Chapter 251: Harry and Ron's Independent Study
Inside the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts,
Referring to his notes, Harry added eight grams of Guardian Tree bark to the cauldron, stirred it five times clockwise and twice counter-clockwise, studied the colour of the brew, then returned to scribbling notes and sketches in his notebook.
"Harry, you've been tinkering with that potion for quite a while now, haven't you? Why not just ask Leonardo?"
"Come to think of it, Leonardo's still got a good ten days before he's back, right?"
Ron kept the questions coming as he poked at a metal owl with his wand.
The new wand in his hand had been paid for by the twins over the Christmas holidays: fourteen inches, willow, unicorn hair.
It felt wonderful to use, and casting spells no longer came with that awkward, clogged-up sensation. Only now did Ron realise just how rough he'd had it before.
Hearing Ron's question, Harry rubbed at his messy black hair and mumbled,
"I want to try finishing it on my own. It's a bit of a challenge, isn't it?"
The potion he was working on was one he'd promised Hermione—a brew to shrink and reshape her teeth—but they'd also agreed not to tell Leonardo about it just yet, so Harry had no choice but to knuckle down and figure it out himself.
Fortunately, after more than a year and a half of learning under Leonardo, Harry's skill in potion-making had improved steadily. In his spare time, he'd pore over books from the library and the Potter family's collection, and the progress he'd made had been remarkable.
Besides, this particular potion wasn't especially difficult. Harry didn't yet have the ability to create an entirely new potion from scratch; this was mostly a matter of improving one that already existed.
And the answer he'd given Ron was the honest truth. After nearly two years by Leonardo's side, Harry had gradually picked up some of his outlook, and he'd begun to appreciate, little by little, the joy of making progress through study and discovery.
So Harry genuinely wanted to take this opportunity to see how far his own potion-making had come.
Ron went on tinkering with his metal owl without even looking up.
"I get it, I get it. Go on, keep at it."
In truth, his situation wasn't all that different from Harry's. The owl in Ron's hands was something he'd designed and built entirely on his own. It was just fiendishly difficult, and at this stage, it couldn't perform any of a real owl's functions.
On Christmas Day the year before, Ron had come across an owl that looked perfectly ordinary and yet was somehow extraordinary, one that had given him and Harry an important clue while they'd been racking their brains over Nicolas Flamel's mystery.
Afterwards, Ron had even made a special trip to the school's Owlery in the hope of finding it again, but after several days of searching, he'd come up empty-handed and eventually let the matter drop.
Even so, when he set out to make a simple alchemical creature, the first thing that came to mind was that very owl, so he'd modelled his own after it.
The two of them remained absorbed in their work, and the time slipped by quickly.
Harry decanted the cooled potion into a bottle, set it at the edge of the table, and began tidying away his cauldron, scales, and the rest of his tools.
Ron stretched, then leaned in close to Harry.
"So? Have you tried it on a test toad yet? How'd it turn out?"
Harry shot him a helpless look.
"Ron, did you forget toads don't have teeth?"
Ron said, "Uh... right, right, I forgot about that. I've been too busy to think straight. Want me to test it for you instead?
"I mean, I'm used to being the tester anyway, what with all the new prank gadgets Fred and George have me try out. Ugh... what's that word Leonardo uses again...?"
Ever since the twins had started running the Seventh Workshop at Hogwarts on Leonardo's behalf, selling all sorts of flashy magical gadgets, they'd been earning money and picking up knowledge at the same time. A lot of ideas that had once stalled at the "just a thought" stage were finally being put into practice.
The twins produced an endless stream of prank potions and alchemical devices, and the best guinea pig for testing new products was, naturally, their own flesh and blood: Ron.
Fortunately, to keep Ron from writing home and tattling to their mum, the twins paid him a few Knuts and Sickles as pocket money, or, as they called it, "experimental funding."
To which Ron, of course...
gladly agreed.
He'd spent his whole life being on the receiving end of his twin brothers' pranks anyway. Fred, for instance, had once turned Ron's toy bear into a giant spider, and while he was hugging it, it had suddenly sprouted a mass of long, spindly legs.
Now there was even pocket money in it for him, so why not? A person ought to be a little optimistic.
Harry thought for a moment before replying hesitantly,
"Tolerance?"