4 The Potions Master

AN: Sorry it's been awhile since I updated this story but I was working on my last chapter's to my other story, Harry war' which is the first story I've managed to complete. Woo woo woo you know it! Sorry about that…

THE POTIONS MASTER

"There, look."

"Where?"

"Wearing the glasses?"

"Did you see his face?"

"Did you see his scar?"

Whispers followed Harry from the moment he left his dormitory the next day. People lining up outside classrooms stood on tiptoe to get a look at him, or doubled back to pass him in the corridors again, staring. No matter how much Harry glared at them the students continued to stare, point him out to friends and whisper behind their hands.

His head of house, Potions master Severus Snape had given all the new first years a talk the night before, about how all Slytherin's stuck together against the other three houses no matter what. He informed them that he didn't care if two families were in a blood-feud with each other, if you saw one of your house mates being picked on you stuck up for them. Harry summarised that basically any grudges with house mates were to be left in the common room.

Harry had also learned that even though they had all cheered for him together as a house, not everybody in Slytherin liked him. A lot of the older years didn't like him because of his victory over the Dark Lord when he was a baby. Thankfully however, Professor Snape had managed to get them all to agree that even though the Dark Lord met his down fall against Harry it was hardly Harry's fault, after-all he was only a year old when the Dark Lord attacked him, he was most likely to have sat there as the killing curse was fired at him, it's not like they had an epic duel in which Harry had won, thus it was not really Harry's fault and he should not be blamed and should be left alone.

Another thing that he had learned last night was that nobody needed friends but everybody needed allies to make it in the Wizarding world. For example if one day you wanted to run to be Minister for Magic you would need allies to back you up and help you gain support, 9 times out of 10 anyone who tried to make it in the Wizarding world on their own almost always failed. Once he had learned that Harry had gone up to Daphne Greengrass and Tracy Davis with a proposal.

"Ms. Greengrass, Ms. Davis." Harry had approached the two once professor Snape had left the common room. "In light of what we or rather I have just learned I would like to make a proposal to you both." He had spoke as he took a seat opposite them near the back of the common room on the opposite side from the fireplace.

"What kind of proposal?" Daphne had asked with a slight smile on her face and in her sparkling violet eyes.

"As future heads of our respective families I would like to propose an alliance between houses Potter and house Greengrass and house Davis." He had replied in a neutral tone of voice instead of the cold tone he normally used.

"An alliance with house Potter would be very good for my house; I shall have my father contact our family solicitor to draw up the contract." Daphne had replied in a formal voice as she dropped all playfulness about her. She may have been a half-blood but her father had still taught her in the pureblood ways growing up. Harry meanwhile had realised that he would have to inquire whether or not his family had a solicitor to look over the contracts and if not try to hire one.

"The same with me, I shall write my father tonight and have him meet with the family solicitor to draw up the contract." Tracy had spoken up after Daphne also in a formal voice. With the quick agreements for an alliance with his family, Harry had realised that his family name must be very influential or well respected or maybe both.

"Hey Potter, where were you this morning?" Theodore Nott asked Harry as he sat down to breakfast, pulling Harry out of his thoughts.

"I wake up at half 5 every morning and go for a run." Harry replied as he tucked into his breakfast of porridge and poached eggs on wholegrain toast with a fruit smoothie to drink.

"Why?" Nott asked in confusion wondering why anyone would want to go for a run at that time in the morning or any other time for that matter.

"I'm a health nut; I want to stay healthy and in-shape." Harry indicated his breakfast with a lazy wave of his hand. "A run and a healthy breakfast are a great way to start the day alert and ready for anything." He finished his explanation with a slight smirk as Nott pushed away his plate of fried fatty foods and swapped it for scrambled egg on toast.

"What's that you're drinking?" Nott asked as he eyed the tall glass Harry had just drained half of.

"Fruit smoothie, different fresh fruits blended together with milk for a simple, fast and nutritious way to start the day." Harry answered in his normal monotone voice he used when quoting a book or magazine.

"I paid an older student to show me how to access the kitchens." Harry said as he saw Nott looking round the table wondering how he had created the drink.

"Cool, may I try some?" Nott asked him in a slightly hesitant voice as Harry raised an eyebrow before he drained most of his drink before he passed the last over to Nott to try. "That's gorgeous, what is it?"

"Strawberry and kiwi." Harry replied after he had finished his breakfast and was getting ready to head to his first ever lesson in magic. "Transfiguration." He answered Nott's unasked question before the other boy could even open his mouth to ask.

"Thanks, mind if I walk with you, I want to ask you something." Nott asked as they both got up to head towards their first lesson of the day.

"Sure." Harry replied as he and Theodore headed out of the great hall.

"So I heard you, Daphne and Tracy have agreed to sign alliance contracts and I was wondering if maybe you might want to sign one with me? Theodore asked him as they headed up the marble staircase towards the fourth floor which according to their timetables the transfiguration class was said to be on.

"Ok why not." Harry replied after thinking it over for a couple of minutes. He realised that the more allies he had, the further he would go in the Wizarding world.

"Really, Wow thanks this should make my father proud." Theodore smiled at Harry but all he got in return was a blank face. "So why are you a health nut as you put it?" he asked changing the subject as they reached the fourth floor corridor and found a bushy haired girl standing outside a door with her nose buried in a book.

"Because my uncle and cousin are huge fat slobs and I'll be dead and buried before I ever let myself get like that." Harry replied blandly as he stood opposite the door in which the bushy haired girl stood as he remembered her from the sorting and realised that this must be the transfiguration classroom as she was wearing a Gryffindor tie and they had the class with the Gryffindors.

After waiting around for ten minutes most if not all of the students were waiting outside the classroom. Most of the Gryffindor's were looking at Harry with betrayed looks on their faces after they had taken note of his Slytherin tie and house badge on his robes. Draco Malfoy however was glaring at Harry for all he was worth as though to try and intimidate him.

"Pathetic little ponce." Harry thought to himself as he glared coldly at the Gryffindor's around him. Just then the door to the classroom clicked before swinging inwards, permitting the students entrance. Everyone followed the bushy haired girl into the classroom and quickly found seats as Professor McGonagall stood in front of her desk watching them. Once roll was called McGonagall began.

"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts. Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned." Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. They were all very impressed and couldn't wait to get started, but soon realized they weren't going to be changing the furniture into animals for a long time. After taking a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle.

Soon the classroom was filled with the voices of the students as they tried to complete the task at hand. Harry however just looked around the classroom bored; he had already completed this on his 2nd full day at the Cauldron.

"Potter, why are you not practising the spell?" McGonagall's voice barked out over the students five minutes after they had been given the task causing the students to turn in their seats and look at Harry who sat in the very back of the classroom on his own.

"Because I have already mastered this spell ma'am." Harry replied in a polite tone of voice.

"Rubbish you were only given the task five minutes ago, five points from Slytherin for lying." As McGonagall said this all the Slytherin students began protesting loudly as Malfoy and Weasley sniggered at him. It seemed that only McGonagall herself saw Harry's eyes flash in anger as he picked up his wand.

"He wouldn't." McGonagall thought to herself a bit of fear entering her being. However, instead of turning the wand on her as she had irrationally thought, he turned it upon the needle in front of him.

"Acus." In his anger at being called a liar for no reason at all, Harry did not even realise that he left out the wand-movements and preformed the spell silently, however the results were the same, a perfect needle now lay upon his desk.

"M-My apologies Mr. Potter, 20 points to Slytherin, five for the ones I took and 15 for a perfect spell-cast."McGonagall said as she got over her shock at what she had just seen. Harry however just ignored her as though she had not even spoken. For the rest of the lesson, Harry completely ignored McGonagall as he read through his textbook, he didn't even look up when she asked him a direct question, he did however note down the homework they were assigned before storming out of the classroom the second the bell rang.

Ten minutes later the Slytherin's and Gryffindor's were sat in the dungeon classroom for their first potions class. Harry was once more sat in the back of the classroom alone, not that some students hadn't tried to sit next to him, however, Daphne and Tracy both found seats away from him once they took note of his cold hard glare. Minutes after the bell rang the door to the classroom burst open and Snape swept into the room and up to his desk at the front before spinning on his heel to face the students, a scowl upon his face. He surveyed them silently as he looked around them all taking a mental roll-call.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even stopper death - if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach." he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word - like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort.

"Weasley!" said Snape suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

"I-I don't know sir." Answered Ron Weasley after exchanging glances with Dean Thomas beside him even as the bushy haired girl's hand shot into the air.

"Tut, tut - "Let's try again. Weasley, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?" the bushy haired girls' hand seemed to stretch towards the ceiling even more.

"I don't know sir." Ron replied once more.

"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Weasley?" Snape was still ignoring the bushy haired girls now quivering hand.

"What is the difference, Weasley, between monkshood and Wolfsbane?" at this the bushy haired girl actually stood from her seat her hand stretching towards the ceiling.

"I don't know," said Ron quietly. "I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try her?"A few people laughed; Ron caught Seamus's eye, and Seamus winked. Snape, however, was not pleased. "Sit down," he snapped at Hermione. He then looked around the classroom before his eyes landed on Harry in the back of the class.

"Perhaps you can answer my questions Potter?" Snape asked him quietly as the students once more turned in their seats to look at Harry.

"Yes sir, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and Wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite." Harry answered in a bland tone of voice causing most of the Gryffindor's jaws to drop.

"One last question Mr. Potter, where did you learn the answers to those questions?" Snape asked confirming that Harry had answered all three questions correctly.

"In the first chapter of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi where it gives an introduction to potions-making and the most common ingredients used in the classroom." Harry replied without missing a beat.

"Very good Mr. Potter, take twenty points for Slytherin." Snape then put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Harry, whom he seemed to like as he had allowed Harry to work on his own. He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect potion Harry had brewed when clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon. Neville had somehow managed to melt Seamus's cauldron into a twisted blob, and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people's shoes. Within seconds, the whole class was standing on their stools while Neville, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.

"Idiot boy!" snarled Snape, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?"Neville whimpered as boils started to pop up all over his nose. "Take him up to the hospital wing" Snape spat at Seamus.

Then he rounded on Dean and Ron, who had been working next to Neville. "You - Weasley - why didn't you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he'd make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That's another point you've lost for Gryffindor." Ron's face burned crimson in anger and he opened his mouth to say something before Dean kicked him under the table warning him not to push it.

An hour later Harry was sat at the Slytherin table eating tuna pasta-bake for his lunch when Daphne and Tracy sat down across from him.

"Have you seen this Harry?" Daphne asked him as she passed him a copy of that mornings Daily Prophet.

"No not yet." Harry replied as he opened the paper.

Harry Potter the Next Dark Lord? By Rita Skeeter

Was the glaring headline that jumped out at Harry as he looked at the front page. Somehow the newspaper reporter had found out that Harry had been sorted into Slytherin house and because of his defeat of Voldemort when he was one and now been sorted into the house Voldemort was descended from, automatically made him the next Dark Lord somehow. As he finished reading the article and looked around the great hall, Harry noticed that most of the other houses were looking at him with suspicion and some fear.

"Thank you for showing me this Daphne." Harry said as he threw the paper aside.

"What are you going to do?" Tracy asked seemingly sensing that he was not about to let it slide.

"First I'm going to find out whether or not I have a lawyer then I'm going to sue them." Harry answered with a hint of a smirk on his face.

"You do have a lawyer, he's the same as my family's lawyer, Pollux Porter of Porter and Sons law firm." Tracy informed him with a grin.

"That's alright then." Harry smirked fully now knowing that Tracy's lawyer would not try to pull anything funny when it came to the contracts they were going to sign, he would just have to have his lawyer look over the contracts from Daphne and Theodore's lawyers before signing. Harry had his own motto; DTA: Don't Trust Anybody.

Two weeks later

A fortnight into their first year and Harry had fallen into a routine. He would wake up at half past 5 every morning before going for a run around the lake, after-which he would do his twenty press and sit ups before using Dudley's dumbbell's that he had got a house-elf from the kitchens to steal from number four. After his workout was complete he would then go back to his dorm for a shower before dressing for the day. In all his classes he was the unofficial top student, unofficial because they had yet to take any tests to show who was top of their year, yet he was always the first to complete a potion or master a spell, his homework always came back with compliments of his in-depth answers/explanations. He also seemed to be every teachers favourite student, well except McGonagall's who he still completely ignored much to the professor's annoyance.

He had also signed the alliance-contracts with Daphne, Tracy and Theodore which had been reported in the Daily Prophet, who two days afterwards got the shock of their lives when Harry successfully sued them. Rita Skeeter who had slandered Harry had been ordered to pay him ten thousand galleons in compensation and the Daily Prophet been banned from mentioning Harry's name in their paper for two years. The Gryffindor's, Hufflepuff's, Ravenclaw's and the professors had stared at him in shock upon reading how the Boy-Who-Lived had sued the paper while the Slytherin's and Professor Snape had openly laughed outright. Ron Weasley however, seemed hell bent on antagonising him at every chance he got, making snide remarks whenever they were in earshot of each other and also trying to blame him for every little thing that went wrong for him in classes. So far Daphne and Tracy had managed to make sure Harry didn't beat him into the ground but Harry was patient, he would wait until they were both alone and then he would beat the redheaded little prick to a pulp.

Staff room second floor

"Staff meeting closed." Albus Dumbledore said ending the staff meeting. At the beginning of every year they would hold a staff meeting after two weeks to discuss how the first year students were settling in. As the professor's began to leave the classroom, he motioned for the heads of house to stay behind.

"Now what are your observations of Mr. Potter?" Dumbledore asked once only he and the heads of house remained.

"He is a very polite and gifted child when it comes to potions." Snape answered quickly, smirking when four pairs of startled eyes snapped towards him.

"After the way you were talking about him in the summer I expected you to be the first to call him an arrogant pampered prince." Flitwick squeaked with a slight smile on his face.

"Yes well that was before I saw the two memories of Potter and the Dark Lord as a boy and before Potter was sorted into my house. He reminds me a lot of myself when I was his age, emotionally detached from the world and untrusting of everyone." Here Dumbledore broke in.

"How do you mean untrusting of everyone?" Dumbledore asked with a frown.

"Well some of the 6th and 7th years that I trust completely have informed me that Potter has his own motto." Snape replied in a slightly hesitant voice as he knew the headmaster would not like Potter's motto.

"His own motto, you mean his family motto?" Professor Spout asked in confusion.

"No his own motto that he adopted as a very young child." Snape replied with a head shake.

"And what is his motto?" Dumbledore asked with a feeling in the pit of his stomach that he would not like what he was about to hear.

"DTA; don't trust anybody." Snape replied with a long sigh as he watched Dumbledore close his eyes.

"Don't trust anybody." Dumbledore repeated softly before he opened his eyes and looked at his four most trusted staff members. "What in Merlin's name did those Muggle's do to him so he had to adopt such a motto?" as he asked this Albus looked every one of his 152 years and then some.

"What can we do to ensure he does not turn to the dark arts? McGonagall asked after a few minutes silence.

"Show him love, caring and kindness." Flitwick spoke up before anyone else could so much as open their mouths.

"I shall talk to Ms. Greengrass and Ms. Davis privately and explain the situation, see if they can't show him kindness and caring without raising his suspicions as they seem to be the closest to him." Snape told them with a firm nod of his head knowing that he had made the right choice to view Harry Potter as the child of Lily Evans rather than the spawn of James Potter.

"That's a good idea. An invite to spend the Christmas holiday with them should help wonders also." Smiled Professor Sprout.

"And I shall see if I can't find other arrangements for his summer holidays, it is quite clear that he cannot remain with his aunt and uncle." Dumbledore mused aloud as the wheels in his brilliant mind began to turn.

"Yes and since we have almost 10 months until next summer, we should be able to make sure the place is the most secure place on earth." McGonagall spoke up showing that even though Harry did not like her and completely ignored her in class she was willing to go out of her way to make sure he was protected and safe during the summer.

"Hopefully with us all working together we will be able to prevent another Tom Riddle." Dumbledore said with a small smile and hope in his voice.

"I still can't believe he sued the Daily Prophet." Flitwick suddenly spoke up with a giggle seemingly unable to spot himself any longer.

"It was pretty funny." Laughed Sprout in agreement. Soon they were all having a good laugh at the thought of a first year Hogwarts student successfully suing a newspaper company. Harry Potter had not even been at Hogwarts a month and already he had already gone down in Hogwarts history and legend as the only known student to sue a company of any kind.

However their laughed soon died when the door burst open and a frantic looking Amanda Turpin came rushing through the door.

"Headmaster, Professor's come quickly, Ron Weasley has been viscously attacked and put in the hospital wing." Amanda informed them before rushing back out the door as the headmaster and professor's quickly scrambled to follow her out the door.

End of chapter

AN2: I'll end it here as this is a good place to end it and make you want more. Was it worth the wait? Two weeks at Hogwarts and Harry is already making history and making alliances. As you can see my Harry is not just going to lie back and take slander or anything else of the sort. Oh and to move away from the norm of Fanfiction I'm allowing females to be able to become the heads of their families instead of just filling the duty until their first born son is of age thus making my story a little different and you know what they say, little things soon mount up into big things.