“Protego!
Scourgify!” Will fired off two quick spells, sweeping the spilled potion away before it could touch him.
Neville’s mixture wasn’t harmless.
On contact, it would’ve left patches of scabies across his skin.
“You idiot!” Snape’s voice cracked across the room.
“You added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire, didn’t you?”
Neville burst into tears, scabies already blooming across his nose.
“Take him up to the hospital wing,” Snape snapped at Seamus.
“Potter.
Why didn’t you stop him before he made that mistake?
Did watching him fail make you feel better about yourself?
That’s another point from Gryffindor.” Snape seized the moment to dock Harry further, pivoting smoothly to praise Will instead.
“Perhaps you’d learn something watching Behrens.
Note how he guides his partner, and how quickly he handled the accident just now.
Two points to Slytherin, for Behrens’s quick thinking.”
Will felt a flicker of boredom settle in.
The entire class had barely earned him anything, less, even, than an afternoon spent sorting ingredients in detention.
His opinion of Potions dropped another notch.
Once class let out, Will overheard Ron muttering to Harry as they filed past him.
“Look at him, I bet Snape’s grooming him as his own personal dark wizard, sent here just to make you look bad.
Snape’s obsessed with that bloke.”
Will didn’t bother responding.
Sylvia fell into step beside him.
“Any plans for the weekend?”
“Reading.
Practicing spells.
Detention tonight.” Will had exactly one plan, and it was to grind experience.
“You’re unbelievably boring, you know that?”
“Interesting is relative.
That six-page essay Snape assigned on scabies potions sounded fairly interesting to me,” Will pointed out.
“I doubt he’ll go easy on you just because you’re in his house.”
Sylvia’s face fell.
“Oh no.
We’ve still got Charms, Transfiguration, and History of Magic work piling up too.”
“Sounds like your whole weekend’s spoken for.
I’m heading to the library now, coming?”
She thought it over.
“Fine.
But I want to see how you write yours first.”
…
The Hogwarts library sat on the west side of the castle, its interior several times larger than the building outside could possibly allow, thanks to some clever space-expansion charms.
Inside, the library stretched across multiple levels, shelves crossing and doubling back in every direction, brown reading desks scattered between them, students bent over books at nearly every one.
Somewhere in the deepest, dimmest corner sat the Restricted Section, quiet, dangerous, and clearly off-limits.
Being a Friday, the library sat mostly empty.
Will greeted Madam Pince, who reminded him, as always, not to damage anything, and then he and Sylvia set off in search of what they needed.
“Sylvia, you’re here too?”
“Hello, Hermione.”
By the time Will made his way back to a table with an armful of books, Hermione had already claimed a seat nearby.
It hardly surprised him.
She’d earned her reputation as a bookworm honestly.
“You’re actually planning to get through all of those?” Hermione stared, wide-eyed, at the stack Will had pulled together, Transfiguration, Charms, Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts, an enormous spread of subjects all at once.
“I don’t really know anything yet, so I figured I’d better catch up,” Will said, meaning it sincerely, though to Sylvia and Hermione it landed as pure, effortless bragging.
Doesn’t know anything?
The boy had answered every single question thrown at him in class all week without missing a beat.
Will waved off the reaction.
He genuinely believed what he’d said.
His skills were nowhere near maxed out, and Voldemort’s return was only a few years off.
What was he supposed to do if he wasn’t strong enough by then?
Didn’t anyone else understand what it felt like to be terrified of falling short?
Catching the mildly resentful looks from both girls, Will buried himself behind the stack of books and got to work on Snape’s assigned essay.
[You have acquired new knowledge of Potions.
Potions Experience +1]
[You have analyzed existing knowledge of Potions.
Potions Experience +2]
…
By the time the sun dipped low and the library’s candles flickered to life on their own, Will set down his quill, rubbed at his tired eyes, and finished the essay he’d spent the entire afternoon on.
Beside him, Sylvia kept leaning over, trying to “borrow” a glance at his work.
“Copying homework doesn’t actually teach you anything, you know.” Will flicked her lightly on the forehead.
“You’re missing the point.
I’m extracting knowledge from knowledge you’ve already extracted.
That’s efficiency, not copying.” Sylvia rubbed her forehead, entirely unbothered, speaking with total conviction.
Will sighed quietly.
His first impression of her, some cold, arrogant pure-blood, had turned out to be almost nothing like the real thing.
“Will’s right, Sylvia.
Copying his paper won’t actually help you.” Hermione had nearly finished her own by now.
“Fine, fine.” Sylvia gave in easily.
“Let me see yours instead, then.”
“You two keep at it.
My detention’s about to start.” Will packed his books away and tucked his finished essay into his bag.
He still needed to hand it directly to Snape.
“Wait, detention?
You’re in detention?
How?” Hermione hadn’t heard a word about what had happened in the Slytherin common room.
The Slytherins had kept it quiet, deliberately.
People liked to assume Gryffindor caused the most trouble at Hogwarts, but the truth was every house broke rules just as often.
Fewer Slytherins simply got caught.
Don’t mistake pure-blood manners for good behavior.
Plenty of those families had built their fortunes on things far worse than schoolyard scuffles, and that upbringing rarely produced obedient children.
Fights broke out regularly within Slytherin.
Everyone in the house simply understood, without needing to say it out loud, that whatever happened there stayed there.
A brawl on the scale of Will’s wasn’t unusual by Slytherin standards.
What earned him detention was the sheer size of the spell he’d used to end it.
“Let me explain,” Sylvia said quietly, pulling Hermione aside.
“Blood prejudice has always existed here.
Pure-bloods look down on half-bloods, half-bloods look down on Muggle-borns.
It’s just how the wizarding world runs.” Sylvia laid it out plainly for her.
Hermione’s face filled with genuine outrage as she listened.
“How is that allowed?
Do they really think being ‘noble’ gives them the right to treat people that way?
Doesn’t the Ministry do anything about it?”
She was still young enough, still new enough, to expect the world to be fairer than it was.
“You’re pure-blood too, though.
You’ve never treated anyone like that.”
“My family’s different.
The Lestranges split into three branches generations back, and mine’s never cared much about blood status.
My grandfather on my mother’s side was a Muggle, actually.
Sure, there’ve been Death Eaters somewhere in our history, but that branch is distant now, barely relatives at this point.” Sylvia paused before continuing.
“I was actually meant to go to Beauxbatons.
My grandmother wanted Durmstrang instead, said one letter from her would guarantee me the best treatment there.
But I wanted Hogwarts, and my father backed me on it, so the family gave in eventually.”
“…I see.” The revelation left Hermione a little stunned.
Students could just choose their school?
“So why Hogwarts, then?
Out of everywhere?”
“That’s a secret, for now.
I’ll tell you eventually.” Sylvia smiled.
“Though if you let me look at your essay, I might tell you sooner than planned.”
…
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the castle.
Will stood in Snape’s office, staring at him.
“Wait, you’re saying Headmaster Dumbledore wants to see me?”
“Correct.
His office sits on the eighth floor, behind a gargoyle statue.
The password is ‘Lemon Sherbet.'” Snape held Will’s finished essay in one hand, a flicker of surprise crossing his face.
He hadn’t expected the boy to finish it in a single afternoon.
Promising, if nothing else.
Will’s aptitude for Potions would need closer watching going forward.
Will left the office more confused than anything.
Had he really caught Dumbledore’s attention this quickly?