Staring at the cauldron before her bubbling ominously with blue-purple foam, exhaling an indescribable and deeply unsettling odor, Hannah experienced her first genuine regret at having befriended Tom.
She'd heard all about Neville's "legendary achievement" during last week's Gryffindor-Slytherin Potions class. The story had spread through the school with the speed of wildfire, embellished with each retelling. But even in that disaster, Neville had merely melted his cauldron into a warped, unusable lump of metal!
This... this was completely something else.
Watching the viscous liquid roil and spit within the cauldron, Hannah felt her heart hammering against her ribs with panic. Am I about to become the next Neville? Are we going to explode? Will Madam Pomfrey need to regrow my eyebrows?
Hannah had no particular talent for Potions, she was achingly, frustratingly average in the subject, destined for Acceptable marks and nothing higher. But as a Hufflepuff, she embodied one supremely valuable quality:
Obedience.
She might not understand why certain ingredients needed adding at specific moments. The fundamental magical theory of reagent interactions remained mysterious to her. But if the task simply required following written instructions with precision, executing each step exactly as specified without deviation or creative interpretation?
That, she could do brilliantly.
This particular lesson presented no new challenges, Snape hadn't assigned fresh material or introduced advanced techniques.
Instead, he'd simply instructed them to review and re-brew the Cure for Boils they'd learned last session which was simple, straightforward and well within Hannah's capabilities.
As a diligent student with excellent retention for routine sequences, Hannah naturally remembered the brewing steps for this particular potion.
Indeed, some bigger details had grown hazy in her memory but the general parts remained clear. She wouldn't make disastrous errors.
Then she'd had what seemed like a brilliant idea.
Considering that Tom had missed last week's Potions lesson trapped in the Hospital Wing recovering, Hannah had volunteered a generous proposal: Tom would perform the actual brewing, gaining hands-on experience with the process, while she provided guidance and corrections from beside him.
A perfect arrangement, really! She'd reinforce her own knowledge through teaching, help Tom catch up on missed material, and ensure they avoided any major disasters. Mutually beneficial on every level!
And Tom had agreed readily, those yellow cat-eyes were bright with what she'd interpreted as gratitude.
However...
"(☉□☉) Wait! Tom, what are you DOING?!"
She'd turned her head for perhaps five seconds, literally five seconds, just long enough to retrieve her textbook from her bag and when she looked back, Tom was dumping ingredients into the cauldron like a chef preparing stew.
Handfuls of raw materials, completely unprocessed were tossed in with cheerful abandon.
Setting aside the question of proper proportions and measurements, none of those ingredients had been prepared according to specification!
No grinding, no crushing, no careful extraction of essential components. Just... whole materials, dropped into bubbling water like vegetables into soup.
But regret came far, far too late.
The moment Tom's unorthodox additions hit the heating liquid, the cauldron's contents reacted with volcanic intensity. White foam erupted from the surface, frothing and bubbling like champagne shaken and opened, expanding with alarming speed to fill nearly half the cauldron.
And that foam which was initially pure white, innocent-looking despite its suspicious vigor began changing color as Hannah watched in rising horror.
First pale lavender. Then deeper purple. Then an ominous blue-purple that reminded her of deep bruises or toxic fungi growing in dark forests.
Hannah wanted desperately to salvage the situation, to somehow rescue this disastrous brewing attempt before Snape noticed. But confronted with this near-total disaster, she had absolutely no idea where to even begin.
'Should I try brewing a completely new batch? But there's no time! We've only got twenty minutes left in the period, and a proper Cure for Boils requires at least thirty minutes of careful preparation and—'
Her panicked internal calculations cut off abruptly as she noticed Snape's slow prowl bringing him steadily closer, his cold voice was dissecting some other unfortunate student's technique.
Hannah's heart dropped into her shoes. 'We're doomed. Completely, doomed.'
Then Snape reached their workstation.
His dark eyes swept across their setup taking in the abandoned mortar and pestle, the unopened ingredient packets, the suspiciously full cauldron with its ominous color and his entire body went stiff.
For one long, terrible moment, Hannah genuinely thought their Potions professor might actually explode.
His jaw clenched. His temple throbbed with a pulse. His knuckles went white where they gripped his ever-present grading book.
But when he spoke, his voice emerged with unnatural, terrifying calm:
"Mr. Lovegood. Would you care to explain what, precisely, you believe you are accomplishing here?"
Internally, Snape was conducting a desperate, frantic dialogue with himself:
'He's just a cat. An animal. He doesn't understand the profound complexity and precision required for proper potion-brewing. It's simple ignorance. Perfectly understandable ignorance. Natural, even. Cats can't be expected to—'
While simultaneously comforting himself with the thought, '—but Dumbledore said he's the only one who can save Lily—'
These two competing thoughts circled his mind like dueling serpents, each strangling the other, creating a precarious mental equilibrium that allowed him to ask his question without screaming it.
[Me? I'm brewing a potion, obviously~]
Tom continued stirring the cauldron with one paw while his other paw produced from absolutely nowhere, with no visible source that familiar whiteboard, upon which these straightforward words appeared.
"?"
Snape's eyes narrowed to slits, his attention was momentarily diverted from the brewing disaster to this new mystery.
'Where did that board come from? More importantly, when did he write those words?'
His gaze flickered between Tom and the whiteboard.
Under normal circumstances, faced with such unexplained irregularities, Snape would investigate immediately and thoroughly. But these circumstances were definitely not normal.
"Brewing?" Snape's voice rose several octaves, his restraint was cracking at the edges. "You're certain—absolutely certain—that what you're doing constitutes 'brewing a potion'?!
I believe I was quite explicit about proper procedure! Each ingredient requires specific preparation—grinding, crushing, extracting essential oils! Proportions must be measured precisely! Addition timing matters critically!
But you—" his gesture encompassed the chaos of their workstation,
"—you're throwing random handfuls of raw materials into your cauldron like some Muggle housewife preparing vegetable soup! Have you confused my Potions classroom with the Hogwarts kitchens?!"
Snape's assessment was entirely accurate. His expertise allowed him to identify the nature of Tom's 'potion' with a single glance.
And that recognition only amplified his fury.
He'd intentionally slowed this lesson's pacing, specifically selecting the simplest possible potion for review—a Cure for Boils so elementary that even trolls could successfully brew it.
He'd made this accommodation entirely for Tom's benefit, providing the absent cat with an accessible entry point to formal potion-making education.
And what had the wretched cat done with this generous consideration?
Completely ignored every principle of proper brewing and treated the entire process like preparing dinner!
If this had been any other student, literally anyone else—Snape would have already unleashed a verbal assault of legendary proportions.
He'd have eviscerated them with cutting words about their intelligence, competence, and fundamental suitability for magical education. He'd have deducted so many House points that their entire year-level would be working from a deficit for months.
But this wasn't any other student.
'Control yourself, Severus. Maintain restraint. He is the only method of saving Lily. You cannot afford to drive him away with your temper. You CANNOT—'
The internal mantra barely sufficed.
Snape's hand rose, preparing to wave dismissively and order Tom to dispose of this catastrophic "potion" and start fresh with proper supervision, when new words materialized on that mysterious whiteboard:
[What else would I be doing, Professor? Making hotpot? (￣▽￣)~*]
"(╬￣皿￣)"
The sheer cheek of it—that smug, self-satisfied little emoticon face practically radiating unearned confidence nearly completely shattered Snape's composure.
In all his years teaching at Hogwarts, enduring generation after generation of incompetent dunderheads and arrogant brats, not one single student had ever dared address him with such casual, flippant disrespect.
Not even his own Slytherins, who enjoyed his favoritism and protection, would dream of adopting this tone!
For several seconds, Severus Snape teetered on the knife's edge of abandoning all restraint and simply destroying this insufferable cat with the full force of his verbal cruelty.
But memories of Lily anchored him, pulled him back from the cliff.
He drew a long, shuddering breath through his nose, held it then released it slowly.
"Very well," he said through clenched teeth, each word was requiring enormous effort. "You claim you're 'brewing a potion.' Then perhaps you can explain your methodology?
Why combine all ingredients simultaneously instead of adding them sequentially? What theoretical principle supports this approach? Which authoritative text describes such a procedure? Or did you simply invent this absurd technique through sheer creative incompetence?"
[I don't know, Professor.]
Following Hufflepuff's Potions Class Survival Code Rule Four with perfect precision, Tom responded with complete, shameless honesty,
[I figured this approach would probably work, so I tried it~]
From Tom's perspective, potion-brewing didn't require such rigid adherence to procedural orthodoxy!
You just needed to know which ingredients were required, then add them based on instinct, control the heat based on feel, stir based on intuition, and—presto!—potion complete.
He'd been brewing this way for years. Even back in the Tom and Jerry universe, this exact method had produced numerous effective magical concoctions like shrinking potions, growth serums, temporary invisibility draughts, explosive compounds.
Admittedly, some had caused unexpected side effects. But they'd worked.
[If you need formal terminology, you could call my approach 'The Principle of Instinctive Correctness' combined with 'Sixth Sense Dependability Theory.']
"Wonderful," Snape said with arctic sarcasm, abandoning any pretense of continuing his classroom rounds.
He drew his wand with a sharp, angry motion and conjured a high-backed chair from thin air. He dropped into it and fixed Tom with an unblinking stare of pure, concentrated animosity.
"I am fascinated to observe what monstrosity your 'Sixth Sense Dependability Theory' produces. Please, continue. I wouldn't dream of interrupting such groundbreaking research."
'Preferably something as catastrophic as Longbottom's melted cauldron,' Snape thought viciously. 'A nice, dramatic failure to teach him that Potions is a serious discipline requiring study, precision, and respect for conventional methodology!'
But as minutes passed and Tom continued his chaotic brewing process—stirring in seemingly random patterns, adjusting heat without reference to any thermometer, occasionally adding pinches of ingredients from sources Snape couldn't identify, his expression of sneering superiority began changing.
First confusion flickered across his features.
His hand, which had been resting casually on his wand in preparation to vanish an explosive failure, rose unconsciously to press against his throbbing temple.
'Merlin's beard... this is impossible. This violates every principle of—how is he—'
Before his eyes, despite every law of magical chemistry and potion theory, the bubbling chaos in Tom's cauldron was... stabilizing.
The violent frothing subsided gradually, foam deflating and sinking back into liquid. The ominous blue-purple coloration faded like mist under sunlight—first lightening to lavender, then pale pink, then finally resolving into crystal-clear transparency with just the faintest rosy tint.
The thick, nauseating odor that had been wafting from the cauldron transformed into something delicate and pleasant like the subtle fragrance of dried rose petals and clean morning dew.
Snape couldn't quite believe what his eyes were telling him.
Without waiting for Tom to speak, he surged from his chair and crossed to the workstation in three long strides.
His hand shot out, grabbing the ladle from its hook. He scooped a small sample of the liquid, holding it up to examine in the dungeon's dim light.
Brought it close to his face, inhaling deeply to analyze the aromatic compounds. Dipped one finger into the sample and rubbed the liquid between finger and thumb, testing viscosity and magical resonance.
His expression throughout this examination never lost its edge of profound confusion as though he were confronting a fundamental violation of natural law.
The color was perfect, exactly matching the standard reference for properly brewed Cure for Boils.
The scent was perfect, the precise aromatic profile that indicated correct magical activation of the reagents.
The consistency was perfect, smooth, uniform, with exactly the right degree of magical potency humming through the liquid.
If anything, this potion appeared superior to standard examples as though all the usual impurities and imperfections introduced by conventional brewing methods had somehow been... bypassed.
The classroom had fallen into absolute, suffocating silence.
Every single student sat frozen, barely breathing, watching their terrifying Potions Professor examine a "haphazardly stirred" potion