you do that your potion will end up the same way Nott's did!"

The afore mentioned Gryffindor's stirring spoon clattered when he let it drop in surprise. Then he blinked and looked at the instructions again. He blushed, added flour and then took the stirring spoon again. With a careful glance at the not protesting Harry he started to stir.

Harry just let his gaze sweep through the class, looking for mistakes.

He was angry with himself. He should have seen that Nott was doing something wrong! Instead he had just seen it in time to prevent the boy from getting injured!

It took him until he left the classroom to realize that he was a student and not a teacher. It had never been his mistake to begin with but the potion master's who had more enjoyed to taunt Gryffindors then looking after the potions of his wards…

And still Harry blamed himself. He should have seen it - he had been a teacher for many years…

Hermione and Ron were looking at him strangely for the rest of the day but when Hermione finally asked how he was able to know all that today in potions, Harry simply said that he had memorized his potion books. And somehow he really had. He knew them all by heart - even if he never actually had tried to memorize them…

The next class was Divination. They duty: dream oracle.

Harry nearly groaned when he took out his Divination book. He could not believe that the original Harry had taken such a useless subject!

Well, Harry did not argue that there were some individuals who could see part of the future. But to be able to see you had to have it in your genes - and Harry definitely didn't and never would. He simply was not a descendant of a centaur born! And they were the only ones that ever showed the ability to see anything at all…

So Harry did the only thing he could in a useless class like that: he faked his work and then took out another piece of parchment to write down some other things he was thinking about like the work he had to do on the wards.

He knew that the wards looked absolutely dreadful - in fact they were worse than he had predicted, worse enough to give him a constant headache…

"What are you doing, Harry?" Ron asked in that moment and Harry placed his hand on the parchment with his ideas so that Ron couldn't read it.

"Doodling" he answered his friend. "Sorry, Ron. Let's continue."

And with that Harry packed away his parchment with ideas and concentrated again on the useless class he was taking. Maybe he could go to McGonagall and asked her to change classes…

Regrettably he would blow his cover very fast if he requested to take Arithmancy or Ancient Runes because there was no way that the original Harry could know enough of any of these classes to pass his OWLs…

On the other side…

"Maybe later" Harry concluded finally. "First I should go and find a way for Reg to enter Hogwarts again… and then the wards… and Snape… I think I have enough to do for the next fortnight…"

And regrettably he had, so instead of planning to change electives, Harry suffered through this utter useless class and finally left with Ron.

"And now Defense" Ron said. "I hope she's better then she looks like…"

Harry doubted it. And just a short time later he was sadly proven right…

Defense class was a joke, Harry soon decided. Professor Umbridge would have done well in staying away from a classroom. The book they had been assigned to read was just theoretical and when Hermione pointed out that there was nothing mentioned about practicing the spells they got into a discussion with their new teacher.

Harry just sat back and watched them interact. It was not even ten minutes into class when he was finally absolutely sure that Hogwarts would have better done without Professor Dolores Umbridge as a teacher. Umbridge clearly did not want to hear any critique by anyone and she definitely did not care the slightest about the students she would teach. This final conclusion was just emphasized when Professor Umbridge spoke about her plans for class.

" Now, it is the view of the Ministry that a theoretical knowledge will be more than sufficient to get you through your examination, which, after all, is what school is all about. And your name is?" Professor Umbridge said, staring at Parvati, whose hand had just shot up.

Harry just sat back and admired Parvati's courage, after all until now Umbridge had dismissed everything Hermione or Dean Thomas had said. To try again - well, let's say that was definitely Gryffindor…

" Parvati Patil" Parvati said her name first like they had been asked to do, before she added. "And isn't there a practical bit in our Defence Against the Dark Arts OWL? Aren't we supposed to show that we can actually do the counter-curses and things?"

" As long as you have studied the theory hard enough, there is no reason why you should not be able to perform the spells under carefully controlled examination conditions" said Professor Umbridge dismissively.

" Without ever practicing them beforehand?" said Parvati incredulously, "Are you telling us that the first time we'll get to do the spells will be during our exam?"

" I repeat, as long as you have studied the theory hard enough…"

"I fear there are still people in this class who will have trouble without practicing the spells beforehand, Professor" Harry said, finally having enough. "It would do them no good if they have to cast the spell the first time for their exam."

Umbridge turned to Harry. Her face was blank but Harry could see the distaste in her eyes and in that moment he knew he would not leave this classroom without a detention.

"Do you doubt the ability of your classmates, Mr Potter?" she asked him.

"I didn't," Harry answered. "But there are always those that are nervous. It is easier for them to practice beforehand just to know that they can do it, Madam."

"So you're telling me that the only reason you want to practice is for your examination?" her eyes looked at him in challenge.

"Should there be another reason, Professor?" Harry asked coolly.

"Do not mock me, Mr Potter. I am well aware of your illusions and the lies you spread in the summer!" the Professor hissed.

"I do not remember any lies, Madam" Harry answered calmly. "I was at my relatives the most of my summer holidays - as they are Muggles I did not talk with them about anything of the magical world. The only contact I had with the magical world were the Dementors and the Wizengamot and I do not remember lying to any of them."

"Lies, Mr Potter! I am well aware of what you talked about last summer! Everyone knows that you are under the illusion that You-Know-Who's back! You must have talked about this illusion for them to be aware!" Umbridge hissed.

"I did not talk about anything like that in the summer" Harry answered coolly.

"Detention, Mr Potter! First you dared to spread lies and now you deny that you told them!"

Harry just stared at her with cool, calculating eyes. He knew that the reason for his detention was not good enough to even lose house-points but he decided to not go against her. He had no time for her disbelieve and hate.

"You will spend the rest of this week in detention with me, Mr Potter" said she.

Harry just looked at her.

"We will begin this afternoon at five o'clock."

"I already have detention today, Madam" Harry said calmly. "Professor Snape gave it to me this morning."

"Is that so?" she said, looking at him as if he was an insect she wanted to crush beneath her shoe. "Well, then I simply have to take the whole next week as I am sure that it will take some time for your lesson to sink in."

"As you wish, Professor."

She had sneered at him but then set her detention for the next week. Harry was alright with that - at least for now. He definitely would come back to her as soon as he was ready to take another step… and then she would be judged by him like everybody else in this school…

At that evening after dinner he went to the office of the potion master for his detention.

"Enter" Snape growled when Harry knocked.

Harry did as he was told and waited patiently in front of the teacher's desk until his teacher would look up from the essays he was correcting.

"Tell me how, Potter" Snape finally said coolly pointing with one of his long fingers at the vial with Harry's potion.

"There is nothing I could explain, sir" Harry answered sincerely.

"So you could do it again?" Snape sneered.

"Yes" Harry answered without hesitating.

Snape just snorted.

"Well, we will see" he finally said. Then he led Harry in the classroom and pointed at a working space. "I want another batch of Healing Balsam, a Calming Draught, some Skele-Grow and… well… how about a Dreamless Sleep."

Snape grinned evilly.

"You have until ten o'clock."

Harry knew that Snape had tried to trick him with the potions. When Harry tried to do them one after another he would not even have begun his second when his time was up. The only way to get them ready all in time was brewing them at the same time - an extremely difficult thing to do for even experienced potion masters. For a student it was impossible.

So there was just one reason for Snape to give Harry a task like that.

It was a set-up to destroy Harry's self-esteem.

"Yes sir" Harry simply said while he wondered, what to do next. Should he botch it like every student did? It would be the reasonable thing to do - but Harry wanted to see the potion master all riled up - and doing something even a good student should not be able to do… well, that definitely would let his teacher's head spin. Finally Harry decided that seeing Snape gawking again was definitely worth to show skills Harry shouldn't have and started to look for usable cauldrons. Snape just sneered at him but before he could say another thing it knocked on the door again.

"Enter, Mr. Nott" Snape said, his voice chilly.

Theodore Nott entered. He was pale and definitely nervous.

"Brew it again" Snape said in this icy tone he had been using with Nott since Nott's cauldron exploded. "Do not make another mistake. We will speak afterwards." And with that he swept out of the room.

So they would be alone - disastrous if they really were both inexperienced students. Harry guessed that Snape hoped for a disaster to happen. Well, Harry would definitely not obey the potion master's wishes…

So Harry just started to set up his cauldrons.

"Don't worry" he said to Nott while doing so. "You will succeed this time."

Nott just snorted.

"I am rubbish at potions, Potter" he spat. "And this time I don't have Blaise to guide me when I'm wrong. I will not succeed."

Harry just pointed at a place next to his working space.

"Use this working space and I will tell you what you have to do" he answered while starting to heat his cauldrons to different temperatures.

"As if you could really help me - and as if you would if you could, Potter" Nott just spat.

"I can and I will" Harry answered while starting to prepare his ingredients with experienced motions.

Nott stared at Harry's working hands.

"You really know how to brew, don't you?" he finally asked astonished.

"I do" Harry answered and pointed again at the working space. "Now set up your cauldron."

Nott did as he was told but stopped before lighting the fire.

"What are you doing, Potter?" he asked Harry, looking at the four cauldrons in front of the Gryffindor.

"Brewing" Harry answered sincerely.

"I see that, Potter" Nott said annoyed. "But why do you have four cauldrons in front of you?"

"I have to finalize four potions until ten" Harry answered. "I can just do it when I brew them simultaneously."

"Are you crazy?! You are not a potion master, for Salazar's sake!"

Harry just shrugged.

"Professor Snape's instructions" he answered. "I think he tried to set me up."

"Well - I think he set you up! You will never be able to…"

"That's my problem" Harry said. "Yours is another. Start with your potion."

But Nott did not even listen.

"What potions shall you brew? You have not instructions and you also do not have your book out…"

"The Healing Balsam, a Calming Draught, some Skele-Grow and a Dreamless Sleep" Harry answered while adding ingredients left and right in his cauldrons. He heated up the cauldron on the right side, added another ingredient in the left, and then he stirred another cauldron and set the last one's flames down.

"Now start or you will never finish tonight." Harry said.

Nott blinked, then hesitated another minute. Finally he did as he was told.

Harry let him brew while he himself added ingredients, stirred, lowered the temperature or heated the cauldrons more and prepared the next ingredients.

"No, next is the powdered snake fang, Nott" Harry said a few minutes later, stopping Nott with one hand while adding ingredients to one of his own potions with the other.

"You have to grind it more. It has to be really soft powder. When it's ready it feels a little bit creamy" Nott followed Harry's instructions. But Harry did not just instruct. He knew that Nott would not learn anything if he just followed what Harry was telling him, so Harry also added some practical knowledge while he aided the other.

"The powdered snake fang is acid. When you would add the nettle after it, the substance of the nettle would be destroyed before it can react with the potion. Think about it like building a house. You need something between the stones to glue them together. When you don't do it your house will break down with the first storm it is facing…"

When it was half past ten Harry and Nott both bottled their potions.

"You really knew what you were talking about" Nott said, looking at his potion with a flabbergasted look. "I never knew that I would be able to brew something like that all by myself! And I even understand now why I should not do some things!"

Harry snorted at that.

"So Professor Snape does not even teach his own house properly?" he asked while bottling the potion in his next cauldron.

Nott just shrugged.

"I never understood what he was telling us" he said. "It seemed all so complicated. When you told the same it sounded… well… simple."

"Well, Professor Snape is a potion genius" Harry said shrugging. "He might have problems to understand that you are not like him."

Nott snorted.

"Definitely not" he answered. "But you… you are like him, aren't you? I mean: you brewed four potions simultaneously - and you still were able to instruct me properly."

"I do not think very much when I brew something simple like that" Harry gestured at the potions in front of him. "I brewed a lot of more complicated stuff."

"What?" Nott asked half astonished, half interested.

Harry just shrugged and took out of his pockets some potions.

"This is Veritasserum" he said pointing at the clear potion in his hands. "I brewed it in the summer. The next one is a healing draught. It's for internal injuries. I brewed it last year on Midwinter. The last one is Felix Felicis - you know liquid luck. I brewed it the summer before last."

Nott just stared at the potions in Harry's hands.

"Why by Salazar and Mordred did you ever have nearly failing grates in potions?!" he asked flabbergasted.

"Because I saw no benefit in showing my talents to someone who wanted to hate me because of my father" Harry answered shrugging. "I thought I was rubbish in potions because our esteemed potion master told me so. It took some time until I understood that I was utterly wrong about that."

Nott just snorted.

"I cannot believe no-one told you!"

"I am Muggle-raised" Harry pointed out. "And there was no-one who ever explained this world to me… well, there was no-one until last summer."

Nott just stared at him.

"But you are a Potter!" he finally said.

"No" Harry answered smiling. "I am more than just a Potter. But even if I am - there are some persons who like me being clueless. They like it so much I did not even get the typical introduction in the wizarding world the Muggle-born get - but enough of that. We should clean up."

Nott sighted and carried his empty cauldron to the sink.

Harry frowned, and then he sighted and shook his head.

"Let me do it or you will have to scrub endlessly" he said sighting. Then he drew a single rune on every used cauldron. The cauldrons glowed blue - and then they were clean again.

Nott stared at the clean cauldrons.

"It was you!" he suddenly said.

Harry frowned again.

"Pardon?" he asked.

"It was you! You were the one who shielded me! I could not understand where the shield had come from and Blaise didn't know either. We thought that maybe Professor Snape… but it was you!"

Harry stared at the cauldrons and then back at Nott's face.

"And if it had been me?" he asked cautiously.

Nott just stared at him.

"Why?" he finally managed to asked. "Why did you do it?! You are a Gryffindor and I a Slytherin - you hate me just because of that!"

"I would be a hypocrite if I did" Harry answered snorting.

"Pardon?" now Nott was utterly confused.

Harry jut smirked.

"I am no Gryffindor" he finally confessed grinning. Nott blinked.

"You know that your school uniform says you are, don't you?" he finally commented.

"Oh, I know" Harry answered smiling. "I asked the Hat not to be put in Slytherin."

Nott stared at Harry.

"But… but why?!"

"Because I was a child" Harry answered amused and then added to his story. After all - why not give this Slytherin in front of him something to chew on for the next few weeks or month… "I was Muggle-raised and the only things I heard about Slytherin were bad. Of course I didn't want to be there."

"So… so you just begged it to change your house?!"

"Yes" Harry answered. "Now I find it utterly amusing. When there would be someone who would belong to Slytherin it is I."

Harry knew that if he ever would have been sorted instead of the original Harry, there would have been no way that Harry Potter would have been a Gryffindor. Harry might be brave if he had to - but he was far too Slytherin to ever be a Gryffindor and far too Ravenclaw to ever go into Gryffindor even if he had ask the Hat not to be put in Slytherin…

"But why…" Nott said.

Harry just smiled. In that moment he felt a soft tingling in the back of his mind.

Their time was up.

"One day I might tell you" he said. "But not today. We get a visitor in a minute. The professor returns."

And Harry was right. Just a minute later the door opened again and Snape entered. He stopped in the door and stared at the two students in front of him that placed the last vials with ingredients back where they belonged.

"What…?" he said, but Harry interrupted.

"Our potions are on the desk, professor" Harry said.

The potion master stalked through the room until he reached the desk with the potion vials. He picked up one of Harry's then he picked up the next. His eyes widened.

"I told you I can do it again, professor" Harry said. "But when you suspect that Mr. Nott aided me I am willing to do it again in front of you."

Snape just stared at the vials, and then he finally sneered.

"I don't think that's necessary, Mr. Potter" he said still sneering. "Give me your potions book."

Harry blinked.

"I do not have it with me, sir" he said. "I'd have to go to Gryffindor tower to bring it."

"Do. Not. Lie. To. Me, Potter!" Snape growled.

"I do not" Harry answered, and simply emptied his school bag on one of the tables. "Look for it yourself."

Snape sneered but he did. He even went as far to test Harry's other books for spells. He did find nothing.

"Very well, Potter. You may go. Nott - follow me" and with that he stalked from the room. Nott had turned pale again when Snape spoke his name. His hands shook. Harry fetched Nott's potion from the table and gave it the shaking boy. Then he took out one of his own potion vials - one of the three he had shown Nott before.

He filled an empty vial with a little bit of his potion and gave it to Nott. "Take it before talking to him" he suggested.

"What…?"

"Felix" Harry simply answered. "I do not know what he normally does to punish his Slytherins - but I know I would never let some of mine come to harm. Take it and whatever it is you are fearing, you will be lucky enough to prevent it somehow. Just trust Felix. He knows what to do."

Nott blinked and stared at the vial in his hands.

"Thank you, Potter" Nott said and downed the vial. "And I don't fear the Professor; I fear my parents. He calls them when we do something wrong… and my parents are horrible."

And with that he left.

Harry stayed behind and waited until the door closed again. Then he smiled and started to hum. He was alone in the potion classroom. There would come no-one anymore for today…

"Why not brewing something enjoyable" he asked himself smiling. And with that he returned to the cauldrons in the corner and picked one of them. He sat it up and started to brew again.

There was a reason he once had been a potion master and teacher, after all…

Later that evening Severus Snape was sitting in his office. The conversation with Theodore Nott's parents had gone better then he thought it would and now he had the rest of the evening free…

So he sat at his desk, five potion vials in front of him. He stared at them. No, he glared at them.

They. Were. Wrong!

Well, they weren't. The potions they carried were perfect. Potion master standard perfect.

But exactly that was the problem.

They shouldn't be perfect! And it was driving him insane that he didn't know how they were!

The Potter boy had brewed them - Severus Snape had even gone so far to use Legilimency on Nott to verify it. So how?!

How?!

By Merlin! It was driving him insane!