Mountain Fold (Oliver Wood)

Chapter Four

Anna could only watch as a fierce and epic battle waged before her. Neither side was willing to give up, they would fight until the bitter end. It was the battle of the century. Paper butterflies vs paper cranes.

She had been overwhelmingly bored, which was how a tiny paper war had broken out in their History of Magic classroom. Professor Binns had noticed but didn't seem too sure what to do about it so he just continued to drone on about Giant Wars. Meanwhile the class of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws and become quite distracted.

Anna noticed that the butterflies and cranes weren't actually hurting each other and didn't seem to be fighting from dislike, in fact, they appeared to be acting out what Professor Binns was telling them about the giant wars. When the leader of one giant tribe, the Gurg, defeated another Gurg, a butterfly and crane started to fight, only for the crane to fall dramatically to the ground. It certainly made learning History a little more interesting.

Everyone gasped when one of the butterflies started to wreak havoc and challenged the leader butterfly to a fight, the challenger butterfly won and was made the new leader. The class continued like this, some people lost interest and dozed off or started sketching while others attempted to listen to Professor Binns but usually ended up distracted and struggle to focus on the monotone lecture.

Everyone was grateful when the class ended, until they realised that they had Potions next. Darian let out a groan, dragging his feet when they made their way down to the dungeon.

"Do we have to go?" He asked.

"Unfortunately, yes."

They got to the classroom and sat in their seats at the back of the room, preferring to stay as far away from Professor Snape as possible. He looked at them with cold black eyes.

"Today we will be revising a potion from last year to see if any of you are competent enough to remember what you have learned, the Girding Potion."

Most of the class went smoothly, Snape seemed rather disinterested in what they were doing. Anna and Darian both managed to get their potions to change to the right colour, from turquoise to pink to red to blue to silver and back to red. They were nine out of thirteen steps though the potion and Anna believed that they might get though the class without anything happening and she could have a good day.

But that did not happen.

They had added in the doxy eggs and were about to add the dragonfly thoraxes when suddenly Snape was looming before them. Anna had to block out the sullen resentfulness that seems to radiate off the man.

He looked into Darian cauldron with distaste to see the incredibly bright red potion. Anna hoped he wouldn't be unfair and try to find a way to tell Darian off especially since she could see that one Hufflepuff's potion was an odd pink/silver marble colour and a Ravenclaw's potion was smoking much more than it should be. Compared to some people in the class, Darian potion looked perfect. But that didn't stop Snape from finding a way to criticize it.

"Hmmm, looking at that red I'd say you added too many doxy eggs, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if your potion started to grow hair and an extra pair of arms and legs."

"It's not that bad!" Darian protested, "it's only a little brighter than it's meant to be."

"I believe that I'm the Potion Master out of the both of us, I think I know what colour it's meant to be better than you do."

Darian looked outraged, he was trying to hold himself back from arguing but he couldn't help himself when he saw the smug look on Snape's face.

"Well you're obviously not a very good Potions Master!" Darian snapped, and regretted it when Snape frowned at him.

"I think that'll be ten points from Hufflepuff for your hubris and for showing such disrespect for a teacher. Another word out of you, Mr Sauvage and it'll be twenty," Snape sneered at him. Darian could only glare at him, nearly as red in the face as his potion and brewing with anger.

Snape completely ignored Anna, who was also glaring at him and turned to make his way back to his desk. Only to come crashing to the floor halfway there. Nobody in the room dared to laugh even if some of them really wanted to (especially Darian). Snape was standing up now and looked infuriated with something clutched in his fist.

In one heart stopping moment Anna realised what is was. She was horrified to see that Snape had a tight hold on the bright blue rhino that he had seen her make the other morning, it was struggling to get out of his grip.

Anna wished that the ground would swallow her whole and she had to fight the urge to bolt out of the room as Snape turned to her. He looked angrier than he ever did when he bullied Darian, he threw the little rhino into a nearby cauldron where it dissolved quickly.

He opened and closed his mouth a few times before he was finally able to get the words out.

"Detention Miss..." he trailed off, turning around, and making his way over to his desk.

Anna was confused for a few seconds before she realised that despite teaching her for three years, Professor Snape had forgotten her name.