Under the oppressive, hawk-like gaze of Severus Snape, Maurise began the delicate task of brewing the Draught of Living Death.
This time, however, he had no intention of following the "officially approved" instructions in his textbook. After his first successful attempt, Maurise had spent a fair amount of time dwelling on a specific ingredient: the Sopophorous Bean. He felt the standard method was inefficient, and frankly, a bit lazy.
Since the ingredients were not his, and he had two sets of materials to burn through, he figured he might as well treat the Professor's stores like a laboratory for his own curiosity.
The juice of a Sopophorous Bean contains the potent sedative required for the potion, but it is trapped inside a remarkably tough, rubbery skin. Dropping them in whole, as the book suggested, felt like trying to flavor a soup with an unpeeled onion.
Maurise picked up his silver dagger. Instead of slicing, he turned the blade flat and pressed down with a sharp, decisive weight.
"Who taught you to handle the beans in such a manner?"
Snape's voice cut through the silence of the dungeon like a cold blade. Maurise did not flinch. He kept his focus on the juice oozing from the crushed bean, ensuring every drop was captured.
"No one, Professor. It just seemed like a waste of time to wait for the skin to dissolve," Maurise replied casually. He had never been one for following a script if the script was written poorly. In his mind, if you had an idea, you tested it. If the cauldron exploded, well, that was just a very loud way of learning what not to do.
A flicker of something, perhaps genuine surprise, passed through Snape's dark eyes. The standard curriculum demanded the beans be sliced. Yet, here was a first-year student stumbling upon the exact refinement Snape himself had discovered during his own school days.
It was a rare moment where Snape found himself looking at a student and seeing a reflection rather than a disappointment. He remained silent. To interrupt a brewer during the final stages of a complex potion was a breach of etiquette that even Snape, in all his bitterness, would not commit.
The rhythm of the brewing took over. Maurise moved with a practiced grace, his eyes fixed on the shifting hues of the liquid. When he finally added the crushed beans and their concentrated juices, the reaction was instantaneous.
The murky, sluggish liquid suddenly turned a clear, shimmering shade of pale lilac, then settled into a translucent, watery silver.
Stir, remove from heat, and finish.
Maurise looked at the result and felt a surge of pride. This batch was leagues ahead of his previous attempt. He turned to Snape, who had drifted closer to the cauldron. The Professor leaned in, his hooked nose inches from the surface.
Snape did not offer a compliment. Instead, he dipped the tip of his wand into the potion, lifting a single, perfect bead of silver liquid into the air to inspect its viscosity.
"Well?" Maurise prompted. He knew Snape was not exactly a fountain of praise, but he was hoping for something more than a sneer.
"Hmph," Snape let out a low, dry sound. "Adequate. Barely."
"Barely?" Maurise raised an eyebrow. The potion was literally glowing.
"And as for your punishment…" Snape continued, ignoring the question. "Thirty points from Ravenclaw. Additionally, you are strictly forbidden from entering the ingredient stores without my explicit permission. Is that understood?"
Maurise let out a breath he did not know he was holding. He could live with that. Losing thirty points was a small price to pay for not being expelled or turned into a rug. Besides, he could probably win those points back by being insufferably correct in Charms class next week.
"Can I go now, Professor?" Maurise asked, keeping his tone polite.
Snape gave a curt, dismissive flick of his hand toward the door. "Begone, Mr. Black."
Maurise turned to leave, but as he reached the door, Snape's voice followed him.
"Maurise Black…" the Professor murmured, though it sounded more like he was speaking to himself.
Snape sat back at his desk, his mind drifting. The name Black usually left a bitter taste in his mouth, but the boy's history was an anomaly. An orphan from a Muggle institution, no family tutors, no ancient library to study from. Yet, he possessed a natural intuition for the subtle science of potion-making that was terrifyingly familiar.
A boy from a broken background, overlooked and underestimated, yet possessing a genius for the craft. Snape's breath hitched for a fraction of a second before he composed himself.
A soft knock at the door shattered the silence. Maurise was standing there again, looking uncharacteristically sheepish.
"What is it now, Black?" Snape snapped.
Maurise pointed a finger at the cauldron sitting on the table. "That… well, I was wondering. Can I take the potion with me?"
Snape's face darkened. He looked like he was deciding between a stinging hex and a week of detention. However, Maurise just stood there with a look of hopeful expectation that was remarkably hard to kill.
"Take it and get out," Snape hissed, turning his back.
"Thank you, Professor!"
Maurise lunged for the cauldron, cradling it like a prize. He was not about to let a perfectly good batch of Draught of Living Death go to waste.
Back in the safety of his dormitory, Maurise carefully decanted the potion into vials. He then set to work on the floor, drawing a complex geometric pattern known as the "Door Between Worlds."
It took thirty minutes of painstaking work, using a mixture of red pigment and a few drops of his own blood to conduct the magical resonance. In the dim light of the room, the array looked like something out of a forbidden ritual, centered by a space just large enough for a person to lie down.
He locked the door and hung a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the handle. This was his big experiment. He stepped into the center of the circle and pulled out a vial of his freshly brewed potion.
According to the theory, even a single drop would induce an hour of deep sleep. Maurise took a small, cautious sip. The taste was a strange mix of bitter herbs and a cooling, minty aftertaste.
Almost immediately, a heavy, velvet weight pulled at his eyelids. He sank onto the floor, his consciousness dissolving into a peaceful, dreamless void.
When he finally opened his eyes, the room had not changed. The magic circle remained inert. He checked the clock on the wall. Only ninety minutes had passed.
"Well, that was a bust," Maurise sighed, sitting up and rubbing his stiff neck.
He had felt it the moment he drifted off. The Draught of Living Death was powerful, yes, but it was essentially just a very, very strong sedative. It lacked the weight of true death. It brought the body to a standstill, but it did not push the soul toward the threshold of the Other Side.
The potion was incomplete. It was missing a catalyst, a bridge between the state of sleeping and the state of ceasing to be.
Maurise threw on his robes and headed back toward the dungeons. If anyone knew how to make a potion more "deadly" without actually killing the drinker, it was his charming, grease-haired Potions Master.