AN: If any of you have read The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, you may recognize where I got the idea for the windows.
It is 2:49 right now, so I've kept my promise as far as posting goes. This one isn't a big cliffie either, but those are coming up, so don't let your guard down!
Chapter Three: Crashing Potions
* * *
To say that Harry was in trouble would have been an understatement.
After receiving detention from four different professors, (including McGonagall) Harry also had to deal with the backlash from the other students.
The Gryffindors thought it was hilarious, and proved it by throwing a huge party for Harry in the common room that night. Even Fred and George attended, making a long speech about Harry that commended him for his ingenuity and bravery and made Harry go bright red (an interesting color combination, considering he was still wearing the neon-orange t-shirt.) The photographs that the enchanted cameras had taken had been expertly developed by Colin, and were passed around the room. Several people asked for copies: some even wanted Harry's autograph on the ones of Snape in his vulture hat.
The Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs thought it was childish, but amusing, and some had even turned up to congratulate Harry for pranking certain Professors. But the Slytherins were hopping mad. Especially Snape.
When Harry walked into his next Potions class the following week, it was to a crowd of fuming Slytherins and apprehensive Gryffindors. Everyone was waiting to see how Snape planned to punish Harry for inflicting such humiliation on him.
Harry took his seat next to Hermione, as usual. (Ron hadn't made it into Advanced Potions.) Hermione bent down to take her notebook out of her bag, and noticed a string slithering toward Harry's chair leg. She nudged him, and pointed out the string. Harry didn't do anything, only watched as the string wrapped itself around the chair leg, and attempted to pull the chair out from under him. Harry yawned very widely and obviously, reaching for his wand. The string caught fire, then flew through the air and dropped into Snape's cauldron. Snape just happened to walk through the door of his office at that moment, and caught a face full of the potion as it exploded. Since he could not prove that Harry had anything to do with the mishap he was unable to exact punishments, but he continued to look askance at Harry as he assessed the damage.
As a quick result of his survey, Snape announced that Potions class would have to be moved to another room in the castle. The contents of the cauldron had apparently reacted with the flame, and had spattered all over the dungeon, adhering to tabletops, walls, floor and ceiling. No amount of spellwork could remove it. It also smelled horrible, which was why Snape (his face partially covered in the substance) also announced that today's lesson would be theory, and led the students to a classroom that none of the students had ever entered before.
Hermione was surprised to see that the room contained a number of stained glass windows, all containing figures of lords, ladies, kings, knights, and priests. At the back of the room there was even a stone casket, with a stone statue of a troll on it, his club lying atop his chest. This room looked more like it belonged in a church, not a school. She looked around at Harry to see what he thought of the windows, and was slightly disturbed to see a look of fiendish glee on his face.
Snape had obviously suspected that Harry was the one who set his potion aflame, but he didn't have the proof. Hermione had hoped that the exploding potion would satisfy Harry's desire to crash a potions class, but after seeing the look on his face just now, she knew this wish was far from over. She only hoped he wouldn't give Snape any hard evidence to incriminate him.
Snape conjured a blackboard and started to write notes, droning on in his sneering voice. There were no tables in this classroom, only desks. Harry was seated one seat behind Hermione in the row to the right of hers, so she couldn't see what he was up to. As Snape paused and turned around to make sure all of the students were writing down their notes, Hermione, long since finished, laid down her quill and looked at the windows again. One of the lords in the stained glass windows yawned.
Hermione looked around at Harry. He had his head down, but she could see his wand in his hands below the desktop. He was not looking at her, Snape, or the windows, but she could see his lips moving silently.
The lord looked over at his neighbor, a lady who was dozing in the sunlight shining through her onto the floor. He lifted his cane and poked her on the shoulder, waking her up. She did not like this. Lifting her transparent, colorful skirts slightly, she walked over into his pane and started scolding him, shaking her finger an inch from his nose, with never a word escaping her glass lips.
The lord raised his cane and hit her over the elegant, horned headdress she wore. She gave back as good as she got, slapping him soundly on both cheeks, back and forth. Meanwhile, the priest next to them, who looked more like a thief than a priest, made a run for his neighbor, a snooty looking king, who was holding a golden sword. The priest attempted to steal the king's crown. The king dropped his sword and fled for safety, in a sparkle of glassy feet. He hid behind the robes of another lady, while the lord gleefully grabbed the sword and began chasing the slapping lady from window to window.
All the windows came to life then, as the lord and lady ran through them, the lord trying to chop the horns off the lady's headdress. Almost every person turned and fought the one next to them. Those who were alone in their panes and had no one to fight, sat in their respective panes making faces at the students, or pointing and laughing at Snape, who took no notice as he droned on at the blackboard. The lord drove the lady out from behind the robes of the priest, who knocked the king down as he strove to behead her.
By that time, all the students had noticed the show going on around them, and were watching in amazement, some with their fists stuffed to their mouths to stifle their laughter. This was entertainment! But they knew that if Snape noticed, it would all be brought to an end.
Or so they thought.
By the time Snape noticed that something was amiss, the windows were in a state of utter disarray. He grabbed his wand, and started marching around the room, casting cancellation spells on the windows. As he passed, the windows immediately froze in place. The lord paused in position over his lady who was kneeling on the ground. He was about to sweep her head from her shoulders, while she cowered in fear. As soon as Snape passed, however, the lady sprang up and kneed the lord in the groin. He doubled over gasping, and she grabbed the sword from him and started chasing him with it, laughing maniacally all the while. The king was stuck halfway across the wall, but as soon as Snape turned away, he began to run again, and the free-for-all resumed more violently than before. A second priest, this one more worthy than the last, went from window to window, urging the others to stop. He was not having much success, particularly since another lord was following close behind him, mimicking each gesture and expression the priest made behind his back.
Snape finally returned to the front of the classroom, having had enough. He raised his wand, closed his eyes, and whispered something. Hermione felt a kind of chill run down her spine, and all the stained-glass people immediately returned to their correct windows, in their original positions. Snape turned back to the blackboard.
Harry's head came up indignantly, but then he looked back at his desktop and shrugged. The stone troll at the back of the room sat up. With a sound of crunching gravel, the troll thumbed his nose at Snape, who did not see him as his back was turned. Malfoy, undoubtedly hoping to prevent anything else from happening and gain favor with Snape, walked quietly back to the stone troll and attempted to exorcise it. The troll merely looked annoyed. It grabbed Malfoy's wand from his hand and stuck it up its nose for safekeeping. Raising the huge stone club, it prepared to swing down.
But at that moment, Snape turned. He brandished his wand. With a thump that shook the room, the stone troll lay back down on the lid of the casket, Malfoy's wand still stuck up the bulbous nose.
*
"I thought you said you were going to crash potions!"
Hermione and Harry were sitting at the Gryffindor table at dinner that night. Hermione, along with the rest of the class, had been cracking up at the antics of the windows when they left potions. But Hermione had been expecting something to happen to Snape, or at least a minor repeat of what Harry had done in the Great Hall.
Harry turned to her, chewing a mouthful of steak-and-kidney pie. Unlike Ron, however, he swallowed and cleared his throat before answering, for which she was very grateful.
"I did say that. So what?"
Hermione grumbled, "I thought you were going to do something to Snape," she admitted.
Harry grinned wickedly. "Don't think the thought didn't cross my mind, Hermione, but I thought crashing a lesson meant making it impossible for students or teacher to accomplish anything, and that's what I did. All the students were too busy looking at the windows to take notes, and Snape was too busy trying to get rid of the distraction to get any real teaching done.
"Besides, don't you think Snape's been humiliated enough already?" He said jerking his thumb towards the teacher's table.
Hermione looked at the table, and cracked up.
Snape was back in the vulture-topped hat and green dress, fast asleep with his head on the table, while the vulture ate the food off his plate.
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