Time slipped quietly by. November soon passed, and one day, when they woke up, heavy snow had suddenly descended upon Hogwarts.
The castle, the surrounding peaks, the Black Lake, and the Forbidden Forest were all blanketed in several feet of pristine white snow.
The courtyard, normally packed with young wizards, no longer saw any visitors.
Even the corridors were much emptier. The weather was too cold; the drafts seemed to blow straight into one's bones.
The fireplaces in the Common Rooms of all four houses blazed brightly every day.
Everyone basically huddled there, only dragging their thickly wrapped bodies around with groans when it was time for class.
As a result, Snape's Potions Class proudly claimed the title of least popular class, without question. The Potions Classroom was in the Basement, cold and damp, and the esteemed Professor Snape was not even willing to light a single brazier for the young wizards.
He told them, "Potion ingredients like darkness. You must learn to endure, learn to draw nourishment and warmth from your greasy fat. I must say, Hogwarts has been feeding you rather too well!"
Yet his own office was quite warm.
Ever since winter began, its fireplace had never gone out.
On the afternoon the heavy snow arrived, Vaughn was sorting materials in Snape's office.
Snape sat beside the fireplace, warming himself as he read the essay Vaughn had submitted.
More accurately, it was Vaughn's project notes for a new potion.
"...During the process of separating Traits, I discovered a most remarkable phenomenon. The Traits of potion ingredients are not limited to the substances that compose them, nor to the Magic they possess while alive. The emergence of Traits also involves an indescribable mystical dimension, such as the influence and definition imposed upon them by legends..."
"Take Fairy Flower