While reading fanfic, it occurs to me that the correct answer to

[conuly]

"Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?" is "Probably the supply cabinet."

I mean, does Snape expect him to slaughter a goat right there in the classroom? (You don't need to tell me that pointing this out would not have helped.)

Bezoars are real, by the way, though we've known for a very long time that they don't cure poison.

**********

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Comments

[alexseanchai]

I have seen that answer in a fic, but the fic I thought it was (Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past) turns out to not be it…

[conuly]

Link if you find it, will you?

[alexseanchai]

"Miss Mayeux, where would I look to find a bezoar?"

"In that cabinet, third shelf, on the left in the wicker basket," said the black girl, pointing at the smaller of the supply cabinets.

"I meant in its natural state, Miss Mayeux," Snape said with gritted teeth.

"You should have said so," the girl responded with the same slightly absent tone that the Lovegood girl used when she was at her most aggravating. "You'd find it in the stomach of an ibex or goat, of course. Or in the stomach of a sheep, but the quality isn't nearly as good."

—Ishtar, many chapters into Harry Potter and the Junior Year Abroad

[conuly]

Honestly, Snape, what did you expect?

[alexseanchai]

for context, these are sixteen-year-old exchange students he's quizzing, using the same set of questions he canonically gave eleven-year-olds in their first lesson, so even before we get to the parts blatantly criticizing Snape as a teacher and as someone who keeps up on outside-UK advances in his field…

[moon_custafer]

Now I kind of want a “think of ponies before zebras” teacher who’s trying to get the students to give the pragmatic rather than the textbook answer, and who snaps “and if I asked you for a match, would you go cut down a tree?” at the first one who confidently replies “the stomach of a goat.”