Large, bruise-colored clouds pressed low against the magically enhanced ceiling of the Great Hall, which currently offered a realistic, if depressing, view of a dreary, light drizzle. The atmosphere inside was slightly less gloomy, though, around the Gryffindor table, where Albert, Fred, George, and Lee Jordan were huddled over a freshly arrived copy of The Incremental Innovations in Magic.
Professor Smith's long-anticipated research on the Boggart's true morphology—the swirling, shapeless mass of magical energy—was indeed the feature article. And sure enough, tucked away in the footnotes or a brief, final acknowledgment, was Albert's name.
The result was simultaneously anticlimactic and precisely what Albert had expected from the insular British wizarding community. A world-shattering discovery was treated less like a revelation and more like a dry, academic footnote.
"So this is it, then?" George looked utterly bewildered, pointing a finger at the complex diagram of swirling shadow in the magazine. "A groundbreaking discovery that solves a thousand-year-old mystery, and it makes less noise than a popped balloon in the library?"
"I think… I think that's just how things work here, mate," Albert admitted with a shrug, suppressing a laugh.
"A thousand-year mystery?" Shanna, who had just plopped down opposite the group, raised a skeptical eyebrow. "What ancient secret are you lot pretending to decipher now?"
"This," Fred said, handing her the magazine with unnecessary flourish. Shanna scanned the pages quickly, and her eyes, like George's, widened in genuine confusion before settling on the acknowledgment section.
"Wait, you're in another magazine?" Shanna looked up, staring directly at Albert. "Blimey, you're turning into a proper celebrity, even if nobody notices. Why are you looking like you just found a slug in your tea?"
Albert's lip twitched. Changing the subject was a fine art, and he was a master sculptor. "Do you have a particularly grim schedule this afternoon, Shanna? Two Potions classes, I recall?"
"Indeed, two hours of the dungeons," she confirmed, but then her expression shifted to one of genuine curiosity. "But seriously, why the long face? If I were constantly getting my name published, I'd be commissioning personalized, leather-bound scrapbooks for every clipping."
"I don't harbor such frivolous habits," Albert replied dismissively.
Shanna ignored him. "Anyway, I checked with some Hufflepuffs at lunch. Apparently, we're brewing a complex Herbicide Potion today. And they mentioned something about an 'unexpected sensory experience' coming with it."
"Herbicide Potion? That's fantastic," Albert said, but the surprise in his voice was laced with something darker—a kind of foreboding realization.
The others stared at him, unable to grasp why he sounded so grim. "What's the big deal, Albert? It's just a potion," Lee Jordan scoffed.
Albert frowned, rubbing his temples. "The big deal, my friends, is the smell. A true, potent Herbicide Potion, especially when brewed by a class full of nervous novices, reeks of sulfurous decomposition and rotting cabbage. Can you possibly imagine what two hours of that stench will do to the air quality in Snape's damp, unventilated basement classroom?"
The imaginative power of George, Fred, and Lee was sufficient. Their faces collectively paled.
"Oh, bloody hell," George whispered, clutching his throat. "He's doing this on purpose, isn't he? Snape the git. He knows exactly how repulsive that stuff is when it goes wrong."
"Probably," Albert agreed. "It's Snape. It's impossible he isn't aware of the issue. He probably sees it as an excellent way to ensure we 'pay attention' or suffer the consequences."
Fred immediately started whispering frantically to George, brainstorming plausible escape strategies—sudden onset of Dragon Pox, a severe case of spontaneous petrification, anything to skip the suffocating dungeon air. Meanwhile, Shanna calmly pulled out her textbook, Advanced Potions and Magical Remedies, and began flipping through the pages on the Herbicide brew.
"Aren't you concerned at all, Shanna?" Fred asked, momentarily forgetting his feigned illness and staring at her composure.
Shanna didn't even look up from the text. "What's the point in being concerned, Fred? We can't simply evaporate. Worrying won't make the air smell any sweeter."
The three boys fell silent, shocked into a moment of grudging respect by her pragmatism.
After a few minutes of quiet study, Shanna turned to Albert with a sharp look. "I've been comparing the theoretical notes. Could I possibly borrow your completed essay? I want to make sure I haven't missed any critical steps or alternative ingredients that might mitigate the… sensory issues."
"No problem at all," Albert said, reaching into his bag and pulling out a roll of pristine parchment. He'd long ago realized that diligent homework was an easy route to consistent XP gains and accelerated skill development, so his assignments were now impeccably done.
"Which assignment is this?" Fred asked, peering over Shanna's shoulder.
"The research paper on the Flobberworm mucus secretion methods," Albert supplied.
Fred's entire body froze. His jaw slowly dropped. "The… the Flobberworm… WHAT?!"
George calmly nudged his stunned twin. "Oh, that? Yeah, I finished mine already."
"You what? When did you finish that?!" Fred demanded, eyes wide with betrayal.
"Last night, you monumental idiot," George recalled, without any malice. "You were right next to me, complaining about the deadline and saying you had until tomorrow morning. I finished mine at 2 AM."
"Right, right, focus! We need a plan!" Fred panicked, imagining the cold fury of Snape receiving a blank space where a four-foot essay should be.
"Calm down, Fred. You have precisely five minutes," Albert said, already directing Shanna to hand over his paper. "Shanna can give you the bulk of the research, and you can creatively rearrange it. Just make sure the conclusion and introduction are uniquely yours."
In a frenzy of scribbling, Fred began the desperate, meticulous task of synthesizing a convincing essay from fragments of two other genius minds, making sure to use a different ink and slant to his handwriting.
The chaos intensified when Angelina burst into the common room just as Fred was finishing his last paragraph, bringing another piece of logistical bad news.
"Quidditch practice tonight is on!" Angelina announced, looking stressed. "But I thought today was Hufflepuff's slot?" George repeated, pulling his eyes away from Fred's final, shaky signature. Gryffindor always practiced Wednesdays and Saturdays.
"Charlie switched with them—last-minute emergency or something on the Hufflepuff side," Angelina explained. "Are you two ready to go immediately after Potions? We need to be on the pitch quickly."
"Are we going to make it on time?" Fred muttered, glancing triumphantly at his completed (if fraudulent) parchment.
"It'll be a tight squeeze," Lee Jordan declared with malicious glee.
"Oh, shut your mouth, Jordan! I finished it, didn't I?" Fred grumbled, rolling up his essay. "Quiet! I need to conserve my brain cells for surviving the dungeon."
Shanna looked at the dismal, darkening sky and the persistent drizzle. "Quidditch in this ghastly weather must be pure suffering. Now I understand why you've consistently refused to join the team, Albert."
Albert found himself the sudden center of attention once more. He shrugged, adopting an air of weary commitment. "I'm simply too busy. I genuinely lack the bandwidth for it."
"Busy?" Lee Jordan complained again. "That's rich, coming from you! We see you lounging around reading more than anyone else!"
"I am intensely busy every single day!" Albert protested, raising his palm and ticking off his responsibilities on his fingers. "I have to read my mandated textbooks, conduct detailed homework, rigorously study advanced Charms, run my burgeoning clubs, maintain key strategic correspondences, and occasionally, yes, conduct vital, informational chats with key Professors. Even if I could split myself, I would still run out of time. A person's energy is finite, even mine."
"But you never look busy," Shanna scrutinised him suspiciously.
"Looks can be deceiving, Shanna," Albert insisted, though he knew his internal calm made his statement unbelievable.
The school bell rang—a deep, resonant sound that signaled the start of the afternoon classes. They had to go.
They rushed to the dungeons. Even before they reached Snape's classroom door, the temperature dropped noticeably, a gloomier, more oppressive chill than the natural cold of the stone.
The atmosphere inside was instantly hostile, not just from the cold, but from the presence of Professor Snape, who stood at the front, his eyes dark and sweeping over the Gryffindor table. His gaze seemed to linger for a disconcerting moment on Albert after he collected the assignments.
"Today, we are brewing a relatively common—though highly potent—potion: the Herbicide Potion," Snape announced, his voice a low, chilling drawl that somehow managed to cut through the heavy silence. "This potion is, naturally, designed to destroy plant life and should under no circumstances be consumed. Though I have yet to encounter a fool who would attempt to drink it. You will soon discover precisely why."
As he spoke that last sentence, Albert noticed a fleeting, twisted smile curl the corner of Snape's mouth—a clear sign that the Professor was fully aware of the sensory attack he was about to unleash.
"...Pay attention: carelessness in the precise measurement and sequence of ingredient addition will result in rapid decomposition and volatilization of the Flobberworm secretions… You will adhere strictly to the steps, quantities, and brewing times listed on the board." Snape flicked his wand, and the key instructions appeared on the blackboard. "You have sixty minutes. Begin."
The initial stages of the Herbicide Potion were harmless, but as the students began adding the first pinches of the pungent herbs and the viscous Flobberworm mucus, the classroom quickly began to descend into olfactory hell. The sickening scent, a mix of rot, stale eggs, and something acridly chemical, rose from the cauldrons of the less-skilled brewers.
Just as Albert had predicted, the dungeon quickly filled with a nauseating miasma. Students instinctively reached for their mouths and noses, their faces pale and strained.
Albert, however, acted fast. He took out a clean silk handkerchief, quickly moistened it with a few drops of water from a nearby bucket, dabbed a tiny amount of calming draught on it (a preemptive measure), and tied it loosely over his mouth and nose, muttering, "This isn't Potion class; it's chemical warfare. The cost of 'success' here is losing eight hundred points of bodily comfort just to deduct a thousand from your enemy."
He genuinely failed to comprehend how Snape, a Potion Master, could tolerate the sheer foulness of the air he deliberately cultivated. Why didn't I think to learn a complex Air Purification Charm?
"Ugh, this is absolutely vile! It's making me genuinely dizzy," Fred groaned, gagging uncontrollably as he tried to peer through the stench-induced haze at the instructions.
Lee Jordan mumbled behind a hastily clutched sleeve, "I think I might actually prefer being attacked by a Boggart disguised as a giant cockroach. At least that's not respirable."
"Seriously, can't we neutralize this?" George, who had managed to find a much thicker piece of cloth to cover his face, continued stirring his cauldron mechanically.
"To eliminate the smell entirely?" Albert's mind, newly supercharged by the Level 2 Potion Mastery talent, was already racing through alternative formulas and counter-agents. The core of the problem was the highly volatile sulfur compounds in the mucus. "Yes, actually. Adding a measured, specific ratio of finely ground chamomile root and fresh, chopped nettle leaves should neutralize the worst of the volatility without compromising the herbicide's effectiveness."
"Are you certain, Albert?!" Fred's eyes were wide with a mix of desperation and terror. "If we tamper with the recipe and it explodes, Snape will gladly turn us into new ingredients!"
"You'll know when you try it," Albert said confidently. His intuition, backed by the sudden, crystalline clarity of his skill, told him the ratios needed only minor adjustments for the brew to accept the additions safely.
He pulled a small bag of dried herbs from his personal ingredient kit—which Snape allowed him only because he rarely contaminated the communal supply—and began grinding the chamomile and nettle into a fine powder in his mortar.
The students surrounding him were currently focused on simply surviving. Their faces were flushed, their eyes watering, and they were all performing shallow, panicked breaths, wishing for nothing more than an immediate escape.
Before Albert could complete the final, delicate stage of his own brewing, a wave of relief swept over the class. Snape, tired of the overwhelming odor even with his own prodigious tolerance, waved his wand in a sharp, decisive gesture, magically dispelling the worst of the miasma. The air still carried a strong, lingering scent of failure and rot, but it was no longer immediately suffocating.
A moment later, Snape appeared silently beside Albert, his shadow falling over the Gryffindor table. His eyes, cold and dark, fixed on Albert's cauldron.
"Anderson," Snape drawled, his voice softer than usual, but laced with lethal intent. "Inform the class what potion you are currently attempting to corrupt."
"A Herbicide Potion, Professor," Albert replied without looking up, continuing to stir his surprisingly pale, almost clear-green mixture.
"Then explain to me why your Herbicide Potion has only the faintest, most negligible odor, as if it were mere watered-down swill?" Snape's voice rose slightly, demanding the attention of the class.
"Ah, well, Professor," Albert said, finally looking up, his expression innocent. "Before adding the final, critical two drops of Flobberworm mucus, I introduced a neutralizing agent. The goal was to render the Herbicide Potion's smell significantly less objectionable."
A hush fell over the classroom.
"So you are claiming, Anderson," Snape said, his voice dangerously low, "that you have successfully developed an improved Herbicide Potion, correct?"
"I believe that's an accurate assessment, sir," Albert confirmed calmly.
Immediately, the Slytherin students began to whisper amongst themselves, a mix of ridicule and disbelief on their faces, eager to witness the arrogant Gryffindor's public humiliation.
"Very well," Snape said, his lips thinning into a tight line of fury. He waved his wand again, conjuring a large terracotta pot filled with vibrant, healthy, and extremely aggressive weeds onto Albert's table.
Snape dipped a long spoon into Albert's clear-green brew, added a splash of water for dilution, and then sprayed the mixture directly onto the weeds.
For a few tense seconds, nothing happened. Then, with terrifying speed visible to the naked eye, the weeds in the pot shuddered. Their vibrant green turned sickly yellow, their stems instantly withered, and they crumpled into a dried, brown mess—dead within seconds.
The class, including the previously mocking Slytherins, was utterly stunned into silence. Some students blinked rapidly, genuinely pinching themselves to confirm they weren't hallucinating the impossible.
"Remarkable," Snape muttered, though the word sounded less like praise and more like a curse ripped from his throat.
Then, someone—probably a proud Gryffindor—started clapping. The sound was instantly infectious. Gryffindor students, tired of the oppression and the stench, erupted in loud, sustained applause for their peer. The classroom filled with the triumphant sound of hands meeting.
"SILENCE!" Snape roared, his voice bouncing off the stone walls, cutting through the noise like a cleaver.
The applause instantly died. Snape's face was a mask of cold fury.
"Gryffindor, deduct ten points," Snape announced, his eyes fixed venomously on Albert. "Mr. Anderson, you seem to have forgotten that I explicitly forbid you last term from conducting your damned, self-indulgent experiments in my classroom."
The Gryffindor students went rigid with indignation. Had any other student achieved such an innovative result, they would have been instantly awarded twenty or fifty points. Snape had not only refused to acknowledge the achievement but had actively penalized it.
Albert, however, remained unperturbed by the point deduction, knowing the internal XP was far more valuable than the house cup race. "Professor, with respect, I believe one of the biggest deterrents to the commercial use of your Herbicide Potion is its unpleasant user experience. An improved, odorless herbicide would be significantly more popular. Perhaps popular enough that someone might be willing to pay handsomely for the updated formula."
Snape scoffed, a venomous, low sound. "Nobody would pay for your formula, Anderson. You overestimate the demand. Herbicides are a niche item, rarely used by anyone outside of professional gardeners or Dark Wizards preparing a perimeter."
"Then why are we wasting two hours learning to brew it, Professor?" Shanna asked, her hand raised high, her expression one of innocent but devastating logic.
Snape's patience visibly fractured. "Five points from Gryffindor for impertinence, Miss Davies. Sometimes we utilize the Herbicide Potion to deal with highly dangerous, invasive magical plants, or to clear a designated area. Nobody, nobody, uses it in a common flowerbed, because that would kill the flowers there too."
As soon as Snape announced the end of the lesson, the students grabbed their belongings and fled the dungeon classroom en masse. Not a soul wished to linger in the lingering, heavy air of the cellar.
"Are you actually serious about selling that formula, Albert?" Fred asked, his voice still ragged from the smell, his eyes wide with entrepreneurial vision.
"Why not? Are we in the business of letting pure, marketable genius go to waste?" Albert responded, his own smile now matching the twins' predatory enthusiasm.
George nudged Albert conspiratorially. "Did you see the look on the old bat's face? He was absolutely stunned! He wanted to give you points, I swear, but the sheer effort of controlling his spite made him take them away instead! That look alone was worth ten house points."