"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making," Snape began. Even though he spoke barely louder than a whisper, every word carried perfectly across the dungeon. "There is little foolish wand waving in this class, so many of you will hardly believe that what you see is magic at all. I do not expect you to truly appreciate the beauty of a cauldron simmering softly, its vapors gleaming, the delicate strength of liquids that slide into human veins, clouding the mind and tugging at the senses."
He paced slowly, eyes sweeping the rows.
"I can show you how to bottle fame, to brew something like glory itself, even to stopper death for a time, provided you are not as hopeless a group of dunderheads as I am accustomed to teaching."
The room was silent. Every student sat frozen, captured by the intensity of his words.
"Potter," Snape said abruptly, snapping the stillness.
Harry jerked slightly.
"What would I obtain if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" Snape asked, his tone grave.
"The Draught of Living Death, sir," Harry replied, voice respectful and steady.
Snape blinked, caught off guard for a heartbeat, then recovered his composure.
"Where would you look if I asked you for a bezoar?" he continued in the same cool tone.
"In a goat, sir," Harry answered again without hesitation.
There was a brief pause.
"One more question, Potter. The difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?" Snape asked, sounding less openly confrontational now, more testing than mocking.
"They are the same plant, Professor. Aconite," Harry said, still polite.
Snape grunted softly, then swung his gaze to the rest of the class, eyes narrowing.
"Well? Why are you not writing that down?" he snapped.
Quills suddenly scratched at parchment all across the room.
Julian, already prepared, had his notebook open, but his attention flicked up when he felt the faintest tug at his mind. Snape glanced his way, and for an instant a thin, invisible thread of Legilimency brushed against his thoughts.
Sanar reacted immediately. The ring shredded the probing strands with effortless, brutal efficiency. Snape flinched almost imperceptibly, the mental backlash clearly unpleasant, and looked away at once.
Julian did not comment, did not rise to the bait. He simply turned his focus to the blackboard, copying down the instructions for the Cure for Boils that Snape had written there.
As he compared the formula in his head with the one in their textbook, he noticed several differences. Measurements shifted, heating stages altered, an extra stabilizing step that was not in the printed version. Snape had clearly refined the standard recipe, making it more efficient or more effective.
Snape saw exactly what Julian was doing but stayed silent. If this boy could recognize the value in the modified instructions, perhaps he actually deserved to be in the dungeon.
"On the board you will find the recipe for a Cure for Boils," Snape said coldly. "I expect a completed potion from each pair by the end of the lesson."
Chairs scraped as the students, everyone except Julian, hurried to their feet and went to collect ingredients from the supply cupboard.
Snape's mouth twitched in the faintest hint of a smirk when he realized that Julian was not rushing for ingredients, but instead calmly arranging and cleaning his workstation. His tools were laid out in precise order, cauldron wiped, knife checked, stirring rod aligned. Clear signs of someone who understood how important preparation was.
Snape would have had to be blind not to recognize that sort of instinctive discipline. He made the deliberate choice to ignore Julian entirely.
Daphne and Tracey returned with a full set of ingredients, each component near perfect in quality. That did not surprise Julian. The Greengrass family owned most of the potion ingredient farms in the British Isles, and as the heir, Daphne would naturally know how to identify top grade stock without thinking about it.
Julian began the brewing process by filling the cauldron halfway with water and setting it to heat. While that came to a gentle bubble, the girls started on the first ingredient: six snake fangs.
They ground the fangs into powder, then passed the mortar over to him. Julian checked the consistency, frowned slightly, and handed it back.
"Too coarse," he murmured. "Again, finer this time."
They reground the fangs until the powder was smooth and even. This time he nodded, satisfied, and measured out four precise spoonfuls, adding them slowly to the bubbling water.
He raised the temperature and held it steady at around two hundred and fifty degrees for ten seconds, counting in his head. When the time was up, he drew his wand and traced a controlled motion over the cauldron to stabilize the mixture.
The potion settled into a steady simmer, the color and thickness exactly where it should be at that stage.
"Now we let it sit for thirty minutes," Julian said quietly, leaning back on his stool.
Tracey glanced at the cauldron, then at him. "How are you this good already? I thought you were muggleborn," she asked, keeping her voice low so it would not carry.
Julian chuckled softly. "Purebloods do not have a monopoly on talent or hard work," he said. "Unfortunately, that second one seems particularly lacking in a lot of places."
Both girls stared at him, shocked. He had just dismissed the entire notion of blood superiority with effortless confidence, and the worst part, from a traditionalist point of view, was that he was not wrong.
Anyone paying honest attention could see that pureblood and muggleborn wizards showed roughly equal levels of raw talent. The difference was that muggleborns, starting from behind, were usually forced to work harder just to catch up. Many purebloods, smug in their supposed superiority, grew complacent and stagnant, convinced that no one from outside their old families could surpass them.
The Greengrass family, sitting firmly in the grey faction of the Wizengamot, were not blind. They knew exactly how reality looked and adjusted their politics accordingly.
"Stick with me, and I will show you what happens when talent and hard work end up in the same muggleborn," Julian said, his voice calm but filled with quiet conviction.
The two Slytherin girls could not help themselves. Curiosity flared bright. If he was even half as capable as he sounded, then watching what he would become was going to be fascinating.
Charisma was a strange thing. It could draw people in, make them lean closer without realizing it, or, if mishandled, doom someone to a life of isolation. Julian had it in abundance.
He spoke, and you found yourself listening, thoughts drifting his way before you noticed. Somewhere between one sentence and the next, people stopped standing apart and started orbiting around him, unaware that they had already slipped into his gravity.