Chapter 9

[Draco Malfoy]

As he walked past most of his fellow Slytherins, he couldn't help but feel very proud of the narrow-eyed look Greengrass sent his way.

She liked to think she stood a chance of being in his place, at the top of the hierarchy. He'd admit that her family was powerful, so maybe she wasn't entirely wrong. However, House Greengrass was nothing when put next to House Malfoy. The gap in school, however, wasn't quite as pronounced, mostly because her pet half-blood was… he'd reluctantly admit, better than Crabbe and Goyle.

However, the two's blood was pure and that was something that Greengrass couldn't say about Davis.

At that moment, whatever good standing she had because of her pet half-blood, was thrown out the castle's window. Crabbe, by some miracle of magic itself, had done something. Draco would make sure to reward that with something nice, like having some snacks or candy delivered from a good store. His glutton of a servant would love that, he was sure. Maybe he'd let him go off on his own a little more?

He seemed to like that as of late, and it was better than having him ruin whatever good he'd done by being… himself while around Draco.

Walking past the blond heiress, he gave her and Nott a grin. The two of them would do well to remember their place, under him. The rest of Slytherin at least knew to try and earn his favor or at least stay out of his way. Zabini was one such intelligent example.

His fellow snakes aside though, he had something to do, because he just couldn't not do it.

"That was just sad, Potter. Is Weasley truly the best you can do for a lackey?" he commented as they approached the Gryffindor side. Many glares were directed his way, but he just smiled wider at them. What would they do? Curse him? Lockhart might be a buffon, but he was still a teacher. And there was also Flitwick, but he was just a half goblin, so his opinion didn't matter one way or another.

"Sod off, Malfoy," the redhead growled at him, making him laugh.

"Or what? You'll attack me? First, you can't cast magic properly and curse yourself. Then you get beaten by Crabbe? And I thought being poor was as low as your family could go, Weasley," he said, following that with another laugh. Ah, the bright red angry face was just the best.

Something wasn't right, though.

Looking back, he glared at the two trolls he had for lackeys. He had already taught them to laugh when he did, so they better not make all those hours of work spent getting that through their thick skulls go to waste.

Luckily, both of them seemed to get the message and started laughing along with him. Well, they chuckled, but that'd do. One couldn't expect much from them anyway. If he weren't so happy with the annoyed expressions of the Gryffindors, he'd have rolled his eyes.

"You really have nothing better to do than come talk with us, Malfoy?" Potter asked, glaring at him as if he were trying to curse him wandlessly, silently and motionlessly. "That's kind of sad."

"Just reminding you that you chose the wrong sort to associate with, Potter," he replied with a grin. "And it's oh so sweet to do so, I have to say. With my business taken care of, have a nice day and remember what just happened, yeah?" he added before giving Crabbe and Goyle a look, especially the former. "Now, if you'll excuse us. Let's go, guys. Let's leave the losers to lick their wounds."

And with that, he left. It felt good to win one of their spats without resorting to the teachers. It was clever to do so, but there was something sweet about doing so on his own. Potter liked to think he won anyway when he used his connections or status, for whatever reason, which was an annoyance of its own. Draco would rather not have his victory besmirched like that, so this was preferable, indeed.

Class would be over in a bit, anyway, so they could leave and be done with the day already, thankfully.

"Feeling bold with a win, Malfoy? Ron can barely cast with his broken wand," Patil hissed as they passed her. "Gregory didn't do so well against someone that can actually do something, did he?" Goyle flinched at the reminder of his embarrassing loss, but Draco knew it was expected. Gregory was only useful for luggage carrying. But then again, he thought the same for Crabbe and somehow he had managed to surprise him.

"You are saying that Crabbe's win is worth less because of that?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at the girl. She was pureblood, at least, but her family line hadn't been in Britain that long, so she didn't matter all that much. Who did she think she was? "Are you just gonna take that, Crabbe?" he asked, turning and not really expecting the boy to say anything. At least it'd give him time to think over how to retort to that, he supposed.

Surprisingly, Crabbe seemed to have understood the question, even when spoken at normal speeds, and processed it.

His minion was full of surprises that day, it seemed.

"I'd say having a broken wand is worse, wouldn't you?" he asked with the same vacant expression he usually had as he shrugged. Gregory, for his part, just blinked in surprise at his fellow lackey. He must be having problems following the conversation. That was more what he expected from Crabbe too.

Still though…

Draco let out a laugh at that.

"Too true! What do you have to say to that?!" Draco asked Patil then, or more specifically the Gryffindor students. "How much of a wizarding disgrace do you have to be to have a broken wand, Weasley? Then again, I don't reckon you can pay for another, right? As expected of you and your family, utter disgraces the lot of you," he sneered, turning towards the redhead at the last part. "The wrong sort indeed. Now, let's go. Unless you guys want to be humiliated some more?"

When nobody said anything as they left, Dracon grinned even wider.

It was a good day.

[}-o-{]

[Gregory Goyle]

It was not a good day.

Gregory continued to scrub through the small cauldron. His hand worked relentlessly as he tried and failed to reach the bottom of said container due to the ladle that stuck firmly to the bottom of the thing by the same gunk-like substance as last time.

'Seriously, who is failing so badly at this thing, the potion has the same level of complexity as cooking pasta. It's not that damn hard!' he thought angrily to himself. He had been at it for hours already, repeating the same actions over and over for the past few days. So, Gregory guessed he was entitled to feel a bit miffed.

He really was growing to love potions, he truly was, but there were only so many times he could clean cauldron after cauldron without it becoming an extremely tedious chore. Which, Gregory guessed, was kind of the point. He was in detention, after all. After guessing the failed potion's identity the first time, the little game to keep himself entertained had changed to just guessing at what point the potion had reached the point of no return. In this particular case, it was right from the get-go, since the person didn't even bother to crush the leaves at all.

However, even that had become dull and uninteresting after a while. Which left him with nothing but tortuous manual work and his own thoughts. Professor Snape had refused to say a single word to him — that wasn't a snarky remark or insult — since that conversation during his first day at detention

All the man did now was indicate the seat Gregory should take with his long and pale finger – always the one next to a small mountain of filth-filled cauldrons – and then proceed to stare either at him or his paperwork for hours.

Gregory was rather scared of the man, if he was honest. Especially after Vincent told him he was one of the few people at school who could go and force memories out of him if he so desired. It was one of those glaring disconnections between what Gregory thought Harry Potter, a children's saga of books, was supposed to be like and reality.

The idea of someone just having the ability to rip secrets out of your own mind, one of your most sacred and personal places, was just terrifying. The idea that your memories, the very core of your being, could be altered by the whims of someone by just waving a stick sounded was also incredibly dark. How was it that the mind arts in general weren't right next to the Unforgivables?

A person was shaped by their memories, their experiences, after all. If someone came along and took that out of them, then what was left wasn't the same person anymore. In a way, it was just like murdering someone, but, in Gregory's mind, much worse.

Without anything to occupy his mind, he had been drifting towards horrible scenarios by the hour. There hadn't come a day that he hadn't left that room holding his body from shaking in fear of the idea of the professor deciding he was suspicious enough, just slightly different enough from the original Gregory, to merit the use of his spells. With a simple twist of a wand and a short incantation he would be exposed, his very essence could be ripped part by part as the man looked for whatever information-

"Continue scrubbing, Mr. Goyle," the man didn't quite say but drawled at him. His eyes firmly locked on Gregory's scalp as he refused to look up in fear that it would be the last thing he ever did.

"If you can get away with it, don't make eye contact with them," Vincent had told him.

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir," he responded hastily, redoubling his efforts. At that moment, he would much rather just be bored and annoyed at a cauldron than terrified out of his mind. However, it was said boredom which always made his mind spiral out of control.

Perhaps it was because of the tense silence getting to him or maybe just the tiredness and soreness of his arm, making him clumsier than usual. He didn't know the reason, but the fact was that one of his scrubs ended up coming with more force than needed, making the cauldron slip through his fingers and fall on top of the dirty pile of cauldrons, making it collapse and fall right on top of the smaller group he had just spent the past few hours cleaning, completely dirtying all of it again – along with the floor – with the accursed sludge.

Gregory could not help but let out a curse and a groan of tiredness at all his work being unmade in seconds.

It was definitely not a good day.

"Perhaps something more fitting of your skills would be a better use of our time, Mr. Goyle? I see that something as intricate as cleaning a cauldron might be a tad too complicated for someone like you, wouldn't you agree?" Snape commented over his misery with so much sarcasm that Gregory could almost taste it.

A collection of words passed through his mind and died at the tip of his tongue. No, lashing out wouldn't help his situation at all. He already fucked up enough to add more fuel to the fire.

"Of course, sir. I am sorry for the mess," he apologized and took the verbal jab without rebuttal. At the end of the day, that was the only thing he could do without making everything worse.

"I am sure you are… Now, follow me," Snape said as he rose from his desk at the top of the side podium and walked toward the cupboards that contained all sorts of potion ingredients. With a wave of his hand, the professor indicated Gregory to follow.

The student scurried to follow along, careful not to step on the sludge that spread all over his previous workstation.

"I wish to reorganize my ingredients for further classes, but due to some inopportune events, I find myself unable to make the time due to some students deciding to break the clearly stated rules of not returning to the dorms before curfew," Snape remarked with a sharp look in his direction clearly implying whose fault the professor believed that was, as if his words alone weren't clear enough. "As such, I'll require you to reorganize the ingredients in these cabinets according to the following list," he continued, pulling a long piece of parchment from… somewhere under his clothes.

If not for magic being real, Gregory would have felt like he was in a cartoon at times.

"Of course, Professor," he replied, taking the list and reading the clear notes of what went where. He was actually rather eager to take that job. Not only because it let him at least see some of the ingredients he had seen in books up close, but also because literally anything was better than continuing to clean sludge-

"After you are done, you will continue cleaning the cauldrons and the mess you caused in my classroom." The comment made Gregory sigh. It seemed that he wasn't free of that torture, after all.

What did he expect?

"Of course, sir," Gregory repeated, already resigned to his fate. At least he got a break, which was nice. As such, he spent the next half an hour reorganizing ingredients that, in his previous life – one that had reached its abrupt end almost two weeks ago by that point –, he would have believed to be complete nonsense.

Psychedelic plants, fantastical animal body parts and even some things that he had no idea the origin of were slowly but surely separated in groups and later stored in their proper place. It was a cathartic exercise, simple, logical, and organized. It was his favorite kind of activity, if he was honest, like pieces of a puzzle coming together and falling where they belonged. It wasn't much different from potion-making itself, really.

Gregory liked that. Organization and neatness had been a constant in his previous life. He wouldn't go as far as to say he was a cleaning freak or that he had any level of OCD, but he had always preferred to keep everything organized and in its proper place. That applied to both objects and his own mind.

Perhaps that was the reason he had followed his previous career. The empiric organization and control over the results had a certain appeal that called to him. It was the main reason he had liked chemistry so much in his previous life. There was something satisfying in seeing both sides of the equation become balanced and reach a sole conclusion devoid of uncertainties.

There was no place for unknowns or doubts, just logic and facts. You either got to a balanced result or you had committed a mistake.

Gregory shook his head as if to remove the distracting thoughts. He pursed his lips as he mentally ticked off the last ingredients from the list. His eyes moved to the small collection of ingredients that remained on top of the table, waiting to be stored.

'These aren't on the list…' he thought to himself, revising the list and checking the names of the ingredients over and over to make sure he hadn't just committed a mistake. 'Asian Dragon Hair, Agrippa, Bundimun Secretion.' All of them were ingredients he recognized from books, but were nowhere to be seen on the piece of parchment.

Gregory scratched the back of his head in confusion. He didn't know what he was supposed to do now. Did he ask for further instruction from the professor? Gregory would rather not. He would prefer keeping interactions with the scary man to a minimum if possible. Did he just shove them wherever and pray Snape didn't notice? That somehow seemed worse.

He could try to figure out where the ingredients would go based on their general uses. While it was true the reincarnated kid wasn't exactly the most knowledgeable person when it came to potions — he had started learning about them two weeks ago and he also needed to cover a myriad of other subjects on top of that — he did make an effort to memorize as many ingredients as he possibly could. Starting from most basic parts and then figuring out the more complex components by association was his previous life study method after all. Just like when he studied chemistry by memorizing the periodic table, he tried to do the same for potions and ingredients.

His mind churned to remember as much as he possibly could. His thoughts and memories were partially stored neatly and clearly, courtesy of his partial advancements with Occlumency. He shuddered thinking what mastery of the art would be like if this was what he could get with just a few days of practice.

No wonder it was so abused in fanfiction, as Vincent had claimed.

Asian Dragon Hair was usually used in skin and hair care potions. It wasn't a great reactive so it needed a good amount of heat and some acidic elements to dissolve in and spread its properties around.

'I can place it with the rest of the rest of the beast elements?' he thought to himself, separating the bottle from the other two, still unsure of what to do with it. He could separate it by overall usage too, since that had been one of the classifications of the list.

Agrippa was both easier to identify and harder to classify. It was hard to not know about it given that even if you didn't read a potion theory book, you would probably hear it mentioned in a history book along with its creator, Cornelius Agrippa, and his rather tragic story back during the witch prosecutions centuries ago.

The purple liquid inside the small jar did pretty much nothing by itself. However, it was known to reduce the incompatibilities between certain ingredients with minimal loss in efficiency in the right conditions. This deceptively inert wine-like substance was known to be one of the greatest contributors to potion making in history. If it wasn't for it, he estimated that at least a quarter of the modern time potions wouldn't exist.

As such, it was a rather common and famous ingredient, but it made it harder to classify given that it could go in at least a dozen places from the list.

His eyes moved to the last of the ingredients on top of the table. A sickly green fizzing mucus inside a thick glass jar which was very tightly closed. Two rather ominous skulls were located just under the name.

Bundimun Secretion.

Also a magical beast component like the Asian Dragon Hair, but this one was the complete opposite of inert. One didn't need to actually read about it to realize that this thing was not something you should be playing around with. Looking at the color and muted hiss coming out of it, as if the substance was trying to eat right through the glass, was enough of a warning.

It was a rather corrosive liquid extracted from an odd creature called Bundimun that Gregory could only liken to what conventional fantasy usually called slimes. The classified pest fed itself by decomposing dirt and dead plants using their acid to break bigger components into minerals they could absorb. They were considered mostly harmless as long as you weren't stupid enough to push any part of your body inside it.

But he was digressing. The secretion of it was usually considered a rather potent acid that was usually used by surprisingly benign potions, mostly cleaning ones that-

Wait.

'No fucking way!' he thought to himself, taking the ingredients in front of him once again. His mind churned, trying to add the calculation in his mind and putting everything he had learned so far into place.

It didn't take long before everything clicked into place in his head, and his head snapped towards the professor who didn't seem to be paying him any mind, as he graded winter homework like he had been doing for most of his detention.

"Uhm, Professor?" Words escaped from his mouth before he had time to reconsider. "These ingredients don't seem to be inside the list, do you mind if I use them? To practice what you taught us in class, of course. I will continue my detention right after and clean the mess I make with them." What were the odds these particular ingredients were the ones left out of the list?

"Provided that you don't cause yet another incident then do as you wish, Mr. Goyle. Your detention will extend until you finish cleaning the mess you caused. After all, how long you take is not of my concern," the man remarked without raising his head to even look at what ingredients he was talking about.

"Thank you, Professor," he hastily said as he grabbed the potion ingredients and a cauldron – a clean one that wasn't from his previous pile – and took everything towards one of the working stations preparing everything he thought he would need.

It was only half an hour later when found himself slowly stirring the sizzling and bubbling light-green liquid inside the small cauldron. The heat was at full blast as he made sure to keep his head away from the fumes coming out of the potions; even then, he wore a rag in front of his head just in case.

'I think it was 3 more clockwise stirs for the acidity to lower. Or do I have to judge that by color? I don't remember… It is changing color, so I guess, I'll go with that," Gregory thought as he moved the ladle very slowly like he remembered the books strictly warned about when Bundimun Secretion was used.

A last stir, the tap of his wand to the tip of the cauldron, and the addition of some stabilizing powders – that he had asked permission from Snape to borrow – made the potion shimmer for a few seconds before going back to normal.

With care, he grabbed his newly made potion. It could probably be much better, considering he made it mostly through guesswork and information acquired from mostly skimmed books, and took it towards the previous pile of sludge-filled cauldrons. Gregory only prayed to any god out there that the thing would work, because if he made even a bigger mess out of this, he was going to cry.

He took his trusty toilet brush that had accompanied him through all the sludge-cleaning ordeal and dipped it inside the newly made potion. With care, he removed it and let out a sigh of relief seeing that it hadn't dissolved into a burnt stump. That meant that he had managed to reduce the corrosive properties of the Bundinum Secretion correctly. An oily shimmer, a byproduct of the dragon hair, covered the edges of the substances giving it an appearance and texture not too dissimilar to very oily liquid soap.

The continuation of the previous prayer was on the tip of his tongue as he placed the brush inside one of the cauldrons and right into one of the sludge-smeared interior walls of it.

He let out a light laugh when, to his wonder, the brush scrubbed the sludge right off with the slight sound of sizzling instead of getting stuck in a single stroke like before. A few more tentative movements gave him enough confidence to continue, marveled and vindicated as he saw the sludge be washed off, completely unable to cling onto the cauldron again due to the oiliness of the potion.

He would have to clean that too, of course, but different from the sludge, a simple wash with water and some light scrubbing should be enough for it. Thus, he continued working, the once tedious activity becoming a breeze as he finished the pile in what seemed to be record time. All the containers were completely devoid of sludge, albeit very soapy and oily.

"You could have done with less use of Asian Dragon Hair, and a few more ounces of Bundimun Secretion to counteract the oiliness and increase efficiency," said the voice of the professor from right behind him, which almost gave Gregory a heart attack. How was the man that silent? "I see that you used the right amount of powder for the stabilization process at the end, instead of during the heating…" Snape remarked.

"Yes, sir. At first, I thought the Agrippa would be enough, so I-" Gregory tried to explain.

"Yes, yes, Mr. Goyle. Like I have already told you once, you don't need to explain the arts of potion making to me," Snape interrupted with a raised head almost as if he was looking down on him from beyond that beak-like nose of his.

Gregory wondered if the man liked to leave open statements to fish for answers he could interrupt with snide remarks.

"While not perfect and quite crudely made… I'd say that it is a passable potion, Mr. Goyle," Snape declared with a rather odd stare directed at him. Almost as if he couldn't believe what he was saying. Still, the man didn't forget to add a lame drawl to his words almost as if saying anything resembling praise was a huge chore for him.

For what he knew of the man, that was pretty much the equivalent of a standing ovation.

Gregory would take whatever victory he could take.

"Thank you, Professor," he said with some relief. Part of him was unreasonably worried that Snape would declare him using a potion invalid to clean his detention away and make him clear something else out of spite. With the guy, one never knew.

"Given that you have finished today's task, I see no reason to keep tolerating your presence in my classroom, Mr Goyle. Please make yourself scarce," the man said while turning in his very dramatic, cape-waving, way.

"I'll do as you say, Professor," he said, seeing no reason to question the early dismissal.

He had the rest of the day free, and he only had detention twice a week – mostly because the faculty would rather see him back into the dorms early than anything else – which meant that he could go and try to scrunch a few hours inside the Room of Requirements.

His latest success and victory over the green sludge-thing of despair had left him in a rather cheery mood.

Maybe, today was a good day, after all.

[} Chapter End {]

Adrian: Everyone's having a good day! I'm sure nothing bad will happen to these two now. It's all bright path ahead of us, guys! I'm sure Crabbe saying those things to the Gryffindors won't backfire at all. Not that he had a lot of choices, with Malfoy right there, but still…

Arc: And I'm sure Malfoy doing Malfoy things won't cause any repercussions whatsoever… Leaving that aside, I believe writing potion scenes for Gregory is one of my favorite parts. He's always so happy and willing to share when I'm in his head, words just flow a lot better.

Adrian: With that said, we hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Random Adrian Question: Will things finally get better for our boys? Or will they get worse? Either way, how?

Discord Link: discord .gg/UTDransjJZ