The silence in the laboratory was so thick you could have sliced it with a silver stirring rod. Fred, George, and Lee stood perfectly still, their earlier excitement dampened by Dagworth's grim anecdotes.
They knew the old Potions Master was likely exaggerating to keep them from being reckless—every profession had its horror stories, after all—but the imagery of a wizard prone on the floor with a wild ox on his chest was hard to shake.
Albert, however, wasn't thinking about oxen. He was doing the mental math. Having sourced the ingredients himself through various underground channels and owl-order catalogs, he knew the financial weight of the liquid currently simmering in Dagworth's mind.
A single batch of Babbling Beverage required ingredients totaling at least fifteen Galleons. In a world where a high-end wand cost seven, fifteen Galleons for a single pot of soup was a suffocating investment. One sneeze, one slip of the wrist, or a slightly off-kilter flame, and you weren't just losing a potion—you were watching a small fortune evaporate into useless, toxic smoke.
"The 'Wizard Babble' from the French ministry—a man of significant talent, I might add—drank his own 'perfect' brew and spent the rest of his life unable to tell a curse from a greeting," Dagworth said, tapping his temple with a calloused finger.
"His linguistic centers were so fried that when he tried to cast a simple Levitation Charm, he accidentally summoned a charging beast. The mispronunciation of a single vowel is the difference between flying and dying."
"I think I've heard this one," Lee whispered, leaning toward Albert. "Professor Flitwick mentioned a wizard named Baruffio who ended up with a buffalo on his chest."
"Baruffio... Babble... the names are functionally the same in old dialect," Albert explained softly. "It's a classic case of translation rot. People who don't speak French properly likely mangled the name over the centuries, but the ox—or the buffalo—remains the same. It's a cautionary tale about phonetics, but the root cause was the potion, not just a stutter."
Dagworth grunted in agreement. "Initially, the fellow was just trying to create a cognitive stimulant. He wanted a shortcut to genius. And while he eventually 'perfected' the Babbling Beverage, the margin for error stayed astronomically high. It's a brain-burner. If the brew is even slightly unstable, it causes a spike in cerebral activity that the human nervous system simply isn't built to handle. That's why the Ministry stepped in. They didn't ban it because it worked; they banned it because it worked poorly in the hands of the mediocre."
"But... does it actually work?" George asked, his eyes gleaming with a mix of fear and greed. "The real stuff, I mean?"
"It does," Dagworth replied, though his voice held no warmth. "A genuine, master-grade Babbling Beverage can sharpen the mind to a terrifying degree. But it's a temporary peak followed by a long, exhausting valley. And the risk? The risk is total."
He leaned back against a stone counter, looking like a man who had seen too many people burn themselves out. "There was a Master named Astre Belkante. A brilliant man, but a terrible father. His son, also named Albert, was a disaster in the classroom. Failed Charms, botched Transfiguration, couldn't tell a Mandrake from a turnip. Astre decided to 'fix' his boy with chemistry."
"Did it work?" Fred asked breathlessly.
"It was a success and a tragedy rolled into one," Dagworth said meaningfully. "Astre's partner, Billyius Finnbok, was a bit of a corner-cutter. He brewed a version that was slightly... off. They didn't want to turn the boy into a vegetable, so they had a moment of clarity and decided to dilute the mixture significantly before giving it to him."
"Did he pass his exams?" Lee asked.
"He didn't become a genius, if that's what you're asking," Dagworth shook his head. "He performed better, but he didn't pass everything. However, the two masters realized they had stumbled onto something: a 'lite' version of the potion. It was safer, cheaper, and had a massive black market appeal for struggling students and overworked bureaucrats. They made a killing until Finnbok got greedy."
The boys listened, rapt, as Dagworth described how Finnbok had been bitten by a Runespoor while trying to illegally harvest eggs for the potion. The Ministry's investigation into the escaped three-headed snake eventually led them straight to the illegal brewery. The confiscation of their stock was what finally brought the "diluted" secret to light.
"Since then, everything you find on the black market is watered down," Dagworth concluded. "It's a short-term memory booster, nothing more. But even then, if you drink enough of the 'idiot-made' stuff, your brain starts to leak out of your ears eventually."
Albert watched Dagworth carefully. The old man was laying the groundwork for something. "Now do you see why I wanted my gold card back?" Dagworth asked, eyeing Albert.
Albert nodded slowly. The gold card wasn't just a trophy; it was a permit. Without the proper credentials, Dagworth's acquisition of rare, restricted ingredients like Runespoor eggs or powdered Dragon claw would be flagged by the Ministry. To the law, he'd be no different from the black-market hucksters he despised.
"I understand," Albert said. "The card is your shield."
"Exactly. Now," Dagworth turned his attention to the trio behind Albert. "I'm about to start the actual brewing. It requires absolute concentration. No whispering, no fidgeting, and certainly no 'accidental' jokes. If you can't handle sitting in silence for an hour, do yourselves a favor: leave now. Take some silver from your pockets, go to the Three Broomsticks, and drown yourselves in Butterbeer. Or go rot your teeth at Honeydukes. I suggest you take the offer."
Fred, George, and Lee exchanged looks. They were pranksters, but they weren't stupid. The atmosphere in the room had shifted from "cool field trip" to "dangerous surgery." They realized they were out of their depth.
"We'll... uh... we'll go check on those new sugar quills," Fred said, leading the retreat. "Good luck, Albert. Don't let him turn you into a buffalo."
As the door clicked shut behind them, Albert looked at Dagworth and frowned slightly. "That was a bit harsh. They're curious, that's all."
"They're a distraction," Dagworth countered, already measuring out a base liquid. "This isn't a hobby, Anderson. Their skills aren't up to par, and having three sets of nervous lungs breathing down my neck while I'm handling Toadstool extract is a recipe for a trip to the infirmary. I'm doing them a favor."
"I suppose you're right," Albert admitted. "Though an owl warning would have saved them the walk."
"Experience is a better teacher than an owl," Dagworth grunted. "Now, watch. And keep your questions for the end. I will speak as I work, but do not interrupt the flow."
The transformation in Dagworth was immediate. He moved with a predatory grace, his hands darting between jars and scales with a speed that belied his age.
"The Red-capped Toadstool," Dagworth began, lifting a fungus that looked like a blood-spattered umbrella. "Raw, it will stop your heart in three minutes. To use it in a Babbling Beverage, it must be alchemically neutralized. I keep mine in olive oil—the lipids lock in the memory-enhancing properties while allowing the toxins to be bled out during the heating process."
Albert watched as Dagworth handled the oil-slicked fungus. It was a tedious method; Albert had wasted a small lake of olive oil preparing his own samples, and seeing a Master do it with such ease was a humbling reminder of the gap in their experience.
Then came the grisly part. "Frog brains," Dagworth muttered. "They must be fresh. The electrical impulses in the tissue haven't fully dissipated yet, which is what we need to 'jump-start' the wizard's own synapses."
Usually, this was a two-person job—one to steady the specimen and one to extract. But Dagworth was a whirlwind. In under sixty seconds, he had processed three frogs with surgical precision, the grey matter landing in the dry cauldron with a soft, wet thud.
For the next hour, the laboratory was a symphony of bubbling liquids and hissing steam. Dagworth's "monologue" was a stream of consciousness that Albert absorbed like a sponge. He spoke of the exact micro-second to add the powdered Dragon claw to prevent the mixture from curdling, and the precise spiral motion required when stirring in the Runespoor eggs to ensure the three heads' properties blended harmoniously.
"If it turns blue, you've made a sleeping potion. If it turns red, you've made a bomb," Dagworth noted as the liquid finally settled into a deep, viscous green.
He lifted a glass tube, capturing a sample of the shimmering sludge. He held it up to the light, his eyes narrowed. "Perfect. But as I said... even I won't drink this raw. It's too volatile."
He began the dilution process immediately, adding distilled water in a strict five-to-one ratio. The dark, menacing green faded into a clear, emerald sparkle—much more inviting, though still radiating a faint, humming energy.
Dagworth took a tiny, cautious sip. He closed his eyes, his brow furrowing as he waited for the reaction. After a few tense seconds, he exhaled a long breath and nodded.
"It'll do. It's clean, sharp, and the kick is manageable," he handed a vial to Albert. "But mark my words, boy: stick to the diluted version. Your brain is your greatest asset; don't trade it for a five-minute high."
Albert held the vial, the emerald liquid catching the firelight. He had the potion, but more importantly, he had the knowledge of the "water-mixed" secret—a lesson in moderation that the history books had conveniently left out.