The dungeon was always cold and damp, yellowish stains blotting the stone walls.
Shelves held glass jars of uncanny shapes, each steeping some indescribable substance—some bubbling, others lying in quiet sediment.
Mist from the cauldrons veiled the room, making Professor Snape's face waver and blur.
"Sean, we've got this," Justin whispered, trying to pep them both up.
Sean, however, could see his hands trembling.
He understood. Last time they'd brewed a blue potion—and been flayed by Snape for it.
"Want me to prep ingredients?" Justin asked, a touch tight.
Sean shook his head lightly. "I'll be quick."
Justin didn't press. He watched even more closely as Sean prepped the ingredients, lit the cauldron, and set the heat…
Every motion was textbook-smooth.
Compared with the other first-years—hesitant, anxious—Sean was moving at least three times as fast.
Potions is a precise, exacting branch of magic. Competent apothecaries need broad, intricate knowledge. That's why Snape is so strict: if first-years don't follow the harsh steps, only Merlin knows what those magical substances will do inside a shimmering cauldron.
So most first-years move like machines, ticking off the steps, and only when fluency comes does the wonder of potions reveal itself.
Sean, though, had fully sunk his mind into the craft. Fluent prep, flawless heat, measured stirring, strict timings…
The cauldron burbled. Justin tracked every step, acting as Sean's second—handing him ingredients, calling time.
While others were still fumbling, the two of them had already added the final porcupine quills.
Snape's eye caught their abnormal pace. His shadowed gaze fell into the cauldron. In a blink he could guess the outcome—passable, but nothing special.
He snorted and looked away.
"It's time," Sean said.
They had reached the final—and most crucial—phase. In his head he wasn't reciting the centuries-old rite but Master Libatius Borage's unrecognized breakthrough.
Sean spoke the incantation; the rite began—his first time truly using the revised ritual. His will sharpened like never before. He imagined himself an apothecary brewing to heal boils, and as that feeling flowed, the potion itself changed at the root: the bluish-green turned viscous; the gel cleared of every impurity.
[You brewed one cauldron of Cure for Boils at Adept standard. Proficiency +10]
Justin forgot to breathe. He compared the brew to Snape's demonstration from memory—there was almost no gap.
"Sean… did we pull it off?" he whispered, tense.
"Mm."
A wave of deep fatigue hit, like going three days without sleep. Master Borage hadn't been kidding.
"Brilliant! I knew we could do it!" Justin exhaled hard, decanted the potion carefully into a crystal vial, then squared his shoulders to await Snape's inspection—nothing like last time's pale, jittery wreck. Even the exhausted Sean couldn't help but smile.
"You two are… finished?" Michael was craning his neck nearby, Terry peeking over a beat later.
"Of course—Sean brewed a per—"
Justin's words died as the storm arrived.
Snape's tall frame blotted the light; his cold eyes hushed the whole ring of first-years by force of presence.
"Perfect—" he drawled, lifting the vial. A sneer started at his mouth, then—miraculously—faded. He almost… froze.
If the brew in the cauldron had been merely passable, the vial in his hand was brushing the threshold of Outstanding.
Frightening progress.
"Barely acceptable," he grated at last, setting the vial down. "Add one point—each."
His robes snapped as he swept away.
"Did I… hear that right?" Michael gaped. A circle of first-years stared, stunned.
"Fantastic, Sean—we earned back what he docked," Justin grinned, clearly having taken the point loss to heart.
Sean only nodded and glanced at his panel:
[Cure for Boils: Locked (15/30)]
Halfway. If he could hold Adept level, two more rounds would unlock his Potions title.
…
If Snape awarding Ravenclaw a point was a small thing, in Michael's retelling it became "Snape gave Sean two hundred Galleons and cooked him two dishes." The rumor kept running clear into History of Magic that afternoon.
That class turned into a freewheeling, vibes-heavy gossip session. They weren't only talking about Sean, but the bits that reached his ears still left him speechless.
"Went toe-to-toe with a mountain troll and walked away, bare-handed a werewolf—"
Even Michael, rumor-monger-in-chief, stalled at that. Do you lot hear yourselves? Then he leaned in: "One mountain troll? Try three," he said, solemn as a judge.
Next to Sean, Justin had turned beet-red trying not to laugh.
Sean sighed and went back to structuring history. The skeleton was built, the key content filled in, but it wasn't perfect yet.
Tuesday's History class paired Hufflepuff with Ravenclaw, which meant Justin had a hard time not staring at Sean's notes. He even broke them into a second set: everything arranged by timeline, then a second table grouping people and events with page references.
Right now Justin was reading the "Rogues' Gallery"—Uric the Oddball, Wendelin the Weird, and a few other "weirds." He was riveted. History wasn't dull anymore, and the knotted tangle of names and dates no longer made his head spin.
Sometimes he wandered into Sean's other notes—say, comparing two great magizoologists, Elfrida Clagg and Newt Scamander: how their contributions differed, and how those layered into new Ministry regulations. Sean had mapped it all.
Justin slid from page to page—and before he knew it he'd read through the entire history of magical creatures. Learning this efficiently was intoxicating.
Suddenly he surfaced, breathing quick. "Sean," he whispered, "this could be published as-is. I've never seen History of Magic this interesting!"
~~~
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