You Get What You Deserve

Malfoy didn’t reappear in classes until late on Thursday morning when the Slytherins and Gryffindors were halfway through double Potions. He swaggered into the dungeon, his right arm covered in bandages and bound up in a sling, acting, in my opinion, as though he was the heroic survivor of some dreadful battle.

“How is it, Draco?” simpered Pansy Parkinson. “Does it hurt much?”

“Yeah,” said Malfoy, putting on a brave sort of grimace. But I saw him wink at Crabbe and Goyle when Pansy had looked away.

“Settle down, settle down,” said Snape idly.

Harry, Ron and I scowled at each other; Snape wouldn’t have said ‘settle down’ if we’d walked in late, he’d have given us detention. But Malfoy had always been able to get away with anything in Snape’s classes; Snape was Head of Slytherin house, and generally favoured his own students before all others.

We were making a new potion today, a Shrinking Solution. Malfoy set up his cauldron right next to Harry, Ron and I, so that we were preparing our ingredients on the same table.

“Sir,” Malfoy called, “sir, I’ll need help cutting up these daisy roots, because of my arm –“

“Samuels, cut up Malfoy’s roots for him,” said Snape, without looking up.

“Oh, no,” said Malfoy, a slight look of fright on his face, as I gave him a venomous glare. “Not Samuels; Weasley can do it.”

“OK; Weasley cut his roots.”

Ron went brick red.

“There’s nothing wrong with your arm,” he hissed at Malfoy.

Malfoy smirked across the table.

“Weasley, you heard Professor Snape, cut up these roots.”

Ron seized his knife, pulled Malfoy’s roots towards him and began to chop them roughly, so that they were all different sizes.

“Professor,” drawled Malfoy, “Weasley’s mutilating my roots, sir.”

Snape approached our table, stared down his hooked nose at the roots, then gave Ron an unpleasant smile from beneath his long, greasy black hair.

“Change roots with Malfoy, Weasley.”

“But sir –!”

Ron had spent the last quarter of an hour carefully shredding his own roots into exactly equal pieces.

“Now,” said Snape in his most dangerous voice.

Ron shoved his own beautifully cut roots across the table at Malfoy, then took up the knife again.

“And, sir, I’ll need this Shrivelfig skinned,” said Malfoy, his voice full of malicious laughter.

“Potter, you can skin Malfoy’s Shrivelfig,” said Snape.

Harry took Malfoy’s Shrivelfig as Ron set about trying to repair the damage to the roots he now had to use. I was already ahead of them; not having to do Malfoy’s dirty work. Malfoy was smirking more broadly than ever.

“Seen your pal Hagrid lately?” he asked us quietly.

“None of your business,” I said jerkily, without looking up.

“I’m afraid he won’t be a teacher much longer,” said Malfoy, in a tone of mock sorrow. “Father’s not very happy about my injury –“

“Keep talking, Malfoy, and I’ll give you a real injury,” I snarled.

“- he’s complained to the school governors. And to the Ministry of Magic. Father’s got a lot of influence, you know. And a lasting injury like this –“ he gave a huge, fake sigh, “who knows if my arm’ll ever be the same again?”

“So that’s why you’re putting it on,” said Harry, accidentally beheading a dead caterpillar because his hand was shaking in anger. “To try and get Hagrid sacked.”

“Well,” said Malfoy, lowering his voice to a whisper, “partly, Potter. But there are other benefits, too. Weasley, slice my caterpillars for me.”

A few cauldrons away, Neville was in trouble. Neville regularly went to pieces in Potions lessons; it was his worst subject, and his great fear of Snape made things ten times worse. His potions, which was supposed to be a bright, acid green, had turned –

“Orange, Longbottom,” said Snape, ladling some up and allowing it to splash back into the cauldron, so that everyone could see. “Orange. Tell me, boy, does anything penetrate that thick skull of yours? Didn’t you hear me say, quite clearly, that only one rat spleen was needed? Didn’t I state plainly that a dash of leech juice would suffice? What do I have to do to make you understand, Longbottom?”

Neville was pink and trembling. He looked as though he was on the verge of tears.
“Please, sir,” said Hermione, “please, I could help Neville put it right –“

“I don’t remember asking you to show off, Miss Granger,” said Snape coldly, and Hermione went as pink as Neville. “Longbottom, at the end of this lesson we will feed a few drops of this potion to your toad and see what happens. Perhaps that will encourage you to do it properly.”

Snape moved away, leaving Neville breathless with fear.

“Help me!” he moaned to Hermione.

“Hey, Corey,” said Seamus Finnigan, leaning over to borrow my brass scales, “have you heard? Daily Prophet this morning – they reckon Sirius Black’s been sighted.”

“Where? Said Harry, Ron and I quickly. On the other side of the table, Malfoy looked up, listening closely.

“Not far from here,” said Seamus, who looked excited. “ It was a Muggle who saw him. ‘Course, she didn’t really understand. The Muggles think he’s just an ordinary criminal, don’t they? So she ‘phoned the telephone hotline. By the time the Ministry of Magic got there, he was gone.”

“Not too far from here...” Ron repeated, looking significantly at Harry and I. He turned around and saw Malfoy watching closely. “What, Malfoy? Need something else skinning?
But Malfoy’s eyes were shining malevolently, and they were fixed on Harry. He leant across the table.

“Thinking of trying to catch Black single-handed, Potter?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” said Harry offhandedly.

Malfoy’s thin mouth was curving in a mean smile.

“Of course, if it was me,” he said quietly, “I’d have done something before now. I wouldn’t be staying in school like a good boy, I’d be out there looking for him.”

“What are you talking about, Malfoy?” said Ron roughly.

“Don’t you know, Potter?” breathed Malfoy, his pale eyes narrowed.

“Know what?”

Malfoy let out a low, sneering laugh.

“Maybe you’d rather not risk your neck,” he said. “Want to leave it to the Dementors, do you? But if it was me, I’d want revenge. I’d hunt him down myself.”

“What are you talking about?” said Harry angrily, but at that moment Snape called, “You should have finished adding your ingredients by now. This potion needs to stew before it can be drunk; clear away while it simmers and then we’ll test Longbottom’s...”

Crabbe and Goyle laughed openly, watching Neville sweat as he stirred his potion feverishly. Hermione was muttering instructions to him out of the corner of her mouth, so that Snape wouldn’t see. Harry, Ron and I packed away our unused ingredients and went to wash our hands and ladles in the stone basin in the corner.

“What did Malfoy mean?” Harry muttered to us, as he stuck his hands under the icy jet that poured from a gargoyle’s mouth. “Why would I want revenge on Black? He hasn’t done anything to me – yet.”

“He’s making it up,” said Ron savagely, “he’s trying to make you do something stupid...”
The end of the lesson in sight, Snape strode over to Neville, who was cowering by his cauldron.

“Everyone gather around,” said Snape, his black eyes glittering, “and watch what happens to Longbottm’s toad. If he has managed to produce a Shrinking Solution, it will shrink into a tadpole. If, as I don’t doubt, he has done it wrong, his toad is likely to be poisoned.

The Gryffindors watched fearfully. The Slytherins looked excited. Snape picked up Trevor the toad in his left hand, and dipped a small spook into Neville’s potion, which was now green. He trickled a few drops down Trevor’s throat.