Chapter 95: A World of Prodigies
With each passing day, Shawn grew more familiar with Hogwarts.
He could have walked to the dungeons with his eyes closed and never once brushed the wall.
The ingredient cabinets were his storerooms now. He could, without looking, point to where most potion components were kept.
His practice notebook for Potions was already full, forcing him to tuck Master Libatius Borage's notes between the pages of a second.
Sometimes he felt that knowledge in the wizarding world did not flow in a straight, unbroken line.
When Harry had got his hands on the Half‑Blood Prince's annotated text, his Potions marks had shot up, even surpassing Hermione's in some areas, despite all her hard work.
Shawn was much the same. With Borage's improved brewing ritual and the will‑guided technique layered over it, he had managed to produce a Proficient‑standard Deflating Draught on his first serious attempt.
Ordinarily, a wizard might have to study and practise for a year or two to reach that level.
It pointed to something uncomfortable: in some areas – perhaps in many – magic was not actually moving forward step by measured step.
On the whole, of course, the wizarding world had advanced. Dumbledore's twelve uses of dragon's blood were a discovery of this century. Wolfsbane was clearly another great breakthrough. Wolfsbane had been a clear breakthrough.
In alchemy, Fred and George Weasley would later dream up more than a few innovations. Brooms were obviously better than they had been. Faster, more responsive, more refined with every model.
Beyond that, the wizarding world had absorbed more and more Muggle technology: the Knight Bus, the steam train, cameras, newspapers, wizarding wireless. All of them sat well past the Middle Ages.
But to say the progress was great would be stretching it.
Dumbledore's work on dragon's blood was hailed as one of the greatest achievements of the age. Professor Snape counted as an innovator too, but his best‑known changes were things like pressing ingredients with a silver knife to draw juice quicker, or stirring counter‑clockwise at just the right moment to salvage a brew.
What struck Shawn most was how few truly new spells there were. The only self‑made curse from recent memory was Snape's own Sectumsempra.
Then there was the simple fact that shocked him most: Hogwarts' textbooks had not been updated in forty years.
Shawn was using the same editions Snape had used as a student. For four decades, perhaps longer, wizarding education had barely changed. In the Muggle world, that was unthinkable.
All of it led him to one conclusion.
Breakthroughs in magic tended to appear in the hands of a single, exceptionally gifted witch or wizard. Dumbledore, Snape, McGonagall.
History told much the same story. Libatius Borage's contributions alone had pushed the understanding of Potions a century forward.
Finding such prodigies and learning what they had done to alter their fields seemed, more and more, like an essential path in magical study.
Luckily, Hogwarts already held several.
Professor Snape was the foremost Potions Master of his time. His command of the craft was great enough that he could correct Advanced Potion‑Making itself.
Professor Flitwick was a former Duelling Champion; his charm theory and combat casting stood among the sharpest edges of the wizarding world.
Professor McGonagall was one of only seven registered Animagi, and her depth of knowledge in Transfiguration could keep Shawn studying for seven full years.
Beyond Hogwarts, where else could he hope to find so many powerful witches and wizards willing to teach?
And if he stayed over the summer, he might almost have them one‑on‑one.
During the term, they were simply too busy. Even Snape, in his off hours, always seemed to be marking essays with a cold curl of the lip and watching Shawn stir a cauldron in the gloom.
…
The steam rising from the cauldron drew Shawn back to the present.
He was brewing the Deflating Draught again. Last time, with the help of the modified ritual, he had already reached Proficient standard.
A few days ago, he had stumbled across a line in Magical Drafts and Potions:
Use the Swelling Solution with great care. A witch called Loria once used it to water her plants and splashed herself by mistake. For six days, her neck was swollen and stiff, as if someone had stuck a Quaffle on it. Fortunately, her mother, a novice at Potions, brewed a cauldron of Deflating Draught and calmed her, easing the pain.
Books always tucked useful things into their quiet corners.
Calmed. Eased. Those, Shawn suspected, were the key feelings.
The firelight turned his face to an interplay of shadow and glow.
He held his breath and sprinkled the final spoonful of ground ginger into the cauldron. The deep violet potion surged, bursting into orange bubbles that smelled sharp and warm.
Step by step, he followed his notes, weaving the improved ritual through every motion.
Ingredient preparation. Heat control. Stirring pattern. Boiling time.
His hands were always precise, always methodical. Each batch was a refinement of the last. He did not repeat mistakes.
From the shadowed corner, under strands of cobweb, Snape watched him. Watched the boy's focused face and the constant scribble of his quill. Now and then, he made a terse correction, lip curled.
Before long, Shawn felt that familiar shift the ritual brought – that deep focus and the swell of emotion. He adjusted his breath and his thoughts, imagining himself as the wizard desperately needed to soothe swelling and pain.
Under that emotion and the will riding on it, the fusion of ingredients changed.
Snape appeared at his elbow in an instant, eyes locked on the cauldron.
"If there is an ounce of sense in that troll‑brain of yours, you will know what happens to people who tamper with rituals they do not understand," he hissed.
Rage had him by the throat. His hand tightened on his wand. He did not dare look away from the boy.
Fool. Arrogant. Hopeless.
The words snarled through his mind, but he still did not interrupt. He only stood, brow furrowed, forcing his anger down.
Shawn heard none of it. In the grip of the ritual and his own will‑work, he seemed to have stepped fully into the role he was imagining.
His magic, saturated with feeling, poured into the swirling potion. In that seething liquid, he felt, with startling clarity, the beauty of it – this brew that let a witch or wizard solve problems, ease suffering.
And he began to understand what Snape had said in their very first lesson.
"I do not expect you to appreciate the subtle science and exact art that is potion‑making. You will not understand the soft simmer of a cauldron above a fire, with its fumes spiralling up your noses, or the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses. I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death."
Snape had been telling the truth.