C H A P T E R E I G H T
THE POTIONS MASTER
T
here, look.”
“Where?”
“Next to the tall kid with the red hair.”
“Wearing the glasses?”
“Did you see his face?”
“Did you see his scar?”
Whispers followed Harry from the moment he left his dormi-
tory the next day. People lining up outside classrooms stood on tip-
toe to get a look at him, or doubled back to pass him in the
corridors again, staring. Harry wished they wouldn’t, because he
was trying to concentrate on finding his way to classes.
There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts:
wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led some-
where different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up
that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that
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