The crystal test tube rotated halfway under the candlelight, the glass wall refracting a thin beam of light.
Snape used the silver spoon to scrape the residue off the inner wall of the cauldron and transferred it into the test tube.
The pink sludge clung to the tube wall, sliding down slowly and leaving behind an extremely thin, silvery film.
He held up the test tube and swirled it twice against the candlelight.
The moment the light penetrated the silver film, it revealed a subtle angle of refraction.
Forty-seven degrees!
The refraction angle for a standard Draught of Peace base should be forty-five degrees.
Snape’s hand froze.
He took a glass stirring rod from the drawer and stirred the residue three times.
The pink surface layer parted, revealing a small puddle of clear liquid at the bottom.
He dabbed a drop with the stirring rod and brought it to his nose.
The bitterness of dried nettles, the pungency of snake fangs, and the tartness of horned slugs.
The scents of all three basic ingredients were there, and the proportions were correct.
He inhaled again.
A fourth scent crept out, hidden beneath the bitterness of the nettles—extremely faint, extremely light.
It was the product of a secondary reaction between the mineral powder and the acidic snake fang juice.
This reaction had a strict prerequisite.
The nettles had to be added after the snake fangs, with an interval of no more than twelve seconds, and the stirring direction had to be counterclockwise.
In the standard recipe, the order was completely reversed.
She had changed the order!
Snape put down the stirring rod and leaned back in his chair.
From outside the office came the sound of a rag being wrung out, the coarse fabric rubbing back and forth against the stone walls.
He stared at the test tube for a long time, then stood up and pushed open his office door.
Evelyn was crouching at the end of the corridor, using the hem of her robes to scrub the wall vigorously.
The pink stains had seeped into the crevices between the stone bricks; no matter how hard she scrubbed, a residue remained.
“Valentine!”
Without looking back, Evelyn said, “Professor, the pink in the mortar cracks won’t rub off.
I’m going to need a chemical solvent!”
“Your recipe.
That cauldron of waste.”
“Why?
Do you want me to pay for the cauldron?”
“Before you added the rose quartz powder to the cauldron, you changed the order of addition for the nettles and snake fangs.”
Evelyn’s rag paused for a beat.
She turned around, looking up at him from her crouched position.
“You could smell that?”
“Answer my question.
Did you change it?”
“I did.
Snake fangs first, nettles second, with an interval of about ten seconds.”
“Why?”
“The order in the textbook cures boils, but the base solution is unstable, and its efficacy decays rapidly once it cools.
If you reverse it, the acidity of the snake fangs is released first, and then neutralized by the alkaline nettles.
This extends the half-life of the base solution by at least threefold.”
Snape: (ꐦ⊙⌓⊙)
He stood in the doorway, the hem of his robes brushing his feet, half his face cast in the shadows of the corridor.
“Which book did you read this in?”
“No book.
I calculated it myself.
Molecular reaction logic.”
“Molecular reaction logic?”
“Chemistry.
Muggle chemistry.
The sequence of an acid-base neutralization reaction affects the stability of the product.
This principle applies to potion recipes as well.”
Snape remained silent.
Evelyn draped the rag over her shoulder, stood up, and patted the dust off her knees.
“Professor, I know that batch ended up becoming a pink bomb.
That was just because I didn’t control the dosage of the rose quartz powder; it had nothing to do with the base recipe.”
“So, you admit that the rose quartz powder was added intentionally?”
“Of course it was intentional!
Who accidentally dumps an entire bottle of pink powder into a cauldron?”
“What was your purpose?”
“Hair care.”
The corners of Snape’s mouth twitched down a few millimeters.
“Hair care?”
“Yes! Find the original chapter at g.com.
A Draught of Peace base has cell-repairing properties.
When you add mineral powder, it can act on the hair follicles.
I thought it was quite practical.”
“You made hair conditioner in Potions class?”
“An upgraded conditioner, Professor!
You don’t have to wash your hair tonight; that therapeutic film will last for twelve hours.”
Evelyn: (ᗕᗕ✧)b
Snape took a deep breath, and that sweet scent of roses crept into his nostrils once more.
His hair did indeed feel like silk, draping over his shoulders and shimmering softly in the torchlight.
“Once you’ve finished scrubbing, get back to your common room!”
“But the cracks in the wall…”
“Tomorrow!”
“Understood.
Goodnight, Professor!”
Evelyn tossed her rag into the bucket and carried it toward the other end of the corridor.
Her boots clicked against the stone tiles, the sound growing fainter.
…
Snape returned to his office and sat back down at his desk.
The pink residue in the crystal test tube had already begun to separate into layers.
The top layer was the precipitate of the rose quartz powder—vibrantly colored and utterly worthless.
The bottom layer was that small puddle of clear base solution.
He used a pipette to draw out the base solution and transferred it to a clean glass slide.
He pulled a magnifying glass from his cabinet and leaned in to observe.
Extremely fine particles suspended in the base solution were evenly distributed and uniform in size.
Such a distribution could only be achieved if the speed and direction of stirring were precise to the absolute limit.
Counterclockwise, constant speed, uninterrupted.
She had never hesitated for a moment while stirring.
Snape set down the magnifying glass and adjusted his hair.
When his fingers brushed the tips, that damned silkiness made him pause for half a second.
There was a knock at the door.
Three light, evenly spaced taps.
“Come in.”
The door pushed open, and Dumbledore slipped inside.
He wore a purple dressing gown embroidered with gold stars and moons, and a pair of fluffy slippers on his feet.
Dumbledore: (⊙ᗜ⊙)
“Severus, your hair is exceptionally outstanding tonight.”
“If you are here to mock me, the door is right behind you.”
“I came to investigate the scent.
The portraits in the third-floor corridor have made a joint complaint, claiming a ‘nauseating, cheap floral perfume’ has wafted up from the dungeons.”
“That is the residual fallout of an accident in today’s class.”
Dumbledore sat across from him, his gaze falling on the test tube.
“An accident?”
“Valentine added two ingredients outside the recipe into her cauldron, resulting in the entire class being subjected to non-consensual cosmetic alterations.”
“So I’ve heard.
Even Filius has been asking what potion it was; his mustache is exceptionally fluffy tonight.”
Snape did not reply.
Dumbledore leaned forward and peered at the base solution on the glass slide.
“You are analyzing her waste?”
“I am confirming something.”
“What is that?”
Snape handed the test tube over.
“Look at the refraction angle of the base solution.”
Dumbledore took it and held it up to the candlelight, his half-moon spectacles slipping to the tip of his nose.
He rotated it twice, and his eyebrows shot up.
“Forty-seven degrees?”
“A standard Draught of Peace is forty-five degrees.
She changed the sequence, increasing the stability of the base solution threefold.”
Dumbledore set down the test tube, took off his spectacles, and wiped them.
“A first-year student, in her very first Potions class.”
“Yes.”
“She deduced the sequence of addition using chemistry?”
“So she claims.
Molecular reaction logic, acid-base neutralization.”
Dumbledore slid his glasses back on, the curve of his mouth different from usual.
Dumbledore: (ˇωˇ)
“No, Albus, this is highly abnormal!”
Snape pushed the glass slide to the center of the desk.
“If you strip away that gaudy rose powder, the remaining base recipe is close to a N.E.W.T.-level variant of the Draught of Peace.”
“Even top-tier seventh-years might not achieve this level of precision on their first attempt.”
“What do you suspect?”
“A student who strapped double-bang firecrackers to a wand in Ollivanders, and then turns around and brews a base solution of this caliber.”
Snape paused.
“These two traits existing in the same person does not make sense.”
Dumbledore leaned back in his chair and pulled a lemon drop from his pocket.
“Perhaps she is simply gifted in certain areas while lacking common sense in others.”
“Severus, your own talent for Potions when you were young struck many professors as abnormal as well.”
“I did not trigger pink explosions in class!”
“You did far more dangerous things in class, you were simply quieter about them.”
Snape: ( -᷅_-᷄)
“Do not change the subject, Albus!”
“The issue with this student’s wand remains unresolved.
Her magical constitution is incompatible with every existing wand core.”
“She deduces recipes with chemistry.
She pointed her wand at the Sorting Hat during the sorting ceremony.
She used an unidentified drug to pacify the Giant Squid in the Black Lake.”
Snape returned the test tube to its rack.
“This is no ordinary Muggle-born student.”
“What do you wish to do?”
“Continue to observe.”
Dumbledore stood up, his slippers scuffing against the stone floor.
“I quite agree, Severus.
Continue to observe her.”
“I will.”
“But I suggest you approach this in a gentler manner.
For instance, do not dock fifty points right off the bat.”
“She wrecked my classroom!”
“She also improved your hairstyle in the process.”
Dumbledore walked toward the door, pausing at the threshold.
“Ah, by the way, Severus.”
“What?”
“Tomorrow morning is Madam Hooch’s Flying Class, Hufflepuffs and Slytherins together.”
Snape looked up.
“I am aware.”
“Miss Valentine’s packing list included an aluminum alloy baseball bat.
I am rather curious to see how she intends to use it on a broomstick.”
Dumbledore: (⊙⊙)
“Goodnight, Severus.
Do remember to wait for the residue film to flake off naturally before washing your hair.
Scrubbing it too hard will cause knots.”
The door closed.
Snape sat at his desk, which was littered with pink residue, listening to the sound of fluffy slippers fading down the corridor.
He picked up the test tube again, examining it once more against the candlelight.
Forty-seven degrees, without a hair’s breadth of deviation.
He opened his drawer and placed the test tube into the innermost compartment.
Neatly arranged in that compartment were over a dozen test tubes, each bearing a label.
He tore off a piece of parchment, dipping his quill in ink.
Date, ingredients, sequence of addition, reaction temperature, base solution refraction angle.
On the final line, his quill hovered for two seconds before tracing five words: *Pending further observation.*
The candle burned down to its end, the flame shrinking to a pea-sized bead of light.
Snape extinguished the light and pushed open his office door.
On the corridor walls, the stubborn pink stains glowed faintly in the dark.
Like a crooked fluorescent trail, they stretched from his feet all the way to the foot of the stairs.
He took three steps along the pink trail and stopped.
He looked down at his hair draped over his shoulders.
Silky texture, scent of roses.
Snape: (ꐦㅎᗝㅎ;)
He tucked his hair inside his robes and strode into the darkness.
On his desk, the ink on the parchment slowly dried.
The ink of the final words was noticeably heavier than the rest of the text.
The nib of the quill had lingered too long on the word ‘observation’, leaving a small smudge of ink bloomed on the paper.