James stared at his potion in dismay. The smoke was pink! Pink! How was he ever going to explain that?!
It was his very first potions class at Hogwarts. He had been dreading it forever, knowing that his parents were both bad at it, especially his dad. But this! This was worse than he had ever imagined!
James stared at the directions. He had followed them exactly. And now his potion was smoking pink!
It was a disaster! He was a disgrace! His potion had pink smoke!
He looked at the last directions again. 'Add 2 porcupine quills, then stir clockwise 5 times. Bright pink smoke should be rising from your cauldron.' He shook his head in dismay.
What type of son was he, that he had awesome skills in the one subject everyone in his family hated? He was an awful person! But maybe . . .
Professor Ubbly was walking around, inspecting the potions James's classmates had made. She was almost at James's table. He needed to do something, quickly.
Grabbing his stirring spoon, he stirred one more time, then quickly took the spoon out before Professor Ubbly could notice.
"Mr. Potter! This is perfect! This is the exact shade of pink the smoke from the Cure for Boils is supposed to be! Good job!"
James looked at the smoke again. It was definitely not the same color it was before – it was even brighter than before! And apparently it was the exact shade it was supposed to be! James groaned in despair before remembering that the professor was right in front of him.
Luckily, she didn't seem to hear him as she turned to the class. "Potions textbooks are incredibly difficult to write – does anybody know why?"
Nobody raised their hand, so Professor Ubbly continued. "It's the same reason every one of you has a different type of wand – everybody's magic is a bit different. And, even if you don't notice, you put some of your personal magic into the potions you make. So the author of the textbook needs to write something that will give the best results for the largest number of people. But that means that it doesn't work perfectly for anyone. If you followed the instructions exactly, you would have gotten a potion with dark pinkish smoke that would have worked decently well to cure boils. But to get it perfect, you had to do something a little differently. And since everyone is different, you'll have to figure out for yourselves how to make your potion perfect. You might think that it is impossible to figure out what you need to do, but it's not – there's only a couple of things for each potion that might work."
She smiled at James. "Famous potioneers do these changes instinctually, sometimes without even realizing what they're doing! I'll discuss this more next class, when we'll try this potion again, only with those changes. One of those changes will be what Mr. Potter just did – do you remember what you did, Mr. Potter?"
James was still wondering how he could possibly be good at Potions. "Er, I stirred the potion an extra time after adding the porcupine quills . . . accidentally, of course."
"So you ended up stirring six times instead of five?"
"Er, yes."
"Excellent, Mr. Potter. Write that down in your textbook so you know it for next time." Professor Ubbly seemed really pleased. "And I want an essay on why you think that improved your potion – don't worry, you won't be graded on accuracy, I just want you to think about it." She looked around at the rest of the class. "Everyone needs to write an essay explaining what you did wrong, how it changed your potion, and why your mistake caused the result it did. If your potion was giving off pinkish smoke at the end, I want you to do the same as James, and look up what you could change to make it a perfect bright pink. Ten inches, everyone! Clean up after yourself, and then you're dismissed." She turned and walked back to her desk.
James dumped his potion in the bucket Professor Ubbly designated at the beginning of class, then cleaned his cauldron out in the sinks. Then he rushed to his room to start writing a letter to his parents. He hoped they wouldn't be too upset.
Dear Mum and Dad,
I'm good at Potions.
I'm adopted, aren't I?
Love,
James