"Look at this, Professor Holmes."
Snape seemed deeply dissatisfied with Douglas's silence.
He picked up a black prism, polished from dark crystal. "Dark Spectrum Mirror," he said. "It analyzes the stability of a potion's magical fluctuations." He paused, letting the next line land like a jab. "Muggles call it... quality inspection?"
He dripped a single drop of potion onto the lens. A steady green wave bloomed across the mirror's face.
"Perfect stability." Snape announced it like a verdict.
Then, with deliberate theater, he reached for a failed sample from the bench beside it. One drop on the lens. The wave shattered into chaos, and a blurry skull rose through the glass.
"This," Snape said, his gaze sweeping the room, "is the work of a fool. Abnormal fluctuations mean toxicity."
The temperature in the classroom dropped ten degrees.
Douglas had to give him credit. Snape's personality was genuinely awful. But in Potions, the man was a true genius. And not just in Potions , Snape had always been sharp in ways that went beyond the textbook. He'd taken the modern concepts Douglas had introduced and folded them into his own magical framework, branding every technique with something unmistakably his. Dark, exacting, and precise to a degree that bordered on cruel.
Snape drifted toward Fred and George's stone cubicle. The twins were working through a bundle of valerian root together.
"Weasley."
His voice had the quality of a viper's tongue , dry, quick, and close.
"Your cutting angle is off by three degrees."
George's hand jerked. The silver knife nearly clattered to the floor.
"Professor, we—"
"You think this is like making those idiotic toys of yours?" Snape cut him off. "If a patient were drinking this potion, your three-degree deviation would stop his heart."
He reached out and tapped the edge of the obsidian workbench with one finger. Something clicked beneath the stone. A small mirror slid up from a hidden compartment in the tabletop.
The face reflected in it wasn't Fred's.
It was Snape's , sallow-skinned, sneering, expression perfectly preserved in mocking stillness.
"Error-Recording Mirror," Snape said, at a pace that suggested he was enjoying himself enormously. "Weasley — five points from Gryffindor. And your error has been permanently logged."
Fred and George's faces collapsed in unison.
Douglas, in the back row, laughed. He genuinely couldn't help it.
The mirror came pre-loaded with Snape's sneer? The man's sense of humor was a special kind of evil.
Snape turned sharply. His eyes found Douglas like a needle finding north.
"Professor Holmes. You find this amusing?"
Douglas straightened his expression. "No, Severus. I was admiring." He kept his voice perfectly sincere. "Your attention to pedagogical detail is truly... impressive. Especially the mirror. Very much your personal style."
Snape's face went darker.
He knew exactly what Douglas was doing.
"Since Professor Holmes is such an admirer." The voice shifted , smooth, dangerous, like oil on ice. "Why don't you try it yourself?"
He pointed to the most complex set of materials on the lectern. "I'd like to see what level of precision a Potions Master brings to mandrake root."
Silence dropped over the classroom. Every student went still. Twenty pairs of eyes began moving back and forth between Snape and Douglas like spectators at a tennis match.
A professor-versus-professor showdown?
This was considerably more interesting than Potions.
Fred and George's eyes had gone enormous. They were already whispering odds to each other on how many seconds it would take Douglas to infuriate Snape past the point of no return.
Douglas stood. He rolled his wrist once, loosening it. The relaxed smile didn't leave his face. "With pleasure, Professor Snape."
He walked to the lectern and took his position behind the gleaming equipment. "Learning never ends," he said pleasantly.
The mandrake root sat on the obsidian bench. Twisted, lumpy, ugly , like a wind-dried infant. It smelled of wet earth and something older.
The sneer on Snape's mouth didn't move.
Processing mandrake root , particularly specimens intended for advanced potions , required exceptional precision. Knife angle, applied force, the exact moment of magical infusion. There was no margin for error.
Douglas surveyed the bench. The prepared silver knife was right there.
He didn't touch it.
True to form. He reached into his robe pocket instead and drew out a knife of his own.
It was a broad-bladed thing, spine thin, edge sharp enough to catch the dungeon light in a cold gleam. The shape was unmistakable.
A kitchen cleaver.
Snape's eyebrows pulled together. "Professor Holmes. This is a Potions classroom, not a kitchen."
"Oh, I know, Professor." Douglas's tone was perfectly easy. "But this knife — I forged it myself. I'm used to it."
Privately, he'd been wanting to use a cleaver in Snape's class for longer than he could say. He'd just never had the excuse.
Honestly? Professor Snape was a gift.
He picked up the root. Left hand pressed it flat and steady against the bench. Right hand brought the cleaver up.
His eyes changed.
The laziness went out of them. The easy, faintly mocking quality he wore like a second robe. Gone. What replaced it was focus, clean and absolute.
The blade moved.
Not a chop. Not a cut. Something closer to water finding the path of least resistance , continuous, flowing, inevitably precise. The broad knife threaded through the mandrake's knotted grain like it had been made for exactly this shape, the tip lifting at one angle, the flat pushing through at another.
"You think this is shredding potatoes?" Snape said.
Douglas didn't answer. His hands didn't slow.
Ten seconds. Perhaps fifteen.
The twisted root came apart perfectly. Main root, fibrous tendrils, the dense central core where the magic concentrated most heavily. Every section separated clean. The cuts were mirror-smooth. Not a fiber wasted, not a single piece lost.
It was like watching a master butcher work, the blade following the animal's own structure rather than fighting it, the whole thing dissolving along its natural seams in the span of a single breath.
"Pao Ding Jie Niu," Douglas murmured , barely audible.
He set the cleaver down and pushed the separated materials toward Snape. "Satisfactory precision, Professor?"
Snape stared at the tray for a long moment. His face was the color of a storm that hadn't broken yet.
There was nothing to criticize. Technically, structurally, nothing. The kind of instant spatial comprehension it took to read a material's internal architecture that quickly , that wasn't standard Potioneer skill. It was something else entirely.
"Hmph." The sound came through his nose. "Theatrical technique. Potions values results, not performance."
Douglas nodded agreeably. "May I return to observing, then?"
Snape didn't answer. He turned on his heel and walked back to the lectern.
"Everyone , continue your brewing! If your Invigoration Draughts end up resembling Bicorn dung, I will not hesitate to make you sample them personally!"
For the next hour, the dungeon held nothing but the slow bubble of cauldrons and the small, careful sounds of students trying very hard not to make mistakes. Snape moved between the stone cubicles in his circuit, his sharp tongue striking at irregular intervals, leaving students flinching in his wake.
Douglas sat quietly in the back row.
His eyes kept drifting, though. Not to the students. Not to Snape. To the instrument resting at the side of the lectern.
The Dark Spectrum Mirror. An instrument that could read the stability of magical fluctuations with that kind of precision.
He thought about that. Thought about what else you could point it at.
Spell structures, maybe. The internal architecture of a defensive charm. Whether the fluctuations held or frayed under pressure.
The corner of his mouth curved.
What a useful thing that would be.
---
P.S. , Yesterday's daily question, answer revealed.
Answer: C
Explanation: Stirring rhythm doesn't merely affect a potion's color , it determines the molecular binding stability of the active ingredients. An incorrect rhythm causes component separation. Option C treats these as unrelated factors, which is a conceptual error.
➤ Next: N.E.W.T. Countdown! Welcome to the Sixth-Year Classroom
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