Chapter 93: Alchemy
"That was brilliant, Shawn!"
Two figures darted past the Gryffindor team so fast that even Madam Hooch did not have time to react before they were in front of him. Shawn still had a Quaffle in his hand; Madam Hooch had not yet managed to hand him his flight permit.
"Oh – Shawn, drink something. Honey lemon tea? Pumpkin juice? Hot chocolate?" Justin asked.
He had only two hands, yet somehow he was holding three different steaming drinks. Shawn still had no idea how they arrived, but he was quite sure a house‑elf had popped in nearby.
"Here, wipe," Hermione said, thrusting a towel at him, sounding flustered. His fringe was damp with sweat.
"Thanks."
Shawn took it and saw Madam Hooch approach with a smile.
"Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw," she said, placing a parchment stamped with red wax into his hand. "Enjoy your time in the air. And mind you stay safe."
Shawn nodded.
Justin and Hermione were already crowding over his shoulders.
"Merlin. Is that the flight permit no one has earned in seven years?" Justin all but shoved his face into the document, forgetting entirely about the solemn "march in and scold him" act he and Hermione had planned.
Shawn watched him cradle the permit like a treasure and did not object. He simply sipped his hot chocolate.
Warmth chased the cold from his bones. The sweetness on his tongue made his eyes half close.
Delicious!
"Cool," Justin breathed, sounding out each word as he finished reading. Hermione shot him an exasperated look.
"Shawn has not even seen it yet."
"What?"
Not far away, Madam Hooch watched the three of them with good humour. The Gryffindor Quidditch players at her side were less delighted.
"The flight permit, Fred. Remember? Captain never got one in his first year," George said, blinking.
"Course I remember. He sulked for a month over it," Fred replied, full of mock regret.
"Shut it, you two," Wood snarled. His temper was close enough to set the pitch alight.
Harry simply stared at Shawn.
Before Hogwarts, everyone had told him he was a hero. He had done his best not to let it go to his head, but some part of him had floated all the same.
Then, little by little, the talk around the castle had shifted to Shawn. He was the one people said would make truly great strides in magic. Nearly every professor agreed.
He was always studying somewhere out of sight. He never came to parties and did not care for games. Half the school hardly saw him at all. They only heard bits and pieces in the Great Hall when Professor Flitwick spoke to Professor McGonagall.
"Mr Green? Yes, Professor McGonagall. He has mastered nonverbal spells," Flitwick had said once.
Harry dimly remembered that it was sixth‑year work.
And yet somehow, Shawn was impossible to resent. Everyone saw him pushing himself to exhaustion – pale in lessons, an ice pack on his head, steam drifting from his ears from Pepperup, and still reading as he walked.
Anyone who truly wanted to pick a fight with him found themselves up against another problem entirely: the "cheap" History of Magic notes.
"If you make trouble for Mr Green and he cannot finish Green's notes, Merlin help you," one exasperated student had said. "We will not."
He was a hardworking genius, the sort that sometimes made you want to give up trying to catch up at all.
It was said that even the Slytherins thought twice before speaking ill of him. The last one who had tried was still in detention.
"Harry. Oh – you have got an important job," Wood's voice dragged Harry back. Important job. Wood had said that about half a dozen things already. Harry had assumed this would be more of the same.
It was not.
"Find out if this Green has joined the Ravenclaw team. If he has, we will need a new plan," Wood said, frowning. "You are still at the centre of ours, of course. Together we will take the Cup."
The task landed so fast that Harry's head nodded before he had processed a word.
When it did sink in, his eyes went wide.
Elsewhere,
Shawn spread the permit flat. The parchment itself was enchanted. At Madam Hooch's instruction, he laid it across the shaft of his broom. The Nimbus shivered, and something like a link etched itself into it.
He could feel it – a Connection Charm, most likely, but more complex than that alone.
It struck him again that, in its own way, Hogwarts really was "the safest place."
In the changing room,
Shawn changed quickly. As he went to leave, someone blocked the doorway.
"You can feel the enchantments, can't you?" a red‑haired boy said, popping round the corner.
Shawn nodded. Another voice spoke at once.
"Then you must be stunned by the marvels of alchemical craft," said a second red‑head, hemming him in from behind.
"This is the finest subject Hogwarts has," one of them declared.
"Shame you cannot study it until the sixth year," the other added.
"Unless you are at Beauxbatons," the first said.
"Where the lower years get proper alchemy lessons."
"Nicolas Flamel himself came out of Beauxbatons," one of them went on. "You have heard of him, I suppose."
"But you do not know everything," the other finished.
"In any case, he is over six hundred years old," they said together.
Shawn had recognised Fred and George Weasley at the first syllable. Their patter only made his curiosity about alchemy grow.
"So, Mr Weasley, how does one get started?" he asked.
"You tell us how much you felt, on the broom," Fred said, setting his own broom down. It hovered a foot off the floor.
"We have never met anyone else like us," George said, one brow arched. "Alchemy does not tolerate mediocrity."
Shawn thought for a moment, then dug in his bag for a notebook.
From the first time he had touched a broom, he had deliberately recorded every sensation. The night before the test, he had almost taken the Nimbus apart.
He did not yet understand the theory, but he knew how the broom behaved and could sketch a rough cross‑section, with notes on what it did in practice and guesses at the spellwork involved.
He handed the notebook over. Fred's expression shifted from mild interest to something sharp. He glanced from Shawn to the page and back again.
"George, you need to see this," he said. "You are an alchemical prodigy if I have ever seen one."
"Just like us," George added, loudly.
Fred lifted his chin in agreement.