Snape waved his wand, and a huge projection appeared above the classroom, showing the desktop at the front and Snape's hands so everyone could clearly see the details of what he was doing.
"First, weigh the ingredients and determine the proportions. We'll start with dried nettles..."
Snape began sorting the ingredients and handling the equipment. His movements were precise and fluid.
"Next, crush the snake fangs. Watch what I'm doing..."
"Now, boil the slugs. Be sure to choose slugs with tentacles like these. And when boiling them for the first time, don't put them into cold water. Wait until the water is boiling before adding them..."
"Now, melt the porcupine quills... Be careful! First take the cauldron off the heat and let it cool for a while before adding the quills, or you'll end up disfiguring yourself... To save time, I'll cool it with magic here. Don't do this when you try it. I'm afraid your lousy magic might blow up your cauldron as well."
"And now, the final step..."
Snape mixed the slug solution, which had already been boiled three times, with the other ingredients, then stirred it in a certain rhythm and direction.
"Huh?!"
Sitting in the front row, Avada could watch Snape's movements directly instead of looking up at the projection. What he saw made him nearly cry out in surprise.
As far as he could sense, the magical structures contained in the various ingredients had been a chaotic mess, and seemed to have no meaning when examined individually. Yet when the ingredients were added to the slug solution, their magical structures gradually fused under the influence of the solution's simple magical structure, forming a regular, beautiful, entirely new configuration!
The whole process was like putting a shattered jigsaw puzzle back together: smooth and satisfying to watch.
He had never witnessed anything like it in all the years he'd been observing magic. The most direct way to create a particular magical structure was to cast a spell, using one's mental power to alter the magic around oneself. But this entirely new method—fusing and fitting together the magical structures already present in magical ingredients—could accomplish things that were extremely difficult to achieve through direct spellcasting, and at a tiny fraction of the cost.
Take the Cure for Boils Potion in front of him. A skilled first-year wizard could brew it in about ten minutes. But reproducing its magical structure with a wand alone would be no easier than casting Aguamenti!
Aguamenti was a spell taught in sixth year. That alone showed how difficult it was!
Only then did Avada realize that Potions was a completely new way of influencing magic, one unlike any other kind of magic!
"I have to master Potions!"
He made up his mind, determined that even if Snape picked on him in the future, he'd swallow his pride and ask him for guidance.
At the front of the classroom, Snape finished brewing the potion. He poured it into a glass bottle and held it up for everyone to see. It was a pale blue potion that glimmered faintly in the dim light. It looked lovely.
"Now I'll hand out the ingredients. You'll work in pairs and brew the potion yourselves. I hope none of you are stupid enough to fail to make up a full pair for the experiment!"
"Miss White, you'll work with Mr. Shabi. Mr. Macnair, you'll work with Mr. Alex..."
Snape went to the back of the classroom and began assigning students to pairs by house, starting from the rear and working his way forward. When he reached the front row and saw Avada and Baron, a hint of amusement flickered in his eyes.
"Unfortunately, there's an odd number of students in both Hufflepuff and Slytherin. So, Mr. K, why don't you pair up with Mr. Shafiq?"
"Then Mr. Shafiq can keep an eye on that brain of yours, which can't even remember the Wiggenweld Potion recipe, and make sure you don't cause any trouble in my class..."
He handed Avada and Baron a set of potion ingredients, then turned and began patrolling the classroom.
"Don't take it to heart. He actually thinks quite highly of you..."
Baron awkwardly tried to explain to Avada. "The Wiggenweld Potion is something we won't learn until next term. You've only just started school, and you can already recite most of the recipe. That's beyond what he expected. I think he wants you to guide me. He just can't bring himself to say so..."
"Focus on your experiment. No whispering!"
Snape had appeared behind them at some point. He tapped them on the head with a piece of parchment.
"Ahem."
Both boys shuddered, straightened up, and hurriedly began their experiment.
"Dried nettles, snake fangs, porcupine quills, slugs..."
Baron carefully weighed each ingredient and handed it to Avada for further preparation. Avada put the snake fangs into a mortar and pounded them into powder, one blow at a time. It was a purely physical process, but he'd already memorized the magical structures involved while watching Snape demonstrate. So he knew exactly how fine to grind the fangs, and whether to leave the powder loose or compact it.
Next, they had to snap the porcupine quills into small pieces, chop the dried nettles, and heat water to boil the slugs. The truth was, after countless generations of testing and refinement, these time-honored recipes had almost no room left for improvement. Instead, Avada found plenty of potential pitfalls in how they were carried out.
For instance, if you ground the porcupine quills into powder instead of breaking them into small pieces, hoping to speed up the reaction, then congratulations: the overly large reaction surface would cause a magical change that was supposed to happen later to occur ahead of time, producing a structure similar to the Incendio spell when combined with ingredients that hadn't finished reacting...
Avada grumbled to himself as he worked smoothly with Baron, boiling, cooling, adding ingredients, boiling again, stirring, and cooling a second time...
With detailed notes to guide them, Avada and Baron following the standard procedures, and Magic Sense monitoring every change in the magic, the two of them made rapid progress. The explosions, gusts of air, coughing, cries of alarm, and Snape's yelling that rang out around the classroom only made them stand out all the more.
Soon, they reached the final step.
"Stir clockwise seven times, pause for three seconds, then stir counterclockwise twice..."
Baron read the notes in a quiet voice, glancing at Avada as he worked. But after stirring clockwise five and a half times, Avada stopped. He paused for two seconds, then began stirring clockwise again.
"Hey, that's not the right step!" Baron hurriedly warned him. But Avada kept stirring without a hint of panic, calmly explaining, "Don't worry. I saw another stirring technique in the library. It's just right for this potion. If all goes well, using this technique should make the finished potion two or three times more effective than the original."
That was a lie, too. In reality, Avada had finally spotted a flaw that could be improved. It stood out clearly to his Magic Sense, though he had no idea why no one before him had ever addressed it.
Baron nodded. Having come to trust Avada during Charms class, he didn't try to stop him.
At last, Avada finished stirring the improved potion. As he drew the glass rod out of the cauldron, the potion, which had been colorless, gradually turned a deep blue, darker than the original. Avada took out a glass bottle, poured in the potion, and proudly waved it at Baron. "See? I told you—you can trust me."
"Impressive," Baron said with an admiring nod. Then he raised his hand to call Snape over to inspect their work.
But after examining their potion, Snape didn't praise them. He didn't even turn and leave. Instead, he gave a cold sneer.
"Mr. K, did you think that your brilliant little brain had discovered a completely unprecedented way to improve the potion?"
He took a piece of meat from a nearby shelf. Avada couldn't tell what animal it came from. Snape waved his wand, and boils sprang up all over it. "Come, let me show you the effect of this 'genius potion.'"
He carefully opened the bottle and poured the deep blue potion onto the meat. As the potion touched the surface, it began to sizzle. The skin where it landed blackened and broke down as if acid had been thrown on it, leaving behind a large, hideous black stain.
"Your genius technique has made the potion three times more powerful. So instead of only killing the boil mites, it burns away the entire patch of skin, Mr. K!"
"And if you still refuse to give up and try diluting it with water, I wouldn't mind watching another fireworks display!"
Before you continue