"Professor, what's wrong? Did I mess up the potion?"
Before Professor Snape could figure out how Tom's… unique way of brewing somehow produced a flawless potion—one with shockingly high quality—Tom cut straight into his thoughts.
Snape stared at him in silence for a long moment before finally squeezing out a sentence through clenched teeth:
"L—… Tom, your potion was a complete success. And the quality… was extremely high."
He looked into Tom's eyes, then quickly glanced away.
"Considering this was your first time brewing, Hufflepuff… gets five points."
He said it with a stiff expression, clearly dying inside. If it were any other student—unless they were from Slytherin—Snape would never give points. But he had no choice. Tom had him in a chokehold.
---
"Wait—what did he just say? Did he really give Hufflepuff points?!"
"This cat is amazing! I've never seen Snape give points to someone from another house!"
The room erupted into whispers.
"Enough! What's all this noise?!"
Snape's face darkened even more as the chatter grew.
"Did any of you finish your potions? No? Then stop talking! Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw—three points deducted!"
"And if you don't finish a potion that I'm satisfied with before class ends, you can all stay after and clean this entire classroom!"
That shut the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws up real fast. Everyone rushed back to their cauldrons.
No one even thought about copying Tom's brewing method. They couldn't understand how it worked at all—especially the kids who'd watched him the whole time.
Tom had thrown in unprepared ingredients all together, mixed them randomly, and somehow produced a perfect potion. By all logic, his cauldron should have exploded. Yet… it didn't.
Everything he did was wrong… and it still turned out perfect?
That wasn't magic—that was a glitch in reality.
Because of that, not even the smartest Ravenclaws tried to imitate him.
And the Hufflepuffs? They followed Snape's instructions to the letter. Which, frankly, relieved Snape greatly.
Thank God this was a Hufflepuff–Ravenclaw class.
If these were Gryffindors—those lovable idiots—half the class would already be in the hospital wing.
Snape resumed walking around the room. But this time he was clearly distracted. Even when someone messed up badly, he didn't react.
Those Ravenclaws who expected to be yelled at breathed a sigh of relief and shot Tom grateful looks.
In their minds, Tom was the only reason Snape was holding back.
More and more students stared at Tom with burning curiosity.
Tom, extremely sensitive to stares, felt his fur crawling. Eventually he couldn't take it anymore and wrapped himself in a cloth like a burrito, burying his head on the desk like an ostrich.
Snape, of course, noticed… but he let it slide.
After all, he'd just seen Tom brew a perfect potion with nonsense steps, and Dumbledore had mentioned Tom's strange soul-related ability.
Genius came with privileges.
As long as Tom completed assignments to perfection, Snape figured he'd tolerate… most things.
(Though letting him use a cauldron as a hotpot was still absolutely not happening.)
When Snape realized many students were zoning out and forgetting what they were doing, he simply let out a cold snort and decided they'd all pay for their distraction later.
---
So when class ended?
Aside from most Hufflepuffs and a handful of Ravenclaws, everyone else had their potions marked as failing.
Honestly, they should consider themselves lucky none of them pulled a "Neville situation" and melted their cauldron or themselves.
The good news: for the next semester, Snape would never have to worry about classroom cleaning again.
Thus ended Tom's very first class at Hogwarts—memorable, chaotic, and destined to make his name spread through the school.
He was, after all, the only student in years who dared challenge Snape in front of everyone, lived to tell the tale… and even earned points for it.
Considering Snape's unusual behavior today—and the fact that Tom was the only new variable—well, students were definitely going to blame Tom for Snape acting weird.
But that was a problem for later.
Just as Tom was leaving the classroom, Snape suddenly appeared in front of him.
"Tom. Come to my office."
Then he turned and left without another word, leaving Tom frozen in panic.
(;ﾟДﾟ) "D-Did I… do something wrong? I didn't anger him, right?"
Please forgive a kid raised in strict schooling—no matter how long he'd been a cat, the phrase "come to my office" still triggered childhood trauma.
After saying a quick goodbye to Hannah, Tom slowly dragged himself toward Snape's office.
---
Snape's office was exactly what Tom imagined a wizard's cabin would look like:
Shelves lined with jars filled with eyeballs, wings, bones—basically everything you'd find in a spooky American Halloween prop store, except real.
If Tom had woken up here on his first day in this world, he would've thought he'd wandered into a witch's hut.
Before Tom could absorb the setting, Snape spoke:
"The Headmaster already told me what you need."
"You don't need to worry about anything. Just give me the list—I can find whatever ingredients you want."
He said it with the confidence of one of the world's top potion masters.
"And if you really can bring someone back to life… never mind. Forget I said anything."
He hesitated, clearly thinking about someone—Lily.
But he held back.
Not yet… not until I know for sure he can really bring back the dead.
And he definitely wasn't going to ask Tom to find Lily's soul first—because once Lily returned, she'd beg him to help bring back James Potter too.
And Snape was absolutely not emotionally prepared for that.
Snape finally continued:
"That's all. If you're done, write up a list of everything you need."
After a short pause, he added stiffly:
"And… if you can maintain the level of skill you displayed today, I'll exempt you from all Potions homework."
"I have things to take care of. Go on to the Great Hall."
Then Snape practically shoved the cat out the door before Tom could respond.
Tom didn't know what exactly Snape was dealing with afterward, but he was pretty happy about being exempt from homework. So he generously decided not to hold the "shoving" against Snape and trotted happily toward dinner.
Later, though, he heard some Gryffindors gossiping:
Apparently that afternoon, someone saw Snape walking around with his robe full of burn holes… like something had exploded on him.
---