บท 276: First Of Two Subjects
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In Hogwarts, the people attending a specific lesson were decided upon the number of people attending the subject. For core subjects like — Charms, Potions, Herbology, Transfiguration, Defense Against The Dark Arts, Care of Magical Creature, (and, History of Magic, Astronomy,) where a lot of students attended, the classes were divided into groups of two Hogwarts Houses. But, for the subjects like Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Divination, which weren't chosen by every student, those classes were merged into one class where all House students would learn together. This model was adjusted on the NEWT level (sixth and seventh-year students.) NEWT students had the absolute choice of only taking the subjects they needed or liked. If a subject had many students attending, they would be divided into two batches, but if that's not the case, there was only one batch.
Even in the NEWT years, Defense Against The Dark Arts still had enough people attending for two batches. It was a subject popular enough that even the prospect of Snape didn't put a dent into the number of students.
The seventh-year Ravenclaw and Gryffindor waited outside the classroom in a queue, waiting for it to open so that they could enter. The classroom door opened as they chattered away, and Snape stepped into the corridor, his sallow face framed as ever by two curtains of greasy back hair. Silence fell over the queue immediately.
"Inside," he said.
The classroom had changed from the last year. Snape had imposed his personality upon the room already; it was gloomier than usual, as curtains had been drawn over the windows, and was lit by candlelight. New pictures adorned the walls, many of them showing people who appeared to be in pain, sporting grisly injuries or strangely contorted body parts. Nobody spoke as they settled down, looking around at the shadowy, gruesome pictures.
"I have not asked you to take out your books," said Snape, closing the door and moving to face the class from behind his desk; a majority of Ravenclaws hastily dropped their copy of Confronting the Faceless back into her bag and stowed the entire bags away. "I wish to speak to you, and I want your fullest attention."
His black eyes roved over their upturned faces.
"You have had five teachers in this subject so far, I believe. Six if we add the Headmaster."
"Naturally, these teachers will all have had their own methods and priorities. Given this confusion, I am surprised, so many of you scraped an OWL in this subject. I am further surprised that so many of you were able to get a grade above 'Acceptable' in your sixth year, which was much more advanced than your OWL course.
This year is your final, and believe me when I say that this will be the toughest of them all. If you got to the seventh year by scrapping together an 'Acceptable,' then be ready for a rude awakening."
Snape set off around the edge of the room, speaking now in a lower voice; the class craned their necks to keep him in view.
"The Dark Arts," said Snape, "are many, varied, ever-changing, and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible."
Quinn stared at Snape. There were those who despised the Dark Arts, then there were those who respected the category of magic as a dangerous enemy. But Quinn was sure that when Snape spoke of it, the man had a loving caress in his voice.
"Your defenses," said Snape, a little louder, "must therefore be as flexible and inventive as the arts you seek to undo. These pictures" — he indicated a few of them as he swept past — "give a fair representation of what happens to those who suffer, for instance, the Cruciatus Curse" — he waved a hand toward a witch who was clearly shrieking in agony — "feel the Dementor's Kiss" — a wizard lying huddled and blank-eyed, slumped against a wall — "or provoke the aggression of the Inferius" — a bloody mass upon the ground.
"Has an Inferius been seen, then?" asked a Gryffindor in a high-pitched voice. "Is it definite, is he using them?"
"The Dark Lord has used Inferi in the past," said Snape, "which means you would be well-advised to assume he might use them again. Now . . ."
He set off again around the other side of the classroom toward his desk, and again, they watched him as he walked, his dark robes billowing behind him.
". . . you are, I believe, complete novices in the use of nonverbal spells. What is the advantage of a nonverbal spell?"
A few hands went up. Snape took his time looking around at everybody, giving time for late entries; he even glanced at Quinn, who hadn't raised his hand, before saying curtly, "Mr. Kotler, please tell."
"Your adversary has no warning about what kind of magic you're about to perform, which gives you a split-second advantage."
"A Ravenclaw answer. . . copied almost word for word from The Standard Book of Spells," said Snape dismissively (some Gryffindors sniggered), "but correct in essentials. Yes, those who progress to using magic without shouting incantations gain an element of surprise in their spell-casting. Not all wizards can do this, of course; it is a question of concentration and mind power which some" — his gaze lingered maliciously upon the Gryffindors who had sniggered — "lack."
The Gryffindors went deadly silent as the Ravenclaws straightened in vindication, only to be brought down by Snape the very next second.
"Bookish knowledge will not work one bit without practical experience," said Snape with a grave eye.
"You will now divide," Snape went on, "into pairs. One partner will attempt to jinx the other without speaking. The other will attempt to repel the jinx in equal silence. Carry on."
Although Snape did not know it, Quinn had taught at least one-third of the class (everyone who had been a member of the D.A.) how to perform a Shield Charm the previous year. However, except for a couple, none of them had ever cast the charm without speaking. A reasonable amount of cheating ensued; many people were merely whispering the incantation instead of saying it aloud. Snape among them as they practiced, looking just as much like an overgrown bat as ever, lingering to watch a pair perform the task and see them fail as they couldn't cheat under his dull gaze.
He arrived at Eddie and Quinn's pair as the two exchanged spells in total silence. Eddie Carmichael, the eternal challenger, had scoured the books for dueling advantage against Quinn, and he had earlier in his string of losses had found about nonverbal casting, so the task was nothing unusual for him, second nature even. He sent a potent hex at Quinn, who repelled it down to the ground.
Snape observed closer and saw how Eddie would slightly change the aim of the hex every time, but Quinn would repel it down to the same spot on the floor. He gazed at the two Ravenclaws who had made a game of his task, and while their feat would have earned them twenty points each for Ravenclaw from any reasonable Professor, but which Snape ignored and walked away.
A couple steps away, Snape turned towards and whipped out his wand so fast that Eddie and Quinn reacted instinctively; two Shield Charms manifested just in time to stop two Banishing Charms. Eddie skidded on his feet while Quinn's front foot stepped back to become his back foot.
By the time the whole class turned and looked, the exchange was over, and Snape had put his wand back into his robes. Snape walked away to stalk another pair.
". . . Oh, come on, that was at least worth five Snape points," said Eddie, throwing up his hands.
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Unlike the Defense Against The Dark Arts, only a dozen people had been able to take up Potions in the sixth year — four Slytherins, two Hufflepuffs, two Gryffindor, and four Ravenclaws, out of which two of them were Quinn and Marcus (Eddie had chosen to forgo Potions as it held no importance to his future goals.) The low number was conventional as Potions had the highest jump after the fifth year and had the steepest learning curve. Moreover, the baby population had taken a hit during the war and only boomed after Voldemort's defeat, so the class size had been small for a decade. And Snape acting like a guard, had just served to drive the numbers lower.
The dozen people stood out on the dungeon floor of Hogwarts, waiting for the class to start. The dungeon door opened, and Slughorn's belly preceded him out of the door. As they filed into the room, his great walrus mustache curved above his beaming mouth, and he greeted Quinn with particular enthusiasm.
The dungeon was, most unusually, already full of vapors and odd smells. The students sniffed interestedly as they passed large, bubbling cauldrons.
Quinn leaned near Marcus and whispered, "My workshop has an amazing ward system that would eliminate all spells at a single command of mine."
Marcus glanced at him and put on a 'that's cool' face while inwardly finding cute how Quinn has proud comparing his workshop to a Potions classroom.
The four Slytherins took a workstation together, as did the four Ravenclaws, leaving the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor to share one together.
Now then, now then, now then," said Slughorn, whose massive outline was quivering through the many shimmering vapors. "Scales out, everyone, and potion kits, and don't forget your copies of Advanced Potion-Making. . . ."
"Now then," said Slughorn, returning to the front of the class and inflating his already bulging chest so that the buttons on his waistcoat threatened to burst off, "I've prepared a few potions for you to have a look at, just out of interest, you know. These are the kind of things you ought to be able to do after completing your NEWTs. You ought to have heard of them, even if you haven't made them yet. Does anyone tell me what this one is?"
He indicated the cauldron nearest the Slytherin table. Others raised them slightly in their seats and saw what looked like plain water boiling away inside it.
Quinn looked around, and there were no hands raised, which meant he was clear to answer the question — he only answered when no one had the answer. He raised his hand; Slughorn pointed at him.
"It's Veritaserum, a colorless, odorless potion that forces the drinker to tell the truth," said Quinn, having brewed and used the potion on certain natural Legilimens.
"Very good, very good!" said Slughorn happily. "It is Veritaserum - a Truth Potion so powerful that three drops would have you spilling your innermost secrets for this entire class to hear. Now, the use of this potion is controlled by stringent Ministry guidelines, so don't go brewing it on your own for your personal use — if someone finds out, you go straight to Azkaban."
"Now," he continued, pointing at the cauldron nearest the Ravenclaw table, "this one here is pretty well known. . . . Featured in a few Ministry leaflets lately too . . . Who can tell me which is this one?"
Once again, Quinn looked around and saw that no one had recognized the slow-bubbling, mudlike substance in the second cauldron, so he raised his hand — this sort of thing happened a lot when the class studied a new topic, and that was when Quinn did his portion of class participation.
"It's the Polyjuice Potion."
"Excellent, excellent! Now, this one here . . ." Slughorn pointed at the third and last cauldron that bubbled with a lime-green potion, glowing in fluorescent light. It looked ominous, almost eerie, yet there was a strange vigor as if the potion wanted to burst out of the cauldron like a raging flood.
"Essence of Insanity," said Quinn, his eyes reflecting the green.
"It is indeed. It seems almost foolish to ask," said Slughorn, who was looking mightily impressed, "but I assume you know what it does?"
"A dose from the potion can cause the drinker to act irrationally for a month — they might act like insane people. . . or their inhibitions lower to the point where they don't hold back any desires," Quinn then whispered in a voice not audible to anyone but him, "complete annihilation of the ego, leaving id in charge."
"Quite right! You recognized it, I suppose, by its distinctive glowing shade of green?"
"And the steam rising in characteristic puffs," said Quinn plainly.
"Fabulous, Quinn! Take thirty well-earned points for Ravenclaw," said Slughorn genially. "As expected from the best in the year!"
"And now," said Slughorn, "it is time for us to start work. Today we are going to work with. . . ."
"Quinn, is something wrong?" asked Marcus, looking at Quinn, who seemed subdued after answering the questions.
"It's nothing. . . I just don't like Essence of Insanity," said Quinn. "I have read about what can do to a person, and well, let's just say they aren't pleasant." He couldn't say that the potion reminded him of a hell he had personally experienced.
Slughorn's assignment was the Exstimulo Potion, which was a magic restoring potion after the core was depleted. It was an emergency potion that left severe side effects if taken repeatedly or in a wrong dose, but it would make a person feel like they were drowning with magic when used correctly.
Everyone started to brew the potions. There was a scraping as everyone drew their cauldrons toward them and some loud clunks as people began adding weights to their scales, but nobody spoke. The concentration within the room was almost tangible. Those here were serious about studying potions.
Everyone kept glancing around at what the rest of the class was doing; this was both an advantage and a disadvantage of Potions, that it was hard to keep your work private. But Quinn kept to himself, brewing his potion at his own pace, without paying attention to what the others were doing.
Within minutes, the whole place was full of bluish steam. Everyone was either was attending to their cauldrons or had their heads buried in their books.
Slughorn glanced at everyone, satisfied with this batch of students. Even though they were rough around the edges, he could see the potential and drive. His eyes went to Quinn, and he noticed something different from others. While everyone was fussing over their potions, Quinn was cleaning his workstation while keeping an eye on his potion — it was a simple sign of a disciplined and practiced potioneer.
"And time's. . . up!" called Slughorn. "Stop stirring, please!"
Slughorn moved slowly among the tables, peering into cauldrons. He made no comment but occasionally gave the potions a stir or a sniff. At last, he reached the table where the Ravenclaws were sitting. He gave an approving nod to Marcus' brew. Then he Quinn's, and a look of incredulous delight spread over his face.
"The clear best!" he cried to the dungeon. "Excellent, excellent, Quinn! Good lord, now that's one potent brew, Quinn! That will make a person feeling like a traveler in a desert see the paradise."
Quinn bowed with a polite smile. Unlike Harry Potter, he didn't need a 'Half-Blood Prince's Potion Book' — he was the damn book. And the 'Half-Blood Prince,' that person didn't have anything on him.
In a brew-off, he would crush 'Half-Blood Prince,' who was suffering from Eighth-Grade Syndrome.
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Quinn West - MC - I am simply superior.
Severus Snape - Half-Bood Snape - Somehow feels like his honor has been challenged.
Horace Slughorn - Potions Professor - Only had one Felix Felicis and chose to go with a class(sixth-year) with more(quantity) of influential children.
Eddie Carmichael - Aiming to become Pro-Athlete - Pretty good with a wand.
Marcus Belby - One of the Potion 12 - Knows Quinn pretty well.
FictionOnlyReader - Author - "Sukinako Ga Megane Wo Wasureta," suggested manga - Warning: Diabetes Inducing, keep Insulin nearby.
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