Walking through the Borderland was a surreal experience. Snape watched the mist drift around him like clouds, rolling and unfurling in a brilliant, blinding white.
The black cat crouched on a cluster of mist. Through these bizarre, shifting clouds, Snape could clearly see his own desires. He saw his past still chasing him—those monstrous faces twisting in the dark mist seeping from his own body. He knew he likely couldn't stay much longer, even though the black cat was subtly batting the dark clouds away with its tail.
Watching the cat carefully and exhaustingly wrestle with his inner demons, Snape suddenly let out an uncharacteristically soft chuckle.
Amidst all this haze and illusion, he had caught a glimpse of something undeniably real. Just like the black cat itself—it had accidentally stumbled into a life he wasn't exactly proud of, and since that day, everything had begun to change.
"Stop wasting your effort," Snape said abruptly.
The black cat pretended nothing had happened, hiding a particularly nasty, roaring clump of mist behind its back.
"Hmph," Snape scoffed quietly, surveying the endless white expanse.
He took in the beautiful dreams it offered, the raw thoughts, and the forgotten strokes of luck. Right before leaving the Borderland, he suddenly understood everything.
Words hidden in the daylight, things left unsaid, were entirely exposed and naked here. Souls were drawn close in this realm; the only barrier between wizards was the distance between their hearts. Snape saw his own thread of mist subtly woven into the black cat's fur. It was incredibly thick—wider than a finger—far surpassing the fragile, gossamer threads of others.
"Idiot," he muttered.
But the word never made a sound. Instead, he simply let the rising mist swallow him whole.
Snape woke up.
The first rays of morning sunlight slipped through the window cracks, falling across a face entirely unused to such warmth. He squinted, still readjusting to reality.
Before last night, he had always believed dreams were the domain of the brokenhearted. Like spring flowers blooming in a winter dream—distant, hazy, carrying fantasies and a desperate urge to tear apart reality. A wizard trapped in winter could reach out, only to grasp the agonizing pain of loss.
But today, a dream had shown him the absolute truth.
And so, a man consumed by doubt finally found his certainty.
---
Sean still hadn't found Leta. She had always been an adventurer at heart; in the dream realm, Mr. Scamander used to smile and say it was perfectly normal to lose track of her.
After all, he had lost her for decades.
Sean wasn't entirely disappointed. In truth, even if he managed to find Ariana, it wouldn't do much good right now. He still couldn't bring his spiritual guests out of the dream, nor could he bring the old Headmaster in to see her.
So, Sean quietly pushed that task down his priority list.
Right now, his main objective was grinding his Fiendfyre proficiency from [Proficient] to [Expert].
He only needed the final ten percent. If he pushed hard enough, he might actually become a Dark Arts Master before the summer holidays.
And so, Sean threw himself back into the vast ocean of magic.
He would wake up in Ravenclaw Tower, eat a quick breakfast, and head straight to the dungeons to practice Fiendfyre. He poured every waking hour—day and night—into studying the Dark Arts, stopping only to eat and sleep.
"Obsessive" barely covered it; even Snape was starting to frown.
He didn't doubt the boy's passion for magic, but a wizard was still flesh and blood. Draining his mental stamina to zero and relying entirely on potions to recover wasn't exactly a brilliant strategy.
"The Potions Championship is approaching..." Snape said, staring at the exhausted young wizard and interrupting his attempt to start another practice session. "Before then, you had better master enough brews. If a wizard cannot brew an exceptionally brilliant potion, then he had better compensate by knowing how to brew an exceptionally large variety of them."
Snape spoke with a dark, measured tone.
Resting in his chair, Sean quietly opened his system panel. Under Snape's almost vindictive teaching style, Sean had already learned every single potion from the first- to the fifth-year Hogwarts curriculum.
Yes, vindictive.
Sean had yet to brew a truly Master-level potion, which had sparked intense suspicion in Snape. He had begun to wonder if there was a flaw in the potions themselves—how could the young wizard who wrote The Will of Potions fail to reach the very pinnacle described in his own book?
It meant Sean had purely theorized the optimal effects of potion-will without actually achieving it himself.
And Snape's guess was entirely correct; he had proven it through his own experiments. Sean had essentially built a towering skyscraper entirely out of thin air, with no foundation beneath it.
This reality wasn't great for Snape's grand plan. The Will of Potions was supposed to be the greatest breakthrough in the potions world in a century, and he intended for Sean to showcase it at the Championship.
"Next, you will successfully brew a passable Shrinking Solution. Remember your place, Teaching Assistant," Snape sneered.
He left the final half of the thought unspoken. Remember your place, not just as a Teaching Assistant, but as a Potions Master's only...
"I understand, Professor," Sean sighed.
When it came to potions, he only had a pitifully average amount of natural talent. His Potions Talent on the panel hadn't budged in a long time:
> [Title: Potions Familiar]
> [Effect: Massively increases Potion perception, significantly boosts Potions Talent]
> [Wizard Sean, Potions Talent: Blue (Enhanced by 'Potions Familiar' title, base talent is White). Note: Average wizard talent is Green]
> [Advancement Requirement: 6 Expert-level brews, 6 Proficient-level brews to unlock the Expert Potions title]
Six Expert-level potions... Sean thought silently.
He decided the final two categories he needed to master would be the Shrinking Solution and the Calming Draught. The hospital wing constantly needed Calming Draughts, giving him plenty of practice opportunities. And the Shrinking Solution was a standard third-year curriculum requirement.
The only problem was time. He was running out of it.
Fortunately, Sean knew of a certain alchemical artifact that could extend time.
Days slipped by under the sunlight filtering into the dungeon classroom. Sean spent his entire time elbow-deep in daisy roots, shrivelfigs, rat spleens, and leech juice.
Every now and then, when the green Shrinking Solution refused to turn into a perfectly smooth liquid, Sean felt a sudden urge to just incinerate the entire cauldron with Fiendfyre.
Whenever that happened, he would freeze, forcing himself to approach his Dark Arts training with even greater caution.
If his subconscious reaction to frustration was to unleash highly destructive Dark Magic, there was a high probability he'd be heavily influenced once he started learning the Imperius Curse.
Sean had realized a very simple, glaring truth: When you hold a sharp blade, the intent to kill naturally follows.
To purge that influence, Sean knew he had to completely reshape the [Order] of Dark Magic within a wizard's heart.
---