I made my way down to the dungeons more slowly than usual.
Not because it hurt. Pain was simple. It sat by my left eye like a thin thorn and reminded me of itself with every harder blink. That could be ignored. The worse part was the other feeling, more diffuse, the one that made the stone stairs seem a little too long and the air colder by half a tone.
Potions helped with things like that.
There was something honest about them. A cauldron had no moods. A root did not take offense if it was sliced too thin. A flame did not lie. It was either too strong or it was not. Either the potion darkened too quickly or it did not. The world reduced to proportions, time, and a hand that would not tremble where it should not.
That was comforting.
The classroom was already open when I entered. The cold struck first, followed at once by the familiar scent of damp stone, dried herbs, metal, and something sour that always seemed to linger above the cupboards of ingredients. Several cauldrons were already set out on the tables. The flames beneath them had not yet been lit.
I took my seat without hurry.
The Gryffindors came in a moment later, bringing more noise with them than was necessary to pass through a doorway. Ron was saying something to Harry with the expression of a man who still had not decided whether the previous evening had been more terrifying or more impressive. Hermione carried her books pressed to her chest so tightly that she looked as though she suspected someone might try to steal them between the corridor and her desk. Malfoy appeared right behind them, buttoned up to the throat and wearing that usual expression that suggested the world ought to apologize to him for drafts.
- Peverell, he tossed out, sitting down two seats away. - You look like you spent the night sleeping in the lake.
- You sound like you practiced that in front of a mirror this morning.
Blaise gave a quiet snort. Malfoy raised an eyebrow.
- That would at least explain why I do it better than you.
I did not get the chance to answer, because the door opened a second time and the whole room fell silent with that sudden, almost instinctive unity Snape commanded better than any bell ever could.
He entered without haste. His black robes swept across the stone like a shadow that had forgotten to detach itself from its owner. He looked over the class once, briefly, and that was enough.
- Wands stay away, he said softly. - If anyone feels a sudden, heroic need to wave a piece of wood over a cauldron, I should warn you that it will end badly. For them.
Several people shifted in their seats. Ron pushed his wand deeper into his pocket, as if Snape might pull it out with nothing but a look.
The professor turned to the board. The movement of his wand was brief, almost careless. Words appeared at once on the black surface.
Cure for Boils.
Underneath it: the list of ingredients, times, proportions, and the two places where it was very easy to ruin everything.
Good.
I liked that more than I should have.
- Those among you who can read will notice, said Snape, - that in today's recipe there is a difference between "finely chopped" and "crushed." For the rest, who intend to discover it experimentally, I already have cleaning supplies prepared.
Several people glanced at the board a second time.
I did not need to. Once had been enough.
The ingredients waited in wooden crates at the ends of the tables. Horned slugs, dried nettles, snake fangs, a green solution that smelled sharp enough to sting the nose even from a distance. When I picked up the knife, everything calmed a little.
My fingers knew what to do.
That, too, was unsettling. After a night like that, my hand should have felt heavier. It should have trembled at least a little. Instead, the first slug fell apart beneath the blade neatly, softly, exactly where I wanted it to. The second the same.
Beside me, Ron tried to cut the end off a nettle and nearly knocked the whole board off the table.
- More gently, Hermione hissed. - Do not chop it like you are trying to punish it.
- The plant stings me, so this is personal enough, Ron muttered back.
Harry snorted under his breath, but he was stirring too fast. Too short, too nervous a motion of the wrist. If he kept it up another minute, the potion would start foaming at the edges.
Snape moved between the tables.
He did not walk. He prowled. One black stain beside one cauldron, one cold remark here, another there.
- Weasley, if the nettle lands off the board a third time, I shall make you pick it up with your bare hands.
- Longbottom, this is a potion, not soup. Kindly stop treating it like an act of desperation.
- Granger. If you whisper instructions across three workstations one more time, I shall assume you wish to brew all of the cauldrons yourself.
Hermione pressed her lips together and said nothing. Sensible.
I focused on my own flame. Too much heat would ruin the nettle before the slugs even went in. Too little would drag everything out and leave the potion cloudy.
I turned the burner up slightly.
The flame hissed.
That should have been the end of it.
It was not.
For a second, maybe less, I looked into the cauldron and saw more than color. Not exactly threads, more like a pattern. As if the brew was not yet a potion, only an attempt to become one, held together by proportions and motion. The snake fangs were dissolving into the green with resistance, the slugs gave it weight, the nettle spread thinner, faster.
My left eye stung.
I blinked on reflex and the image returned to normal. Only the steam above the cauldron seemed thicker than it had a moment before.
Fatigue, I thought.
Or the dungeons.
Or both.
I did not look a second time.
Instead, I added the powdered fangs at exactly the right moment. The green liquid shuddered, darkened by a shade, then settled with a quiet bubbling sound. Good. That was how it was supposed to be.
To my left, Harry was just about to add an ingredient too early.
- Not yet, I said, before I had time to think.
He stopped with his hand halfway through the motion and looked at me.
- What?
- Ten more seconds.
Ron snorted.
- How would you even
Hermione's potion, finished a fraction earlier, changed color at exactly the same moment I had indicated. Harry hesitated, counted in his head or only pretended to, then added the powder a moment later.
The liquid in his cauldron spun once, twice, and then settled into the proper muted shade of green instead of exploding into foam.
- Oh, Harry said.
Ron looked first at his cauldron, then at mine.
- Lucky guess, he said, because apparently the world still seemed simpler to him when called that.
- Of course, I replied. - Have you never considered that explanation for your own mistakes?
Before he could answer, Snape's shadow fell across our table.
He looked first into Harry's cauldron, then into mine. Nothing changed in his face, but for a moment I had the unpleasant impression that he saw more than he should.
- Remarkable, he said quietly. - Potter, for the first time since entering this classroom, has failed to ruin something within a single minute. Am I to understand that this is the result of independent progress, or outside intervention?
Harry opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
Ron looked at the ceiling. Hermione was studying her own cauldron very intently, which in practice meant she was listening to every word.
- I only told him to wait, I said.
Snape shifted his gaze to me.
- How noble. Please remember, Mr. Peverell, that rescuing Gryffindors from the natural consequences of their decisions quickly becomes tiresome.
- I shall do my best to suffer in silence, Professor.
Ron choked on a laugh, immediately trying to disguise it as a cough. Harry lowered his head over the cauldron. Even Malfoy, across the table, looked as though he were fighting the urge to let the corner of his mouth twitch.
Snape watched me for another second.
Then his gaze moved to my potion.
- Eight points to Slytherin, he said. - For the fact that at least one person at this table understands the difference between following instructions and improvising.
Hermione stiffened slightly.
Not because her potion was worse. Quite the opposite. It was just as good. She simply was not wearing a green tie. That was enough.
When Snape moved on, Ron leaned very slightly in my direction.
- Does he actually like you, or does he just like using you as an excuse to score points off us?
- Those two things are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
This time Harry let out a laugh without managing to hide it. Hermione looked at me over her cauldron.
- You knew about those ten seconds because you counted, or because you just... saw it?
The question was asked calmly, almost casually. That was exactly why it landed a little too close to the mark.
For a moment I looked only at my own potion.
Its surface trembled faintly with the heat. The green light reflected in the edge of the cauldron, and for one brief, unnecessary second I thought that it would take only the slightest pressure to see how the whole arrangement would change.
That was a bad thought.
Fortunately, I did not have to answer it.
- I have eyes, I said.
Hermione raised an eyebrow, clearly dissatisfied with the answer. Ron rolled his eyes. Harry looked as if he wanted to ask something else and had decided that life was already tiring enough.
The rest of the lesson passed more quietly.
Not because the class had suddenly matured. Potions simply always demanded focus after a certain point, and Snape knew how to make sure nobody forgot it. Cauldrons bubbled, knives tapped against boards, steam settled in a thin layer over the cold stone.
My potion turned out evenly. Green, smooth, without lumps or residue. Almost satisfying.
Almost.
Because when I poured a sample into a vial, I felt that slight prick beneath my left eye again. Not pain. More like something urging me to look back at the remains of the brew in the cauldron and check what would happen if...
No.
I set the ladle down a little harder than necessary.
Snape was walking between the rows, collecting samples. When he reached me, he looked first at the vial, then at the cauldron.
- Good, he said.
Only that.
For some reason, it sounded more unsettling than praise.
- Professor, Hermione said from the other end of the table, — would reversing the order of the nettle and the fang powder change only the density, or the effectiveness as well?
Snape turned toward her slowly.
- It would change the outcome, Miss Granger. That generally suffices as an answer for people who do not treat potions as puzzles to solve for entertainment.
Hermione pressed her lips together, but took notes at once. Of course she did.
When the bell finally cut through the room, I felt relief a little too strongly for a lesson I genuinely liked. Students began packing up their things, cauldrons clinked, chairs scraped over stone.
I reached for my bag.
And then I understood what exactly had been wrong the whole hour.
Potions had calmed me.
Too much.
Not because I liked them.
Because for sixty minutes, everything in that room could be controlled. Fire. Time. Amount. The movement of a hand. Even other people's mistakes were predictable. Nothing looked too deeply. Nothing asked about the troll. Nothing sank to its knees too quickly and too obediently.
A potion was simpler than people.
The thought came quietly, without drama.
And I did not like how natural it sounded.
After class, Hermione caught up with me by the stairs.
Only her.
Harry and Ron had already gone on, apparently deciding that one conversation in the morning was enough for any single day.
Hermione held her books to her chest, as always, a little too tightly.
- You did not count, she said without preamble.
I looked at her from the corner of my eye.
- That is a bold claim for someone who was not looking at my watch.
- You did not have a watch.
That, unfortunately, was also a bold and accurate observation.
We walked in silence for a moment. The castle, after the morning lessons, was already settling back into its usual rhythm. Somewhere farther off, someone was running too fast. Somewhere a door opened. Somewhere Peeves was laughing at something that was probably someone else's problem.
- Well? she asked.
- Well what?
- You know that is annoying.
- I suspect that is one of my more stable qualities.
Hermione frowned, but this time she did not look angry. More determined.
- You helped Harry before the potion changed color, she said. - You were not looking at mine. You were looking at your own.
I did not answer.
- That was not a guess, she added.
That was not a question either.
I stopped at a fork in the corridor. She did the same.
- Granger, I said. - Do you ever let anything go?
- Not when something does not add up.
- In that case, I pity the people around you.
- I do not need pity. I need answers.
That, at least, sounded very much like her.
I looked at her. Not for long. Long enough.
- And I need peace, I replied. - So today we are both unfortunate.
For a moment she looked as though she wanted to say something sharper. Then she only pressed her lips together.
- Fine, she said. - But if your eye starts bleeding again, do not pretend it is nothing.
She brushed past me a moment later, stiffer than usual.
I watched her go for a second longer than necessary.
I should have been merely irritated.
I was.
Only beneath the irritation there was something else. That faint, uncomfortable sense that she was not trying to uncover some great mystery at all. She simply noticed things I would much rather have left alone.
That was exhausting.
That evening, the Room of Requirement opened without resistance.
Inside, it was quiet. Desk, chair, several books, the mannequin by the wall, the bowl of water on the side table. Everything exactly where it should be. Nothing asked. Nothing expected.
That, too, was disturbingly pleasant.
I pulled out the parchment from the previous night and spread it on the desk.
Troll.
Stronger reaction than with people. Faster.
Not muscles.
Closer to instinct.
Check later.
I sat and looked at my own handwriting for a moment. Then I dipped the quill into the ink and added underneath:
Easier in Potions.
I hesitated.
Then below that:
Pattern? Stability?
That was vague. I disliked vague notes. Vague notes were for people who did not know what they were doing.
I scratched out the final mark and tried again.
You see more when everything is simple.
That sounded better.
Not perfect. Enough.
I lifted my gaze to the mannequin.
It stood there as always. Motionless, wooden, unassuming. Beside it, the bowl of water caught the lamplight in a flat, dark gleam.
My left eye stirred first. Not with pain. With something lighter. Something between tension and a reflex that already knows the way before the person has had time to think where they are even going.
I did nothing.
Only looked.
The tension did not vanish at once. It eased only after a while, slowly, almost reluctantly.
Strange.
I shifted my gaze to the bowl of water.
The surface was still.
A tiny impulse would be enough, I thought, without much sense.
Very small.
Just to check.
I clenched my fingers around the quill so tightly it hurt.
No.
I set the quill down.
A moment later, I stood and extinguished one lamp. Then the second. The room grew darker, but not completely dark. Enough that I could still see the outline of the mannequin and the glint of water in the bowl.
I should have left at once.
I did not.
I stood there a while longer in silence, listening to my own breathing and to that other, quieter rhythm beneath it, the one I still could not name.
At last, I folded the parchment, slid it between the books, and turned toward the door.
As I left the Room of Requirement, one sentence came back to me with unpleasant clarity.
A potion was simpler than people.