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Last of the Fae Chapter 14: Stand Tall
🕑 Added 2024-08-07 15:25:30 +0000 UTCParvati drummed her fingers against the desk and sighed audibly, “I told you we shouldn’t have come here early.”
“Oh would you relax we’ve only been waiting for a few minutes,” Lavender Brown one of Parvati’s roommates replied as she checked her appearance in a small pocket mirror, “Some of the third year girls told me that the potion master Professor Snape has it out for Gryffindors and not to give him any reasons to take points from us.”
Parvati rolled her eyes, and she looked around the class room which was slowly filling as people made their way from breakfast in the dining hall, “Well they could have warned us that we have potions with Slytherin, I just know they’re going to be insufferable.”
Parvati watched as a divide appeared as more people took their seats, Griffyindor on the right and Slytherin on the left. Which was fine by her, just seeing the smug looks on the Slytherin’s faces was enough to get her blood boiling.
“You shouldn’t frown so much you know, it’s going to crease your skin,” Lavender commented as she went to close her mirror only to catch a glimpse of someone in the reflection, “Well hello there.”
“What?” Parvati asked as she glanced over at her roommate.
“Don’t look now but, dark and broody hottie at twelve o'clock,” Lavender whispered conspiratorially as she carefully glanced over her shoulder. Rolling her eyes at Lavender’s words Parvati turned around only to freeze as she saw Thane standing in the doorway of the classroom.
Parvati’s mind flashed back to the sorting ceremony last night, as Thane’s name was called. Her initial impression of Thane had been that of a friendly albeit socially awkward nerd, with him talking passionately about magic and reading for most of their train ride to Hogwarts. There hadn’t been a doubt in Parvati’s mind that Thane would be placed into Ravenclaw along with her sister.
But like the rest of the school Parvati never would have guessed that Thane would have been placed into Slytherin. Not only was he a muggle born, but even from her brief interaction with Thane Parvati could tell Thane didn’t belong in the snake pit. Which was obvious seeing how his housemates treated him the moment he sat down and how Thane reacted to the nonverbal ostracization.
That wasn’t the impression Parvati got looking at the boy now standing in front of her.
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Walking down the center aisle of the classroom Thane took a seat at the very front of the classroom. Instead of having desks each chair was situated around a potion station with a wooden counter top to prepare reagents and ingredients with a large bronze cauldron in the middle of the workstation for brewing.
Feeling a pair of eyes on him Thane glanced over his shoulder to find Parvati and another girl with fair skin and curly dirty blond hair staring at him. The moment they made eye contact Parvati and her friend whipped around breaking line of sight as they started whispering to each other in a hushed tone.
Thane’s face twitched but he managed to school his expression and keep his emotions in check remembering Thalion’s words from the previous night. Taking out his grimoire Thane opened to a random page which appeared to be blank at first, only for sprawling script and diagrams to appear in fresh black ink as Thane told the book what he wanted to learn.
While perhaps not the most glamorous artifact Thane couldn’t deny how handy such a tool was. The Grimoire’s main functionality was storing and compiling any information Thane wished it to. Heavily enchanted and bonded to him, the grimoire could automatically record any information that Thane overheard, read, or experienced within his mind during his nightly lessons with the Fae royalty. Thane could also manually take notes, or have the grimoire copy the contents of any book he touched. Once Thane figured out that particular function the first thing he did was copy all of his textbooks into the Grimoire which meant he didn’t have to worry about lugging around five different books that each weighed an ungodly amount.
Currently Thane was making his way through Magical Drafts and Potions, after finishing One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi and was about to start the next chapter when the door to the classroom slammed shut with an audible thud.
“Welcome all to Potions, the first lesson you will learn is that there will be no tardiness in my class. If you are late you don’t bother showing up. My door will be closed to you for the remainder of the lesson and it will be your responsibility to ensure you stay on course with the class curriculum am I understood,” An authoritative voice spoke out loud and Thane turned around to see a tall man with long black hair a stoic face dressed in long black robes standing in front of the shut door.
After glancing around the room with a piercing glare the man strode down the length of the classroom to stand on a stone dais placed at the front of the room, “My name is Professor Snape and I will be your instructor for any alchemy class you take during your time at Hogwarts. While some may consider the art of potion making lackluster compared to the other magical arts I assure you that a well brewed potion is not only worth its weight in gold, but can be life saving. But make no mistake, it is a difficult skill to master, and I have no doubt many of you will fall short and walk away from this prestigious craft after failing to produce the most basic of potions.”
In the silence of Snape’s speech a soft murmur echoed from the back of the room and like a hawk the Professor’s eyes zeroed in on the offender, “Ah Harry Potter, Hogwarts newest celebrity. Did you have something you wished to share with the rest of the class?”
