August 16, 1988
England, Cokeworth, Spinner's End, Severus Snape's House
On Tuesday morning, I was trusted to stir a potion. Snape-sensei was brewing it in a small copper cauldron. It was a wound-healing potion called, for some reason, 'Rowan Decoction', though it was an acid green color. Besides the bark of a particular magical variety of rowan tree, it contained seventeen other ingredients.
I had been promised one vial if I did not ruin the batch, so I was as focused as possible. The motivation was considerable.
When Snape-sensei demonstrated some of his potions' effects, I told him they were incredibly impressive. Potions were extremely useful, especially considering that most of them did not require extraordinary skill, a special bloodline gift, dōjutsu, hiden techniques, or the ability of medic-nin to separate chakra into its pure components.
For intermediate potion-making below Sensei's master level, what mattered most seemed to be attention, precision, and strict adherence to recipes. As I immediately confirmed, most ingredients did not even have to be gathered personally; they could be purchased in specialized shops.
Sensei did not buy everything, of course, only what he could not gather or obtain through barter himself. That was understandable. Some things came down to money, while certain components were also extremely rare. I remembered searching for unique herbs for Teuchi-san to use as seasoning when he wanted to make the greatest ramen in the world, or for medicine to help Hinata recover... Rare things tended to grow in 'hell-if-you-can-reach-it' places or run around in 'hell-if-you-can-catch-it' corners somewhere on the underside of the world. And I had always been 'lucky' enough to pick up something 'mythical' by accident: a virus, a hairy creature clinging to my back, a super-insect...
Waving a wand would certainly be useful in life, but potions... It seemed wizards did not understand even half of what could be done with them or how they might be used. Judging by the potion reference book Sensei allowed me to examine, most of them were intended for jokes and petty pranks against other people. But some were extremely valuable, like this 'Rowan Decoction'. Applied to the skin, it healed small cuts, abrasions, and scratches almost instantly. If someone suffered a serious wound, especially to a vital organ, drinking a vial could save their life.
"Bright green, as it should be." Sensei looked into the cauldron after I stepped away, having completed the final sequence of stirring. "Not bad. Bring me the number-three vials. We must bottle it before it cools."
I hurried to a special cabinet containing various potion bottles. As far as I understood, each type of vial had a distinct shape and was categorized accordingly. Number three was intended for medicinal potions and looked fairly ordinary: dark brown glass, smooth rounded sides, and a capacity of roughly thirty-five milliliters by my estimate.* Each vial had a special paper label attached to it. The label wrote down the potion's contents and the name of its maker entirely by itself. Most potions also had distinctive smells, and during the past few days I had memorized around forty that were either useful or capable of poisoning me.
The potion had been brewed in a number-two cauldron, meaning a capacity of two pints—a local unit equal to approximately five hundred and seventy milliliters. The cauldron was slightly less than two-thirds full. Accounting for the potion's thickness and what would remain on the walls, that meant...
I took twenty vials, placed them in a small box, and brought them to Sensei.
Magic was hardly used in potion-making because it destabilized many brews. Everything, from cutting ingredients to filling bottles and washing the cauldron, had to be done by hand, without levitation, charms, or other magical tricks.
Even so, Sensei poured the contents of the cauldron with astonishing finesse, not losing a single drop. There was exactly enough for twenty vials.
One of them was mine!
There was not enough left on the walls for another bottle, but I had a different idea.
"Tell me, sir, if the residue in the cauldron were mixed with fat, would the potion lose its properties as an ointment, or could it at least be used on external wounds that are not fatal?"
"There are several healing spells for scratches and abrasions," Snape-sensei said with a scoff, though he considered the question for a moment. "However, if the fat were goose fat, the wound-healing effect would probably remain, though only for shallow wounds, bruises, and contusions... It may be worth trying." He glanced sideways at me. "In any case, a little potion remains on the cauldron walls and would otherwise be discarded. You may take a spoonful of fat from the kitchen for the experiment. I am also curious: did you bring exactly twenty vials by accident?"
"No, not by accident," I answered while heading out of the laboratory. "I calculated the volume."
Sensei's skeptical scoff followed me.
But what kind of trivial problem was that? At the Academy, we had been forced to calculate the flight paths of several kunai launched from traps under time pressure, accounting for wind and launching force. I had not been a genius who solved such exercises easily in class like Sakura or Sasuke. I was constantly distracted. But once 'combat practice' began, several life-or-death situations hammered the ability to rapidly calculate my own actions and those of others into me. Whether you wanted to learn or not, life forced you.
Since last Friday, when I had first been allowed into the 'holy of holies', I had advanced from 'watch and touch nothing' to 'stir clockwise eighteen times, then after forty seconds stir counterclockwise eighteen times, repeating for fifteen cycles'. In short, I did everything I could to win Sensei over, and he taught me and tolerated my presence.
Compared with stingy Kakashi and my godfather Jiraiya, both of whom had shared techniques extremely reluctantly, Snape-sensei was a miraculously good teacher. I did not especially need smiles, praise, or babying. Knowledge and information were what mattered, especially from an instructor upon whom I had practically been forced in the middle of his holiday away from hordes of children. He calmly explained points I did not understand or gave me a book containing the answer. His willingness to trust me with stirring such a valuable potion also said a great deal.
I took the fat and returned to the cauldron, which I would also have to wash. A flat, dark jar had already been placed beside it. With Sensei's silent approval, I put the fat inside and used a special 'potion-neutral' spatula to scrape the residue from the cauldron walls. I mixed everything into a smooth, pale green cream resembling pistachio ice cream.
"May I test it?" I asked Sensei.
He nodded.
I rolled up the sleeve of the protective robe I had been given for laboratory work and drew an ingredient knife across my forearm, cutting through the skin.
For some reason, Sensei stared at me and seemed barely able to suppress a cry. Was something wrong? I was not a masochist; I had not struck any major blood vessels. The forearm was commonly used in defense because it was a comparatively safe area to injure.
"It stings a little," I reported while watching the skin close under the magical ointment's effect.
The wound was six centimeters long and about five millimeters deep. It healed in four seconds. An excellent result. No mark and no pain remained.
"The next time you decide to mutilate yourself, you will warn me first, Mr. Potter!" Sensei hissed furiously, his eyes flashing.
It was the first time he had called me by my surname, though people here rarely called me by my first name either.
"I'm sorry, sir!"
What a spectacular mistake! He was still a civilian, after all. Watching what he believed to be an eight-year-old child calmly cut himself without flinching must have been quite a sight. And one capable of producing an enormous number of questions.
That was how people exposed themselves!
"How often have you been injured that you can calmly draw a knife across your skin without fearing the pain?" Sensei asked coldly.
Yes. There were the questions.
"Er... I didn't have any wounds to test it on, and using you for the experiment would have been too much, sir... I knew it would heal, so I wasn't afraid." I activated my innocent little charmer act and fluttered my eyelashes. "There aren't any large veins there, so I couldn't bleed to death, and the ointment was right beside me. You also said there are spells for healing wounds if it didn't work. I simply wanted very badly to see how it worked, sir! Please forgive me. I got carried away and didn't think..."
"Out of the laboratory," he said quietly.
I made the guiltiest face I could manage and retreated quickly. The Master needed time to cool down and calm himself, and that would be easier without me present.
Damn it, how could I make such a foolish mistake? I only hoped he would not return me to my relatives because of my 'self-mutilation'.
Hmm... He had asked how often I had been injured.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
How could anyone count? But I was certain the total would exceed a thousand wounds. Thanks to Ku and my enhanced regeneration, my body had never retained scars. Yet after some missions and fights, there had been hardly any uninjured skin left. Burns, cuts, abrasions, torn wounds, damaged tenketsu, shattered bones, dislocated arms, ripped-out fingernails, a body pierced in every imaginable place... Once, even my heart muscle had been cut. That had hurt. Fortunately, Granny Tsunade had been nearby and pulled me back from the Pure Land.
This little body did not possess my old regenerative ability, so the ointment and any healing potions would be useful.
I lay down and began abdominal exercises, lifting my torso from the floor. It was fine. We would make a true shinobi out of Harry Potter as well; I only needed to adapt the training to local conditions. I made the exercise more difficult by levitating a matchbox above my feet. I had noticed that magic began circulating inside me during such work. Perhaps simultaneous magical and physical activity would develop some local equivalent of chakra pathways.
If Sensei sent me home, it would serve me right. I should not have relaxed. Besides, formally speaking, I had probably completed the training in magical control. Once I began to understand how everything worked, the spontaneous magical distortions stopped—especially after I spent several hours each day using magic and 'draining' the magical pressure, wherever it was stored.
Ah... The training had begun so well, and there were still two full weeks before September.