Chapter 19: 2
Chapter Two:
Calista slept soundly her first night at Hogwarts. It was as if the previous night of anguish had never happened, and in light of her initial acceptance by fellow Slytherins, she even dared to hope her nightmares would be over for good.
In fact, she slept so soundly that she very nearly overslept. She would have, were it not for the excited chatter of the other girls in her dormitory.
There were four girls in the first-year Slytherin dormitories that year: Olivia Avril, whom Calista had been friendly with the night before; Portia MacNair, a solid-looking girl with a constantly runny nose; Emily Yaxley, who was very tall and willowy and so far had struck Calista as quite shy; and of course, Calista herself.
Calista scrambled out of bed, not bothering to make the covers up again, and hurried into her robes. The other girls were nearly all ready, and she didn't want to be left behind. She ran a comb half-heartedly through her hair, loosening a few tangles but doing almost nothing about its straggly appearance.
"We have Herbology first thing today," Portia MacNair said, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand and sniffing hard, "I don't see why we have to go outside so early."
Calista allowed a fairly wide berth between herself and Portia as the four girls began their trek to the Great Hall for breakfast. She wasn't sure if Portia was ill or allergic, but either way Calista wasn't overly fond of bogies, and she'd seemed the dullest of the lot besides.
Severus wasn't at the staff table in the Great Hall. He had always taken breakfast in his quarters, but Calista had wondered before if this was simply for her sake. Since he was not here now, she supposed that meant he had always done so, even before she had gone to live with him.
Five minutes into breakfast, Calista found herself wishing that that she was still able to take breakfast with her father in his quarters, away from the rest of the students.
Her fellow Slytherins found her very interesting, because her father was a professor. She had assumed that the children of other professors would be attending Hogwarts as well, but judging by the attention she received, she was the only one.
She didn't know if this was because none of the other professors had children, or if their children went to another school.
"So if Snape's your dad," a beefy second-year boy said thickly through a mouthful of breakfast meats, "You must've been to Hogwarts before, right?"
Calista swallowed a mouthful of porridge and nodded, wincing at the bits of meat that were still stuck in the boy's teeth.
"Yes," she said, "But only in the dungeons, mostly."
"Wicked," the boy continued, spearing another sausage with his fork, "Then you must know where all the secret passages are."
"Um," Calista began, but then Olivia rolled her eyes and interrupted.
"She just told you she's only been in the dungeons before," she snapped.
Calista concentrated very hard on her porridge so she wouldn't laugh.
After breakfast, the Slytherin first-years trudged en masse to the Greenhouses. Luckily, it was still warm outside, and Calista rather liked the feel of being outside in the morning.
Herbology was a double lesson with the Ravenclaws, who were already at the Greenhouses when Calista and the other Slytherins arrived.
"Come along, come along," a dumpy middle-aged witch called, "You don't want to be late to your first lesson."
Someone muttered under their breath, but Calista couldn't tell who it was, or what they'd said.
"I'm Professor Sprout," she announced, "And this is Herbology. In your first year, we will be discussing proper techniques for growing and harvesting plants in general. We will learn the properties and uses of many commonly-used plants. Our first unit is on the basics of good gardening practice. Open your books, please."
The lesson seemed to go on for hours, and it was not very interesting to Calista, who thought she already knew most of what was covered in the first lesson simply because of the crossover material between Potions and Herbology.
She flipped through her book, looking ahead to see if they would get to anything interesting soon.
"Miss Snape! We are on page seven." Professor Sprout reprimanded her, and Calista turned back to the beginning of the book with an exaggerated riffling of pages.
Confined to the spread of pages six and seven, Calista nearly sighed with boredom, reading and re-reading the information on the pages, almost none of which was interesting at all.
Professor Sprout was still droning on about soil acidity, something Calista didn't care about. Wasn't that what Apothecaries were for? So you could obtain ingredients that were already prepared for potions making, and not have to muck around in the dirt forever?
"Miss Snape?" Calista started, realizing belatedly that Professor Sprout had asked her a question.
"Would you care to tell the class the proper time of year to plant Bubotubers?"
"Er," Calista fumbled, not certain if it was something she had ever heard of. Why hadn't she read the Herbology book on the train? "Uhm, September?"
Several of the Ravenclaw students sniggered, and several more shot their hands into the air. Professor Sprout called on one of them.
"Yes, Miss Clearwater?"
"The proper time to plant a Bubotuber plant is in late April," a girl with long curly hair answered, "September is when the mature plant should be harvested."
She spoke in a way that clearly insinuated Calista was daft not to have realised the difference. Calista scowled at the girl, who smirked back.
Professor Sprout assigned them all ten inches on soil acidity and planting seasons, and as Calista was closing her book and putting her quill away, she clearly heard one of the Ravenclaw girls as she strode by.
"I swear, the Slytherin students become thicker every year."
Calista sneered at the girl. It wasn't the one who had answered the question, but a stout, red-faced girl with bushy brown hair. She tried to think of a clever retort, but none came to mind, so instead she marched past the girl, catching up to Olivia and the others.
o-o-o-o
The second lesson that day was Charms. Professor Flitwick was a tiny little man with a very high voice. Several of the Slytherins sniggered when he had to climb up on top of a stack of books to begin his lecture.
"Hello, hello. Welcome to Charms class. Today I will go over the course syllabus, and we will discuss the qualities that separate a Charm from a Transfiguration Spell."
He used his wand to send a copy of the course syllabus flying to each student in the room. Calista's landed squarely in front of her, and she scanned the parchment, feeling disappointed for the second time that day.
It looked as though Charms class was going to be a bunch of happy, useless rubbish. Tickling Charm? Scouring Charm? Were they going to be learning anything useful in this course?
At the end of the lecture, Professor Flitwick asked if there were any questions. Calista put her hand up.
"Yes, Miss Snape?" He seemed delighted to have a question to answer.
"I was just wondering. If I'm ever attacked by a vampire, should I use a Tickling Charm, or a Colour-Change Charm to defeat him?"
Several of the other students jeered at this, and Calista smirked.
Professor Flitwick, however, didn't seem to be amused.
"Five points from Slytherin for impertinence," he said, "And you all seem to agree with Miss Snape that first-year lessons are beyond you, I'd like the entire class to write fifteen inches on the Silencing Charm which I'm sure you all know is a piece of fifth-year magic."
o-o-o-o
At lunch time, Calista was sullen and withdrawn. Fifteen inches of parchment and five points for one little comment?
Olivia seemed to sense the source of her troubles, for she leaned her head down and murmured to Calista.
"Marcus Flint says Flitwick and Snape don't get along. He reckons Flitwick came down hard on you because of your dad."
Calista shrugged, not feeling like being consoled. She wondered if it was true that her father didn't get along with the other professors. Certainly she had never known him to be particularly friendly to any of them.
She pulled her class schedule from her bag and looked at it carefully. She was scheduled for Astronomy this afternoon, and then she had to find time to write at least two papers so far.
She scanned the schedule for Potions, and saw that she didn't have it until Friday, but that it was a double session with the Gryffindors. She groaned aloud and put her schedule away.
It was going to be a long week, and she expected that having to share Potions class with the Gryffindors would dull the one bright spot in her class schedule.
o-o-o-o
As it turned out, Potions wasn't the only class that caught Calista's interest. She surprised herself with her interest in Transfiguration, a class taught by the Head of Gryffindor House, Professor McGonagall.
The class was challenging for her, because she didn't have much practical experience with actual wandwork; still, she understood the theory, and most of her errors seemed to come from over-thinking things.
In their first lesson, they had been instructed to change matches into needles. Calista had concentrated so deeply on the transformation of the wood into metal that she had wound up with a stainless-steel match.
It was utterly useless both for lighting fires and for sewing, but Professor McGonagall had mentioned that changing the properties of an object without completely transfiguring it into something else was actually quite tricky and nuanced.
She had not been sufficiently impressed with Calista to give her a pass on the assignment, however, and added to her mounting pile of homework Calista now had to find time to practise the spell. McGonagall had supplied her with an entire book of matches to experiment on.
Calista couldn't stand her History of Magic class, but luckily no one else could either, and old Professor Binns didn't seem to notice that no one in class was paying any attention.
Most of what the first-year Slytherins were doing, in fact, was circulating crude drawings of Professor Binns. In such drawings, he was depicted lecturing in the middle of a fierce duel, in the middle of a goblin war, or in other such circumstances.
The consensus was that Binns would keep on lecturing, oblivious to anything from the end-of-class signal to all-out war. Indeed, he had kept on lecturing through his own death, and now hovered in front of the classroom as a ghost.
The first Astronomy lesson had taken place on Monday afternoon, but Professor Sinistra had revealed that the rest of their lessons would take place at midnight. It didn't' seem to bother her in the least that the students were scheduled for Tranfiguration at 9:00 AM the following morning.
o-o-o-o
Calista wrote twenty inches on the Silencing Charm, a task that proved extremely difficult, since there wasn't really very much to write about beyond the way the wand was meant to be held, and the way Silencio was meant to be intoned, all of which took up perhaps three inches of parchment.
Calista had then gone on to highlight spells in the same family of wrist movement, as well as delving into the theory of why the spell was constructed in the way it was.
Burrowing deep into Adalbert Waffling's Magical Theory, Calista discovered that the modern Silencing Charm was the result of many failed or faulty incarnations.
The spell had originated as a ritualistic one in ancient Egypt, before the advent of wands, and had actually required that a drop of Banshee blood be placed on the lips of the person the spell was being cast on.
Calista found this puzzling, since Banshees were known for their piercing shrieks rather than their silences, so she had delved deeper into the history of the ritual, and discovered that at the time, people had believed that Banshees got their powerful voices by stealing voices from others. Thus, the blood was intended to rob the person of their voice.
Calista went on to describe how a witch named Casseiopia had conducted several experiments and deduced that the actual silencing effect of the ritual was caused by the dance performed around the victim, not the blood itself.
In later years, when magic wands became the tool of choice, the movements had been adapted to a simple waving of the wand instead of a dance.
In the end, Calista's paper was five inches longer than Flitwick had asked for. She had intended the length of her paper to be taken as a challenge, to show Flitwick that she didn't care one bit that he'd assigned her extra homework for her comment, but her plan backfired.
On the contrary, Professor Flitwick was deeply impressed by Calista's extensive research, and she became, without quite wanting to, one of his favourite students. From that point on, he tended to overlook her snide comments, or would redirect them by asking her another question.
When she asked him, on the third day of class, if the Bubble-Head Charm was an allusion to the Gryffindors' lack of ability to master it, he asked her, quite seriously, if she believed that the qualities of each student that determined their House placement would also indicate their strengths and weaknesses in certain subjects.
When she answered snidely that she didn't think Gryffindors had any strengths, since sword-fighting was no longer offered at Hogwarts, he had assigned her another essay, on the qualities that had led several witches and wizards throughout history to invent new Charms.
After the first essay on the Silencing Charm, Flitwick only assigned the extra essays to Calista, but he also awarded her extra-credit points for completing them. By the end of class on Thursday, she had earned back the five points he'd taken from Slytherin as well as an additional ten.
o-o-o-o
Calista had wondered what it would be like to be in her father's Potions class. Of course, she had been taught plenty about potion-making by him before starting school, but never in a classroom full of other students.
Severus did glance at her when she walked into the dungeon classroom, but he didn't make a point of recognizing her in front of the rest of her classmates, which was frankly a bit of a relief to Calista, who was tired of fielding questions about being related to the Potions Master.
Calista set up her cauldron in the middle of the classroom, between Olivia Avril and Emily Yaxley. She deliberately sat away from Portia MacNair, because she didn't want the other girls' bogies dripping into her own cauldron.
No matter. Portia seemed perfectly content to sit with the Slytherin boys. Calista reflected meanly that she fit in beside them, being nearly as broad-shouldered and beefy-looking as most of the boys.
Just as the warning bell was ringing for the start of class, the Gryffindors began to stream into the classroom. Percy Weasley was first to arrive, and then two girls Calista didn't know by name. Oliver Wood was last, coming in behind three other students and decidedly after the bell.
"You are late," Professor Snape intoned, radiating disapproval. "Three points from Gryffindor. That's one from each of you that arrived after the bell rang."
"What?!" Oliver Wood sounded outraged, "Come off it, we were barely late, and we had to come all the way from Gryffindor Tower!"
The professor fixed his glare on Wood; Calista could have told him that it would be a very bad idea to continue the argument, when her father's face looked like it did now.
"All of the other students managed to be on time to class. I, for one, will not make allowances."
"Well of course the Slytherins arrived on time," Percy Weasley spoke up, "Their common room is in the Dungeons, sir. But we had to traverse the entire castle to get here; surely you can see the trouble we have, and forgive us this minor trespass."
Calista had to bite the inside of her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Weasley was making a very big mistake.
Professor Snape's mouth twitched, and he swept across the room to speak directly to Percy.
"You are just as impertinent as your brothers are, Mr. Weasley. A further point from Gryffindor, and I expect you to draw a map by the beginning of next week's lesson and hand it in to me. The map shall illustrate the shortest path from Gryffindor Tower to my classroom, and then you will no longer have an excuse to be late."
Percy lowered his face to his cauldron and set up his ingredients in silence. Olivia caught Calista's eye and smirked.
Severus returned to the centre of the classroom, and began his lecture.
"The art of Potion-Making is perhaps the most finessed art at Hogwarts. Few of you will appreciate the beauty of a simmering cauldron, the elegance of its shimmering fumes.
Even fewer of you will learn to appreciate the subtle differences from one infusion to the next that can be the difference between pain and pleasure, between life and death."
Here, he glanced around the room, his gaze resting briefly on Oliver Wood and on Calista, for very opposite reasons.
"For those select few of you that show promise, I can teach you to brew fame, to bottle glory – even, to put a stopper in death."
Calista was entranced; of course, she had heard him say similar things before, but to be reminded, here in the classroom where she would learn it all, just how powerful and elegant of an art it was – it thrilled her, even more than Transfiguration class had.
"In each and every class session, we will brew a potion.," Severus continued, "If you cannot complete these assignments to satisfaction, then I can do no more than wish you luck on the end-of-term exams, but I doubt that will do you any good. I expect, of course, that you will remain after class to work on assignments that are not perfected during class time."
Severus resumed the lecture by asking the class if they knew what a bezoar was. When Percy Weasley's hand shot into the air, Severus glanced at Calista before calling on Percy. Percy's cheeks reddened as he answered, evidently attempting to put himself in the professor's favour after his earlier outburst.
"A bezoar is a stone from the stomach of a goat. It, er, is used in antidotes," Percy looked satisfied with his answer.
"Is that all?" Severus asked, before he returned his gaze to the side of the room where all the Slytherins were sitting.
"Calista, would you kindly fill Mr. Weasley in on a few details?"
Calista noted that he hadn't called her 'Miss Snape', and was glad. It would have seemed far more awkward, somehow, than simply being the only student in the class that he referred to by first name.
"A bezoar is actually a hairball, hardened to resemble a stone," she said clearly, unable to keep a slight smirk off her own face as she watched Percy's redden, "It can form in the stomach of almost any mammal, though it is only when found in a goat is it useful in potion-making. It is used in many antidotes, but can also be an antidote quite by itself, in many circumstances, though it's cost prohibitive to use it alone, since they're expensive."
"A point for Slytherin," he said, and Calista could swear she saw her father smirk a little in Percy's direction as well, before he nodded and continued the lecture.
Wood interjected, "Percy got the answer first."
Severus' response was icy: "I do not award credit for partial or incomplete answers," he said.
Professor Snape assigned them a boil-cure potion to work on for their first potion, and Calista almost laughed. She had made the very same potion countless times, and could nearly mix it in her sleep.
Her ingredients were simmering long before anyone else's had made it into their cauldrons. As Calista gently stirred her mixture, she glanced around the classroom.
Several students were still squinting at the page in their books, although a few had begun to prepare their ingredients. Across the room, Percy was crushing snake fangs, and beside her, Emily Yaxley was stewing her horned slugs.
Calista looked to her right, and saw that Olivia's cauldron was just now being put to simmer as well. She saw Olivia pick up the porcupine quills, preparing to dump them into the cauldron…
"No!", Calista hissed, reaching out to stop Olivia from putting the quills in. The quills spilled all over the tabletop and the floor, but none of them landed in the cauldron, luckily.
"Calista, what-" Olivia began, but Calista glanced up to see if her father was watching. She probably wasn't supposed to help other students.
Snape was occupied however, reprimanding Colleen Collins for not crushing her snake fangs into a fine enough powder, and Calista leaned over to whisper to Olivia.
"Don't put the porcupine quills in until after you take the cauldron off the fire, or—"
Just then, there was an explosion and an awful hissing noise from across the room. Wood's cauldron was issuing angry clouds of green smoke, and the other Gryffindors were dodging the sprays flying form the cauldron and burning their shoes.
"Or that happens," Calista remarked, perversely glad that it was a Gryffindor who had made the mistake, instead of Olivia.
Wood was given a detention during which to practise brewing the potion properly, and Calista was awarded top marks for the assignment. No one was particularly surprised by either development.
Emily Yaxley had done quite a good job on her potion too, so she was awarded a passing grade along with Calista. Severus rather looked as though he suspected Calista of helping Emily, but she truly hadn't.
When Severus pronounced Olivia's potion to be more than acceptable as well, Calista concentrated on blocking off her mind. Severus apparently found it slightly suspicious that both students seated next to his daughter had done the best, next to Calista herself, on the assignment.
After class, Calista had intended to stay behind and talk to her father about her first week of lessons, but Wood was still cleaning up his potion, and Olivia wanted Calista and the rest of the Slytherins to go down to the Quidditch pitch and watch tryouts for the Slytherin team.
Calista wasn't terribly interested in Quidditch, but now that she had found some level of acceptance among some of her peers, she rather enjoyed it, and decided to go along with the rest of them.
o-o-o-o
"Marcus Flint's going out for Chaser, I heard," Olivia chatted as they made their way to the Quidditch pitch, after a brief stop at the dormitory to put their school things away. They had Friday afternoons completely free, remarkably.
"Oh," Calista said, "Which one is he?"
"He's just a year ahead of us," Portia piped up. She paused to sniffle before she added, "They don't often let second-years onto the team."
"He's the thick one who asked if you knew where all the secret passages were," Olivia clarified, "I hope he's better at Quidditch than he is at deductive reasoning."
Calista was surprised into laughter at Olivia's observation, because she had been thinking rather the same thing herself.
"Why's he in Slytherin, anyway?" Calista ventured, "Aren't you supposed to be clever to be in this House?"
"Clever or ambitious," Olivia answered, "Marcus reckons he's going to play for a professional Quidditch team. He told me all about it at dinner the other night."
"I'm surprised that Weasley boy didn't get sorted into Slytherin then," Calista said, "He told me on the train that he wants to be Head Boy."
Olivia and Portia sniggered. "That'll happen as soon as Gryffindor wins the House Cup," Portia supplied sarcastically.
"I don't really know exactly how the sorting hat chooses," Olivia admitted, "I asked Marcus, but, well." She shrugged, indicating how useful of an endeavour that had been.
"Still, he's a pureblood, and that's got to count for something."
"Yeah," Calista echoed, feeling strangely hollow.
She wasn't completely pure-blooded; Bellatrix had alluded to it more than once, although at the time, she hadn't been clear on what Bellatrix meant. That was before she knew her father, and she'd only assumed vaguely that Bellatrix's late husband must have been him.
Severus almost never talked about his family beyond Calista herself, but she had gathered that his father was a Muggle. She had gathered as well that Severus loathed his father.
Now Calista had to wonder: Was it simply because he was a Muggle that Severus had loathed him?
Would her housemates think less of her if they realised she was not a pureblood? In that instant, Calista resolved they would never find out.
"It has definitely got to count for something," Calista echoed, following her classmates to the Quidditch pitch.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone