Chapter Text
It was in between the summer of first and second year that Harry had an epiphany. He had always had a number of unpleasant chores from his relatives, but cooking was something he often enjoyed. While his upbringing was not something to be desired, it did occasionally come in handy at Hogwarts. The malice he faced from a dour potions professor with a personal vendetta against him, while being terrible, was never as bad as what he faced at the hands of the Dursley’s. At least he couldn’t lay a hand on him whereas that didn’t seem to apply to his relatives.
It was during a particularly challenging recipe that Petunia wanted him to make for a business dinner that Harry made the connection. Potion preparation and food preparation were arguably the same thing with the exception of the more ‘out there’ potion ingredients. Both consisted of dicing, chopping, mincing, and many other skills Harry had learned early on. Seeing as he had been cooking since he was 6 he probably should have realized sooner. The biggest difference was that when cooking he didn’t particularly mind the differences to be that precise that the field of potions called for.
So it started as personal potion practice. After the disaster that was first year potions he quickly realized that he had to take things into his own hands, instead of coasting through the school year, to escape ridicule; a challenging feat to say the least as the professor had it out to get him. Fortunately he made the connection sooner rather than later during the summer and it was a relief to be able to practice for school even if he couldn’t do magic. In the beginning he spent a great deal of time working on precision, but when he took too long hell was raised from Petunia. Having new motivation to speed up the process he became quite adept in preparation skills.
It wasn’t hard to put into practice his newfound technique into Potions once school began. He clearly wasn’t good enough yet as preparation was only one part of pioneering and he still lacked the grace of timing, but there was a substantial improvement that Hermione noticed,
“Harry, when did you learn how to prepare shrivlefig?” Hermione was his partner for the class and was exceedingly pleased that he had at least some idea of what to do.
“I had a revelation of sorts”- he looked up and saw Snape glaring daggers at them- “I’ll tell you about it later.” He quickly went back to prep while Hermione was stirring and adding. Harry was no longer making Hermione wait up for him to finish preparing something, he was actually almost always two or three ingredients ahead of her and it gave him time to actually pay attention to what she was doing. He was amazed that he didn’t make the connection sooner, looking over the instructions on the board he could see the similarities to following a recipe. And if 9 years of living with and serving the Dursley’s had taught him anything, it was how to cook.
As class was coming to an end, Harry turned in a neatly labeled potion that was the exact consistency and colour as described on the board. Not that it wouldn’t be when partnered with Hermione, but this time he felt more of a co-partner rather than just dead weight. The trio met up in the hallway outside the classroom and Harry turned to Hermione and Ron,
“Want to go to the library?” Ron had stopped in his tracks looking stunned but Hermione had composed herself much faster
“Sure, Harry! Looking for anything specific?” she asked
“Want to get my homework out of the way, it is study period,” the two continued down the hall but stopped when they noticed Ron wasn’t with them.
“Where’s Harry and what have you done with him?” Ron started to catch up.
“Mate it’s me, I just figured I’m going to try harder this year at school and I don’t want to fall behind.”
“But we were going to go to play a pick up quidditch!”
“I didn’t know about the game Ron, I really can’t afford to give Snape any more ammunition to pester me with. I need to work on this essay.”
“But it’s not due until Monday, and- and it’s Friday!”
“If you haven’t noticed Ronald there is more than one class that gives homework, I think it’s great Harry is taking some ownership for his grades!” She beamed at Harry who ducked his head at the pride radiating off of her.
“We can play quidditch another time. I’m going with Hermione to the library” Harry promptly turned down the wrong hallway
“Ahem, uh, Harry the library is this way…” Hermione pointed in the corridor opposite to where Harry had started making his way down.
“Oh uh right! I’ll remember that for next time” he scurried back and followed Hermione while Ron branched off, silently fuming.
In the library Harry and Hermione found an empty alcove and Hermione started emptying her belongings onto the table. As she was taking out more books than seemed humanly possible from her small school backpack she spoke up,
“So how did you become a potion connoisseur overnight, not that I am complaining, it just seemed like you knew what you were doing to some extent.” She quirked an eyebrow as she looked up from her seemingly bottomless bag.
“Oh uh well I wouldn’t say connoisseur... I just came to somewhat of an understanding over the summer that helped it make more sense. Along with the looming presence of the dungeon bat over my shoulder I have sufficient motivation to do better now” He smiled cheekily. Hermione’s eyes softened.
“Professor Snape has to, as you put it, loom because potions are dangerous.”
“Hermione you can’t be telling me you think that the guy treats me like everyone else?! Even before I was the worst in potions, I still got the most detentions and points taken.”
“Okay well you have somewhat of a point, he seems to have some personal…”
“Vendetta?”
“Fine vendetta, against you that is very unfair, but now that you’re better maybe he won’t loom as much.”
“Hermione Granger not supporting a teacher!? Wow clearly we’ve both changed.” Harry laughed but quickly stifled it after being at the receiving end of a glare from Madam Pince.
“Well after the whole fiasco last year” She paused leaving them both to their thoughts of what happened to QuirllMort for a moment before finishing her thought, “Sometimes teachers don’t always know what's best… That doesn’t mean they don't deserve respect though, don’t take my words out of context!” She waited for Harry to absorb what she said and form his own thoughts.
“I agree that teachers don’t always know what’s best” he started “But what if they don’t deserve respect, if they don’t respect me then why should I respect them?” Harry genuinely asked.
“I think as a general rule teachers know what’s best, they did spend years studying their subject and many years teaching it, so who’s to say that a couple of fresh second years know better than them!” Harry nodded in surprise understanding.
“I suppose you’re right, as always” he laughed.
“As far as the respect thing goes, you grew up muggle so you know what I mean by the golden rule, do to others what you want done to you, it applies to a lot of aspects in your life really.” She began to theorize but Harry shrugged “hear me out, with teachers you have to give them a reason to respect you and if you respect them first there’s their reason. So because we both know you mean Professor Snape, don’t back talk and just take the sneers and hopefully when he realized that you have some respect for him as a teacher, doesn’t have to be as a person” seeing his face scrunch up in disgust- “just as a teacher and don’t undermine him as a master of his craft, he has his mastery and those take years to get so he’ll know better than we probably ever will when it comes to potions.”
“You know,” Harry interrupted her speech, “when I first learnt of the different subjects here I was really excited for Potions, it was probably the thing I looked forward to the most, I always loved chemistry at school and after the whole speech about stoppering death it sounded so cool, but then it went downhill from there. I didn’t even do anything except bugger up a few questions and then get called out as a celebrity for something I don’t even remember!” Madam Pince looked their way again and he mouthed the word sorry and her face softened a bit.
“He did seem to have it out for you, but he did save you from falling off your broom last year. And tried to protect the stone even though we thought it was him. A big miscalculation on our part.”
“Yeah I suppose...” He trailed off. It was all so confusing, he seemed to hate his guts but then he goes out of his way to save and protect him. Why couldn’t it be just one or the other. Harry voiced his concern to Hermione and she responded with,
“I don’t know why he’s so inconsistent and begrudgingly helpful in emergencies. I think you should give him a chance or at least not focus on it too much. Your reputation does proceed you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well he seemed to think he had you all figured out by the first class so he doesn’t know the real you” She playfully punched his arm “And it’s not like you went into class with no bias as well. We already heard that people thought of him as the ‘dungeon bat’ but when you think about it, it is quite a rude nickname.”
Harry thought back to their first class, while being excited he was already on the defensive so it did cloud some judgement he reasoned. But he was still a git to him either way. He mulled over his thoughts “So you’re saying that if I respect him, he will eventually respect me?”
“Well yes and no, basically you want to break that already formed picture he has of you. Hopefully by showing respect to him, he learns part of the real you and not the picture he’s made you out to be.”
“I guess I can try. It seems easier than holding a grudge anyways, I’m already polite.” He brightened and Hermione went in for a hug. He flinched at the contact but reciprocated it anyways. “What was that for?”
“For being logical and thinking things through before you do something stupid like hate the guy for the rest of school. It’ll make life easier if he doesn’t get under your skin.” Harry gave a small smile and stood up to find some books for his essay. Hermione turned back to her books and continued working on a transfiguration essay, making some final edits before having to hand it in later today. They worked in amicable silence, occasionally voicing a question to the other. Hermione quickly found out that Harry, while not appearing outwardly smart and ambitious, really was quite adept at magic theory and knew a great deal but just didn’t showcase it. Harry realized that what Hermione had to say was quite thought provoking if you were attentive enough to find the actual thread of conversation amongst all the facts. They complemented each other quite nicely and before long they realized it was time for dinner.
They packed up their books, Hermione piling way more than physically possible into her bag and gave Harry a sly look. ‘Magic’ she mouthed and Harry snorted. On their way out Harry gave a quick thanks to Madam Pince who gave a small smile in return also apologizing for being loud saying that he had just come to a new revelation and would aim to be quieter next time.
“You’re always welcome here, dear.” She said on their way out.