Disclaimer:

This is all based on Rowling's Harry Potter novels. Anything recognisably belonging to the Harry Potter universe therefore belongs to her. This story has been written for my own amusement and I am making no profit from this.

Chapter One

I've never been all that good at anything, except herbology. And even there I'm not outstanding, just, I do okay. So I was fairly content when Gran got me a job over the summer between sixth year and seventh year working in the Gorgonzola Archives as an apprentice archivist. I would have liked it better if I could have worked in a garden or orchard or even with Professor Sprout in her scary greenhouses, but the Archives weren't so bad. There were a heap of other apprentices, because someone'd cracked the magical seal on the lower levels and for the first time in thousands of years there was access to what lay inside. Really, it was just a huge mess. There was no sort of organisation, just rooms and corridors and stairwells crammed full of scrolls and books in jumbled heaps. My job, as an apprentice archivist, was to pick a room and sort its content into piles relating to subject matter. If a scroll or book appeared to be too powerful or dangerous for me to decipher it went in the Master archivist's pile.

I'd chosen a room four levels down and a good ten minutes trudge to the east. It was hard enough trying to cast the translating spell on weird scratchy handwriting without being interrupted by shrieks of Eureka every time something unusual was discovered.

I'd done quite a bit of my room when I came across a herbology scroll! What's more, it was one that had a potion recipe that enhanced the herbologist's ability! Fascinated, I copied it down very carefully. I know I'm hopeless at potions, but if I could make this one It'd be worth all that nerve-wracking measuring and counting and timing and stirring and the waiting Plus, Professor Snape was safely back in Hogwarts, so I wouldn't have to worry about him glaring at me.

Just to be sure, I checked a dozen times that I'd copied each and every instruction and ingredient correctly. Some of these ingredients looked very expensive and rare, but our family vault was brimming with Galleons and I didn't think mother and father would grudge me the chance to better myself! I made up my mind to start work on the potion as soon as possible. That night I lay in bed thinking about The Potion.

Wheresoever the barren ground lies, the seed that is sown will flourish, the unfertile vessel will be fruitful, the outcome prolific, yeilding with every planting in season...

It sounded wonderful.

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I had frequent recourse to Most Potent Potions over the summer as I carefully prepared and brewed The Potion. The thought occurred to me that if I had concentrated as hard in my lessons I would probably have lost far fewer cauldrons in Potions, and far fewer House Points. Without Professor Snape's frightening presence or the Slytherins' nasty little practical jokes, or Ron and Harry's brave but really quite immature pranks, or Hermione's constant but brain-numbingly helpful murmurs, I was unrushed and unworried. Gran asked me what I was doing in my spare time when I told her I'd rather not go shopping with her in the North African bazaars, and she was quite content when I told her I was trying to improve my potions skills. I added the last ingredient, powdered eyelashes of an Iranian Rockcruncher, at midnight on a full moon, carefully sprinkling the powder in a counter-clockwise spiral and clearly pronouncing the long stream of Latin I'd been practicing for weeks. It was still incomprehensible to me, because I was no good at foreign languages. I just memorise every spell as it comes up in class, and sometimes, you know, I forget the words. Well, a lot of the time. Not this time, though!

I covered the cauldron, turned down the flame and locked the attic door. It had to brew all by itself for another month. I'd just have time to drink it before it was time to head back to Hogwarts for sixth year. I was almost looking forward to school; brewing this potion had taught me that I could do it. Snape wouldn't be so scary, with any luck.

The Archiving job hadn't been too bad either, I'd done six rooms over the past two months, which was an average result according to what my fellow apprentices told me. The third and last month passed very quickly, tagging along with Gran to dinner parties and expeditions during the evenings, and working in the Gorgonzola Archives during the day. My seventeenth birthday passed and then the full moon rose and I carefully removed the cauldron lid.

The Potion had condensed into a thick, silvery liquid. I waited until it was precisely midnight, then raised the cauldron and tipped the liquid down my throat, swallowing and swallowing until it was all gone bar for a scant trickle, which I scooped out with a finger. It tasted well, awful. And I'd drunk so much that my stomach felt bloated and strange, and I sat down on the attic floor wondering where my strength had gone.

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I must say, sometimes my own stupidity comes as quite a shock.

It was only when the terrible pain in my abdomen grew to be unbearable that it occurred to me that maybe this potion wasn't meant to be drunk at all. Or maybe the scroll had been put in a room for experiments that went wrong. Or I could have done something wrong, for all my care, and brewed a deadly poison. Or maybe it would have been a prudent idea to have at least told my Gran what I was doing, rather than drinking the potion when she was away on a visit? Help, my last thought was, I need a mediwizard!

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I woke up to find that I'd fouled my clothes, urine and shit all over me. And vomit. But I was alive, if feeling a bit sore in the tummy, and bitterly disappointed that I'd wasted my wonderful potion. If I'd been wiser I would have bottled some and asked an apothecary to analyse it, not drunk it all. Still, nobody'd ever accused me of having a surplus of brains. Professor Snape's voice echoed in my memory You fool, Longbottom! You are the poorest excuse for a wizard I have encountered in all my years of teaching Potions

It took me a while to remember the cleaning charms and even then I went for a swim in the ocean before I felt clean again. I'd just enough time to pack up all my stuff and Gran's before she drove up in a taxi, calling for me to hurry or we'd miss the plane. I was still frightened from what I'd done – imagine if I'd only just now woken, all covered with filth? Gran would have sent me to St. Mungo's. Gran commented that I looked a little pale, but I told her I hadn't slept well, and she didn't mention it again. She asked me if I'd liked my archivist job, and I said it was okay, but I didn't know if that was what I wanted to end up doing after Hogwarts.

"Neville, you have to work to your talents," she sighed.

Well, that didn't leave me with very much.

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