Vincent found it hard to describe the feeling that rose in him when he saw Theodore.
They had run into each other here again today.
Did Slytherins not have classes?
Surely he didn’t wake up every morning with nothing but potion-brewing on his mind.
Even if their Head of House was the Potions Master, this frequency still felt a little excessive.
Vincent had genuinely believed that after last time Theodore would stop coming to the Potions classroom—or at the very least turn around and leave the moment he saw him again.
After all, Vincent could not possibly hold a particularly good image in Young Master Nott’s mind.
Nearly three minutes had already passed since Theodore pushed the door open.
He was still standing in the doorway, not moving an inch.
Had Vincent’s prediction been wrong?
Theodore’s actions did not match the ones Vincent had expected.
An experimental specimen that was supposed to serve as a control group had chosen a different path, and Vincent actually felt rather pleased.
He liked it when the specimen did something that surprised him.
It allowed him to observe the results of the experiment more clearly.
Admittedly, he still did not know exactly what result he wanted.
But at least it would not be some rigid, predetermined conclusion.
Seeing Vincent remain quiet, Theodore felt a small measure of relief.
Good.
At least he looked normal right now.
He probably would not do anything strange again.
While the other boy was still acting normal, it would be best to achieve his goal.
If that failed, he would simply have to switch to more forceful methods.
Borrowing Goyle and Crabbe from Draco and beating Vincent up, for example.
The Malfoys ought to have plenty of experience with that sort of thing.
Yesterday, after Theodore left and the emotions Vincent had stirred finally cooled, Theodore realized the other boy had done it on purpose.
Vincent had wanted him to leave.
Theodore truly disliked sharing the Potions classroom with anyone except during actual classes.
Vincent had wanted to research potions alone—what could possibly require such solitary research?
Theodore could not stand the strange, stupid things this person kept doing to him.
He needed to settle the matter.
The two of them stared at each other hypocritically across nearly half the classroom.
For a moment the atmosphere was utterly still.
Today Theodore had not come looking for Vincent on purpose.
He had genuinely wanted to finish his own potion experiments.
Some of his hypotheses could only be tested through actual practice.
In Theodore’s eyes, nothing was more important than his potion work.
Vincent was nothing more than a negligible interlude in the process of solving that problem.
Once he finished the more important matters, he might turn his attention to Vincent.
Seeing Vincent here again did leave him a little puzzled.
Did the boy live in the Potions classroom?
Did he simply stay here all day with nothing else to do?
Ravenclaw’s schedule was different from Slytherin’s.
Although a few classes overlapped, they still had their own free time.
Theodore had deliberately chosen a weekday when the classroom should have been unused, thinking he would avoid Vincent.
Had the Ravenclaws stopped studying altogether?
Theodore had not said a word, yet Vincent could read everything from his eyes.
“Ravenclaw doesn’t have class right now either.
The nearest one is Potions this afternoon.” Theodore: “…” He really was preparing to live in the Potions classroom.
“I don’t live here.
I went back to the Ravenclaw dormitory yesterday.
I’ve just been staying longer these past few days because I have something to do.” Vincent himself did not understand why, looking into Theodore’s questioning eyes, he had simply told the truth.
He had found nothing useful.
Remaining here any longer would only waste time.
Saying too much to Theodore would only provoke him further.
Appropriate distance would make Theodore lower his guard—exactly the way Vincent himself reacted to anyone who tried too enthusiastically to get close.
He would only fill with suspicion and worry that the other person meant him harm.
After he finished speaking, Theodore said nothing more.
He lowered his gaze so that Vincent could no longer see his eyes.
Those eyes were beautiful—sapphire blue beneath dark lashes.
Right now the emotions inside them could not be read, but the lowered gaze made the tight press of Theodore’s lips perfectly clear.
Silence fell between them.
The Potions classroom held no other sound.
The quiet was almost unbearable.
Vincent was the first to break it.
“You’re here again?” He tried to keep his tone as flat as possible, free of any of the emotions currently swirling inside him.
Theodore nodded.
“Mm.
I have some potion experiments to run.” His tone was a little milder than the day before, though a trace of wariness still lingered in his eyes.
Open hostility would do neither of them any good.
Theodore had no desire to tangle with the Ravenclaw lunatic.
If they could return their relationship to a state of peaceful coexistence, that would naturally be best.
“Oh.
Looks like we’re really fated.” Vincent tried to lighten the atmosphere and offered a slightly stiff smile.
When it came to performing a smile, Vincent could usually do it with effortless fluency.
Facing Theodore, however—the young wizard he considered similar to himself—Vincent, whose temperament had not yet been fully tempered, could not produce a smile that looked completely sincere and free of reservation.
It was easy with strangers.
It was easy once familiarity had been established.
Only this ambiguous in-between state left him unsure how to handle it.
Most of the people he had met quickly moved into a familiar dynamic.
All he needed to do was say a few pleasant things that matched their expectations and their wariness would drop.
The only Waterloo had been Dumbledore.
That old fox appeared to have relaxed his guard on the surface, but only the man himself knew the truth.
Theodore did not return the smile.
He simply walked to the other side of the classroom and began preparing his potion ingredients.
He took several materials from the shelves, placed them carefully on the table, then brought out his own cauldron and wand.
Vincent did not ask what he planned to brew.
He simply watched as Theodore carried out the same plan Vincent himself had followed yesterday—preparing the ingredients, then setting them to simmer in the cauldron.
The two of them worked at opposite ends of the classroom.
For a while the atmosphere actually felt quite peaceful.
Theodore had not intended to keep paying attention to the other boy, but the ingredients Vincent had taken out were rather strange.
They were not the sort required for any first-year potions they had encountered so far.
Theodore restrained himself to only two glances in Vincent’s direction.
Even without looking up, Vincent keenly sensed the gaze.
Vincent had not begun brewing, but he also had not left.
Theodore had expected him to leave soon.
Not only did Vincent stay, he produced even more unusual ingredients.
“If you want to know what I’m brewing, why don’t you tell me first what potion you came here to make?” An equivalent exchange.
Perfectly reasonable.
“A healing potion.
The most ordinary kind,” Theodore said.
Vincent gave a small nod.
“A healing potion.
That’s certainly practical.” While speaking he ran through various healing-potion formulas in his mind, trying to determine which one Theodore was making.
He had always known he possessed talent.
He had not expected to feel even more at home after entering Hogwarts.
Perhaps he had simply been born to be a wizard.
Theodore added the ingredients to the cauldron in a precise order, then touched his wand lightly to the base.
Flame sprang up beneath it.
He controlled the heat with careful attention, eyes fixed unblinking on the changes inside the cauldron.
Theodore glanced at Vincent in a spare moment, as if prompting him to continue speaking.
“I’m brewing a potion that strengthens the heart.” A potion specialized for one particular organ?
Theodore seemed not to understand.
“Why not brew dittany essence?
It can treat the vast majority of wounds and has much broader application.” The potion he himself was currently making was also a healing preparation, though not dittany essence.
It focused on a specific skin condition—possibly insect bites or irritation from damp environments.
In short, a potion for rashes.
“I’d like to as well.
But what if the heart hasn’t been cut out yet?” Vincent’s tone made it sound like a joke.
Only he knew that if this brewing failed, he might actually have them send the child over, remove the heart, and then hand over dittany essence.
Obtaining a fresh, living heart would be worth enduring a little pain, wouldn’t it?
Theodore treated the remark as nothing more than a joke and the end of the conversation.
He settled calmly into the work of preparing his own healing potion.
All of his ingredients were already in the cauldron.
They would need half an hour of careful simmering before the next step.
Vincent could see that Theodore possessed definite skill and experience in potion-making.
He stopped disturbing him.
After watching for a while longer he returned to the textbook and the books he had borrowed from the library.
The classroom sank back into a quiet atmosphere broken only by the crackle of flame beneath the cauldron and the occasional soft sound from the ingredients themselves.
Vincent and Theodore each busied themselves with their own work.
They did not speak, as if ignoring each other, yet the atmosphere between them was better than the day before.
A subtle tension remained, but at least the open hostility of yesterday had vanished.
Vincent thought he understood Theodore’s intention.
The other boy was trying to reach a peaceful resolution this way—preferably making Vincent stop staring at him.
Once Vincent realized there was nothing special about him, he would abandon further investigation.
It was actually a rather good method.
Vincent had found one difference between himself and the observation specimen.
Perhaps that difference would lead to even greater divergence in the future.
If someone stared at him the way he stared at Theodore, Vincent would probably find a way to blind the person outright rather than resolve the problem through peaceful means the way Theodore was doing.
Weren’t pure-blood families supposed to be arrogant and disdainful of others?
Look at Draco Malfoy.
If anyone dared observe his every move like this, he would certainly tell his father.
Did Theodore Nott refrain because he did not want to, or because he could not?
Vincent knew the answer perfectly well.
He simply said nothing.
As time passed, Theodore’s brewing entered a critical stage.
The liquid in the cauldron began to give off a faint glow, its color shifting continuously.
Theodore’s expression grew even more focused.
He adjusted the heat with extreme care and softly murmured a few incantations under his breath.
Only as the process neared its end did Vincent notice that Theodore employed several unique techniques in potion-making—techniques he had never seen before.
He quietly memorized them.
The harvest from this session was far greater than he had expected.
At last Theodore’s potion succeeded.
The liquid in the cauldron settled into a clear blue, the glow becoming steady and stable.
A small, satisfied smile appeared on Theodore’s face.
He took out a small vial and carefully poured the potion into it.
Seeing that Theodore had succeeded, Vincent offered a polite remark.
“Congratulations.
It looks like your potion turned out very well.” Theodore glanced at him and nodded.
“Thanks.” His tone was still somewhat cool, but the strong sense of rejection from before had faded.
Vincent also seemed a little more normal now.
He was no longer staring with that strange intensity.
“Could you share some of your brewing experience with me?” Vincent tried to make his tone sound slightly pitiful.
People tended to feel sympathy toward the weak, and combined with his face the tactic had always worked without fail.
Theodore: “Don’t disgust me.” Other people might not know what kind of person Vincent was, but Theodore certainly did.
Since both of them understood the truth perfectly well, there was no need for further pretense.
Vincent pursed his lips.
“I want to know the meaning of that specific action you used at the end of the brewing.
If you tell me, I won’t disturb you the way I used to.” “So you do realize it was disturbance.
I thought you’d gone so mad you no longer had any sense.
If that were truly the case, Headmaster Dumbledore ought to send you to St.
Mungo’s instead of leaving you at Hogwarts to harm the rest of the students.” In two or three sentences the atmosphere between them had once again filled with the scent of gunpowder.
After speaking, Theodore lowered his lashes, then glared back defiantly, refusing to yield.
From that brief change in his eyes, however, Vincent caught a flash of hesitation and a tiny trace of regret.
There really was no need to push too hard.
When observing Harry and the other experimental specimens Vincent had always remained calm.
He did not understand why Theodore was so difficult to handle.
Perhaps it was simply because he himself was just as difficult.
“All right.
I apologize.
Tell me how you increase the success rate of your potions.
Please?” This time the words carried far more genuine feeling and none of the deliberate teasing of before.
Theodore stared at him for a while, then finally shared a few of his small techniques.
“It’s nothing particularly special.
You just have to understand the properties of the ingredients thoroughly, then control the heat and the order of brewing carefully.” Vincent nodded.
“Mm.
You’re right.
But I think you handle certain details especially well—for example, the way you used your wand to control the heat just now.
It was very clever.” Theodore paused slightly.
He had not expected Vincent to observe his process so carefully.
“Oh, that.
It’s just a method I figured out on my own.” A thread of wariness rose in his heart.
He wondered whether Vincent might use the technique for something else.
Vincent smiled.
“You have real talent.” Someone with talent equal to his own.
Theodore looked at him, a little puzzled.
He could not understand why Vincent had suddenly become so friendly.
“Why are you so interested in my brewing methods?” “Or maybe I’m interested in you as a whole person?” He was telling the absolute truth.
Seeing Theodore’s expression begin to darken again, Vincent immediately raised both hands in surrender.
“All right, all right, I won’t say any more.
I genuinely think you have talent and simply want to research potions with you.” He really was not someone who could take a joke, yet his temper was still a little too good.
If their positions were reversed, Vincent would already have thrown a punch.
Theodore glared at him, gathered his potion, and turned to leave without answering.
Vincent only smiled, packed up his own materials and the notes he had organized, and left as well.
Another problem solved.
There was no rush with Theodore.
They still had seven years.
They could take it slowly.
Perhaps it was time to reveal a little more of his true personality.
The previous approach had not worked on Theodore.
Vincent had already tried it many times and the results had never been satisfactory.
In that respect they were similar as well: deliberate masks received no response from the other.
If Harry had approached him that first time deliberately putting on a pitiful act to gain sympathy, Vincent would never have become his friend.
He needed to adjust his strategy according to Theodore’s attitude and temperament.
If things went smoothly, their connection might last longer than seven years.
Vincent wanted to learn from the people he encountered how to be a real human being.
The more people he met, the more he realized that certain of his thoughts diverged sharply from the ordinary definition of a person.
Being unique was certainly a personality trait.
But until he became powerful enough to afford uniqueness, Vincent hoped to experience another possible way of living.
In a certain sense he still considered himself human—at least he should not be the sort of creature whose first reaction to a problem was to solve it with killing.
That sounded far too much like some kind of dark lord.