The conversation was very quiet, on the verge of a whisper; those sitting nearby are unlikely to distinguish a word. Daphne looked at me for a moment, but not seeing special understanding, returned to the cauldron again, regulating the fire under it, guided by signs known only to her.
"Personal apprenticeship is a way of obtaining rich practice, experience, and knowledge of a Master. But Masters do not need money, otherwise, this would not be a problem. In return, they conclude various agreements to expand connections, influence, or obtain things invaluable in monetary equivalent."
"Logical," I nodded, almost finished with cleaning tools and laying them out on a special cloth.
"My family is not interested in potion-making and everything connected with it. But I am interested."
"Clear. For the sake of a whim, they won't invest, and here is a chance specifically for you."
Turning around to see the severe and dissatisfied face of the professor, I turned to Daphne.
"He doesn't look like those who love students and teaching. It seems to me that he will accept as an apprentice someone only slightly worse than him, show a couple of subtleties and nuances, and kick out the door, securely barricading it from invasions."
Daphne smirked, turned off the burner fire under the cauldron, took her wand in hand, and tapped on the cauldron a couple of times. Inside, in the translucent purple liquid, circles went from walls to center and back. This repeated a couple of times, after which the potion became transparent, but still purple; as required.
"You caught the essence of Professor Snape quite quickly," Daphne nodded. "Sometimes it seems that he is here by no means of his own will."
"Quite possibly..."
"Inability to understand from the first time..." the professor appeared from the side again, "...the meaning of words forces me to doubt the presence of those rudiments of intellect in you, Mr. Granger. For the umpteenth time I am convinced of the deceptiveness of the first impression."
He didn't take points, bent over our cauldron again, sniffed, peered, nodded, and went further to walk around the class.
"Mr. Finnigan, step away from the cauldron. And no, don't worry, I am by no means disappointed by the depth of your hopeless thick-headedness. If you hope that the explosion of your cauldron will be strong enough to keep you in the Hospital Wing for a week, then note, loss of limbs will not become an excuse. From you additionally a standard large scroll with a description of ingredients studied today and nuances of their preparation."
Gryffindors were quietly indignant, Slytherins were gloating not any louder. Snape reached his desk and turned sharply to face us.
"Time," he dryly informed the whole class, causing waves of dissatisfaction. "Hand in potion samples and pack your things. The lesson is over."
No one had to be asked twice and soon the entire third year was briskly marching toward the Transfiguration classroom. Almost all; Gryffindors are too hyperactive, it seems to me. With their cheerful crowd, they promptly screwed off in an unknown direction. Ravens almost with a sports pace broke far ahead, Slytherins walked leisurely behind.
"Snape is surprisingly calm today," Justin noted thoughtfully. "Didn't even take points from Griffs."
"Does he take often?"
"If one believes conversations, then earlier it was standard practice; take points from them for any reason," expressing universal boredom with his face, Zacharias answered instead of Justin. "And you should have noticed by the first lesson."
"True enough..."
The Transfiguration class passed without a hitch. Dry lecture, formulas, and practical part. Recalling once again the material from read textbooks and recommended additional literature, I asked myself a question; why does absolutely all practice in all subjects carry extremely little of this very practical benefit? But not having time to think properly, immediately drew associations and got conclusions. Everything is simple; we are taught not some specific magic, for the most part, but magic in general.
Take the same Potion-making. Potions proposed for study there are mostly useless and extremely narrow-profile. No, it is clear that potions are narrow-profile in principle, but in ordinary life, they are not needed at all. What is the catch? Ingredients, work with them, features in the preparation of precisely these ingredients... And they almost never repeat, and if they repeat, then the next or previous in the recipe will be a completely different ingredient with completely different conditions of "combining" them in the cauldron. This is unnoticeable if one reads the textbook for the first year, for the second, but when even in the textbook for the third year an already covered ingredient still does not appear in a familiar sequence with some other, one can draw certain conclusions.
Roughly the same story with Charms. Gestures and words; that is what is studied there, and not specific spells and charms. Transfiguration goes along the path of complicating formulas and types of transformation; the further, the more "unknown" thing needs to be obtained in the process. I think that later other difficulties will come, connected with adding a behavioral matrix and creating "living."
Herbology; not a single truly useful plant from those known so far, only to use for potions, but each studied one requires a completely unique approach. One might think that in principle every plant requires such an approach, but no, this is far from the case. The conclusion suggests itself the same as in relation to other subjects.
I think it becomes more logical and understandable that after the fifth year, they move to a much more applied study of disciplines; by that time students should already possess a proper base, and if not, then there is no sense in teaching them in depth.
After the lesson, we moved to lunch.
The Great Hall, as always, buzzed with conversations and the ringing of cutlery on dishes. Such a typical, familiar sound, to which I only now paid attention. This led me to an amusing memory when that shard of a military void pilot was transferred to the newest battleship and was in search of the flight wing wardroom. Precisely this sound, the unending trill of metal and ringing of dishes betrayed the wardroom in the open doors of one of the rooms. True, there was a shift of the sound spectrum toward synthetic materials, but the essence remained the same.
After lunch, another Herbology lesson took place, but, frankly speaking, the last thing I would like to mess with after a hearty lunch is plants and earth. Well, such gardening does not impress me, as possessor of scant elven memories.
Having dealt with barbaric but effective methods of conducting business with magical vegetation, our free time began... For I do not go to Muggle Studies. Eh, that is Hermione's joy from the linear schedule. Hope I will find activities to my liking when activity of circles and clubs is allowed. The only lesson that will still be today is Astronomy, almost at night. And yet there are only seven days in a week, seven years, the program must be different, and here is the question; is one lesson conducted in one day, or several?
When the guys went back to the castle from the courtyard with greenhouses, I imperceptibly, as only elves can, stepped aside, merged with the terrain and waiting for everyone to leave, quickly reached the gate and left the territory. Hogwarts itself stands on a hill ending in a cliff at the very lake on one side. On the almost gentle part of the hill next to the castle is the Quidditch pitch, and on the other, steeper one, a bridge across the cliff, and after—descent to Hagrid's hut. Precisely on this descent was a sparse little forest and a trampled path, not a road yet. Precisely into this little forest with sparse tall trees and good visibility I entered.