In the end, I was forced to send the old king back to the afterlife since he refused to calm the fuck down. I don't even know why he flipped out over the fact that his descendant was part-elf. It didn't seem racially based. And I'm pretty sure that he wasn't directing it at Lys personally. But that was just my gut talking, and it had some spotty accuracy. I peered surreptitiously down at my companion who was staring straight ahead. She looked a bit shaken.
Being the nice guy that I am I decided to take her mind off what she'd just seen.
"Sooooo, part house-elf…" I started leadingly.
"I don't want to talk about it," Lys informed me flatly.
"You can't just drop something like that on me and not explain!" I complained.
"Sure I can."
"Come on, I can't even imagine the mechanics…" I needed.
"Drop it."
"Family reunions must be interesting." I mused out loud.
She rolled her eyes and sighed. "I swear…"
"Can you pop?"
"None of your business."
"So is it grandma or grandpa that's a house-elf?"
She rolled her eyes and walked towards the door. "I'll be back later when you're not insane!" Was her parting shot to me. She didn't raise her voice once. She didn't even look angry just… indifferent?
I think she was getting used to me. Not that I can give up because of that.
"Come on Shortstack! You have to give me something!" I called out to her when she exited my workshop. She turned her head around to respond which almost caused her to collide with someone that was just about to knock on my door. Lys apologized quickly before turning towards me again. "I'll be back later!"
I waved absently as my new guest filled the doorway. Filled being the operative term because this fellow was enormously fat. The fact that he was only half a head taller than Lys just made it more apparent. The only thing bigger than his belly was probably his mustache, which I had to admit was damn impressive. There had to be some magic involved in making it stand up as it did. Of course, those in combination with his large body made him look like a Tuskarr from World of Warcraft, only without tusks.
Horace Slughorn.
Potions Master and Head of Slytherin House.
He'd been after me for the Slug Club pretty much since first year due to my stellar grades, but he'd not been really annoying about it until after I pulled my little stunt. After that, he'd run into me pretty much daily for small chats. If I didn't know about him from the books I'd probably assume some very unfortunate things about him. As it was, it was merely mildly irritating... and a bit flattering. I'd always rebuffed him because I know that Malfoy and his friends would be, or were, part of the club, and I really didn't need anything of that.
I had been amused to find that there was a girl from Ravenclaw named Sally Perks that was a member. I'd even made a bit of an effort to see if it was the second coming of Ariana Dumbledore, but I doubted the black-haired dark-skinned girl was in any way related to our esteemed headmaster.
"Ah, Mr. Ahlgren. I hope I'm not disturbing you." Slughorn said as he moved further into my room.
Seeing as my previous company had just left and I was just standing there I didn't like my chances of lying without it looking blatantly untrue. "No Professor. What can I do for you?
Slughorn didn't answer for a few moments in favor of looking around, taking in my room, as he'd never been in here before. His eyes landed on my closed of potions lab and I saw his eyes follow the funnel that took the fumes out of the lab and I saw the light come on behind his eyes when he made the obvious connection. "Your potions lab?" he asked excitedly.
I inclined my head in affirmative.
"Would you mind?" he asked gesturing towards my lab.
I quickly tried to recall if I had anything out that I didn't want him to see. Not coming up with anything I turned and walked over to the door to the lab with Slughorn following behind me eagerly. Once inside he wasted no time exterminating my lab setup, peering over my worktable, looking into cabinets and looking confused over some of my silicone molds I used for past projects, and some that I'd just made for a big future project.
After that, he went over to what I think of as my brewing corner, where I had four big cauldrons set up, which was merrily simmering away at the moment. Slughorn peered down into one of my cauldrons curiously and then took an experimental sniff before giving me a questioning look. "Polyjuice potion?"
"Yes, professor," I admitted, not like it was illegal or against any school rules as far as I knew.
"Impressive." He noted absently as he gave me a considering look. "One does wonder what a student would need with such a quantity of it." He said and gestured to the three other cauldrons that were bubbling away merrily.
"They are actually not all the same. The first one is very poor grade, from experience the effect will not last more than an hour. The other three are progressively better made with longer durations." I told him succinctly.
Slughorn gave me a mystified look. "You are purposefully making a substandard potion, why?"
"Different price grades, of course, it allows for a greater customer base."
"But the cost of making the potion is still the same." Slughorn pointed put. "Bicorn horn is not cheap; you must be incurring a significant loss by doing this."
I gave my potions professor my most evil smile. "I probably would if I hadn't found a way to dilute it. All four of those cauldrons actually started as a single batch, I just portioned them out between the third and fourth step and add the diluent, this saves on the bicorn horn. It does, of course, degrade the effectiveness of the potion so you need to start with a high-quality product."
"A diluent, truly?" Slughorn exclaimed excitedly. "It has been tried before but never successfully, how did you manage it?"
"Ah professor, I think I'll keep that little secret to myself, it's making me quite a bit of galleon after all, and it would hardly be clever to give it up, particularly to the owner of Apothecarium of Horace E. F. Slughorn, don't you think?" I told him with a sly little grin.
I wasn't actually the one that had discovered it. That honor was entirely Paddys. It was early in my second year, and Paddy had yet to become the surefooted butler that he'd become. He's been assisting me in my then far more rudimentary and cluttered lab when he'd accidentally knocked over a huge pitcher of common starch I had mixed up for some reason I couldn't even remember at this point. It tipped over into a cauldron half full with healing potion, one that was very sensitive and prone to a spectacular and often explosive failure when anything not meant to be in it was introduced. The only reaction I'd noticed was that the bright golden glow the potion naturally emitted dimmed some.
A later test showed that the effects of the potion had been reduced in comparison to pourings I'd already extracted from the contaminated batch. I'd naturally been curious, and after stopping Paddy from another of his then attempts to punish himself, something that I thankfully managed to put a stop to not long after, I'd done a series of experiments with far cheaper potions to see if it had a similar effect. As I found out the starch I used seemed to be almost entirely non-reactive with most types of potions besides the noted degrading, which wasn't a difference unless I introduced a large amount of starch to the formula. For some reason, it didn't even cause a thickening of the potion, which it logically should have done.
I'd found however that it didn't work with salves and balms for some reason. It worked fine until you added the required Thickening Agents; at that point, it stopped being a potion and started being concrete. I'd ruined several cauldrons because of that, because some of the results appeared impervious to anything that wouldn't destroy the cauldron too, including the vanishing charm, which would just cause the cauldron to vanish as well. I'd put it aside, maybe it could be used as a building material, some of the hardest stuff was rather cheep to make.
I'd been making small batches of the stuff for study, but hadn't found many uses for it as of yet.
Horace regarded me neutrally for a few moments before huffing a quiet laugh and shaking his head. "No, I don't imagine it would. Well played my boy, well played indeed. I don't imagine you would be interested in selling me this little discovery?"
I shook my head negatively. "I don't know what its worth at the moment; I'm still running tests on other potions and making notes on the effects. I'll let you know once I'm done."
"You do that, my boy. Well, I'm not so petty as to not offer my congratulations. Quite the discovery for someone so young." He praised me lazily.
I had to bite down on a sarcastic response. I'm sure he met well, but I could do without being condescended to. "Thank you, professor."
"I suppose you are still uninterested in joining my Slug Club?" He asked me for the umpteenth time.
I gave him a small smile. "I really don't have the time to socialize much, too much work to be done I'm afraid." It was even the truth, even if I probably could make time for it. I was even a bit tempted; my time spent with Lys had shown me that I was starved for company and could probably benefit from having some more social interactions on a more regular basis then just kipping over to Hagrid for an hour or talking shop with Lys.
But not in the Slug Club. I really didn't want to have anything to do with Malfoy, who acted more like Percy Weasley, than Draco, which was an improvement, if not a big one. He didn't have that snotty air that Percy was described to exude but reminded me more of one of those bishounen characters popular in animes. Presenting himself with an air of cool indifference unless it would benefit him to do otherwise. I had to admit that he was a smooth operator that got his way more often than not.
The fact that he'd made Prefect this year just made it more urgent for me to stay the hell away from him. Technically there was little he could do to me in terms of punishment, except for assigning detention, which didn't bother me too much, but it would still be inconvenient.
"My boy," Slughorn said, looking concerned, moving over and laying his hands on my shoulders, which was a patently ridiculous gesture since I was a good head and a half taller than he was. I was thankful that his breath didn't stink though. Silver lining. "While your work ethic is laudable you cannot spend all your time cooped up in here. That is no way to spend your Hogwarts years. You must get out; meet new people, form relationships and connections. Trust me, it will make your life far easier in the long run. You are one of Hogwarts' best and brightest students as you well showed this past term when you shocked and awed your fellows. I am sure you will go far in the wizarding world."
"Maybe." I allowed lightly before straightening and shaking of his hands gently. "But I will do so on my own terms, and in my own time."
Horace looked at me quietly for a moment before shaking his head slowly with a small smile. "I suppose I can't fault you for wanting to go your own way, the young often do after all." He commented. "But I wish you to know that my door is always open should you change your mind."
"Of course professor."
"Well, I have taken up more than enough of your time. I'll let you get back to it." He said and moved briskly out of my lab and towards my door. I followed him closely on his heels and made sure to open the door for him.
"Thank you, professor."
"Think nothing of it, my boy. I always enjoy shaping the next generation into successful witches and wizards. It is why I became a teacher you know, my way to "make a mark" as they say." He told me and reached out and gave me a pat on the chest. "Now, I have essays to grade so you will have to excuse me."
"Of course Professor. I'll be seeing you in class tomorrow then."
"Of course, of course. I'm looking forward to it," he said and was off.
I smiled faintly to myself. He was a bit quirky, and sometimes thoughtless, but not a bad person. There were far worse people in the world. I closed the door and went back to what I'd been doing before Lys had interrupted me.