A/N: It’s baaaaaaaaaaaaaack……….
You asked, and you shall receive. I had just so much fun with the constant hilarity of writing the original “Power of Suggestion,” that I mentioned that, mayhaps, I might be interested in doing a sequel…….
Well, here it is! And in accordance with the strange tradition I’ve started, this chapter was sponsored by McDonald’s (I know, I know, I’m a corporate lackey), my awesome music playlist of course, and the wonderful folks who reviewed with crazy ideas to help spark this second bout of insanity.
Harry Potter yawned. It was again Monday morning, and again he was sitting in double Potions, bored out of his gourd. They were supposed to be making a Calming Draught, or a Cheerfulness Draught, or something or other like that. Harry had quite stopped paying attention. He figured Snape would fail him no matter what he made.
And, as Harry turned in a flask of the goo from his cauldron that was a poisonous purple rather than the periwinkle blue Hermione’s potion was, apparently Snape thought the same thing.
“What is this, Potter?” he sneered, holding up the flask and tilting it, so the contents oozed to the side.
Harry, thankful that he was the last one to turn in his work so no one else was listening in, glanced quickly at the board. “A Coughing Concoction,” he answered. Oooh, so close.
Snape raised an eyebrow. “Indeed? Could it be, Potter, that you no longer think that my class is worth your time?”
“No sir.” Harry needed to take Potions if he was to realize his ambition of being an Auror.
“Then why have you not even bothered to check what you are making?”
“But “ I did “ on the board….” Harry looked at the board again. Now that he double-checked, the words “coughing” and “concoction” were used in the sentence, “Do not inhale the fumes, or you will start coughing over your concoction.” Harry did a facepalm.
“I think, Potter, that you need a detention to understand the finer points of potion-making. Like paying attention.” His dark eyes glittered menacingly. “Tonight, my office, eight o’clock.”
“Yes, sir,” said Harry through gritted teeth. He stormed back to his seat and started angrily putting away his things.
“What’d Snape want?” Ron asked.
“Oh, nothing, just to give me a detention.”
“Why?” Ron sounded stunned. “You didn’t do anything wrong, did you?”
“Oh, just some nonsense about me not paying enough attention. You know Snape, he’s always looking for a reason to give me a detention or dock points, even if it’s not a good reason.”
“Well, you weren’t really paying attention today, you know,” said Hermione fairly.
“What? Yes I was!” lied Harry automatically in his own defense.
“Well, remember when I had to stop you adding powdered griffin claw instead of powdered root of hellebore?”
“…No…”
Hermione rolled her eyes. “Well, maybe this detention’s not such a bad idea!”
“How can you say such a thing, Hermione?” asked Ron, sounding affronted. “Detention’s always a bad idea!”
Just then, the bell rang, drowning out any rebuttal that Hermione might have been making. The trio collected their bags, and went upstairs to lunch.
Entering the Great Hall, Harry accidentally bumped into a second year heading through the doors as well. “Sorry,” Harry muttered as he started walking again.
“S’no problem,” said the second year. “Hey, you’re Harry Potter! I’ve heard all about you. My name’s David.”
“Uh, nice to meet you.”
“I’m in Gryffindor too, so I guess I’ll see you around!” And he walked off, a bounce in his step.
“Weird, the kids now,” said Ron.
That night at a quarter to eight, Harry started down to the dungeons for his detention. As he left the common room, the second year from earlier jumped out of his seat and followed Harry.
“Hiya, Harry!” he said, somewhat breathlessly. “Whatcha doing?”
“Going to detention,” answered Harry. He was forcibly reminded of the Creevy brothers.
“Wow, who’ve you got it with?”
“Snape.”
“Ooooh. What did you do?”
“Nothing.” Harry was getting a bit annoyed now.
“Ooooh. That’s not very fair. You know, I’ve heard Snape’s unfair, but he’s never been mean to me.”
“Really? He’s always unfair to me.”
“Well, maybe you did something to deserve it.”
Harry spun around to look at the kid. He was grinning broadly. “Well, see you!” And he turned around and disappeared back down the hall.
Harry scowled and shuffled off to the dungeons again. Ron was right, the kids now were weird. As if Harry had needed to be in a bad mood before he got to Snape’s office.
A few minutes later, Harry was knocking on the door of said office and entered. It was now all-too familiar to Harry, with the walls lined with jars of slimy, sinister things in various colored potions. Something new was there though: a small table had been set up, laden with potions ingredients, and a cauldron was standing beside it.
“Close the door and sit down, Potter,” said Snape from behind his desk. Harry obeyed, shutting the door and sitting at the chair by the small table.
Snape finished marking an essay in front of him, then stood and walked over to the table. “As you can see, Potter, for detention, I thought we’d do something a little different. You are to make the potion you botched in class, but make it correctly this time. I’ve taken the liberty of giving you the correct ingredients, since you obviously couldn’t find them for yourself.” Harry’s hands balled into fists under the table. Snape’s lip curled. “After you have finished that, you will write the correct procedure, including where you went wrong the first time. Enjoy.” And with that, he swept back to his desk.
Harry picked up a piece of parchment that the instructions had been written on and read it. It was headed, “Confuddlement Draught.” Well, at least he’d guessed the starting letters right earlier. Resignedly, Harry picked up some ingredients and started mixing.
An hour and half later, Harry added the last ingredient and stirred clockwise five times. His potion wasn’t quite as pale as Hermione’s had been, but it was at least blue this time. He filled a flask and brought it to Snape, who picked it up and stared intently at it. He put it down on his desk and said, “Add a bit more hellebore next time. Clean up and write the theory, then.”
Harry rolled his eyes and went back to the table. He cleared out the cauldron and put away the ingredients, then picked up a quill and pulled a piece of parchment towards him. After glancing up quickly to make sure Snape was busy grading papers, Harry copied the instructions. At the end, he wrote, “I couldn’t tell you where I messed up the first time, as I wasn’t paying attention.”
Harry then gave this paper to Snape. Snape read this over, raising an eyebrow as he did. “I wonder, Potter,” he said, still looking at the paper, “if you know what plagiarism is?”
“Yes,” Harry answered.
“Because it seems you’ve just done a bit yourself. I don’t allow copied homework, and I certainly don’t allow copied detention work. I told you to write the theory; I can read my own writing any time I want.” He thrust the paper back at Harry. “Do it again.”
Harry opened his mouth to argue, but a knock at the door cut him off.
“Enter,” Snape said.
The door opened, and in walked a llama. It was, in fact, the llama that had appeared at the end of “The Power of Suggestion.” Harry’s jaw dropped. Even Snape looked taken aback. The llama cantered over and dropped a letter that had been in its mouth on Snape’s desk. Snape and Harry looked down at the note. It read:
It’s baaaaaaaaack………..
-Arbitrar
The two looked up quickly, but the llama had already walked back out of the office. They looked back at the note, and started swearing at the same time.
A/N: It has returned!!! MWAHAHA!!!!!!! AHAAAA *hack cough* Ahem. Sorry if this isn’t terribly funny yet, but we need some exposition, and I’ve been rereading book 5, so people are actually in character still. I know, mad, isn’t it? I promise it will get more amusing as time goes on. But feel free to review anyway!