FsChapter 3

[Vincent Crabbe]

"That's where you are hitting your head against the wall, man," he said, running his hands through his hair. It only served to annoy him, because goddamnit did he hate the bowl cut. "Stop trying to make magic make sense. There's no logic to it. There's no science to it. It's all abstract, erratic, borderline random. Maybe it's actually random at times. Even if there's some secret formula to it all, how likely are we to find it out when we barely know anything? I don't know about you, but I wasn't best student in my class."

"I get it, I get it, okay? It's just so damn confusing." Gregory scratched his head too, clearly frustrated while looking at the book.

"You are thinking too much," Vincent told him with a smile and a shake of his head. "The book is just a guideline, as far as I can tell. Just take what it says and try stuff. See what feels better for you."

Gregory kept quiet for a moment and took out his wand from the table he had left it. He pointed toward one of the owl feathers they had acquired from the Mess Hall after the morning mail delivery. Then he went to cast the spell, with a swish and a flick.

"Wingardium Leviosa," he intoned right after. The feather didn't move at all.

"Ok, so what you tried didn't work out. Try again, do something differently," Vincent encouraged. It was really that simple, he'd found. The book would say to say something clearly but not too firmly or something equally as vague and confusing, but it was all so you could know the general feeling you had to go for. Some would have better luck being more "firm" and some would have better luck with the opposite.

The best he gathered, it varied from person to person.

He could understand why Gregory had problems with it though. It was confusing and confusing things could frustrate people. Frustration didn't help at all to find the right "feel" of things, or so he guessed. Maybe it helped that Vincent was kind of dumb and didn't think all that much. He was used to going with the flow, seeing how things went and then deciding.

Wing it was the name of the game, as far as he was concerned.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" Gregory intoned again, only for the feather not to move at all. However, the book did as it flew from the table right into his face with enough force to topple the poor man.

"Well, I think that wasn't it either," Vincent commented, trying and likely failing to hide the urge to laugh he was holding back. Then again, Gregory had snorted when his feather had spontaneously been vaporized. This just evened things out.

Although, admittedly, his failure had been a lot less damaging to his own person.

"Again?" he asked, imagining that his friend might want to take a break or something.

With a groan, Gregory lifted himself back and glared bloody murder at the book. He didn't dare to damage it however, his fear for the old lady at the library far surpassing his current annoyance. Vincent didn't want to imagine what would happen to them if they dared to deliver the book back in a less-than-pristine estate.

As it was, Gregory was just lucky they weren't in the library anymore. Else, just that gesture might have earned him Madam Pince's wrath. Luckily for him, their exploration session might not have led them to the Room of Requirement, but it had led them to some unused rooms that they could… Well, use.

Most of the weirder parts of the castle were out of the way from the "main" part where the classrooms and other commonly used or visited places were, they had found. That suited their needs perfectly. Although Vincent was sure that they weren't the only ones venturing to the unknown for some privacy – his mind went to an awkward encounter of a pair of older Hufflepuff and Gryffindor students exchanging spit and… other things – and he really hoped nobody would stumble upon them. Depending on how it happened it could be very awkward or very bad and he wasn't sure which he preferred.

"Wingardium Leviosa." It seemed that Gregory was willing to give it another try while he was stuck in his musing. Vincent's eyes went to the feather that was located on top of the teachers podium, only for it… to do nothing at all. "Man, I don't think this Charm thing is for me," the dispirited man said with a sigh.

"I mean, in our defense, we are just getting started with this stuff and we have wands that aren't suited for us," Vincent commented, leaning back on his chair and lamenting that fact himself. From what he'd figured, at least Gregory's wand was more suited to him than his was to himself.

Everytime he tried a spell, it felt like he was trying to herd a cat. It honestly felt like it was random when the wand would actually work for him and when it wouldn't. When he really wanted it to work though, it would almost unequivocally fail. And he was fairly sure that it was "almost" because the goddamned thing wanted to keep him on his toes.

He couldn't wait to get something more suited to himself.

On the bright side, the times that he had gotten it to work had been… interesting. He seemed to have about as much success as Gregory did to get the spells to do exactly what he wanted. His levitation charm would be a little too high. His lighting charm would be a little too far from the wand. Stuff like that was becoming common and expected.

However, something that he noticed was that it was always stronger than Gregory's attempts. Things always floated higher, never lower. Light was always too bright, never too dim. It was interesting and if this fact persisted, then it had some interesting implications.

"Right, the wands are alive thing…"

"I don't know if I'd say that they are alive," Vincent commented, looking up thoughtfully. "I guess it's more like… they have opinions. They can like you, agree with you, stuff like that. They don't think, or anything…" he trailed off then.

Gregory just deadpanned at him as if his explanation didn't make sense. To be fair, trying to explain magic was hard. He was trying, alright?

Magic was weird, nonsensical. Trying to explain it was difficult. Most of the time, things just clicked into place for Vincent. Even if they didn't, they usually ended up making some sort of sense after he tested things out a little and got to experience it.

It reminded him of his language classes, actually. There were these myriad of rules and exceptions and more rules and exceptions that went over his head up until he started actually applying them. Then, as time went on, they started clicking into place.

It was a matter of finding the way to make that happen, basically.

"Anyway, with any luck, we'll find the Room of Requirement and find some wands to try there," he continued speaking after some silence, sighing. "Otherwise it's waiting until Easter or the end of the school year. Probably the latter, if we have to be stuck here with Malfoy."

Which, considering that it was just past New Year, were both far away in the future. On that note, Vincent found it kind of awkward that nothing about their day was really all that different. There hadn't even been a card from their parents – or original Crabbe and Goyle's really, but the situation was weird enough as is –, which was… kind of telling.

Back to their wand problems though, they sucked, because a competent wizard like Neville had been reduced to a joke because of him having an incompatible wand. That made it very hard for Gregory and him to even know how well they were doing with their catching up, since they could be failing because of their wands or because they were doing things wrong. As if they didn't have enough problems to deal with, he grumbled internally.

At least they could go through the theory, Vincent supposed. That was the silver lining in the whole shit situation. Still, between having to play nice with Malfoy and everyone else, having to go to classes that they likely wouldn't understand and many other factors, he was predicting their progress being pretty slow.

A shame, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

"Right, the Room of Requirement," Gregory said as he shuddered at the idea of being stuck with Malfoy for more time than necessary. Vincent could relate. Although, there was a lack of understanding there that reminded him that his new friend was painfully ignorant regarding the Harry Potter world. Not that he held that against him, but it did complicate things.

Looking at the door, he wondered if it was safe enough to speak of such things there. He hadn't seen any portraits close by, but there was always the possibility of house elves. He rather doubted any student would spy on them, but he didn't know what kind of Dumbledore he was dealing with. Good guy, manipulative guy, cartoonishly evil guy? Safe to say, fanfiction had messed up his perception of the guy a whole lot.

Then again, Harry seemed to get away with a lot of shit without anyone knowing.

"The Room of Requirement is a room that can make literally anything you want. Think of it as the ultimate transfiguration room. It's also stuffed with books and a whole lot of things that people have lost or forgotten in this castle," he explained, keeping his voice low despite how safe he felt speaking of such things. "What I'm betting on is some student at some point having lost a wand. There's also likely to be some books that aren't in the library too, which could help later on. It's also a room in which nobody can find us unless we want them to."

"Wait, so it is like a magical lost&found room that can transform into whatever we want? Does it just take what is lost? Or can we get stuff that belongs to other people as long as we ask the room for it? How far is its reach? Is it only the school or we can-"

Vincent interrupted the babbling man before he could get too carried away.

"Ok, ok, give me a minute to actually answer, man!" he said, sighing when Gregory did listen to him and stopped. "Ok, so, yes, it does act as a lost&found thing too, but it can do a whole lot more. It can create things, but I'm pretty sure there's some limit to it, like it can't create a book especially for what you want. It has to take the book from somewhere. Also, it's only storage for lost and forgotten things, because the house elves – those are… servants that work for the castle, basically. Think… Santa's elves, but more… cleaning and cooking than crafting, you know what I mean?" Vincent waited a moment for the other man to nod, albeit slightly unsure. Good enough for him. "I think there's some reach outside the castle, but not that much, and I don't want to accidentally break the most useful thing here, so I'd rather not test it too much."

"Right, don't break the magic room that gives us stuff without knowing how to fix it. Got it."

"I rather doubt we can figure out how to fix-" Vincent started before sighing. He was starting to realize Gregory was a very curious creature. Maybe it was better to just pick his battles. "Doesn't matter. What do you wanna do now, man? Do we switch subjects?"

Gregory pursed his lips in thought. Vincent could almost see the guy's pride wanting to get the charm right, warring against cooler minds to make progress in other subjects. In the end, it was the latter which persevered.

"Let's try something else then. We have… transfiguration, potions –which we need a cauldron for, according to the book –, or herbology," Gregory said as he read the titles of the first-year level books they had managed to check out from Madam's Pince. More in-depth copies of them, at least. He was fairly sure this was what someone like Hermione would read rather than what a normal student would.

"I mean, don't need a cauldron to study it, I guess," he mumbled, picking up the cover of the potion's book and lifting it to look at the contents with disinterest. Don't get him wrong, potions sounded very interesting and all, but with things like charms and transfiguration on the table too?... "Snape's gonna be a pain in the ass if we don't give his class some attention though," he thought.

Sure, they were Slytherin, but Snape was a bitter, petty man that Vincent was sure would find a way to make their life hell if they made things difficult for him. It was better to cover their bases just in case. And who knew, maybe they could get on the man's good side and have some of that favor he seemed to shower Malfoy with…

Probably not, but one was entitled to their own delusions.

"Let's read some potions, yeah?" he decided, with the voice and expression of a man who would rather do literally anything else. Chemistry hadn't been his thing, but he hadn't been too bad at cooking.

How hard could it be?

[}-o-{]

[Gregory Goyle]

'Add two porcupine quills after making sure that the cauldron is taken out of the fire,' Gregory noted diligently. He made sure to write as small as possible to cram as much as he could inside the page which was already quite full. He could feel the quill hit the table occasionally as he wrote up to the last bit of space left on the paper.

He made sure to note down the correct temperature the cauldron was supposed to be at before this step. Too cold and the potion would lose most of its power. Making it so that it would only start taking effect by the time the potion ran out of effective time. But with too hot of a fire, it would make the effect too sudden which might cause some mild skin issues that would require a visit to the nurse.

The best way to do it would be to wait around a minute for the potion to cool down to the optimal temperature before adding the quills. Depending on the size of the cauldron and the amount of potion in it, of course. Idly, Gregory wrote a small formula to calculate the optimal heating time of ingredients. Of course, he had no idea if it would work, because he didn't know what the thermal capacity of most of the ingredients was, but he could always modify it later as he made some practical experiments.

The man checked the page one more time to make sure there was absolutely no more space to keep writing before turning it and noticing that it was the same on the other side. With a sigh, he put the page on top of the growing pile and grabbed another one to continue.

Overall, he was really glad Vincent had proposed to study potions. It was proving to be quite a delight. Much better than the ridiculous spells he had been trying earlier at the very least. This at least made some amount of sense and followed a certain logic, albeit, a completely unknown one to him, but it was something that could be learned at the very least.

Don't get him wrong, he still found Charms and its effects fascinating, the ability to change the world with the mere flick of a stick held an appeal he was sure most people would love to be capable of, after all. But he also had to admit that the lack of guidelines or logic to the process was getting to him. You could try the same spell twice with the exact same conditions and you would still get two completely different results without rhyme, reason, or connection between the two.

The idea of 'just letting it happen' or 'going for what feels best' didn't quite click with him. It made him remember the dance lessons his mother had once forced him to go through when he was a kid. He hadn't been a fan of those if there was any doubt.

"Do what you feel is right with your body," the teacher at the time had said to him as he stood there like a stone while the rest of the class danced and waved nonsensically across the room. What was that even supposed to mean? Where were the steps to follow? How was he even to know if what he was doing was right if there were no guidelines?

'Lady, what feels right at the moment is to just run back home,' he remembered thinking at that moment. It was one of those experiences that stuck with him all the way to adulthood. Luckily his mother never forced him to go to them again after seeing how miserable it made him feel.

He just didn't get how he was supposed to simply let go, Gregory guessed.

"Good to see you are having a good time, man," Vincent commented, snapping him out of his thoughts and making him turn towards the other man- boy. 'Is it ever gonna be less weird to realize I'm a kid now?' Gregory wondered idly. "Because this is about as dull as reading a cooking recipe book. Admittedly much more interesting in application but still. Chemistry wasn't my class," he said, shooting his book a baleful look. "You'll have to help me with this one, it seems," Vincent added jokingly, looking toward Gregory's pile of notes with a bemused smile.

"Sure thing," he said with a smile. He felt a bit bad for the relief that washed over him. He had been nothing but a burden so far with his lack of knowledge of this world and his less-than-stellar performance in everything magic. He was glad that he could be at least helpful here. "I had always liked Chemistry. I guess potions is similar enough,"

Well, not really. Most of the ingredients were things that sounded like someone was trying to play a prank on him, but he could recognize some of them at least. Also, it didn't involve much wand-waving, so that was a plus in his books.

"You can say that again," Vincent commented, clearly meaning that in a much less positive light than he did. Then he groaned, bringing his hands up to massage his temples. "Now I know how you felt about Charms. Man, this is doing my head in," he complained. "Really hope I don't blow up a cauldron or something. I don't wanna be Neville 2.0, man. That'd suck."

"It won't be that bad, surely," he said with a wry smile even as he tilted his body forward to see what the man was having trouble with. He idly filed in his head to ask who Neville was later – he vaguely remembered the name so he might be an important character –, he didn't want to interrupt potion learning time after all. "Oh, is it about the horned slug part? Yeah, that one is tricky. You are using the heat formula for the snake fangs wrong here in the first part," he said as he pointed at the mistake. "It is too cold so the snake Fang's dust is not managing to dissolve," he pointed to another part of the formula where the mistake was dragged and threw the potion equivalency out of control. "That is why the slug number is not adding up with the book's."

Vincent looked at him and blinked slowly as if he had been speaking some other language.

"Wait…" the boy said slowly, looking at his own notes and then at the book in increasing horror. "You mean to tell me that when the exercise asks for the process for a bigger batch than one vial, it's not just, you know, multiplying the ingredients?"

It was Gregory's turn to blink.

"I mean, it depends on what you are trying to do. Why would you think that?" While the man wasn't wrong, it didn't quite work as cooking, some magical ingredients seemed to only work in certain doses. And most of them seemed to be very finicky about how they worked with all others. Including the heat and timings of the cauldron. He suspected a lot of magical shenanigans there.

"Because… I mean… Then why…?" Vincent mumbled before his eye started twitching. "... Well, this sucks a lot more all of a sudden. Thanks for that."

"Uh, you can check on my notes if you want. I think that could help," he said. After a quick search for the right page, he offered the man the notes he had made.

"Yeah, hopefully… Thanks," Vincent replied, deflating on his chair as he took the offered material. He was looking very different from the sort of confident person Gregory had gotten to see so far, that was for sure.

Gregory wanted to say something to cheer him up, but the words failed him. He truly didn't know what to say in situations like this, so instead of making the situation worse, he focused back on his own book. A more complete version than the original first-year book that Madam Pince had shoved on their hands when they asked for more in-depth material. They didn't quite have the luxury to lose much time, but they also couldn't just keep remaining ignorant if they ever wanted to catch up to their class which was already a year and a half more advanced than them.

Honestly, while making the first-year potions in itself wasn't that complicated – it was about as hard as following a cooking recipe, as Vincent aptly put it – it was the theory behind it where things become way more difficult. The measurements and concepts explained in the books were things which while he was somewhat familiar with, were not exactly something that you would expect an eleven-year-old to start learning. Let alone kids who seemed to lose most of the standard curriculum for kids their age as they focused solely on magic.

Pretty much anyone could powder snake fangs and add them to a cauldron. But the important part, the one that you would only find if you look deeper, was knowing the why, or the reason behind the amount.

Then again, for what little they had seen from the curriculum, the students didn't really need to learn the theory for other reasons than extra points. Gregory guessed that most of them just followed the abridged set of instructions and made a potion that, while suboptimal, still worked well enough.

He focused himself back on his own notes, noticing that he had already written another half a page almost unconsciously. Notes, diagrams, and even addendums of things he would like to experiment and try with to see if he could understand how the potion ticked later on. Applying what people here called Muggle science was only giving him mixed results. Gregory guessed that he would have to repeat his teenage and early adult years and grind his nose into the pages again to get used to this new system.

It reminded him a bit about his time at university. Taking notes and eating through books at whatever hours of the night while he tried to get his Master's in Biochemistry. It was so familiar, in a way, that a wave of nostalgia hit him at that moment.

He didn't have to worry about dance lessons or the stress of talking with people or the uncomfortable silences that always seemed to follow whenever he opened his mouth.

There was only logic. The ingredients fell into place like pieces of a puzzle. Immutable and precise as long as the conditions of the experiment were the right ones. There was no uncertainty or guesswork to them. Just the comforting feeling and reassurance that you were doing things right as the formulas were completed and the results matched the expectations.

It was true that potions weren't the same. It wasn't quite chemistry, some rules and laws of physics were either completely ignored or magnified to ridiculous degrees. But at least it was constant in its disregard for logic, something that he could eventually incorporate and adapt to. It was just a matter of observing, making hypotheses, and running the experiments.

A couple of hours passed in what felt like only a few minutes for him and by the time they had to stop and go back to the Slytherin room, Gregory felt in a great mood. It was even better than the rather enjoyable walks around the castle. Not even the thought of the scowling blonde kid and the mockery of the other children did anything to dampen his mood.

'Things aren't all bad, at least.'

[} Chapter End {]

Adrian: To each their own, as they say, amirite?

Arc: Indeed, I guess that's just how magic works. By the way, if you are curious, everything related to their talents, wands, and even magic was decided by dice rolls. We did not have much of a hand in deciding what these two were good at and what not. This chapter might give you some clues, but you can guess for yourselves as the classes go along.

Adrian: It'll take a while for everything about them to be revealed, but that's just half the fun. The other half being… Well, watching them struggle. Nothing like seeing a character suffer, I say.

Arc: Indeed, you don't become Crabbe and Goyle and expect to have a power fantasy from the get-go, after all. They will struggle for every inch they gain. But that is how you know they earned it.

Adrian: If they earn it. Hehehe… Ahem, anyway. Hope you liked the chapter and please leave a review telling us what you think, yeah?

Discord Link: discord .gg/UTDransjJZ