In the dungeon, the cold wind scraped through, making the windowpanes clatter, and Sean breathed out a plume of white.
He picked up his notebook in surprise. While he'd been focused on brewing, Professor Snape, impatient as ever, had scrawled annotations across it.
They were all things like "an idiot's handling," "a halfwit's choice," and "a timing window only Merlin's mercy could have gotten you through," but behind the insults lay a master's deep understanding of potions.
Ever since Master Libatius Borage's notes had revealed themselves, Sean had discovered a depressing fact: Advanced Potion-Making didn't actually cover the three potions he'd learned.
Put another way—Master Borage had given Sean a key to a golden chest, but the only box in his hands was a shabby, splintered wooden one.
They didn't match.
Which made Snape's marginalia perfectly timed.
Leaning on the refined ritual and the guiding method—plus Snape's meticulous notes—Sean managed to brew a Swelling Solution at Expert level.
[You brewed a Deflating Draught at expert level. Proficiency +50]
[A new potions title has been unlocked. Please check]
A little thrill ran through him, and as a draft swept by he shivered on reflex—spilling Swelling Solution onto the dried nettles on the table.
That was when the Deflating Draught Snape had made him learn early earned its keep: Sean splashed it over the spot and the swelling subsided at once.
"Heh—" Snape snorted at his unruffled response.
When he'd finished cleaning up, Sean quietly opened his panel:
[Title: Potions Initiate]
[Greatly increases perception for potions; slightly boosts potions aptitude]
So it was a big boost—
Expectant, Sean read on:
[Wizard Sean — Potions Aptitude: Green (elevated by Potions Initiate; originally White). Note: the average witch/wizard is Green.]
Looks like the next title upgrade will have to be Aptitude…, Sean thought.
In the past two months, besides Herbology just reaching the Beginner threshold, he'd ground out progress across several fields.
Compared with his old "one purple, three white" spread of talents, it was night and day.
He flicked through the panel, then picked up his notebook to capture the ideas still lingering in his head.
The guiding method wasn't complete; so far he'd targeted only the Swelling and Deflating Draughts, and even the latter still had plenty of room for refinement.
Compared to Master Borage's earlier approach, the guiding method added a further step: staging a scenario ritual. Like the initial refined ritual, it runs through the entire brew—countless small setups and cues that together culminate in the final transformation.
As Sean dug deeper, the number of needed details only grew. He understood now that refining brewing rites was destined to be a long road.
No wonder Libatius Borage perfected only a handful of potions in his lifetime.
Sean knew his time was limited, so he had to choose carefully. Some brews—like the Swelling Solution—he had no intention of perfecting.
In a corner of the dungeon—
After nudging Sean to check the notes, Snape's fury ebbed. He noticed instead the faint draft and the slight shiver that fool thought he was hiding so well.
He fell silent, watching with that wintry stare as Sean tidied the bench and moved to leave.
"Stop, Sean Green."
The words sounded squeezed out of his throat.
Sean halted.
The parchment clutched in Snape's hand was slapped—no, set—on the desk. He'd started to slam it down and eased off halfway, then barked, as if annoyed at himself:
"If you keep putting your faith in things divorced from reality, and let your view of high art in potions be twisted—then I promise you, Sean Green, I'll make sure you take your things and get out of my dungeon!"
At least he'd let me take my things, Sean thought, inexplicably.
He tucked the parchment away; the back was crammed with notes that made his eyes widen.
While he studied them, Snape's razor gaze caught, in a single glance, the thin, ill-fitting shirt collar.
He paused.
In those muttered jibes, in the boy's slight shiver, in that pilled, worn single layer—
Memory rippled like a lake: a black-haired figure in shadow decades ago, newly arrived at Hogwarts. He'd walked beneath cobwebbed eaves in a maternity dress handed down from his mother, the long-soaked grime of a fallen pure-blood house steeped into the cloth. The taunt of "Snivellus"… Those greasy strands were less negligence than a silence about cracked tiles and a filthy sink.
The Hogwarts robes became the first truly clean garment of his life. When the silver-embroidered House crest beat against his chest, a strange shiver climbed his spine.
"Out…"
He heard his own voice gone hoarse.
Sean didn't notice. He simply bowed with the parchment in hand and left the dungeon at a light step.
Snape watched, wordless.
In the corridor—
Sir Cadogan appeared again at the far end, alone this time, clad in battered armor—clearly just back from another duel—straining to yank a sword out of the ground. How he'd managed to ram it in was anyone's guess; the blade was sunk deep in the turf. He heaved and heaved and couldn't budge it.
At last he flopped onto the grass, flipped up his visor, and wiped his sweaty face.
"Keep a stout heart—the hardest battles are yet to come!" he bellowed.
Seeing the knight drenched in sweat, Sean quietly set a painting beside him, one with a round stool and a campfire.
Sir Cadogan's eyes lit up. "Another expedition, dear Green! We must find our quarry—and die gloriously in the charge!"
He never seemed able to mount his horse or draw his sword, but he always roared, full of vigor.
Sean nodded silently. He knew a knight truly could do such things.
"Well… not necessarily," the knight added as Sean turned to go. "Little Green, remember—singing through trial and twist is no easy feat. And the weight of silence in such times is no lighter. You'll see—not every life roars.
Some kinds of courage are wordless."
The gale howled around the castle. The one thing the corridor and the dungeon still shared was two pairs of ever-steady eyes.
~~~
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