Sheen had assumed that brewing potions would be relatively straightforward. There were strict steps to follow, after all.
He had been wrong.
He knew the theory: add dried nettles and ground snake fangs to the cauldron, bring to a simmer, and only add the porcupine quills after removing it from the heat. But a theory written in a few lines and a cauldron actually in front of you were entirely different things. Questions multiplied the moment he picked up the first ingredient.
How finely ground did the snake fangs need to be? How long after removing the heat before the quills went in? How vigorously should he stir? At what angle? When, exactly?
The textbook said nothing about any of this. Professor Snape had not offered a single clarifying word.
Sheen suspected this was because these things simply didn't need explaining — not to most wizards. There was probably some instinct at work, the way there had been during his early attempts at the Levitation Charm: a peculiar inner sense that guided the wand without needing to be taught. Something every wizard simply knew, as naturally as breathing, and therefore nobody had ever thought to document.
But that particular instinct, Sheen thought, watching the contents of the cauldron with quiet dread, had not followed him to potions.
His suspicion was confirmed moments later. He followed the written steps as precisely as he could, reached for whatever internal guidance might exist, and the result was —
Blue.
The potion was blue. Gently, steadily, undeniably blue.
"I'm fairly certain," Justin said carefully, staring at it, "that the Cure for Boils isn't supposed to be that colour."
The cauldron bubbled on. The blue thickened. And across the dungeon, Professor Snape's expression curdled.
He crossed the room in a few swift strides, robes cutting through the air behind him.
"Idiots."
He conjured a stool with a flick of his wand, sat down, and studied the cauldron for several seconds with the focused contempt of a man examining evidence at a crime scene. Then he smiled, thinly.
"Catastrophic quill selection. Abysmal nettles. And the snake fangs—" He let the silence extend. "Non-venomous. You used non-venomous snake fangs. Two spectacular dunderheads, fit to be preserved in a portrait and nothing else."
He waved his wand. The blue potion vanished without ceremony.
"You ought to be grateful your steps were in order. If they weren't, you'd have received a rather more memorable lesson in the consequences of incompetence." His voice was as cold as the dungeon air. "One point — from each of you."
Justin had seen trouble approaching the moment Snape began walking toward them. Even so, the density of it left colour in his cheeks.
Sheen's eyes had gone flat. It was the same feeling as those first weeks of spell practice — the realisation that no instinct was coming. That he would have to find a way to brute force it, that he would have to learn more than he already had…
He was beginning to form a fairly clear picture of his aptitude for Potions.
Even after the class ended, the first-years moved through the corridor in something close to silence. The dungeon's atmosphere had followed them out.
"Don't worry about it," Justin said quietly, falling into step beside Sheen. He seemed to be convincing himself as much as anyone else, a small fire of determination already burning in his eyes. "We'll earn those points back."
"Mm."
Sheen appeared distracted. In truth, he had already settled.
He had learned not to stop at obstacles. If difficulty, or failure, or someone else's contempt were enough to halt him, he would never have managed the Levitation Charm. What looked like distraction was, in fact, concentration — he was turning Snape's words over carefully, examining them.
Heat management. Inadequate stirring. Material selection.
These were the fundamentals. And they were precisely where he had failed.
Two paths presented themselves.
The first: do what he had done with spell practice — attempt it repeatedly, accumulate enough failures to reverse-engineer the principles, and eventually arrive at something that worked through sheer persistence.
He dismissed this almost immediately. Potions and Charms were not equivalent. Charms was not a field in which a mistake could fill the room with toxic vapour. Potions was genuinely dangerous — the materials alone required careful handling before a cauldron was even lit.
Relying on trial and error here was less like practising and more like gambling with one's own safety. He had no interest in that particular wager.
Which left the second path.
Understand the subject properly, from its foundations. Identify and resolve every gap in his knowledge before it could become a problem in practice. Then — and only then — begin drilling the actual brewing process until the proficiency came. A slower start, a steeper climb. But one that could actually be climbed.
And once he had one genuinely correct attempt behind him, everything after that would come faster.
One problem at a time. But quickly — Potions is not the only subject on the timetable.
The thought was quiet enough that only he could hear it.
The Great Hall was laid out in its afternoon abundance: roast turkey, chipolatas, buttered peas, gravy, cranberry sauce, Christmas pudding, turkey sandwiches, toasted crumpets — every inch of the long tables covered.
The poor performance in Potions and Snape's commentary had made no measurable impact on Sheen's appetite whatsoever. Who was staring gluttonously at the food with a thin trail of drool slowly pouring down the sides of his lipz
'Merlin's beard', his thoughts were fast but his hands were faster, picking up as much as he could from the table and eating with swift and composed efficiency. 'This is wonderful.'
Half a year. He hadn't eaten a proper meal in half a year. Even last night's feast — the first one — he'd managed perhaps seven-tenths of a full stomach before stopping himself. Old habits.
The orphanage had always preferred to cut costs rather than increase income, and Nurse Anna had developed a theory — stated with complete sincerity — that one meal per day was sufficient for a growing child. The acid reflux in the small hours of the morning had become familiar.
In the worst stretches, Sheen had occasionally assessed the stray dogs near the orphanage gate with a kind of grim pragmatism. 'At least they can go out to search for their food rather than starving like me…'
"Hermione! Over here!"
Justin was waving across the hall at Hermione, who had been edging toward a quieter corner. She spotted him, flushed slightly, and made her way over at a small trot.
"You didn't have to shout," she said, giving Justin a look.
"I was worried you wouldn't hear me." The dimples were in full evidence.
"Right. Well." She sat down and gathered herself. "Our first afternoon class is Herbology — I noticed it appears on the timetable more than any other subject. I didn't think that could be coincidental, so I read through the textbook again last night, just to be safe. It may or may not help. Anyway —
I heard you two had Potions this morning—"
"Herbology sounds lovely, actually, will you be looking at specific magical varieties or more general—" Justin began, and then they were both talking, the conversation spinning off cheerfully in several directions at once.
Their voices faded to a background murmur in Sheen's mind. He pulled out his timetable and looked at it thoughtfully.
Wednesday morning: Herbology. Wednesday afternoon: Herbology. Friday afternoon: Herbology.
More than any other class on the list. That couldn't be arbitrary.
Hogwarts' scheduling was deliberate. If Herbology appeared this frequently, there was a reason for it.
He turned Snape's words over again — catastrophic material selection... The problem is almost certainly in your preparation — and within a few seconds the logic assembled itself cleanly.
Herbology taught the handling and preparation of magical plant materials. And material preparation was, in fact, the very first step in potion-making. Not the brewing. Not the timing or the heat. The ingredients themselves, before a cauldron was even lit.
The conclusion followed without effort.
To learn Potions properly, he would first need to learn Herbology.
(End of Chapter)