Professor, Can I Take Your Class Again?

"I'd say Snape hates me." Harry climbed up the steps out of the dungeon classroom, looking dejected. "In the first week of school, I already got Gryffindor points deducted."

"Don't think like that, Harry. Getting points deducted is perfectly normal. There isn't a single week when Fred and George don't get points taken from Gryffindor," Ron comforted him. "Isn't Eliana amazing? She got points deducted too—both in Transfiguration Class and Potions Class."

"And she has it even worse than you. She was made to stay behind and clean the classroom."

Harry felt that thinking this way was a little immoral, but he really did feel a bit better.

"Poor Eliana," he said.

Ron nodded in wholehearted agreement. "Yeah. We all left, but she still has to face Snape alone—and she can't even use magic."

Harry's mood sank again. "If I were being punished, Snape wouldn't even need to tell me that. I wouldn't know how to use magic for cleaning anyway."

"Neither would I," Ron continued to reassure him. "It's fine. Hardly anyone can."

That was true. Harry realized that there really was not much difference between himself and everyone else. Even Ron, Seamus, and Malfoy, who came from Wizarding families, had no particular advantage—they were all equally no match for Eliana and Hermione.

Maybe young Wizards born to Muggle families were smarter after all.

Thinking of Eliana made Harry's mood sink once more. Who knew what kind of torment his friend was suffering right now?

Eliana, whom the two had imagined as an utterly helpless little thing, was currently wiping down the tables in the Potions classroom with a rag, cheerful as could be. It looked like punishment, but from another perspective, it was also a great chance to make an impression on the professor.

She had asked around. Professor Snape taught Potions to the entire school. With so many students, and with him being a Potions Master himself, there had to be all sorts of people trying to curry favor with him. If she did not make herself more memorable, perhaps he would not even remember her by the time she graduated!

She scrubbed the tables diligently, finishing the ones at the back first before slowly edging closer to Snape at the front.

Snape was grading the Scabbers Potions they had made. Eliana became even more interested. She craned her neck, wiped a table twice, glanced toward Snape, wiped twice more, then glanced over again.

One particularly cloudy potion received a P. Eliana nodded to herself. It really did not look very good; a P was fair enough.

The next potion looked like cement—Eliana recognized it as Harry's. Snape seemed to recognize it too. He frowned and gave it a T with a look of disgust.

The next bottle was clear, pale blue. Eliana recognized it as hers. Suppressing her excitement, she pretended to keep wiping the table with utmost seriousness, though her eyes kept darting toward Snape's quill so hard they nearly rolled out of their sockets.

"Miss Richie."

A low voice suddenly sounded in the quiet classroom. Eliana, who had been staring at the grades with full concentration, jumped so violently that she nearly dropped her rag. "Ah...?"

Snape looked with satisfaction at Eliana, who had been startled like a baby chick. Even his voice sounded a little more pleasant. "I believe you were punished with cleaning duties, not sent here to destroy school property. Spare that poor table under your hand—it is about to be scrubbed through."

Eliana looked down and found that the table in front of her had indeed been polished until it nearly shone. It stood out conspicuously among the other old, dust-gray tables.

"Haha, there was a stain here that wouldn't come off, and I got a little carried away."

Eliana tried weakly to explain herself.

It seemed that making others embarrassed brought Snape even more pleasure. He said nothing more, but deliberately set aside the potion he had yet to grade and began grading the others instead.

Watching Eliana scratch her head in anxiety without daring to make a sound, he gave the assignment in his hand a P with great satisfaction.

Sure enough, making things difficult for these stupid little monsters who could not understand a word he said—who still made the exact same mistakes he had emphasized even when the steps were written on the blackboard—was simply the best remedy for the damage his soul suffered in class.

After all the assignments had been graded, he finally picked up Eliana's bottle at a leisurely pace and, under her desperately expectant gaze, quickly drew a mark in the grading column.

Judging by the path of the quill, it should have been an E.

—It could not possibly be an O, with its nice round shape.

Eliana instantly forgot about being embarrassed. She darted to Snape's side. "Professor Snape, why can't my potion get an O?"

What she had meant to ask was what she needed to do to get an O, but in her hurry, she had not chosen her words carefully. Instead, it sounded as though she were dissatisfied with her grade.

—At least, that was how Snape understood it.

Sure enough, even if these Gryffindor lion cubs looked obedient, they were actually a bunch of stupid, reckless, arrogant, and detestable little trolls.

"What, does Miss Richie think her potion is already flawless?" he sneered, his voice quick and mocking.

"I suppose that when you were grinding the snake fangs, you could have been more thorough. For instance, after crushing them, you might have ground them again with the back of a knife, so the powder would be finer and blend better with the potion? When selecting your slugs, perhaps you could have chosen ones of more uniform size—or do you think different sizes suit your aesthetic better? And your handling of the slugs was barely acceptable in some places and extremely rough in others. What, did those slugs fail to please your eye... What are you doing?"

He stopped.

"I'm writing down what you said!"

Eliana was scribbling away in her textbook with her quill. The tip moved so fast, as though she feared missing even the slightest detail, that splattered ink had landed on the tip of her nose.

She casually wiped her nose, giving herself an emerald-green nose in the process, but her eyes still shone with eager light. "Professor Snape, is there more? You're really amazing! You can notice so many things from a finished potion!"

Snape froze.

He was a professor universally acknowledged to be vicious, sharp-tongued, sinister, and hated. Naturally, he did not like these students either—nor did he care about them—so he could easily tell that the student in front of him was actually sincere.

Had the smoke from Longbottom's exploded cauldron damaged her brain?

Snape considered the possibility that discarded potion fumes could affect the human brain.

Seeing that he did not seem inclined to say anything else, Eliana regretfully put away her quill. Then she suddenly remembered something and spoke again with renewed enthusiasm.

"Professor Snape, I remember that you have Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff this afternoon. It's their first class too, so it should be the same lesson as ours, right?"

"What, must I report my lesson plans to you before class, Miss Richie?" Snape mocked out of habit.

Eliana was completely unaffected. With a sweet smile, she edged closer. "Professor, I don't have class this afternoon. Can I take your class again with them?"

In all his years of teaching, Snape had never heard such an eager request to suffer. He was momentarily stunned.

Good. He had not immediately scolded her, which meant there was still hope!

Eliana pushed her luck by grabbing the corner of his robes. She gave it a small shake and pleaded softly, "Please, Professor Snape. I really like your class, and I really like Potions. Please let me take it again."

"I think you teach wonderfully. Now that you've pointed out so many of my shortcomings, I want to practice it once more and see whether I've improved."

She chattered on with sweet flattery.

Snape looked at Eliana as though he were watching a troll dance ballet.

Eliana gazed up at him eagerly, her face full of earnest sincerity.

Snape abruptly yanked his robes back as though they had been touched by a burning brazier, then strode out of the classroom.

The hem of his black robes billowed like waves as he threw back a cold warning.

"If you show off in class because you have already taken it once, Miss Richie, I will throw you out myself."

Eliana automatically ignored the mockery woven into his words. He had agreed!

She wiped the tables even more diligently. Seeing the graded potions on the podium, she called eagerly after Snape's retreating back, "Professor, shall I carry these assignments from the podium to your office for you?"

The moment she finished speaking, the bottles and jars vanished with a whoosh.

Oh. No need, then.

Eliana smacked her lips regretfully, then suddenly slapped her forehead.

Right, there was something else.

Professor Snape had just said that some of the slugs she handled were done properly while others were not. That meant the things Malfoy had learned were useful after all.

That made sense. He came from an old Wizarding family. Malfoy might look a little useless, but he had probably learned quite a lot simply from what he had seen and heard growing up.

Maybe she could sit with Malfoy in Potions Class from now on and learn from him up close.

As for whether Malfoy might be unwilling—she could just grab him before class. Those skinny little arms and legs did not look like they could put up much of a fight anyway. Why should she care whether he liked it or not?

Having solved another problem, Eliana happily began humming a tune.

In the Slytherin Common Room, Malfoy sneezed twice in a row. Suddenly, he felt a chill run down his back.

"Is there a leak somewhere? Why does the weather suddenly feel so strange?" After looking around without finding anything, he sat back down in annoyance. "These buildings are nearly as old as Merlin. Can't Hogwarts renovate them properly?!"