#fun fact! a cauldron is actually one of the correct terms for a group of bats! :) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

liskantope · 6 years

Text

Chapter 6: R. A. B.

[This is a chapter of my Harry Potter fanfic written back in 2007 just prior to the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows. Here are chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.]

The next morning dawned bright and sunny. Harry noticed, once again, that there were far fewer students than usual in the Great Hall when he went down for breakfast with Ron and Hermione.

“What’s taking McGonogall so long?” muttered Ron as he watched her rove around the House tables, giving out schedules as she normally did on the first day of term.

“I dunno, but she really seems to be pausing for a long time at each person,” remarked Harry, staring at the back of her head as she bent over Terry Boot’s plate.

When Professor McGonogall got to Harry, Ron, and Hermione, they found out what was taking so much time with each person. She insisted on asking them each a couple of obscure questions to check that they were not Death Eaters in disguise. Harry’s questions were “By what lucky accident did Harry Potter and Ron Weasley manage to knock out a mountain troll in their first year?” and “How do you say, ‘I can eat bubotuber pus; it does not hurt me’* in Parseltongue?” (She had to conjure a pocket dictionary to confirm the last one.)

“Look,” said Hermione. “We get Slughorn this morning, and then our first Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson this afternoon. I wonder what that Browne woman will be like…”

“She’s got to be better than Snape, hasn’t she?” said Harry.

“You never know,” said Ron darkly. “She might be Snape’s secret lover or something.” In reaction to Harry’s and Hermione’s looks of disgust, he added, “I mean, they say that opposites attract, don’t they?”

Harry refused to speak to Ron for the rest of the morning in order to teach him a lesson about making light-hearted jokes about Snape in his presence. The seventh-years who were taking Potions at the N.E.W.T. level trooped into the dungeons that morning for their first lesson. Professor Horace Slughorn’s entire body was filling the doorway, and he searched the bag of each student before letting him or her in.

“Hope you all had good summers!” shouted Slughorn jovially, once they were all inside. Then a look of slight concentration came over his pudgy face, and he frowned. “That is to say, hope you all haven’t suffered too many losses this summer! I lost my dear friend Gwenog Jones of the Holyhead Harpies… what will I do now without free tickets to the games? But enough about me. Today we’re making a fun little potion that I call Gooey Solooey. The instructions are on the board… you have one hour… begin.”

Harry did his best to follow the instructions, but found that as the hour went on, his potion got more and more brittle. Harry looked around at his neighbors. Ron’s potion was shooting into the air and splattering back inside the cauldron at random intervals, but Hermione was actually dipping her bare hand into the potion and pulling out a perfectly concocted green goo that had the consistency of silly putty. Harry wasn’t sure what to do. He knew that Slughorn had high expectations of him, despite the fact that his performance in Potions classes has slipped at the end of the last year after his loss of the Half-Blood Prince’s textbook. Finally, he raised his hand to get Slughorn’s attention.

“Yes, Harry, m’boy?”

“Er, Professor? I think I’ve forgotten some of my skills over the summer in my stress over Vol – I mean, You-Know-Who and everything, and I was wondering if you could, er, give me a review of how to crush knarl bones to the correct consistency…”

Harry looked into the round face of Slughorn, who had walked up to his table, and saw that his walrus mustache was quivering with a suppressed smile.

“Now don’t think I don’t know what the problem is!” admonished Slughorn, waving his finger at Harry. “I don’t need to hear another word out of you, boy! I know that it has nothing to do with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named! The correlation is obvious: ever since you lost that book owned by the Half-Blood Prince, your performance in my classes has dropped enormously!”

Harry was almost too stunned to speak. He tried to look anywhere but at Hermione’s expression of triumph. Finally he said, “How did you know about the Half-Blood Prince’s book?”

Slughorn threw back his head and let out a booming laugh. “Because I gave you that book on purpose!” he gasped. “I wanted to see what you would do, but I didn’t want to let on that I knew. Your mother, actually, she was hopeless at Potions, but she had such charm that I let her pass my classes, you know. And the best part about the whole thing was the way that you went on hero-worshipping the Half-Blood Prince without actually realizing it was Severus – ha!”

And he was soon overcome with laughter. This laughter was not prolonged, however, by Harry picking up his cauldron and dumping the contents of it all over Slughorn’s bald head. Jagged pieces of some yellowing substance rained like pebbles all over it, scraping Slughorn’s aged skin. Hermione gasped.

“There,” Harry savagely proclaimed into the stunned silence. “That’ll teach you to wind me up about Snape!”

The silence stretched while everyone stared between Harry and Slughorn in horror. Slughorn wiped the blood off the top of his head and looked very serious.

“Harry,” he said slowly and gravely. “That’s the true spirit that any potions-maker needs. In order to succeed at potions, m’boy, one needs more than brains and quick thinking. One needs to be able to tackle the problem directly, to be able to show the contents of the cauldron who’s boss, to be able to get right into its face, if you will. Your mother had this attitude even though she was no good; that’s one of the reasons why I admired her so much. Twenty points to Gryffindor!”

And he waddled out of the room to apply something to his head, leaving Hermione looking furious and Harry feeling very wrong-footed.

Harry assumed that he would be lectured by Hermione after leaving the classroom, but to his surprise, Hermione disappeared and was not seen until after lunch. When she greeted Harry and Ron in the Gryffindor common room, she seemed irritated by something entirely unrelated to Harry’s explosive temper in Potions class.

“I just looked through the school records for Regulus Black,” she said, “and he can’t be the R.A.B. that we’re looking for.”

“Why not?” yawned Ron. “I thought you said it was so obvious and everything.”

“That was before I found out that Regulus’ middle name began with an M and not an A!” snapped Hermione. “Now I’m totally out of ideas!”

But she did not have much more time to fret over it, because it was soon time to go to their Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. Strangely enough, there was no teacher to greet them outside of the D.A.D.A. classroom, and so they did not have to have their bags searched.

“Clearly, one thing we know already about this new teacher is that she’s not very responsible,” pronounced Ernie McMillan as the students seated themselves behind desks in the otherwise empty classroom. “And she’s late. So far I am at a loss as to what qualities she has that made Dumbledore want to hire her.”

“Probably the very rare quality of being willing to take the job,” said Harry darkly. “I wonder what will happen to her at the end of the year…”

And just then, Harry suddenly felt as though his head had split open. His scar was on fire, it was pain past endurance… He fell out of his chair, unable to see anything with his eyes screwed up as though his face was about to explode. A high, cold voice above his head said, “Not expecting me, were you, Potter?”

Some of the pain cleared, although the scar on Harry’s forehead was still raging. Harry looked up and saw above him a snake-like head with cold, pale eyes and slits for a nose. He gasped in pure horror, unable to believe what he was seeing. One of the thin, white arms of Lord Voldemort was leaning on his desk, and the other was raising a wand and pointing it at Harry.

“Avada…”

“Harry! NO!”

Neville leapt halfway across the room, pointed his wand at Voldemort, and shouted, “Impedimentia!”

Voldemort calmly and wordlessly performed a Shield Charm, and Neville appeared to be hit in the gut with his own spell. He choked and staggered backwards.

“It’s nice to see that you have so many little friends who are willing to die in your place,” sneered Voldemort in a voice completely devoid of compassion. “But there is only one person whom I intend to murder in this room today.”

Harry looked at the other members of the class besides Neville and saw that most of them clearly did not look at all willing to die in his place. They were scrambling over each other, knocking down desks in their haste to get out of the room, but the door seemed to be locked. Harry, meanwhile, was trying to get to his feet, his eyes streaming with tears of pain. Neville was still staggering, and Hermione was standing with her eyes closed, running through spells under her breath as though thinking aloud.

“But it probably wouldn’t be too hard to kill most of the rest of you with a single curse,” added Voldemort as an afterthought, looking at the group of students who were huddled against the closed door, pounding on it.

Harry had got to his feet. “You’ll have to kill me first,” he said softly.

Voldemort stared down at him and muttered, “Oh, all of you are so pathetic.” And then, to everyone’s astonishment, he transformed in an instant into a clean-looking red-haired woman.

“I think we have a lot to learn here,” said Professor Browne with a smile. “Everyone back to your seats please.”

The class returned very shakily to their seats, looking stunned. Harry was rubbing his scar, which was still quite sore.

“What spell did you use to disguise yourself as You-Know-Who, Professor?” said Parvati Patil in an unnaturally high-pitched voice.

“It was an immensely complex spell which created a sort of hologram-like illusion surrounding my person,” said Browne lightly. “But enough jokes. To get down to business…”

“That was supposed to be a joke?” gasped Ron.

“Certainly,” said Professor Browne gaily. “I thought it was a good way to have a fun, hands-on experience in class and to be able to learn something at the same time. I mean, I didn’t actually murder anybody, did I? But anyway, it’s time for a more professional introduction. I am Ramona Browne, spokeswoman for the Deathly Hallows.”

“Er, Professor?” said Dean Thomas. “Who exactly are the Deathly Hallows?”

“That’s a subject for several lessons on,” said Browne with a cheerful smile. “I think we have quite enough to discuss today, what with the abysmal defensive strategies you just displayed.” And she gave them a list of criticisms, after which she insisted on putting them through several more mock battles against Voldemort. She even insisted in making Harry’s scar hurt each time to add to the verisimilitude, much to Harry’s annoyance, and she seemed to be the only one in the class who was having fun. By the end of the double period, she was calling everyone by their first names and expecting to be called “Ramona” rather than “Professor Browne”. Although Harry had to admit that he had never known a personality less like Snape’s, he was not particularly going to be looking forward to future Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons with her.

At the end of the class, Browne turned to face everybody and said brightly, “Does anyone have any questions about what we’ve discussed today? Yes, Hermione?”

“Could I see your business card, please?” said Hermione, a little timidly.

As Hermione held the card in front of her eyes and the rest of the class began to file exhaustedly out the door, Harry saw her beckoning him and Ron over to her. When they were next to her, she showed them the card so that they could read it. It showed Professor Browne’s full name and listed her as both the spokeswoman for the deathly hallows and a newly-hired professor at Hogwarts.

“Don’t you see?” whispered Hermione. “Ramona Anne Browne. R.A.B.”

“Blimey, you’re right!” exclaimed Ron as they left the room. “She was thought to be dead for sixteen years… it all fits! We’ve solved the mystery of who R.A.B. is! But what should we do next?”

“I suppose we’ve got to go up to her office sometime and ask her about it,” said Harry. “How about this evening?”

So after dinner, the three of them made their way to Professor Browne’s office. They had no idea how they were going to put forth the question of the Horcrux with her, but they found to their surprise, as they approached the room, that there were voices already issuing from inside it. They stood with their backs against the wall to listen.

“But I brought you some more beef from dinner…” Browne’s voice was saying.

And the voice that answered was a cold, silky voice that Harry knew, and the very last voice which he expected to hear coming out of Browne’s office.

“I don’t care, I still insist on having more of their rice, it’s the one thing that those moronic house-elves in the kitchens know how to make competently…”

“But you’re not practicing a well-rounded diet, Sevvy!” came Browne’s voice.

“Ramona!” the man in the room said sharply. “I am sorry to say that you have a tendency to nag me incessantly about my personal habits, and I am tired of it. As long as I am living in hiding in your office, I should not be expected to…”

“I don’t nag you about all of your personal habits, as you very well know, Sevvy!” said Browne with a tinkling laugh. “After all, what would I do if you started washing your hair more often? It would lose that wonderful greasy shine that it has.”

The man’s voice did not respond.

“Oh, come now, you know you’re adorable when you get all sulky, but that doesn’t mean that it will persuade me to sneak down to the kitchens for more food!”

“In that case, you will have to pay the consequences,” sneered the man. “For a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, you are certainly lacking in many areas of common sense.”

“Now you’ve hurt my feelings!” Harry could tell that Browne was pouting. “Very well, then, I will go down, but I don’t know how I’m going to be able to explain this to whatever teacher or student who notices me!”

Harry heard her get up but was mesmerized with shock. The next thing he knew, Ron and Hermione had got hold of both sides of him and had yanked him out down the hallway and out of sight of the door just as Professor Browne opened it. Harry was far too fixated on the sound of the all-too-familiar male voice to resist, and he continued to tremble with hatred.

* allusion to the I Can Eat Glass project.

#Harry Potter #harry potter and the deathly hollows (my fanfic version)#not sure what to tag for in content #blast from the past #Might delete this

1 note · View note