Half-Finished Delicious Potion

Manus eyed the cauldron before him suspiciously and probed it with his magic.

Though the potion looked as though it had completed its transformation and displayed the remarkable traits of a thoroughly brewed potion, he had not touched it at all today.

Could a potion left unfinished yesterday really have completed itself after sitting overnight, without any additional work?

While that was possible, it was unlikely.

Manus's magic entered the potion, and only after a long while did it finally return feedback.

The good news was that this was indeed not the potion's complete form.

The bad news was that there seemed to be far too many possible directions for this potion to reach completion. The feedback was complex and vast in quantity, so Manus took some time to sort through it.

Simply put, to truly complete this potion, it needed to be added to food.

The finished dish would be the actual "potion."

"I see... so it wasn't Amortentia, but Polyjuice Potion?"

The defining feature of Polyjuice Potion was that its final effect differed according to the source of the hair added during brewing. Though the hair was not the source of the transformation, it determined what the transformation was directed toward.

However, the two were not entirely alike. There were still differences.

What would happen if Polyjuice Potion were brewed to completion without adding any hair at all?

The answer was a ruined cauldron of potion. A transformation without a target would not become a random transformation; like a vector without direction, it simply ceased to exist.

But Delicious Potion was different. Its current state was stable, and it could be ladled straight out of the cauldron and added to dishes during cooking.

"There was a potion like this?"

Severus felt as though his eyes had been opened,