Light End of Term

-Author’s note: 2020 is finally over! And in an effort to make 2021 better right from the start, here’s the long awaited next chapter of the Slytherin Gaunt story... just in time for our protagonist’s January 1st birthday.-

“Okay, people, pay attention,” you addressed the rest of the Slytherin first years that you’d gathered in the common room early on Friday morning. The rest of Slytherin was making their way to the Great Hall for breakfast but you had instructed your year mates to remain behind.

“What’s the big idea?” Goyle complained. “I’m hungry.”

“Today is the final Friday of term and that means it’s also our final Potions class,” you addressed them. “We still haven’t covered the Wiggenweld Potion. What does that tell you?”

“Maybe Snape forgot?” Crabbe suggested.

“Does that sound like something Professor Snape would do?” you asked him.

“Er… no…” Vincent admitted after a moment of thought.

“He still could have changed his mind,” Draco suggested. “It wouldn’t be the first time he changed around the order we learned things this term. We learned all those healing potions ahead of time. Maybe he decided to push the Wiggenweld back into next term to compensate?”

“Or… maybe… he’s holding off on doing it until the last class of the year so that he can spring it on us as a surprise exam and catch as many people off guard as possible?” you suggested. “Maybe he wants to send as many students into their winter break with one last bad Potions grade as possible?”

“Gotta admit, Gaunt’s portrayal of Snape seems the most accurate,” Blaise remarked.

“He sounds paranoid,” Pansy huffed.

You thought back to a brief conversation you had with Professor Snape in class one month ago that was the reason you were holding this impromptu meeting.

“Professor Snape, sir,” you looked up from your brewing as the Potions professor went by.

“What, Gaunt?” Professor Snape spat. He was still unpleasant even to his so-called ‘favorite’.

“We had to write an essay on dittany for Professor Sprout this week,” you recounted. “As you know, it’s an important ingredient in a number of healing potions - including the Wiggenweld Potion. I’ve certainly appreciated how you’ve altered the original curriculum to cover some practical healing potions ahead of schedule. But after writing that essay, I’m curious if we’re still going to cover the Wiggenweld Potion this term like we were originally scheduled to?”

The Potions Master stopped and stared you directly in the eye, “Mark my words, Gaunt: we will be covering the Wiggenweld Potion before the end of term.” There was a cruel smirk on his face that instantly made you pity any student who got caught unprepared when it came time to brew this tricky little potion.

And that was exactly why you were trying to tip off the rest of the Slytherin first years.

“I guess none of you were listening last month when I asked Professor Snape if we were still going to cover it,” you noted. “His exact words were ‘Mark my words, Gaunt: we will be covering the Wiggenweld Potion before the end of term.’ Well, this is the last class of term… and we still haven’t covered it yet. So odds are that we’re going to be brewing it today.”

There was a rustling at the back of the group and you watched as Theodore pulled his copy of Magical Drafts and Potions. At least you managed to sway one of them. Millicent glanced over Theodore and seemed to think he had the right idea and pulled out her own textbook. Make that two. You could always count on Millie.

“I’ve been researching the Wiggenweld Potion on and off for the last month,” you informed them. “And I’ll share the benefits of my research with all of you as one last pre-Christmas gift. You won’t do better than Granger… but if you listen to me, you’ll come away with a better potion and a higher grade than every other Gryffindor in that classroom.”

“I think I’d prefer a big breakfast as a pre-Christmas gift,” Gregory admitted.

“I’ll tell you what…” you said, “I’ll ask you one question about the Wiggenweld Potion. IF you get it right, you can go to breakfast and I’ll apologize for wasting your time. But if you don’t, then you’ll have to stay and take my crash course on the Wiggenweld Potion until I see fit to release you.”

You pulled three clear potion vials out of your Potions kit in your school bag and set them on a table in front of you. You cast the Colour Change Charm three times and turned one vial orange, the second tangerine, and the third apricot.

“The second step of the brewing process is to stir the potion until it goes from red to orange,” you prompted, “Which of these vials is the correct shade of orange?”

“Er… the middle one?” Gregory ‘answered’ as he stared at the three orangey vials that, to him, likely all looked the same.

“WRONG.” You stated emphatically. “That one is tangerine. Now your window to get the potion the right shade of yellow when you add the salamander blood in the next step has shrunk.”

“Is that really what happens if the potion isn’t the right shade?” Daphne asked.

“Yes,” you answered.

“How many color changes are there in the whole process?” Tracey inquired.

“Millie?” you prompted your friend who had the book open to the Wiggenweld Potion.

“Um… thirteen,” Millicent answered after taking a moment to count through the instructions.

“Sorry, Millie, but that’s wrong,” you corrected her. “It’s actually fifteen color changes. Don’t forget, the initial mixture from before you add the first dose of salamander blood starts off green from a combination of the wiggentree bark, moly, dittany, and horklump juice. And then the finished potion is supposed to be green – provided you haven’t made too many mistakes during the brewing process.”

“Do you actually have the entire thing memorized?” Pansy questioned.

“I didn’t originally,” you admitted, “But every week we didn’t brew it in class I made a point to go back and review it again… so now I do. You lot seem to think that I’m the top Potions student in our year because Professor Snape favors me over Granger. But you’ve got it backwards. I’m top of our year in Potions because I put in the time and effort to ensure that I’m in a position where he can favor me over Granger. Now get your books out. I’m doing all of you a huge favor by giving you this last minute tutoring session before class. No one goes to breakfast until EVERYONE has the color sequence memorized AND can properly identify all eight of the colors this potion turns.”

You made your point and everyone did as you asked. The only ones who complained were Crabbe and Goyle who were mourning their loss of breakfast. But even they reluctantly admitted that earning a good Potions grade was important.

Over an hour later, you heard the common room door open behind you. You didn’t turn to see who walked in as you were currently grilling the lone holdout of your nine ‘students’. The older Slytherins had stopped leaving for the Great Hall so you could only assume that the person, or people, who just walked in was the first of a new wave of older students returning from their morning meal.

“Come on, Crabbe, you’re the last one!” you snapped at Vincent who looked extra nervous. “Repeat the color sequence.”

“Green, red, orange, yellow, green again,” Crabbe rattled off, “Bl—er... turquoise...” You nodded, pleased that he hadn’t repeated a previous mistake and that you hadn’t been wasting your time when you used the Colour Change Charm on your three potion vials to display the difference between blue, turquoise, and teal. “Induhgo... pink… red again…” He was slowing down and seemed to be struggling to remember. “Yellow again… red a third time… orange again… yellow three… turquoise again… and finally green…”

“You missed one,” you informed him. “That’s only fourteen changes and seven colors.”

Everyone else seemed to be looking behind you while you remained focused on Crabbe as he used his fingers to count off the colors he’d just listed. “Oh… uh… and purple.”

“And where in the sequence should it go?” you pressed him.

“...” You received a blank look in response.

“I’ll give you a hint,” you said, “It’s when you add the first dose of flobberworm mucus.”

Crabbe stared down at his knees with his face screwed up in concentration. “Er… after… the second yellow… and before the third red.”

“Good, good,” you praised him then pointed your wand at your three vials and cast the Colour Change Charm three times. One was indigo, the second lavender, and the third purple. The handy little charm that Professor Flitwick had helped you learn had been a Godsend during your study session. Not only were you able to help your fellow first year Slytherins remember the color sequence but they were also able to identify the colors. “Which one is the right color?”

“That one’s indigo,” Crabbe noted which showed how far he’d come since the study session started. At the beginning, he and Goyle didn't even know that indigo was an actual color. He leaned forward and seemed to be struggling to pick between the lavender and purple vials.

“One’s the proper shade…” you advised, “the other is the first name of a girl in our Potions class…” You fought to keep from rolling your eyes as he mouthed the name of nearly every girl in class before finally coming to the right one.

“That’s lavender… and that’s purple,” he finally answered, pointing to each vial in turn.

“There you go,” you replied with a nod. You finally turned your attention away from Crabbe when you heard the common room door close behind you. You glanced around you at the other first years who all looked rather pale as they stared at the common room door. “What’s with you lot?”

“Snape walked in while you were busy badgering Crabbe,” Draco informed you. “I think he came to investigate why none of us showed up for breakfast when we have his class this morning. It didn’t take him long to figure out what you were doing… and he just sort of stood there behind you listening. Then he nodded and left without saying anything to anyone.”

Huh. No wonder Crabbe seemed so nervous and why everyone else seemed to be looking behind you.

“If he didn’t say anything then I bet that means he approves of how we’ve spent breakfast,” you reasoned, “And now that he knows we’ve been reviewing the Wiggenweld Potion, I’d bet each of you a galleon (making nine total) that not only are we going to be brewing it in class but he’ll likely arrange things so it has a greater impact on our term grades since he knows that we know it better than the Gryffindors.”

“...” It was silent for a moment as they processed what you just told them. And then the dam burst and you were bombarded by a barrage of requests to review the potion one more time.

“Oh, are you sure?” you asked teasingly. “I was going to let you go to breakfast now…”

“Quit messing around!” Pansy snapped at you. “My grade depends on this!”

You spent another half an hour reviewing the Wiggenweld Potion with your classmates. You missed breakfast entirely so when you were done the ten of you gathered your cauldrons and Potions kits and headed straight to the classroom.

Things couldn’t have gone better if you had planned them yourself. You whispered a quiet tip off to Granger on the way in and she made sure to pair herself with Longbottom - the most hopeless of her three friends.

The door barely closed when Professor Snape sprang the ‘surprise’ exam on the class. “Since today is our final class of term we will be doing a review to see if what I have been teaching has managed to penetrate your thick skulls. You will be brewing the Wiggenweld Potion. Alone. This will count as seventeen percent of your final grade.”

Why seventeen? You idly wondered. There were seventeen sickles in a galleon. But still wizard numbers and percentages didn’t make much sense. Maybe you would reach a better understanding if you took Arithmancy in third year? That class was supposed to be all about the magical properties of numbers.

You were drawn from your thoughts on magical numbers when you felt a collection of relieved stares on your back from the Slytherin side of the room. No one had taken you up on your galleon bet earlier but you had been right on the money. Across the aisle from you at the other front row desk, Granger gave you a grateful nod. Thanks to your intervention, the majority of the class hadn’t been completely caught off guard. Although, there was still a fair bit of griping about how much of your grade this surprise ‘review’ would count for.

With a wave of his wand, the familiar instructions that you had spent a month pouring over appeared on the board at the front of the classroom. “Those of you with an adequate grasp on the basic skills that we have covered this term should be able to follow this recipe without much difficulty. Those of you who lack that same grasp… may find yourselves struggling.” Professor Snape sneered at the back of the Gryffindor half of the room. You didn’t have to be a genius to guess that it was directed at the pair of Potter and Weasley.

The classroom went quiet as the brewing process began. You went through the potion with a practiced ease and were comfortable enough to take fleeting glances around the room when Professor Snape wasn’t looking. You were pleased to see that your fellow Slytherins, while nervous, were benefiting from your tutelage. The Gryffindors… not so much. It was clear that Granger was the only one of them who read ahead so seven of the eight lions were going through this recipe for the first time.

Professor Snape stalked around the room and silently observed the class. He remained silent and made no attempt at helping anyone. Everyone was left to pass or fail on their own merit.

The biggest incident came about halfway through the lesson when you spotted Longbottom about to add his first batch of lionfish spines. The recipe said to heat the potion until red. But Longbottom’s wasn’t the proper shade of red yet. If Longbottom screwed up this vital step all the colors that followed would be muted. Granger hadn’t noticed the other Gryffindor’s situation yet. She was focused on her own potion and was adding her honey water. You had breezed through the well practiced potion and were sitting pretty at the second to last step which consisted of letting your potion simmer for thirty minutes. Longbottom was a fair bit behind everyone else and if he wasn’t careful he wouldn’t finish his potion in time. That’s probably why he was so jumpy. He likely realized that everyone else was ahead of him.

“Longbottom.” Your voice cut across the quiet classroom. The twitchy Gryffindor jumped and, thankfully, didn’t drop his lionfish spines into his potion and continued to hold them in a loose and shaking grip.

“What?” he mouthed back.

“...” You stared silently at him and didn’t look away until you saw out of the corner of your eye that his potion was the proper shade of red. Your voice had likely drawn some attention but as you watched your potion simmer it didn’t seem like anyone realized what you just did. With one greasy, hook-nosed exception.

A shadow fell over your cauldron which probably would have been a hindrance if you were still on the color-changing stages. Professor Snape glowered down at you and was likely annoyed at you for robbing him of the opportunity to watch Longbottom fall apart as he failed the impromptu exam. Any other student would have lost points or been given detention for ‘interfering’ with another student’s work. But when you followed the Potions professor’s line of sight down into your simmering cauldron - you both knew that what you were looking at was a perfectly brewed Wiggenweld Potion.

Professor Snape let out a low growl then stalked off to terrorize someone else.

One by one, the potions were completed. Yours was the first one done and was, as expected, perfect - the end reward after a month of on and off studying. Hermione and Draco also turned in perfect-looking potions. It was up to Professor Snape to determine how different they were from yours. You were pleased to see that the rest of the Slytherins also turned in passable potions although some of them cut the time a little close. They likely took a more cautious approach and added their ingredients and stirred a fair bit slower than you did in order to ensure their potions were the right color. But the downside of that slow and cautious approach was that if they went too slow they wouldn’t have enough time to let their potion simmer for the full thirty minutes which would result in issues with the consistency. Pansy seemed to run into that issue. Her potion was the right shade of green but it looked a great deal chunkier than a proper Wiggenweld potion… although part of that could have also been due to poor ingredient prep. Parkinson hadn’t been shy about sharing her opinion on handling things that contained flobberworm mucus during your study session.

The last student to turn their potion in was Longbottom who’s potion had barely had fifteen minutes to simmer before he had to scoop it out in order to finish before the end of class. Despite your, and possibly Hermione’s, subtle help - his finished potion definitely wasn’t the right shade of green… but it was somewhere on the green scale. So it could’ve been a lot worse.

“Gaunt, stay behind,” Professor Snape barked out as everyone packed up to leave. Your things were already packed since you were the first one finished so you stood and waited until everyone else left. The breakfast-deprived Slytherins gave you grateful nods as they hurried out of the classroom to drop off their Potions supplies in the dorms on their way to lunch in the Great Hall.

Most of the Gryffindors looked miserable after toughing out the surprise exam. But at least the instructions were on the board. It was practically openbook. There would be no such luxury during the end of year exams at the end of next term. Hermione gave you a small smile as she went by with Harry, Ron, and Neville… who slowed down just long enough to whisper a quiet ‘thanks’. Apparently, someone caught on to the true purpose of your distraction and explained it to Longbottom.

Eventually, you were alone in the dungeon with Professor Snape. He surveyed the eighteen vials of Wiggenweld Potion on his desk before looking up at you. “Ten points to Slytherin, Gaunt. One for each student you helped pass.”

Fifty-one plus ten was sixty-one.

Wait… ten? There were only nine other Slytherins in your class. That meant he was not only rewarding you for helping Longbottom but that Longbottom had actually passed.

You blinked when an even more shocking realization sank in. Professor Snape just awarded you House Points! You hadn’t gotten a single point from him all month. THE DRY SPELL WAS FINALLY OVER!

“And I’ll also be giving you an extra point on the review for the same reason,” your Head of House continued before giving a dismissive nod showing that was all, “Enjoy your winter break, Gaunt.”

“Thank you, sir,” you replied as a wide smile spread across your face, “You as well, professor.”

You dashed out of the classroom with your things and eventually found yourself in an open seat that had been saved for you in the Great Hall. Helping all your Slytherin year mates get a solid passing grade from Professor Snape did more to boost your reputation in Slytherin than taking on the troll back at Halloween. You rode that high until the end of term.

Marvolo Gaunt House Point Ledger

Severus Snape: +10

New Total: +61

Points awarded by: SS, RH, QQ, MM, FF