Addicted to Studying, Fond of Her Professor

Eliana got the detention she wanted, with a bonus gift: Gryffindor lost ten points.

No matter. It was only ten points. Even if she answered just one question a day for one point, she would earn them back in two weeks.

Gryffindor might have lost points, but it had gained me!

Eliana remained perfectly calm, flashing her little white teeth as she looked forward to the main event—one-on-one answers from Professor Snape. No, wait. Detention with Professor Snape.

Hee-hee.

Snape gave the girl, who was practically radiating anticipation, a vicious grin and coldly announced that her detention would be helping Hagrid grow pumpkins. Since she was so good at Transfiguration, he said, making pumpkins bigger ought to be easy for her.

Eliana stopped showing her teeth.

Not hee-hee.

Wait, what did making pumpkins bigger have to do with Transfiguration? Wasn't that a matter of fertilizer?

Then Eliana saw Hagrid's enormous, supersized pumpkins.

Oh, right. This was a magical world!

Eliana was instantly fired up about growing pumpkins. What a practical spell! She wanted to take ten pumpkins that size home. That would be enough to feed everyone at the orphanage pumpkin at every meal for a month!

True, she couldn't use magic in front of Muggles and expose the Wizarding World, but couldn't she just cut the pumpkins into pieces before giving them out?

Or she could take over the kitchen and shoo everyone out whenever she cooked.

If they were still suspicious, she could say she'd stolen the food from the school kitchen. Oh, right—she could steal food from the school kitchen and bring it home, too!

Eliana suddenly felt a whole new world of possibilities opening up. She hurriedly jotted down her flash of inspiration, then carried on dreaming:

Once they got tired of giant pumpkins, she could switch to giant potatoes, giant sweet potatoes, giant winter melons... and then switch back.

She could hardly imagine how much money that would save!

Learning magic really was wonderful.

Eliana's eyes shone as she rubbed her hands together.

"Oh, little Ellie, are you hungry?" Hagrid brought over a large plate of Rock Cakes and set it enthusiastically in front of Eliana.

Eliana had been sent here as punishment, but the young witch was lively and quick-witted. She worked diligently and even asked how she could do better. She hadn't so much as wrinkled her nose at the foul-smelling, fermented fertilizer.

Most importantly, she wasn't afraid of him at all!

Hagrid liked the young witch so much that, despite her being there to work off a punishment, Eliana was now half-reclining in an armchair in his hut, swinging her feet as she rocked back and forth.

Hagrid sat on a little stool opposite her, eagerly pouring her tea.

"Wow! Thank you, Hagrid!"

Eliana reached out with both hands to take a cake. Curious, she poked its hard surface, then took a big bite.

"Ow!" It felt as though she'd bitten a rock. The impact left her head ringing.

"What's wrong? Don't you like it?"

Hagrid rubbed his hands together nervously.

Eliana managed a strained smile. "No, I just knocked my tooth by accident."

She looked down at the cake in her hand, which had suffered nothing more than a surface wound, and licked her little canine tooth defiantly. "I refuse to believe there's anything I can't eat!"

She opened her mouth wide!

Crack! Crunch!

A corner of the granite-like cake vanished, leaving two clear rows of teeth marks behind.

"A little hard," Eliana said, chewing so fiercely that a vein bulged on her forehead. It took her ages to swallow. "But it tastes pretty good. Are there raisins in it? I like those. Could I dip it in some sugar, Hagrid?"

"Of course!" Hagrid clattered about and brought over several jars and bottles. "The brown bottle has honey, the black one has sugar, that jar has butter, and there's cream, too. Dip it in anything you like, little Ellie!"

Eliana divided the Rock Cake with the missing corner into sections, spread a little of each topping over them, then ate her way around it one bite at a time.

She crunched and crunched, the vein on her forehead throbbing with every bite. But as she kept going, the cake seemed to grow easier to chew.

Eliana worked her slightly aching jaw. Hmph. I knew there couldn't be anything I couldn't eat.

My teeth just weren't ready earlier. They let their guard down. See? They've toughened up now!

"Hagrid, how do you make your Rock Cakes? I'd like to make some for my family to try."

Eliana had never encountered a cake so perfectly suited to her needs. She'd thought about bringing giant vegetables back to the orphanage, but because of the International Statute of Secrecy, she would have to cut them into unrecognizable pieces first. Cut vegetables wouldn't keep long, which meant she couldn't keep using magic to stretch their food supply once she returned to Hogwarts.

But these granite cakes looked like they would keep forever!

Besides, they were handmade. If they turned out a little larger than usual, she could explain that. She would just say each cake was meant to feed a whole year of students. What, were Mrs. Brown and the others going to come all the way to Hogwarts to check?

This was the first time Hagrid had met someone who appreciated his baking so much. His curly beard nearly straightened with excitement. "I'll pack you plenty! I've got loads! Eat up!"

Eliana had to explain repeatedly that she wouldn't be going home until Christmas. Only then did the enthusiastic Hagrid reluctantly put down the large sack he'd already shaken open.

Eliana felt her days growing fuller and fuller.

During the summer holidays, all she could do was memorize books without any real direction and occasionally puzzle over a spell or two from their pages. When school first began, she'd added reviewing the few spells she'd learned and doing homework, but the workload was still light. She had plenty of free time every day.

Later, she discovered what the library was really for. Besides supplying free paper and quills for homework, it held countless books on spells and their principles, making magical tools, and more. She'd been treating it as nothing but a place to find homework references. What a waste!

Now she got up early every day to exercise and review every spell she knew. She previewed and organized her lessons before class, reviewed them afterward, read and wrote essays in the library, borrowed a spellbook or two to study and practice beside the Black Lake, learned to grow pumpkins from Hagrid, carved decorations into walnuts and pumpkins, practiced brewing at her own cauldron in an underground classroom, and took her best Potions to Professor Snape's door to demand an evaluation... Her days were packed.

She loved the feeling of knowledge and skills slowly accumulating within her.

Well, that last activity was a little unpredictable. When the door opened, she might get sarcastic mockery and an assessment, nitpicking criticism, or an order to stop wasting time and go prepare Potion ingredients, among other possible outcomes.

But she generally got her questions answered, even when they had nothing to do with Potions. If she asked about spells or Transfiguration, Snape would say something sarcastic like, "If you still recall that I am your Potions Class professor," but he would tell her the answer in the end.

And his answers were remarkably thorough—far more than the scraps she could find after searching the library for half a day.

So Eliana didn't feel as though she was being scolded at all. Snape just had a sharp tongue and a soft heart.

She didn't mind how harshly he spoke. She could forgive a teacher who was prickly on the outside but kind underneath, capable, and willing to guide her. Besides, after listening long enough, she'd begun to think Snape had a certain artistry to his insults.

She'd been going about it all wrong before. If she wanted to ask him a question, why not simply knock on his door? Why insist on getting detention from Snape when that meant having to work for him?

Granted, he still occasionally roped her into work. She just treated it as practice preparing Potion ingredients. The materials were free, too. Sometimes she even stole—no, casually took—a little of what she'd prepared as payment for her hard work. Disgusting as those things looked, they were actually quite expensive.

A piece of Gorgon's eye cost ten Galleons, a small jar of leech saliva seven, a little bottle of pufferfish eyes five... She took only a tiny bit each time, but it all added up.

Snape had her working for nothing, so she used her own abilities to pay herself. How much she earned depended on how closely Snape was paying attention that day.

When Snape was in a good mood, he would even offer the occasional tip on preparing Potion ingredients, such as using the side of a short silver knife to squeeze more juice from Sleepease.

Inspired by this, Eliana eagerly explored new ways to prepare ingredients whenever she was dragged in to work. The traditional method for removing black beetle eyes was to use tweezers, but those could easily crush them. Eliana Transfigured a matchstick into a miniature ear scoop, and wouldn't you know it? It worked beautifully. Every eye came out whole.

Of course, her experiments didn't succeed every time. More than once, she tried all sorts of methods, wasted some ingredients, and discovered there was a reason the old ways had survived.

As for the wasted ingredients, they had sacrificed themselves for the cause of Potions. It wasn't as though she had paid for them.

Eliana felt entirely justified. She was a little Troll with a brain full of Bubotuber pus—that was what Snape called her. But if he dared entrust Potion ingredients to a little Troll, surely he was prepared for the Troll to waste some.

To her surprise, although Snape mocked her while she experimented—and turned into a master of sarcasm whenever she failed—he never threw her out mid-attempt or stopped her from reaching for the next batch of materials.

That means he's tacitly encouraging me!

Eliana was quite sure of it.

So despite Snape's cutting words, severe expression, and perpetually sour face, Eliana liked this professor more than ever.