The Dungeon, Potions Classroom
The warmth of the cauldron couldn't soften the icy edge of Snape's fury.
Nimbus 2000.
The words were like a key, unlocking a flood of memories filled with humiliation, jealousy, and helplessness.
When those eyes connected once again to that foolish sport, a sharp, burning anger surged within him—betrayal and mockery all over again.
He was on the verge of spitting out the most venomous sarcasm, ready to shatter that broom and everything it represented.
Sean, focused on preparing his ingredients, didn't notice the predatory glare from Professor Snape.
Professor Sprout had just taught him how to handle ginger powder, oxalis, wormwood, and aloe juice. If he didn't follow his notes carefully, he'd miss some tiny detail.
So, he grabbed his notebook, studying it under the glow of a magical candle.
Sensing something off, he glanced back and caught Snape's chilling stare.
Too absorbed to care, he turned back to chopping the oxalis.
He mentally reviewed his process, wondering which step he'd messed up this time.
Snape was undeniably harsh. He only wanted to teach geniuses, not ordinary students.
His teaching style was like expecting first-year kids to meet Ph.D.-level standards. What seemed obvious to him was like deciphering ancient runes to most young wizards.
To most, he was so strict that his name alone sparked fear.
But to Sean…
He was a good professor.
Sean carefully diced the pale pink oxalis, its faint vinegar-like smell reminiscent of flobberworm acid, which is why it was named oxalis. In the wizarding world, it was used in several potions.
When Snape snatched the notebook away, watching the young wizard fumble with the potion like a beginner, his anger cooled slightly in the face of Sean's focused green eyes.
A complex emotion flickered in Snape's dark, piercing gaze.
After watching Sean labor over mediocre ingredients, Snape couldn't hold back. "Fool! If you use those poorly ground, juice-deprived materials again, get out of my dungeon!"
Sean quietly pulled back the ingredients he'd been about to add to the cauldron, starting over as Snape had instructed.
Snape's gaze was now almost scrutinizing. He refused to let the noble art of potion-making be tainted by that filthy sport.
Nimbus 2000. Potion-making. Money.
The conclusion came naturally: an orphan with no money, obsessed with an expensive broom, brewing potions to sell for cash to buy it.
How vulgar. How pathetic.
A cold sneer escaped him. "Heh. Utterly pathetic orph—"
His words were cut short as Sean set down his notebook. The ingredients he'd added made the cauldron bubble fiercely, the firelight warping the air and Snape's shadow.
The sudden heat flipped a page in the notebook, revealing a line of text to Snape:
[The Nimbus 2000 showed exceptional emergency turning in this morning's flight test. The trick isn't core strength but guiding the second charm cluster on the left-rear side with intent. It's almost identical to the final guiding step in potion-making. Magic truly is connected by a single thread.]
Sean turned quickly in his flurry, and Snape's words caught in his throat.
"Utterly pathetic heat control! I'd wager your troll-sized brain can't grasp the beauty of a slow simmer. Study page sixty-three, bottom left, of The Book of Potions—the Swelling Solution requires double the standard heat when it starts to boil!"
Sean seemed to ignore the scolding, focusing on timing the heat precisely. The cauldron's bubbles surged and popped, releasing an intoxicating white vapor.
His mind drifted to the book he'd recently started reading, written by Zygmunt Budge, a renowned potion-maker who left Hogwarts. At fourteen, Budge was the best in his Potions class, even correcting his teacher's mistakes with lacewing fly tails.
Convinced he was ready, he begged the headmaster to let him compete in the Wizarding Schools Potions Championship. But the headmaster refused—he was under seventeen, and the competition was too dangerous.
Furious, Budge left Hogwarts in protest, believing the school was stifling his potential. He never regretted it.
What stuck with Sean was a story from Budge's school days: a rival once splashed himself with a love potion, becoming infatuated with the Potions professor. Later, whenever Budge needed loud, uncontrollable laughter for his Laughing Potion, he'd think of that incident.
It seemed like a trivial anecdote, but Sean caught something deeper. If the Laughing Potion required loud, uncontrollable laughter, could other potions need specific emotions too?
Perhaps Libatius Borage's rituals weren't the end goal—just a focus and desire for the potion to succeed. In other words, a strengthened will.
Advanced potion-making, like spell-casting, might require more refined emotions. Like the release in a Levitation Charm or the yearning for light in a Lumos spell.
Potions and charms—they were tied by that same thread of magic.
Snape's face was unreadable in the firelight, his anger fading. His figure melted into the dungeon's shadows.
Sean Green already had his broom—where it came from didn't matter.
What mattered was his love for potions, proven by both Snape and Borage. Those who didn't love potions could never earn those notes.
So why was he doubting him?
The anger that twisted his judgment, and the note in his hand, reminded him of words he couldn't take back. Today, he'd nearly repeated that mistake.
"Sean Green…" Snape's black robes shifted, his cold gaze fixed on the boy. "Hmph. Care to explain why you're using that foolish broom? Planning to perform some… idiotic tricks with it?"
His mind drifted to a distant Hogwarts. If he hadn't let anger cloud his judgment back then, if he hadn't said those words, if he'd been like this instead…
The cauldron bubbled. Sunlight streamed through the cracks, and Snape's buried regrets cocooned themselves in the moss on the dungeon floor.
The spiders down here had survived for ages. For the first time, they were exposed to the light.