Cruel Cranes and Potions
“Do you remember which way the prefect led us last night?”
“I think it was down this hall.”
“No, we came the opposite way.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t, I’m just guessing.”
“Face it, guys,” James said, stopping and turning to face his roommates. “We’re lost.”
“Well, we can find someone to follow,” Remus suggested, and then he looked around at the vacant corridor they were standing in.
“Brilliant suggestion,” Sirius remarked sarcastically. He walked up to a portrait of a shifty-looking hag and gestured to it. “I’ll just walk up to this portrait of an old hag and say ‘which way to the Great Hall?’”
“That way,” the hag said, pointing in the direction Peter had suggested “ the hallway to the left, once they came out of the hallway they were in.
Sirius, evidently shocked, thanked the hag and hurried off with the others down the corridor. The old hag, as it turned out, had been just as shifty as she had looked. They were now farther away from the Great Hall as they had originally been. James checked his watch and saw that they had no time to get breakfast; as early as they had risen, it had not been much help.
“We haven’t even gotten our schedules yet,” Frank moaned, looking around as if he was hoping that the Great Hall would materialize out of thin air.
“Hey, there’s something floating over there,” Peter said, pointing to a pearly white figure in the distance. “Maybe it’s a ghost that can help.”
There was no better choice than this at the moment, so the boys dashed down to the pearly white figure and saw, with immense relief, that it was Nearly Headless Nick. He would be certain to lead them in the right direction.
“Sir Nicholas!” Peter called breathlessly, skilfully avoiding the use of Nick’s nickname.
Nick turned his head so fast that it toppled sideways, revealing the single piece of sinew that held it on his neck. Scowling in embarrassment, Nick righted his head and said to the boys, “How may I help you?”
“We’re lost,” Remus explained. “How do we get to the Great Hall from here?”
“Follow me, you’re far from it. How did you end up down here?” Nick began leading the four down another corridor.
“An old hag told us,” Sirius muttered.
“Oh, you do not want to trust her. She loves tricking first years.”
Nick finally brought the boys to the entrance of the Great Hall, which was currently emptying out as students got ready for class. They thanked the ghost and ran to find Professor McGonagall, the Gryffindor Head of House. She would have their schedules. They found her a little way up the Gryffindor table. She searched through the remainder of the course schedules in her hands and pulled out five, handing them to each boy respectively. Then, without even bothering to eat breakfast, they set off for their first class.
“What do we have first?” Remus asked, adjusting the strap on his book bag.
“Defence Against the Dark Arts,” Frank replied, pointing to the top of his schedule. “It’s on the third floor.”
“Do you think we can make it there on time?” James questioned. “Or will another hag get us lost again?”
“I say we get revenge,” Sirius proclaimed.
“On a painting?”
“Why not?”
James shook his head and instead concentrated on following the correct path to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. They had managed to locate the staircase when they were heading to the Great Hall; they only hoped they would be able to relocate it. They were luckier now than they had been earlier; they had a number of students to track. They had gotten up so early before that there had not been many students up that they could tail.
With very much success, the boys reached the third floor. They soon came upon the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom and peered inside. It appeared that they were the first to arrive. At the head of the room, sitting at his desk, was a middle-aged man with a very mean sneer. Instantly they knew they would not enjoy this man at all. The man looked up from his desk and spotted the boys.
“Are you going to stand out there all day?” he barked.
Without hesitation, the boys walked inside and took the seats at the very back. The teacher, upon spotting this, shook his head. He stood from his chair and advanced on them. He folded his arms across his chest and studied them through narrowed eyes. “In my past experience, students who sit in the back love causing trouble.” The boys exchanged looks; the teacher didn’t like them already. “You,” he went on, point a finger directly in front of Remus’s nose. “What’s your name?”
“Remus Lupin,” Remus replied quietly, his eyes never leaving the man’s finger, which was still forced in front of his face.
A strange look flittered across the man’s face, but it quickly vanished before anyone other than Remus could notice. “Well, Mr. Lupin, come and join me in the front.”
Remus grudgingly got up from his seat and went to the front of his room. He shot a pleading look at the others from over his shoulder and James said, “Professor? Can I sit up there too? I can’t see very well from back here,” he added, indicating his glasses.
The professor eyed James suspiciously, but heeded his request anyway. James took the seat next to Remus and they waited, rather impatiently, for the professor to move Sirius, Peter and Frank to various parts of the classroom, none of them next to each other. While the rest of the class filed in, James turned to Remus.
“I have a feeling he won’t be one of my favourite teachers,” he said.
Remus nodded in agreement.
The professor cleared his throat loudly, bringing the attention to himself. He had pulled out a scroll and began reading off the names. “Black. Evans. Gordon. Longbottom. Lupin. Pettigrew. Potter. All here? Good.” He placed the scroll on his desk. “I am Professor Crane. Before we begin our lesson I would like to bring to your attention some notices about the rules and regulations in my class. I do not tolerate talking out of turn. All homework assignments must be completed on time and in proper form, no smudges or cross outs or tears on the parchment. If I find this I will hand it back to you, not graded. You will speak respectfully to me; I do not appreciate any snide remarks about me while my back is turned. You will work quietly for the entire period, copy all the notes I give and read whatever I tell you to.”
The class stared at Professor Crane with wide eyes. This was a pleasant welcome? He might as well have told them to hop back on the train and never come back. He had not even bothered to welcome them to school or tell them what he had planned for the year; he just started barking out orders.
“Now that we have that out of the way,” Crane continued, “we will begin the lesson with a little quiz.” He waved his wand and seven pieces of parchment appeared on seven desks. “You have five minutes.” The students scrambled for their quills and inkbottles and began.
There was one problem, however. They had not heard of anything that appeared on the quiz. They knew for sure that the material was not to be covered until at least their third year.
“James, what’s a Hinkypunk?” Remus whispered out of the corner of his mouth. James shook his head slowly, he had heard of it before but he didn’t know what it was. Having no clear idea of the answer, Remus scribbled down absolute nonsense, which James copied.
When Professor Crane called time he had no hesitation in collecting the papers and grading them on the spot.
“Black,” he announced. “I would have thought any wizard would know that Red Caps inhabit deserted battlefields, same goes for you, Gordon.” Sirius looked back at Alice Gordon and shrugged apologetically; he had not been able to supply her with a sufficient answer. “Evans, Grindylows have very brittle fingers, you must break their grip.” Lily Evans shrunk in her chair, her face almost as red as her hair. “Pettigrew, boggarts are shape shifters, not water demons.” Peter shook his head, how was he supposed to know that? He hadn’t learned anything yet. “Lupin, Potter, in the future I would not appreciate you copying off of each other, especially when you’re copying the wrong answers. Detention for you both.” James and Remus stared open mouthed at their teacher. What else were they supposed to do when they hadn’t the faintest idea of what the answers to the test might be? “These marks are atrocious! What have you been doing for your entire lives?”
“Being kids?” Sirius suggested under his breath.
“Detention, Mr. Black!” Crane snarled. “I do not tolerate back sass. Obviously you all have a long way to go before you could even be considered wizards and witches.”
The remainder of the lesson did not go well. After the disastrous quiz, Crane took no mercy on them. He had them copying every trait of every creature that they had been quizzed on. The notes went into such detail that each creature took up three pages of parchment. No one dared to speak another word after Sirius had been given a detention, not even when Crane asked a question did anyone dare issue an answer. It came as a relief when the bell gonged.
“Black, Lupin, Potter, up here, now,” Crane barked. The three boys groaned and went up to the man’s desk. “I need to discuss your detentions with you,” Crane said slowly, taking as much time as he could. “They will take place on the fifth.”
James and Sirius nodded reluctantly. Remus, on the other hand, spoke.
“Err… Professor, I can’t make it on the fifth.”
James and Sirius gaped at their roommate. Was he out of his mind? If Crane had given them a detention on the first day of school, he was likely to get violent now.
“Excuse me, Mr. Lupin?” Crane said, feigning a look of surprise. “I don’t believe you have the authority on deciding when you will fulfil a detention. You will be at my office at six o’ clock on the fifth with Black and Potter and you will do your detention.”
“Professor,” Remus said, trying desperately to keep his voice in check. “I can’t.”
“You can, Mr. Lupin. Do not contradict me again.”
“Remus,” James said quietly. “Just forget it.” It was clear that Remus was fighting a losing battle.
“No,” Remus snapped, his voice sounding a little panicked. “I can’t make a detention on the fifth!”
“Five points from Gryffindor!” Crane proclaimed. “Any more complaints and I will take away more points. Now get to class!”
The three boys left the room quietly. Only when they had checked their schedules and started out for their next class did any of them chance speaking.
“What was that about, Remus?” Sirius asked, looking at the boy in shock.
Remus shrugged and muttered some nonsense under his breath.
“Come again?” James said.
“Nothing,” Remus replied, quickening his pace, getting ahead of the two boys.
“Remus, you looked like you were about to start panicking.”
“It was nothing!” Remus insisted, not slowing down.
“Then why did you put up a fight?” Sirius asked, now jogging to keep up.
“No reason! I’ll do my detention, just forget it!”
The boys skidded to a halt outside of the Transfiguration classroom and saw that they were late and Professor McGonagall had already begun speaking to the class. Her eyes darted up to the doorway when she heard them enter.
“Late, boys,” she said.
“Professor Crane was giving us detention,” Sirius replied, taking the seat to the right of Peter. They could see Professor McGonagall’s nostrils flare; it was clear he was not her favourite colleague.
“Well, you three are not the first Professor Crane has assigned detention to on the first day of school,” she said briskly. “He tends to get… overenthusiastic… about assignments.” She took a breath and continued. “Now, as I was saying, Transfiguration is a difficult branch of magic and I will not tolerate foolish behaviour in my classroom. You will perform to the best of your abilities.” With a swift flick of the wrist, Professor McGonagall had transfigured Lily Evans’s desk into an overgrown rabbit and quickly changed it back to normal.
Clearly they would not be starting with anything nearly as advanced as what had just been displayed before them. Professor McGonagall distributed straws of hay to each of the Gryffindors and instructed them to transfigure them into needles. They then spent a painstaking class trying, with little result, to transfigure the hay. The only person to have any success whatsoever was James, who seemed to have a knack for the subject. His needle had turned a light silvery colour and was pointier than it had been.
After a rather simple period of note taking in Charms, the Gryffindor first years trouped down to the Great Hall for lunch, this time finding it with time to actually eat. Professor Flitwick, the tiny Charms professor, had not given them any practical work, which they were grateful for. They didn’t think they could handle another period of failure. Lily Evans, however, seemed slightly disappointed by this news; she appeared to have been looking forward to that particular class.
They had Potions following lunch and they were free for the day. The teacher of Potions was Professor Slughorn, a round man who greatly enjoyed the pleasures in his life. It was also a well known fact that he favoured certain students over others. But anything was better than a downright mean teacher; at least Slughorn was supposed to be nice, if not a tad overdramatic.
“So,” Peter said, trying to make conversation, “when did Crane assign your detention?”
“It’s on Sunday,” James replied, holding a fork over a plate of roast potatoes, looking for one to eat. Having picked one, he shoved it into his mouth and said, “’razy olf mab.”
“Well put,” Sirius said sarcastically.
James swallowed his mouthful. “He’s crazy! What kind of teacher gives that kind of test on the first day of school?”
“Him?” Sirius suggested. James rolled his eyes. “He was a right git to Remus,” Sirius added, turning to Remus, who had focused his energy on his lunch.
“What’d he do?” Peter asked inquisitively to Remus.
“Remus said he couldn’t do detention that day,” James explained when he saw that Remus wasn’t going to. “And Crane said he had to, what if Remus had a really good reason? Crane’s a git.”
“Git is one word for him,” Frank Longbottom said, coming over after searching for something at the other end of the table. “I heard some older students who had him after we did; they say he’s the worst Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher they’ve had.”
“They’ve had more than one?” Remus asked, speaking for the first time since they got there.
Frank nodded. “The seventh years have had at least three, one of them got sick, the other retired, and the third ran off with a banshee.” He shrugged at the bewildered looks of his roommates. “Anyway, they also think he’s mad. He gave them quizzes too and destroyed them all when he saw how badly they did. Set them on fire on one of the desks.” Frank collected his books and began to leave, saying he wanted to get an early start to Potions.
“Of all the years they hire someone who’s insane…” Sirius muttered.
“You think we should get a head start too?” Peter asked, also beginning to gather his belongings.
“You guys go on ahead,” Remus said, standing up and picking up his bag. “I have to go find Professor McGonagall.”
“You said you were going to do your detention,” James pointed out.
“I know. I’m going to do it. I just needed to talk to her about something else.”
James, Sirius and Peter said nothing; they simply shrugged and headed to the dungeons, while Remus went on his search for the Transfiguration teacher.
Remus appeared in the dungeons classroom ten minutes after Potions had started. The moment he entered the room he saw that the Gryffindors did not have Potions alone, they were with the Slytherins. Every student simultaneously lifted his or her head when Remus clambered in, breathless from running from the third floor to the dungeons, and some of the Slytherins snickered at the sight of him. The rotund man at the head of the room, Professor Slughorn, chuckled good-naturedly and motioned for Remus to take the seat beside a rather greasy haired boy.
“You must be Remus Lupin,” he said as Remus sat down. Remus nodded and pulled out a notebook of parchment. “We were just going over the basics of Potion brewing.” He pointed to a cauldron on the vacant desk at the front, which was steadily emitting steam. “This is the potion we will be brewing today. It’s a simply boil curing potion, should you be unlucky enough to grow a boil.” He chortled once more and rubbed his bushy moustache. “You will find all the ingredients you need in the storeroom, and the instructions are on the board. You will work with the person sitting beside you. You have one hour. Also, I thought it might be fun to turn this into a bit of a competition, for the spirit of the first day of school.” Slughorn picked up a slab of chocolate on his desk. “To the two winners! I will check your potions at the end of class.”
The students immediately set to work. Sirius and James had paired off, while Peter worked with Frank. Remus found that he was working with a boy named Severus Snape, and it was clear from the start that this boy had a knack for potion brewing. Without saying a word to Remus, Snape set off for the storeroom to get the ingredients. Remus looked at the cauldron, unsure if he should light it or not. He didn’t have to wait very long to find out his answer.
“Why didn’t you light it?” Snape snapped impatiently.
Remus jumped in his spot and hurried to light the cauldron, but accidentally knocking over the box of porcupine quills in the process. Remus stooped down to pick them up.
“Ow!” he hissed, pricking his finger on a quill. Sucking the finger he had pricked, which was now bleeding, he carefully picked up the remainder of the quills and placed them down on the table. When he straightened up, he saw that Snape had already begun concocting the potion, an annoyed expression etched on his face. Remus didn’t need to ask what was bothering the Slytherin; it was clear that he did not like the idea of being paired with Remus, who had no potion making capabilities.
He did the best he could to help, which basically meant that he handed Snape ingredients when he was told to. Remus took to observing his classmates at work; the other pairs seemed to be getting along fine. James and Sirius were having a fun time, pretending that they were in charge of a very delicate project that could be destroyed with one wrong move. Peter and Frank were not acting quite like James and Sirius, but they were working so that they could actually brew a passable potion.
The hour took too long to end, but when it did Slughorn instructed them all to step away from their cauldrons while he walked around to inspect them. He peered over the rims, nodding mutely, giving the occasional smile to a successful pair. He did not seem, however, to find one that he greatly approved of. He then came upon the cauldrons belonging to James and Sirius, Lily Evans and Alice Gordon, and Remus and Snape. He seemed stumped on which to pick as the winner.
“I have never been in such a dilemma!” he exclaimed dramatically. “All three potions are expertly concocted! I don’t think there can be just two winners.” He pointed his wand at the slab of chocolate and it divided itself up into six pieces. “Misses Evans and Gordon, and Misters Potter, Black, Snape and Lupin, you are our winners.” He cheerfully handed out the pieces to the winners and dismissed the class.
“That was interesting,” James commented as they came out of the dungeons and into the Entrance Hall.
“He seems nice,” Peter said, coming up behind James.
“Anyone is nice compared to Crane,” Sirius added. “At least we don’t have that class until Monday.”
That was the one bright side to the week, as it was already Thursday, they would not have to venture into that classroom again until the following week. This still did not help to settle the uncomfortable pit that had settled itself inside Remus’s stomach. He couldn’t do that detention, he really couldn’t. But he knew it was useless to bring this to Professor McGonagall, Crane seemed like the person who would lie it away, saying that he had no idea as to what Remus was talking about. Instead he had just gone to ask when he would have to leave to go to the building where he would transform. He needed to leave at half past six; he would only be able to fulfil a half hour of detention, if any at all. He was always ill the day of a full moon… he didn’t know if he would last.
Still, there was nothing he could do about it now. For the moment, he would just enjoy the time he had with his roommates.