Harry found his detention with Neville to be... enlightening, at the least. For one thing, by the time Harry was done with ten pots, Neville was barely starting on the second. Which wasn't to say that Neville wasn't working hard - as House Gryffindor's resident Hufflepuffian, he was honestly doing as well as he could. It just wasn't nearly as much as Harry did.

Not that pot-scrubbing was something that rewarded talent - or even skill. No, this was muscle memory, and patience, and yet more patience. Neville had the patience, but he hadn't put in the time to get the muscles, so every stroke of his did less than Harry's.

They worked in utter silence, interspersed with Neville's occasional klutziness. It was almost peaceful - or it would have been, if Snape's eyes hadn't raked them, intermittently.

Harry was done with his ten, and he walked to the front of the class, accompanied by Neville, who by happenstance had finished his second cauldron just seconds after Harry, and had scurried to keep up.

"The cauldrons are completely clean, sir." Harry Potter said firmly. He stood there, and continued working on his mental map of healing potions and poisons, and their interactions, while Snape finished what he was working on. Beside him, Neville fidgeted almost against his will, his fingers twitching even though he hid them behind his back.

Eventually, Snape looked up at the children in front of his desk. In his normal drawl, he asked, "What's the count, Potter?"

"Ten for me, sir." Harry paused, "Two for Neville."

Snape laced his fingers together, leaning back, "Well, Mister Longbottom, you should be ashamed of not being able to even do a third of what this scofflaw could accomplish."

Neville Longbottom looked down, his fingers still twitching behind his back.

"Well, boy, do you have anything to say for yourself?"

"Yes, sir." Mister Longbottom said, blushing, looking into his Professor's eyes. "There weren't more cauldrons, or I'd have completed them."

Snape stood, fluidly, all in a single motion, "Well then, let's see about rectifying that." Snape's voice smiled cruelly, even if his face seemed like stone. He disappeared into a sidecloset, and then reappeared, with what looked to be a completely dreadful cauldron, nearly cleaned thin enough to have holes in it. Except, it was soiled again, spattered with half a hundred things Potter didn't recognize - and he'd cleaned a lot of cauldrons this month!

"Finish this, Mister Longbottom, and you may content yourself with an essay on what havoc your substitution this week might have wrecked if I hadn't intervened." Snape let the 'if you don't finish this' dangle, and Harry inwardly smiled, enjoying the frisson of fear, which was really quite a lot more pleasant when it wasn't being applied to you.

"Potter, you are dismissed." Snape said,

Harry Potter left hurriedly, taking the long way through the dungeons to avoid any traps. Luckily (except it was never luck for him), the bullies had decided the day was far too nice to spend in ambush. Which only meant that they'd been warned that Harry wasn't alone in the detention, and had decided to pass on beating on two Gryffindors. Harry wondered who in his class had bothered to tell them. Been paid? Done it for future favors?

[a/n: Up Next - that note. Also, Sunday. Harry spends cauldron-cleaning time working on memorizing his schoolwork.]