Chapter 61: The Lost
Statues are always getting broken, like the statue of Gregory the Smarm that hides a secret passageway behind it.
Because of that passage, careless young wizards have cast all sorts of Repair Charms on its shattered pieces.
So too with Professor Snape now. He had broken free of a long stasis and fixed his gaze on the small wizard who had shattered it.
But sometimes silence is relative.
Cold gathered in the gloom of Professor Snape's eyes, while Shawn, oblivious, felt only a faint excitement.
He lit the cauldron with practiced ease, then carefully took ingredients from the glass cabinet crowded with grotesque specimens.
A white slip of paper lay tucked inside The Advanced Potions Guide, then disappeared into the haze of steam.
"Ingredient preparation, heat, stirring, ritual..."
Shawn recalled every annotation in his notes.
Those steps and details were the fruit of repeated summaries and improvements.
Only this kind of methodical, quantifiable inquiry let him steadily brew potions at Proficient standard.
And today, the quality of the Scourgebusting Potion might rise again.
That thought filled him with drive.
"If you have even a shred of intelligence, Shawn Green, you will add those dried nettles the moment the first bubbles break..."
Professor Snape's voice cut in suddenly.
Before he finished, Shawn dropped the dried nettles into the bubbling cauldron.
At the same time, the Quick-Quotes Quill beside him scratched the point down.
He seemed entirely immune to the mockery.
Snape's dark stare faltered for a moment. Then, over the sudden crack of thunder, his voice came again.
"Fool. Do you truly not know that if you stir counterclockwise more than two and a half turns, this potion will be worse than the grime on the cauldron?"
Shawn stopped stirring at once, counted off the seconds, and added the slugs.
As it turned out, when mockery received no reply, the dungeon held only the filtered drum of rain and the chime of Shawn's stirring.
Snape's barbs gradually thinned, replaced only by the occasional frigid "instruction."
Until—
"It's time."
Light flashed in Shawn's eyes. Master Libatius Borage's improved ritual was a complete process.
It laid its groundwork across the whole brew, but only at the very end did it thread the hidden elements together.
The potion in the cauldron had reached its critical moment. Now every tiny motion of the ritual would send the quality of the brew surging or crashing.
As Shawn spoke the incantation and shaped the gesture, Snape's pupils narrowed. He strode forward, black robes rolling like a storm cloud, and in an instant stood before the cauldron.
Two slips of paper were clenched in his broad hand, yet their edges did not bend at all.
They had been protected by multiple charms.
Shawn, unaware, immersed himself in the potion.
He felt like the wizard who had once slogged through batch after batch of Scourgebusting Potion.
A strong emotion wrapped around him and led him to see that fine, flowing magic clearly.
As expected—
He felt the change in the magic within the cauldron and sensed, dimly, how to guide it to fuse more completely, to brew a worthy potion.
But the storm in the dungeon was almost as fierce as the one outside.
Snape stared into those emerald eyes and at those all-too-familiar methods.
"Where did you learn that?"
[You completely brewed one cauldron of Scourgebusting Potion at Expert standard, Proficiency +50]
The panel's chime sounded together with Snape's low, strangled growl.
It was so intense that Shawn flinched.
"Have Yourself a Bottled Carnival!, Professor."
Shawn could not fathom the anger.
"Give me the slip," Snape said, as if the words were forced through his throat.
Shawn quietly drew out the flat slip from The Advanced Potions Guide. It recorded knowledge about heat control.
On the outermost edge, almost invisible,
sat a faint "3."
Noticing it, Shawn quickly glanced at the slip he had taken from Have Yourself a Bottled Carnival!
It bore a faint "2."
Snape's expression was unreadable in the dim light.
Only the rain scoured the dungeon, and Shawn could barely hear the whisper at the edge of Snape's mouth—if he was speaking at all.
"Shawn Green, get out of my dungeon. Now. Immediately."
The fury sounded like it had been settling for decades.
Sensing the danger, Shawn turned to leave.
But a slip of paper floated out of The Advanced Potions Guide.
Shawn froze where he stood, holding the slip.
He looked up and met Snape's murderous gaze, rigid as stone.
"Idiot. Get out!"
Shawn bolted, the slip crushed in his fist. Yet as he shut the dungeon door, he did it softly.
What had just happened?
What did the numbers mean?
Did they mark the number of people who knew this knowledge?
If Professor Snape knew the heat-control notes, then who was the second person who knew them?
And why did that person not know the ritual?
Shawn's questions gathered like raindrops on Gothic stained glass and finally ran down into the foundations as unanswerable riddles.
In the dungeon.
The clammy stone walls seeped eternal damp, mixed with the bitter, sharp scent of aged potion ingredients. It congealed into an air that belonged to Severus Snape alone.
He hunched behind the huge black oak desk like a bat crouched deep in a rock crevice, staring at the slips of paper. It was the only thing he could do.
In The Advanced Potions Guide, two slips lay stacked, marked "1" and "3."
The missing one carried the only days when he had once seen bright sunlight. It was the secret he had once guarded with another...
In Have Yourself a Bottled Carnival!, by contrast, "1" and "2" lay scattered.
This vanishing number came only from his mistake.
His fingers eased slightly. The slips did not bend, but the motion was so slow it was almost weary.
He fixed his gaze on the one that had been lost, as if he could pierce the wall, back to the rainy night long ago and the breaking apart.
Hatred and some unspeakable, rending anger crashed in his chest.
He seemed to hear that word again, the sin he could never atone for in this life.
So the past closed its hand on his throat like a ghost.
He had believed he would hold these slips forever, until that fool burst into his dungeon.
His expression was complicated.
He knew the notes would be found by the next person.
Truth does not break.
Nor do love and hate.
...
In the corridor,
torchlight glittered on the armor and bounced back in shards.
A short, stout knight flitted through different frames, occasionally knocking a witch's goblet over and getting soundly swatted with a bouquet.
Sir Cadogan was unbothered, muttering under his breath.
"Aha, I thought that old story would never change. He held to those hates and forgot he once loved potions. Now, a new, faint story seems to be appearing. Hope? So they say..."
Just then, as Shawn passed that spot,
a figure, all wrapped in stormcloud shadow, appeared before him.
Shawn tensed at the sudden sight of Professor Snape.
Those dark eyes reflected green.
"For the three days after every Thursday, I will see you in the dungeon," Snape said. "Do not make me regret this decision."