"Not a wrong answer in the list," Draco confirmed, nodding.
"But not a complete list, either," added Snape from across the room. Harry glanced up to where his father was seated on the couch, legs elegantly crossed as he read a potions journal.
"I've covered every blossom, leaf, and seed, sir," Harry objected. "What do you mean, the list isn't complete?"
Snape smirked a bit. "The sunflower seeds have been adulterated. In fact, I'd advise against eating them."
"Poisonous?"
"No, merely unpleasant."
"I'll never solve it," Harry lamented as he plucked a seed out of the vase and studied it. "They're a bit browner than usual, I suppose, as though coated... but how am I supposed to know what they've been soaked in?"
"You might try asking a Gryffindor," Snape pointed out.
"Now you're recommending I cheat?"
"Actually, identifying the plants is often done through direct inquiry," Snape admitted. "Especially if one is not gifted in herbology or its sister science, potions." He was looking at Ron as he said it, which Harry thought odd, until it occurred to him that his father was giving him a pointed hint. Ask a Gryffindor...
"Ron," Harry ventured, a little hesitantly. "I don't suppose you'd know what Ginny and the others put in my well-wish?"
The Gryffindor boy kept resolutely writing, his brow wrinkled in concentration as he scratched quill across parchment.
"Ron," Harry tried again to get his attention. No such luck.
"Mr. Weasley," Snape drawled in a tone that could only be thought threatening, though it was no louder than Harry's had been. Sure enough, it did the trick.
Ron looked up, his gaze a bit clouded. "Yes, sir?"
Snape narrowed his gaze. "Harry was talking to you."
Ron grimaced, the lie blatantly obvious as he all but sneered, "Oh, was he? So sorry, I didn't hear a word. What did you want, Potter?"
"Oh for Merlin's sake, you've been my best friend for five years!" Harry exclaimed. "Stop it with this 'Potter' rubbish! You sound like Snape and Draco used to, which I'd think would be enough to cure you of it."
"Perhaps he needs to write several thousand repetitions of Harry has a first name," Snape mused, the words idle for all his tone of voice remained a potent threat.
"Harry," Ron conceded, scowling. "What did you want?"
"I think you heard me. About the well-wish?"
Ron didn't bother denying it, not with Snape there just itching to assign more lines. "Since it's not from me--not one part of it, is that clear?" he scathed, "I've no idea what went into it. Now, if you don't mind, I have seventeen more blasted sentences to write!"
Only seventeen? Harry couldn't help feeling relieved for his friend. As badly as Ron was handling the whole adoption thing, Harry hadn't enjoyed watching him come down night after night to suffer this punishment. He didn't care what Snape had to say about it, ten thousand lines was unreasonable. It had amounted to over four solid weeks of detention, which was completely out of line for something that was not in fact a Hogwarts matter. It wasn't as though Ron had vented his anger during class, or in the halls, or even to Snape himself. The incident had been a fight between friends, nothing more, and not for the first time, Harry felt a wave of frustration overtake him that Snape couldn't see that.
"I'm glad you're almost done," Harry softly vowed, not that it appeased Ron one whit.
"Yeah, me too," Ron grumbled, and he didn't mean merely that a relief from writer's cramp would be welcome. He meant he didn't want to be anywhere near Harry; it was clear to everyone in the room.
Speaking of writer's cramp, though... Harry went over to his father and sat down on the couch with him, saying, "Could you spell my hands again, sir? The charm seemed to last about six days this last time, but now they really hurt again."
Snape took out his wand and touched it to each finger and palm, murmuring in Latin, and then quietly said, "Arabic gum, Harry."
"You'd like me to fetch some?"
Snape laughed, the deep sound imbued with a father's pleasure. "No. Your well-wish. The sunflower seeds are coated in Arabic gum."
"Oh..." Flexing his hands, Harry beamed. "Thank you, Professor."
Our of the corner of his eye, Harry caught Ron watching him with his father. When Harry glanced that way, though, the Gryffindor boy wasted no time in looking down at his scroll.
"Well," Harry said, making his way back to the table, "with Ginny's book, it should be a snap to find out now what the well-wish means."
"Won't that be interesting," Draco snarked. "I'm looking forward to seeing your face when you unravel it."
Harry couldn't imagine Ginny and Neville and the rest of them wishing bad things for him, so he didn't have any idea what Draco meant. Sure, none of the Gryffindors would have chosen for him to have Snape as a father, if it had been up to them, but they'd more-or-less accepted it... except for the two who'd always been his closest friends.
Not that Ron was acting like such a friend just then. Or Hermione either, really... though she wasn't anywhere near as bad as Ron. At least she had the grace to try to keep their friendship going, even as she hinted at her concerns and worries.
"You're just having me on," Harry told Draco.
"Use your book," the other boy told him. "You'll see."
"Professor?" Harry questioned, beginning to feel a bit anxious.
"Your friends have expressed their sentiments with exactitude," was all Snape would say. That didn't sound too bad. But then again, Snape was a master of the diabolical double-meaning.
"I'll just get to work then," Harry decided, flipping open Well We Wish You to look for the entry on bluebells.
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The research, even with Ginny's book, was a bit harder than Harry had anticipated. In the first place, the book didn't cover all seven things that were in his well-wish, and in the second, the entries it did have were far from complete. It covered sunflower blossoms and stamens but not the seeds, for instance. He'd just managed to figure out that strawberry leaves were a wish for luck and love --didn't sound bad to him-- when Ron shuffled his parchment and announced,
"There. Ten thousand, Professor. Now, if you don't mind, I'll be on my way--"
"One moment, Mr. Weasley," Snape interrupted.
Ron was half-way to standing, but that had him flopping back down in his chair. "What?"
"You went from seven thousand nine hundred and eighty-one to seven thousand nine hundred and eighty-three, skipping the intervening number," the Potions Master intoned, some horrible kind of dark humor lurking in his voice. "Your punishment was for a full ten thousand sentences."
Harry was about to object that that was awfully petty, but Ron had already snatched the quill back up off the tabletop and was scratching off another sentence. Probably for the best. It was sure to get Ron released more quickly than arguing over the matter.
Or was it?
"There," Ron said again, stressing the word.
This time he stood all the way up before Snape drawled, his voice unmistakably ringing with dark pleasure, "There's also the matter of numbers eight hundred fifteen, two thousand forty-seven, and five thousand one hundred and four, all of which are positively illegible and do not come up to the standard I demand of my students."
"Professor!" Harry cried out. "Be reasonable!"
"I don't need you taking up for me, Potter," Ron snarled. Without even sitting, he rushed out three more sentences and then fuming, stomped over to where Snape sat and dangled them in his face. "There! Satisfied, now, you..." Apparently thinking better of whatever insult had been about to cross his lips, Ron hastily amended it to a scarcely more polite, "Sir?"