First day of term. First class. Potions, down in the dungeons.
Slytherin and Gryffindor took opposite sides of the classroom, with several rows of empty desks between them like a line nobody needed to point out.
The Gryffindors were loud, all of them talking over each other about their holidays.
The Slytherins were quieter. A few low voices here and there, quickly suppressed. Most of them just waited.
Regulus and Hermes sat together near the wall. Cuthbert and Alex were right behind them.
The back door swung open, and Professor Slughorn came through belly first, smiling like he'd been waiting all summer for this exact moment.
He waddled to the front, spread both arms, and addressed the room in that rich, overly warm voice of his. "Ah, second years. Welcome back, my dear students. Did you all enjoy your holidays? I certainly hope so, because this year..." He lowered his voice and gave them a wink. "We're going to get into some genuinely interesting material."
With a flick of his wand, chalk began writing on the board by itself.
Wound-Cleaning Potion:
Ingredients: Dittany leaf juice, Ashwinder eggshell powder, Daisy root, Dragon blood.
Properties: Rapidly heals moderate wounds. Notable burning sensation.
Difficulty: Ingredient order sensitive. Temperature critical.
Slughorn clapped once, produced a crystal vial from somewhere under the podium, and held it up to the light. The potion inside was pale red and perfectly clear, like watered-down ruby.
"Wound-Cleaning Potion," he announced. "Last year you learned a few basic healing draughts, but those were for scratches and little cuts. This..." He gave the vial a small swirl. "This can close a three-inch wound in seconds. It stings, of course. Rather sharply. Hence the name."
He set the sample down and launched into the ingredients with obvious delight.
"Dittany leaf juice is the core healing agent. Freshness matters enormously. What you have on your desks was extracted last night, which is perfectly acceptable, but..." His eyes swept the room, amused. "If one of you could produce it fresh on the spot, the result would be even better. Sadly, we're second years, so we shall be behaving ourselves and following the recipe."
He continued without missing a beat.
"Ashwinder eggshell powder provides that burning sensation and also stabilizes the mixture. Daisy root tempers the heat so your patient is healed rather than actually scorched. And Dragon blood, only a trace, acts as the catalyst. One drop too many, and the entire cauldron is ruined."
He was enjoying himself far too much. The whole lesson felt less like a class and more like Slughorn putting on a private performance for an appreciative audience.
"Right then." Another clap. "Begin with the dittany leaf juice. Bring it to medium heat until the edges bubble. Add sliced daisy root and stir clockwise seven times. Wait until the mixture turns pale green, then add the Ashwinder eggshell powder in three portions, each thirty seconds apart. Finally, extinguish the flame. Once the potion cools to lukewarm, add one drop of Dragon blood. One. No more."
Mortars started grinding. Cauldrons hissed. Someone dropped something glass and muttered a curse under their breath.
Regulus did not move.
He'd heard every instruction. That wasn't the issue.
The issue was that this was far too simple.
Verdant Magic let him perceive the magical state of plant matter directly. To him, the recipe, the warnings, the precise stirring directions all felt like instructions on how to hold a spoon. Useful for most people, probably. Not for him.
He spread his magical perception across the ingredients on his desk.
Four containers. Four signatures.
Dittany leaf juice sat in a small glass bottle, green and lively, its magic still active, like something freshly cut that hadn't quite accepted being harvested yet. But the edges had already started to fray. A few hours had cost it some life.
Ashwinder eggshell powder rested in another bottle, grey-white and calm. Its magic was stable, but in the way dead things were stable. The heat was still there, just frozen in place.
The sliced Daisy root carried a gentler signature, pale and steady.
And the Dragon blood...
A single drop sealed in crystal, vivid red, its magic beating against the glass with violent impatience.
Living magic. Still boiling. Still looking for somewhere to go.
His eyes shifted to the sample vial on the podium.
The finished Wound-Cleaning Potion gave off a stable, warm magical signature. Clear healing intent. Controlled burn. Everything in balance.
By then Slughorn had stepped down from the front and started circling the room, checking students' progress.
When he reached Regulus's row, Regulus looked up. "Professor, may I examine the finished sample?"
Slughorn blinked at him, mildly surprised. "Oh? Mr. Black, is something wrong?"
"No, sir. I just want to confirm the final state."
Slughorn studied him for a second, curiosity winning out almost immediately.
He returned to the podium, picked up the crystal vial, and set it on Regulus's desk.
"Very well," he said brightly. "But don't keep it too long. The others may wish to admire it as well."
Regulus picked up the vial, closed his hand around it, and shut his eyes.
His magical perception sank into the potion.
The liquid opened itself to him all at once.
The pale red hue stopped being just a color and resolved into structure, layered and deliberate, full of intent.
At the foundation lay Dittany's healing inclination, deep and steady, thick as fertile earth.
Spread over that was the Ashwinder eggshell's burning quality, a thin layer of heat. Painful, yes, but not destructive.
Between them flowed the Daisy root's neutralizing effect, weaving through both and keeping the burn from becoming harm.
And the Dragon blood...
That single drop had worked its way through everything. It had woken the other ingredients up and tied them together into one complete whole.
Regulus felt the shape of the finished potion.
Healing held at the center. Burn kept under control. All four magical signatures fused without conflict.
So that's what it wants to be.
He opened his eyes, set the vial back down, and gave Slughorn a small nod. "Thank you, Professor."
Slughorn reclaimed the sample, glanced at him again, and moved on without comment.
Regulus turned back to his own ingredients.
He lifted one hand over the desk and opened both perception and control.
The dittany leaf juice sharpened first. Its scattered healing signature drew inward and condensed.
The Ashwinder eggshell powder responded next. Its dormant burn flared back to life, then immediately compressed under his control, heat without spread.
The Daisy root's gentler magic quickened, already shifting into a balancing role before it even entered the brew.
The Dragon blood strained hardest against him, all violent catalytic force and bad temper. He kept it leashed and waiting.
Four separate signatures moved inside his perception at once. Distinct, independent and already tugging at each other.
Regulus guided them a little, not forcing them together so much as nudging them toward the point where they would want to merge on their own.
Dittany's healing inclination drifted toward the Ashwinder's burn.
The Daisy root threaded in between, adjusting the tension.
The Dragon blood circled at the edge, waiting for the exact opening it needed.
Then he felt it.
Now.
Regulus opened his eyes and started pouring ingredients into the cauldron.
Not in the order Slughorn had given.
Dittany leaf juice went in first, green at the bottom of the cauldron.
Then the Ashwinder eggshell powder, grey-white dust spilling into the liquid.
No heat. No stirring.
The Daisy root went in after that, pale slices settling on top.
Last came the Dragon blood. One red drop into the center.
Hermes, working beside him, caught the movement out of the corner of his eye.
Wrong order.
No flame.
No stirring.
And then the contents of the cauldron began to move by themselves.
The ingredients folded together.
Fifteen seconds later, they were done.
A pale red potion sat in the cauldron, clear and stable, identical to the sample on the podium.
Hermes glanced at it once, then looked away and went back to his own work.
He didn't stare. He didn't ask questions.
At this point he'd already accepted that Regulus was operating on a completely different level from the rest of them. Combat magic, Dark magic, and now potions too. There was no point gawking at it. That way lay a personal crisis.
At the far end of the room, Slughorn saw everything.
He had noticed the moment Regulus held his hand over the ingredients. Then he'd watched the boy ignore the recipe entirely and pour everything in out of order. He'd watched the components merge on their own.
And he knew exactly what he was looking at.
An ancient brewing method.
Before potion-making became a formal discipline with established steps and standardized techniques, there had been witches and wizards who brewed by directly guiding the magic within the ingredients themselves. No strict sequence. No temperature management. No measured procedure. They sensed what the potion wanted to become and pushed the components into that shape.
It worked.
In theory.
In practice, the technique had been abandoned centuries ago because it was absurdly difficult.
The number of people in recorded history who could actually do it was tiny. And even for them, it only worked on lower-level potions. The truly advanced brews, the ones requiring sustained magical input, ritual steps, or long transformations, were still far beyond this method.
That hardly mattered right now.
What mattered was that a second-year student had just done it in the middle of class like it was nothing.
Slughorn said nothing.
He looked away and continued making his rounds.
Soon the bell rang.
Students lined up at the front one by one, placing their finished potions on the podium for inspection.
Slughorn evaluated each sample, offering comments, scores, and the occasional extra point.
Regulus poured his potion into a bottle, carried it up, and kept his mouth shut.
He knew perfectly well what he'd done counted as a shortcut. He hadn't followed the assigned method. Strictly speaking, it was close enough to cheating that drawing attention to it would be stupid.
Slughorn inspected his sample.
No praise.
No bonus points.
No comment at all.
Regulus turned to leave.
Then Slughorn's voice drifted after him.
"Mr. Black. A moment, please."
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