The Potions classroom was already open.
I went in, chose a seat and carefully set my bag beneath the desk.
My hip protested as I bent down.
I winced.
Next time, if I absolutely had to brace myself against a sink, I’d choose a side without a jutting edge.
I took out my textbook, parchment and equipment.
The room was cold.
It smelled of dried herbs, stone and something sour that had refused to leave the cupboard beside the professor’s desk since the start of term.
At least the light wasn’t reflecting off several hundred plates here.
Harry and Ron came in shortly afterwards.
Hermione paused at the door to let someone out of a side passage, then joined them.
They sat nearby.
I hoped we really had finished discussing the troll for a while.
Blaise put his bag beside mine.
Malfoy sat across the aisle and gave me a brief look.
“You still look as though you slept in the lake.”
“I heard you at breakfast.”
“You haven’t improved since.”
I took out my knife and placed it on the board.
“I’ll keep you informed.”
Blaise smiled to himself.
The door closed before Draco could answer.
***
Snape walked between the desks.
The conversations stopped almost simultaneously.
He put a stack of parchments on his desk, surveyed the room and paused at our row.
For a moment, I was certain he’d begin with last night.
Instead, he raised his wand.
A recipe appeared on the board.
**Cure for Boils.**
Beneath it were ingredients, quantities and the stages of preparation.
“Today, we shall discover whether you can complete a simple potion without omitting instructions you consider inconvenient.”
I opened my textbook.
“That applies particularly to the moment you remove the cauldron from the heat. Those who decide to discover for themselves why it is specified will have ample opportunity to become personally acquainted with the symptoms.”
Someone at the back shifted uneasily.
Snape’s gaze passed over the class.
“Begin.”
***
I read the instructions before reaching for the ingredients.
Then reread the end.
I preferred to know at which point I could grow boils instead of curing them.
Over the past few weeks, setting up my workstation had become easier.
Scales on the left, ingredients waiting in separate dishes, enough room beside the book to keep its pages dry.
I weighed the first portion of dried nettles incorrectly.
I checked the pointer and removed a little.
Right this time.
At the next station, Blaise was crushing snake fangs with the expression of someone who held a grudge against them.
“Too coarse,” I murmured.
“I know.”
He brought the pestle down again.
Across the aisle, Ron was trying to keep nettles on his board.
One leaf fell onto his sleeve.
He shook it off, knocking the rest in the process.
Hermione looked towards him.
“Move the board away from the edge.”
“I can see.”
“Then move it.”
Harry snorted quietly.
I turned to my own mortar.
***
Once I lit the flame beneath the cauldron, I felt a little more awake.
Preparing ingredients occupied my hands, but left my mind free enough to return to the bathroom.
This time, mostly to the moment the troll had backed away.
I still found it hard to believe I’d done that.
I had a wand, knew several spells and could perform them quite well.
All of that was wonderful, but at least I’d known it existed.
I’d read about it before arriving.
I knew almost nothing about the eyes.
No remembered scene to show me what should happen next.
No convenient description of the ability or list of applications.
Not long ago, I’d been watching strange figures in the street.
Then I’d moved a needle.
Yesterday, I’d stopped a creature bigger than a wardrobe.
And even now, with my eye aching, I wanted to know what else I could do.
Blaise nudged his textbook with his elbow.
I looked at my cauldron.
The liquid was boiling too hard.
I lowered the flame.
First, I needed not to ruin the cure for boils.
***
Adding the ingredients went smoothly.
I watched the liquid, counted the stirs and checked the recipe whenever I reached the next stage.
After one portion went in, something changed beneath the surface.
At first, I thought it was a reflection of the flame.
Thin bands moved beside the cauldron wall, briefly forming an uneven pattern.
Some dispersed with the movement of the liquid.
Others lasted longer.
I slowed my hand.
It resembled what I saw around spells.
I leaned a little closer, keeping my face away from the steam.
One wisp broke off near the edge.
Another stretched as I stirred.
After a few seconds, both disappeared into a new arrangement.
My left eye stung slightly.
I blinked, but didn’t look away at once.
I wanted to see one more change.
It came a moment later.
Where foam gathered against the side, the bright strands stopped overlapping.
They settled more evenly, and the tiny bubbles began to burst.
I checked the instructions.
That was precisely the moment I was supposed to wait for.
I added the powder.
The liquid changed shade.
I smiled at the cauldron.
Magic had been working here all along too.
Of course it had.
These were potions.
But why was I only beginning to see it this way now?
***
Harry lifted the dish of powdered fangs.
I noticed the movement from the corner of my eye.
His liquid was still foaming around the edges.
Just beneath its surface, I glimpsed a similar, restless flicker.
“Not yet.”
Harry stopped his hand.
Looked at me.
“What?”
“Wait before adding the powder.”
He glanced at the board.
“It’s already been—”
“Give it another ten seconds or so.”
Ron looked over from his workstation.
Harry hesitated, but didn’t add the ingredient.
I returned to my cauldron before Snape could decide we were holding a meeting.
A few seconds later, I heard a faint rustle.
Then:
“Oh.”
I glanced sideways.
Harry was stirring.
The liquid had changed shade and settled, without the thick layer of foam around the edges.
“Thanks.”
I nodded.
Ron looked into his cauldron.
“How did you know how long to wait?”
“It was foaming.”
He examined the surface of his own potion.
I left him with that explanation.
Snape spoke behind us.
***
“Potter.”
Harry went rigid.
The professor peered into his cauldron, then at the empty powder dish.
“Astonishing. A correctly completed stage.”
Harry opened his mouth, but apparently found no safe reply.
Snape glanced at me.
“Whose instructions did you find easier to understand? Mine or your classmate’s?”
“I waited for the foam to settle, Professor,” Harry answered.
A good answer.
Much better than his expression had led me to expect.
Snape studied him for a moment.
“Then observe the next stages with equal care.”
He moved to my workstation.
I said nothing.
He checked the potion’s surface, the measured ingredients and the powder remaining in the mortar.
“Lower the flame slightly earlier the next time you stir.”
“Yes, Professor.”
Only then did Harry breathe out.
Ron leaned over his cauldron.
“He could just have said it was good.”
“He could,” I agreed.
That was all the conversation I wanted while Snape remained within earshot.
***
For the rest of the lesson, my gaze returned to the wisps several times.
They appeared more clearly during changes.
When an ingredient went in, the temperature rose or the liquid reached another stage.
I couldn’t link them to particular substances.
For a moment, I thought one moved with the remaining nettles.
Then it spread in an entirely different direction.
I didn’t yet know what I was looking at.
But I wanted to find out.
In the margin of my notes, I wrote a few words ordinary enough to interest nobody looking over my shoulder.
**Before adding.
After stirring.
Colour change.**
I underlined the last one.
When Snape passed, I returned to measuring.
I didn’t need his interest in that particular part of my work.
***
The finished potion had an even colour and the right thickness.
I moved the cauldron as instructed and added the final ingredient only when I was supposed to.
Hermione had finished a little earlier.
She poured a sample into a phial and began comparing the textbook’s description with her notes.
Snape examined her potion and allowed her to set it aside.
Then he stopped beside me.
He scooped a little onto a spoon.
I waited.
“Eight points to Slytherin. Correct consistency.”
I smiled.
“Now label the phial properly,” he added.
“Without that, even a successful potion soon loses its value.”
I reached for the label.
Once he’d gone, Ron looked up.
“He’d probably take points off for my name.”
“Write it neatly. Don’t make it easy for him.”
Harry laughed under his breath.
Hermione glanced towards us too, then returned to her book.
Her potion looked at least as good as mine.
I didn’t need Peverell eyes to notice the unequal marking.
***
As I transferred the sample, the pattern appeared again.
This time, it was calmer.
Delicate bands moved with the liquid, keeping similar distances apart.
I paused with the ladle above the cauldron.
I wanted to press.
Very lightly.
See whether the arrangement would react like the levitation.
I looked at Snape.
He stood two workstations away.
I imagined explaining why a correctly brewed potion had suddenly stopped being correct just before I handed it in.
I lowered the ladle.
That experiment required my own cauldron.
Preferably in a room where the professor couldn’t appear behind me.
***
The bell brought the usual commotion.
Chairs scraped back.
Someone searched for a phial stopper.
Someone else discovered they’d put a dirty knife in their bag.
I packed my equipment and reached for the textbook.
Hermione approached before I could close my bag.
“How did you know it needed another ten seconds?”
I looked up at her.
Of course.
“The foam hadn’t settled.”
“You said how long before it started settling.”
“I said ten seconds or so.”
She stood beside the desk, holding her book to her chest.
“That’s quite an accurate estimate.”
“We could ask Harry whether he was counting.”
She didn’t look amused.
I fastened my bag.
“We were making the same potion, Hermione. Mine was a little further along.”
“That’s true, but—”
“So I had something to compare it with.”
I started between the desks.
She followed.
***
The corridor was busier.
Harry and Ron waited a little further away.
Ron was talking and gesturing so broadly that a passing girl had to step aside.
Hermione didn’t join them immediately.
“I’m interested in potions,” she said.
“If there’s a way to identify more precisely when to add an ingredient, I’d like to know it.”
I stopped.
That sounded different from the questions outside the Great Hall.
“It’s described in the textbook. At that stage, the foam has to clear the edges before you add the powder.”
“I know. I read it.”
“I noticed.”
She studied me for a moment.
“You say that as though reading the textbook is strange.”
“No. I read it myself.”
“Then?”
“Then I think we both know why Harry needed to wait.”
She couldn’t argue with that, though she clearly wanted to return to those ten seconds.
Ron’s voice came down the corridor.
“Hermione!”
She looked back.
“Coming!”
Then turned to me again.
“Snape could at least explain why the order of those ingredients matters so much.”
“I suspect he will if someone’s cauldron explodes.”
“The cauldron doesn’t have to explode.”
“Good. I sit next to it.”
For a moment, the corner of her mouth twitched.
She adjusted her books and went to the boys.
I headed the other way.
I already had an idea for the evening.
***
The rest of the lessons dragged more than usual.
Several times, I reached into my bag for the notebook to add something, only to realise I was supposed to be writing down something entirely different.
At lunch, Blaise asked whether I had the Transfiguration homework.
I pushed the parchment towards him.
He frowned at the second sentence.
“What did you write here?”
I leaned over.
I had no idea.
We looked at each other.
“This is going to be harder than I thought,” he said.
I took back the parchment and tried to recall McGonagall’s words.
For a few minutes, I thought about an ordinary transformation of material.
Then I remembered the needle trembling under my gaze.
Was I pressing against the same thing each time?
Could I choose the spot more precisely?
Blaise cleared his throat.
“Oliver.”
I raised my head.
“That sentence. I’m still waiting.”
I looked at the parchment.
So he was.
***
Almost as soon as dinner ended, I went to the seventh floor.
In front of the tapestry, I thought about a desk, simple objects to practise with and somewhere I could quietly observe a spell.
The Room prepared everything as before.
Wooden sticks.
A metal rod.
A bowl of water.
The dummy by the wall.
I put my bag on a chair, but didn’t sit.
First, I took out my wand.
“Lumos.”
Light brightened the desktop.
I examined the tip, then the glow itself.
I could increase the brightness normally by directing more magic through the wand.
I did so, watching what changed.
Only then did I try the pressure.
The light trembled.
Or my hand did.
I rested my forearm on the desk and repeated the attempt.
This time, the glow briefly dimmed, but I’d also altered my concentration on the spell.
I couldn’t separate the two well enough.
“Nox.”
I put down the wand.
I wasn’t unhappy.
I simply needed something where the difference would be easier to see.
The needle formed on the first attempt.
I laid it on paper beside a second one I intended to leave untouched.
Previously, I’d tried pressing against the whole object.
This time, I chose the very end, beside the eye.
I leaned closer.
The bright wisp was faint, but after a moment, I found it.
I let the tension build.
The needle twitched.
All of it.
I tried to narrow my focus.
The metal dulled at the end.
I stopped and moved the lamp closer.
A small flaw.
Like those I’d made before, except now it was roughly where I wanted it.
“Roughly,” I said quietly.
I picked up another stick.
That needed repeating.
***
On the third attempt, I produced a mark on the correct side.
On the fourth, the needle stayed smooth.
On the fifth, it twitched so noticeably that I heard a faint tap against the desk.
I chuckled.
If someone entered now, they’d see a boy delighted at having moved a needle a few times.
I wouldn’t know how to explain why it was so interesting.
With a spell, I knew at least the incantation and movement.
Here, I was learning from scratch even what it meant to ‘try’.
And it was beginning to work.
I pulled my notebook closer, recorded the results and immediately returned to the desk.
I wanted to try the rod too.
***
“Wingardium Leviosa.”
The metal hovered a few centimetres above the wood.
I waited for it to stop turning.
I’d done this often enough over the past few weeks that simply keeping it in the air no longer required all my attention.
I watched the delicate pattern beneath it.
In the potion, the bands changed when the ingredients began working together.
Here, they persisted as long as I maintained the spell.
The comparison explained nothing yet, but it gave me something to look for.
I tried pressing near the rod’s left end.
The whole thing sank.
I relaxed my focus and let it rise again.
Once more.
This time, I looked a little closer to the middle.
The rod tilted, then slid a few centimetres sideways.
I raised my eyebrows.
I hadn’t done that with the wand.
At least, I didn’t think I had.
I lowered it onto the desk and started again.
***
It took several attempts to produce a similar result.
One end sank further than the other.
Not always the end I chose.
That was irritating.
And interesting enough to make me push back my chair and stand beside the desk, trying a different angle.
The tension in my eye appeared faster than it had before the troll.
I didn’t have to search for it long.
Stopping it was easier too, as long as I didn’t try too many things at once.
On the next attempt, the rod spun sharply.
I lost the levitation.
The metal hit the desk and rolled towards the edge.
I caught it at the last moment.
For a while, I stood with my arm outstretched above the floor.
Then I began to laugh.
I had a wand, eyes that could disrupt magic, and I still had to catch falling objects like everyone else.
I put down the rod.
The burning in my left eye intensified.
I checked the clock.
There was still some time.
One quick attempt.
***
I chose the simplest version.
Raise the rod.
Hold it.
Press against one end.
Stop before losing the spell.
The first attempt failed.
On the second, the end of the metal sank slowly, exactly where I was looking.
I didn’t correct it immediately with my wand.
I held the pressure for a moment.
Then let go.
The rod levelled in the air.
I stood still, watching it with a broad smile.
That was it.
A small effect.
No stopping trolls or breaking wards.
But I’d done something deliberately and got the result I wanted.
I lowered the rod onto the desk.
My temple throbbed.
This time, I sat down.
There was no point obscuring one successful attempt with five more during which I’d only grow increasingly tired.
But tomorrow, I intended to come back to it.
***
My notes filled two pages.
I had to cross some out because I couldn’t describe the movement without words that explained nothing.
‘Press near the end’ only made sense while I remembered what I meant.
So I drew the rod.
Then an arrow.
It looked like instructions for kicking a stick.
I sighed and added a few sentences.
I left a separate note about the potion:
**Compare before and after brewing is complete.**
Beneath it:
**Test a small quantity.
Separate container.**
I wasn’t going to do that in front of Snape tomorrow.
But now I wanted more than to look at finished mixtures.
I wanted to see what would happen to their magic if I touched it in the same way.
***
On the shelf, I found a book on basic brewing.
I scanned the contents.
Temperature.
Ingredient order.
Combining properties.
Stability.
I took it back to the desk and opened the relevant chapter.
This time, I knew what I was looking for.
The author described signs of a failed combination: sediment, colour changes, separation.
I read the passage twice.
It didn’t mention what I’d seen in the cauldron.
Not directly, at least.
I turned a few pages.
Then returned to the start of the chapter.
It wasn’t discouraging.
Quite the opposite.
Perhaps the author was describing the effects of the same process I could watch earlier, before the colour changed or foam appeared.
I didn’t know yet.
I marked the page.
I wanted to compare it during the next lesson.
***
I left the Room later than intended.
My eye was tired, and I was still planning the next experiment.
A rod of a different material.
A lighter object.
A spell cast on something I could observe without having to maintain it constantly.
At the stairs, I almost missed the correct turn.
I doubled back, smiling to myself.
In the common room, Blaise was still working on the assignment.
He looked up as I passed.
“I’ve deciphered it.”
“What?”
“Your handwriting.”
He slid the parchment over.
I leaned over the table.
The sentence did make sense.
“How?”
“I asked someone else who’d been in the lesson.”
I looked at him.
“Clever.”
“I recommend it.”
I handed back the sheet and went to the dormitory.
Before bed, I looked at my notes once more.
I added the date beside the drawing of the rod so I wouldn’t confuse the order of the experiments later.
Then I closed the notebook and put it beside the bed.
My hip still hurt.
My eye demanded rest.
And for the first time that day, I truly couldn’t wait for tomorrow.