Ch 2- A Hint of Muggle.

It was another new batch of first years doing their first potions lesson, and for that Horace Slughorn was grateful for a break. With that idea in mind, he assigned the little sprogs to whip up batches of Pepper Up Potion for their first assignment.

Pepper Up was a beautifully simple concoction and a perfect starting point for the kiddies; its reagents did not need to be babied and could be handled rather roughly, time was not a serious factor when adding these ingredients, and it was almost impossible to make a completely worthless batch as long as the general order of ingredients were followed.

He could happily relax with some crystal pineapple and the latest issue of Potions Quarterly, which he did forthwith. With everything set up, time flew for the first fifteen minutes of class; the brats would probably need at least an hour to make this potion at least so he definitely had the time to unwind.

"Sir we're done."

But of course even the greats could be wrong.

The Hogwarts potions professor restrained himself from giving an irritated grunt as he made his way to the table where he was summoned. Pepper Up took at least fifty minutes to make, so the only reason anyone would be done this quickly would be that the pair in question screwed up, panicked, and then just made the potion useless by rushing it.

Horace made his way to the pair and noted that one of them was Eileen Prince's boy, which did make the old potions professor sad. It hurt to see that the child of such a talented former student and such a pure and famous bloodline was so bad at potions. He then registered the presence of his partner, the muggleborn named Lily, as he looked at the cauldron and straight into a perfect batch of Pepper Up potion.

Slughorn was stunned for several moments at this clearly impossible turn of events that he was witnessing. He checked his watch, and then saw that it was barely half past nine.

"M-May I see the contents your bags?" He asked still in shock at the impossible feat that he was witnessing.

The two students complied and after finding no magical trace of pre-prepared potions in either of their bags, he tested the potion inside the cauldron. He had made enough of them over the years that he could easily tell the difference between what was still made within the hour and what was not.

"P-perfect and fresh too." he muttered still stunned by what he was witnessing as he turned his gaze back at the students.

"Could you prepare another batch?" the professor asked half to himself.

"Yes chef." the boy said almost automatically, before both of them rolled up their sleeves and started anew.

Horace saw how the boy immediately pulled from the side a small suitcase which upon opening Horace noted that was filled with knives of all shapes and sizes. From the suitcase he saw how the boy, Severus, take out a mortar which was made of steel instead of the ceramic one the students were issued and started on the bicorn horn.

Next to him, the girl took the mandrake roots and instead of using the regular knife, she took a special small one for peeling the root. Then she used another knife that had small indentures inside of it and chopped the roots, and then with a third short and sharp angled one to finely dice the roots, all more accurately than even he could with the standard knife.

After that, they added the two items in the cauldron and heated it for ten seconds using a muggle egg timer that clicked when it was done. Then Severus took out a big glass lid that had strange metal pieces on it. Horace saw how they clipped it over the pot, locked it in place and then left it to brew.

Then after all this strangeness Horace witnessed something that he had never witnessed before. In the standard process, the potioneer had to leave the Pepper Up potion to boil for thirty minutes until it became a golden orange color, about a shade or two lighter than amber. The potion with that strange lid on it reached that shade in less than seven minutes!

The boy then pressed a button on the lid's handle, which released the built in steam from one hole. After the pressure dissipated they removed the lid, added the English Thyme, stirred, and then added the five drops of Salamander's blood. But they did not do so by dripping directly from the bottle; instead they used a very thin cylinder with a narrow neck at one side and a sort of rubbery ball on the other.

They stirred once more, and then it was time for the fire seeds. But before they placed them in, the boy did something not in the recipe and took them and crushed them with the side of a very big rectangular knife. The girl once more set up the egg timer and used it to deposit the crushed seeds perfectly with each clockwise stir.

And then it was over. Horace looked at his watch and saw that it all had taken roughly twenty minutes to make, not even half of the time needed if he himself made a batch. By the time it was done the other students formed a crowd around the pair, all staring in curiosity and surprise at their strange display.

Slughorn tested the potion once more and found that it was perfect, fit for Madam Pomfrey's cabinet.

"Where did you get the idea of using all of these tools?" the Professor asked the pair. He was impressed at their ingenuity; it would definitely serve them, and with some patronage himself, well later in life.

"From my job sir. It's how we make soup at Gusteau's." Severus replied with no small sense of pride. Slughorn remembered how he had received word from the Headmaster about a student that received permission to leave the grounds for his part-time job. He did not expect that the student was Eileen's boy though.

"You're a kitchen boy?" Slughorn said in astonishment at hearing a member of the noble House of Prince working such a job and immediately regretted it. The boy's proud and cheerful face immediately faded, and instead a baleful expression took form.

"I am a certified commis chef at a 5 star restaurant! I am most certainly not a kitchen boy!" Severus said with such scorn and hatred, with eyes that promised retribution, that it almost made the professor draw out his wand in shock and fear. A hand on his shoulder from the girl immediately stopped him in his tracks. Turning around, the boy looked her in the eyes as she gazed back and gave him a shake of the head and a worried look.

Immediately the anger was gone, replaced by exhaustion, disappointment, and just a touch of heartbreak in his eyes as he covered the girl's hand in his own for comfort as he turned back to Slughorn.

"My apologies professor, I was out of line."

"W-well that's quite alright; it happens to the best of us. But still five points deducted for bad behavior and ten, no! fifteen points each awarded for a most excellent potion." Horace declared, hoping that his voice wasn't laced with too much of the fear that he felt inside.

The class focused back on their own potions and passed in their samples as they exited the classroom. Slughorn still felt unease, though not of the boy in particular. After his display of talent and his outburst it was clear that he was Eileen's boy through and through, the spitting image of her at that age in talent and temperament.

No. What he had just seen him do was what threw him off of his game. Horace was not a bigot, but he was realist and he knew that many uncomfortable things were true. Blood mattered, money ruled, and wizards and witches were inherently better than muggles.

But this? This was something else. This was worse than any witch hunt or Goblin War or Dark Lord rising, that small cauldron filled with basic potion was proof of it.

It was proof that the traditional way wasn't the only way for wizardkind. It hinted that the old methods were outdated, obsolete. It gave the suggestion that their society was stagnating, that change was coming. Horace knew that when change comes, there will always be those that will fight and kill to prevent that, and would do it so till their last breath.

It was the beginning of the end.

Perhaps it sounded a bit hysterical to someone younger than himself, or to an outsider, that a better brewing method for a potion would trigger a war, but it was not the potion itself. It was this new approach that invited this fear; it was how it differed from the old way. And what made it worse was it was not only not the traditional way, but it was a muggle way.

And it was Eileen's son that served as a potential spark that would light this fire, making her indirectly responsible.

"Cherchez la femme indeed." Horace said and gave out a tired sigh as he started rummaging through his 'resource bag' for a muggle guide of England, looking for this Gusteau's in particular. He found it and made a reservation for a dinner for one.

For why not?

2

Author's note.

I've decided to do that promotion thing, where in the last pages for a comic they show panels from others to advertise it, for my original story.

BALADA: When Death did not exist nor yet Eternity.

595th chapter, 891st volume, 13th library of the 50th city of knowledge, 7th universe, 974.593 cycle of eternity.

When my eyes are weighed with sleep I quench the evening candle's glow

*Excerpt, from the works of Grand Scholar, and The Great War Expert Djanus Todomari from the Imperium Archives*

On Caliupus 27th, Imperial year 1898, Federal year 3941, and Republican year 953 on the small home world of the Tolstoy sector, a Federal fleet clashed for less than 3 hours with an Imperial one. This small battle which was the first shot in The Great War was situated above a place called Graperust Manor, owned by a Novo Albetan lawyer called William Murasaki Kuckluck.

After the Battle of Graperust, mister Murasaki said that he had enough of the whole affair and decided to move his family 560.000 light-years to a town called New Hope within the Tremera system, to a house called Woodgrom Courthouse with the intention of avoiding the war in its entirety.

Years later the commanders of the belligerent forces came to that very same courthouse to sign the ending of all hostilities. So when it was over Mr Murasaki could boast that the war began on his front lawn porch and ended in his backyard gazebo.

The Great War raged across millions of star systems, billions of planets and trillions of light years, within it farm workers from Nova Bronze City of the Towar System, clashed with fisherman from Seshrim 9, lawyers and schoolteachers from the Brumbaki Plains of Bulla 8 with doctors and accountants from The Tjigu asteroid cluster.

Whole nations and ways of life would disappear only to be replaced by new ones and within this age of chaos great heroes and villains would emerge, several sentients would join the war, each from the three superpowers, they would be at the most crucial and most bloody of the battles and somehow survive them all, and give testimony of just how unrealistic reality could become.

A smuggler would save a country , a shadow warrior would emerge from the darkness, a rebel would reshape the galaxy, a sentient would change the way things were forever, and a potions brewer who did not go a single day to military school would become the greatest commander the known universe had ever seen or perhaps would ever see. So the sands of time flowed and with their passing the universe changed forevermore.

Grand Scholar and Great War Expert Djanus Todomari

Imperium Archives