The next day, Mrs. Petrov decided to have me start brewing potions that I had never brewed before, under her supervision. She took my copy of Advanced Potion-Making, which had once belonged to my mother, looked through it, and then had me start with the Draught of Living Death. Partway through my work, I discovered that it was rather difficult to cut up the sopophorus bean needed for the potion. Since I had already discovered that crushing things often worked better to release the juices instead of cutting, I picked up a silver dagger and crushed the bean with the flat side. Immediately it exuded a fair amount of juice, more than what I would have expected from the shriveled bean.

I quickly added the juice to the cauldron. The potion immediately turned the exact shade of lilac described by the book. Mrs. Petrov gave me an approving nod. "Very good, Severus. I'm glad that you are using your brain and figuring out a better method."

Pleased with the compliment, I scribbled a note about crushing rather than cutting in the margin of my book and then read the next line of instructions, which was to stir counterclockwise until the potion turned clear as water. Mrs. Petrov said, "I've discovered that adding a clockwise stir after every seventh counterclockwise stir works wonders. You might want to try that."

I followed her suggestion and the effect was immediate, the potion turning a pale pink. After a number of more stirs, the potion turned clear. I made a note of Mrs. Petrov's suggestion as she examined my work. "It is...adequate, Severus. Well, it is actually more than that, but if I compliment you too much, then my compliments become meaningless."

I bottled up the potion, and then cleaned up while Mrs. Petrov went to make lunch. I ended up manning the apothecary under her supervision when Frances and Brian took their lunch break. When they returned to work, I had lunch with Mrs. Petrov, so that we could talk privately while we ate. "You home life isn't the greatest, is it, Severus?" she asked.

I didn't say anything at first, partly because my mouth was full and partly because I didn't want to answer the question. Finally I said, "What gave you that idea, Mrs. Petrov?"

"Your mother worked for me," she reminded me. "She once mentioned that her husband, your father, didn't much care for magic. And Niko has told me that you have never talked about your father except for the one time about him being a Muggle, which means that you have nothing good to say about him. You've also stiffened when I hugged you, which means that you aren't used to such things, and you flinched slightly when I patted you on the arm yesterday, which means you have probably been physically abused."

I purposely took a large mouthful of beef stew to give me some time to think of what to say. I knew there was little point in lying or trying to deny it, since Mrs. Petrov had already figured out the truth. When I finished chewing and swallowing, I muttered, "My father started hating magic a few years after he married my mother. Then he started drinking and taking it out on me when he was drunk and Mum wasn't around to protect me."

"You should have never undergone that, Severus," said Mrs. Petrov quietly, a look of sorrow and pain on her face. "Well, at least you are here as my apprentice and not spending the summer with your father without any protection now that your mother's gone."

I shuddered at the thought, since I had wondered if I would survive the summer before Niko had asked me to spend the holidays at his home and be his mother's apprentice. Mrs. Petrov patted me on the arm, ignoring my flinch, and said gently, "You are safe here. And I do know what it is like to be physically abused."

I looked up at her. "Because of the Holocaust," I stated. "I'm awed that you, Mr. Petrov, and Mr. and Mrs. Romanov actually survived it."

"Well, we did have magic," she pointed out. "And we weren't alone. If you had friends or relatives with you, your chances of survival were better. Still, it was a close thing, and if the war hadn't ended when it did and I was stuck in the camps for much longer, I could have very well not survived. A good many of the guards and other people in charge were quite sadistic. At one of the barracks I was put in for a time, the woman in charge of it liked to randomly select a few people at the evening roll call and punish them for no real reason. She would beat them, and half the time she would also make them kneel for the duration of roll call and raise their arms. Since roll call always lasted for at least an hour or two, that was not pleasant. There was one girl that had to hold a pair of rocks up in the air. The beast that ordered the punishment threatened to shoot her if she lowered her arms before roll call ended. Fortunately she kept her arms raised, so Irma had no excuse to kill her. Irma Grese was one of the top people in the camp of Auschwitz, by the way. I believe she was the second-highest ranking woman there. She was quite young, about twenty, I think, and outwardly looked pretty, but inwardly she was a complete monster."

"That's just awful!" I exclaimed in horror. At least my father had never done more that smack me or hit me with his belt, and either Lily, Niko, a teacher, and occasionally Lupin stopped James and Sirius from ever going too far with their bullying of me.

Mrs. Petrov sighed deeply. "Yes, Severus. Now, let us talk about other things. I don't wish to give you nightmares about the Holocaust, and it is rather difficult for me to talk about my experiences." She then turned the subject to potions.

In the afternoon, I brewed a couple of potions that the apothecary was low on, and then Mrs. Petrov gave me a lesson on wandless magic. It consisted of me given a quill pen, and trying to focus my magic on it while I said the Levitation Charm. After an hour, I had no success in getting the quill to levitate, but it did flop around the table a bit, which meant I was getting close to succeeding. "You're almost there, Severus," said Mrs. Petrov encouragingly. "Go take a break and do something else for the time being, and you can practice some more after dinner. And here's a Headache Potion for you, because you might get a slight headache when you first start attempting wandless magic."

I thanked her and then went upstairs to do some homework until dinnertime.

The rest of the week passed in a similar manner. I started work on the Polyjuice Potion, under Mrs. Petrov's guidance, and when we didn't have to concentrate on it, I helped her brew various potions for the apothecary. I was able to do the Levitation Charm wandlessly the second day, and progressed to trying to clean the dishes using the Scourgify spell wandlessly, change the color of things (which was quite easy, since I had done it with Lily before we had gotten our Hogwarts letters), and enlarge and shrink objects.

In the evenings, Mr. Petrov would spend up to half an hour talking with me, on the premise that there would be things I would feel more comfortable talking to a male about. At first I was little uncomfortable, but I soon relaxed, and wished that my father could have been like him. Niko and Stephan also spent some time with me. Tobias was too busy completing his Auror training to have much free time, which I didn't mind, as he happened to have the same first name as my father and I felt a bit nervous around him as a result. The nervousness abated somewhat when he told me to just call him "Toby" for short. I found my time with the Petrovs quite soothing, and enjoyed it immensely.