#10. Concerning Potions

An uncomfortable silence stretched out on the corridor of the dungeons, Kevin slowly balancing forward and backward on the balls of his feet as he was waiting for any sort of reply. Just as he was about to give up, the door swung open, a clear invitation inside.

Kevin entered Professor Snape's office, taking a curious look around the room. It looked more or less as usual; going by a few times Kevin was present in the room. There was a large stack of books on one of his Head of House's desk, with very interesting titles. He could only spy some of the words without appearing too obvious that he was looking at them, some of them being werewolves, poisons, curses and forbidden. It peaked Kevin's curiosity, but his survival instinct was too great to take a closer look.

'Good morning, Professor Snape,' he greeted, stopping a little away from the desk, eyes trained on the man's face. From time to time, Kevin wished that his parchment worked out of the classrooms as well, but even magic could not do or cure everything.

'I am interested in doing more to hone my [POTIONS] skills,' Kevin signed, then scratched his head in embarrassment. He was passable at Potions, liked the subject when he had all the instructions written out, but Kevin had nothing on some of his classmates.

‘I need all the help I can get,’ he smiled sheepishly, cocking his head slightly to the left. ‘I believe that if I worked on familiarizing myself with ingredients that make up the potions and potions themselves, brewing them on my own time, I would not make as many mistakes where I had to rely on any auditory instructions, like corrections or additions,’ Kevin explained.

Moreover, because he could not get out of his skin, Kevin asked, ‘Do you need any help Professor Snape?’ he glanced at the books, but he did meant the question in general.

Kevin fluttered his hands, a nervous tic he developed when he was uncomfortable. It was a similar reaction as some might have with running their mouths off, but it was a hidden blessing his was quiet to non-Deaf people.

He almost missed Professor Snape's ascent and Kevin tried not to sigh audibly when permission was given. Kevin caught all of the words, thanks to the Professor's slower speech and grabbed the parchment when it appeared on the desk.

'Yes, sir!' Kevin shouted accidentally, straightening his back when Professor Snape gave him the task. He nodded for good measure and pocketed the parchment, stuffing it besides his charmed one that was for class-only use. He could stop at the Slytherin Common Room and leave the thing in his dorm, but Kevin was too strung up to make a detour, no matter how close it was to his current location.

'Goodbye, Professor,' Kevin greeted before leaving the office. He just hoped that Professor Snape would still be in his office when he returned with his prizes. The Slytherin was confident he could do his task before the start of lunch.

It was a short walk from the Slytherin Common Room to Professor Snape’s office. When Kevin arrived, he saw the door open, glad that there was no need to bang on the door. He never seemed to know just how much force to use for the person inside the room to hear it. Nor how many times Kevin spent too long outside a place where its inhabitant was not even in.

‘Professor Snape?’ Kevin asked, stepping inside the office. The man was behind his desk, writing something. The Slytherin neared the desk, taking out the five (actually six) ingredients and showed it to his Head of House.

‘I got five of them. Doubt they can make anything without other interventions or additives, but at least they are gathered,’ he nodded. Kevin wondered briefly whether he should mentioned the close encounter in the lake, but not like Professor Snape could do something about it.

Kevin waited anxiously by the table as Professor Snape inspected the ingredients. The man seemed displeased with in and he had no idea what he had done to deserve such ire. Kevin looked at himself if he were still dirty, but despite some dampness in his hair, there wasn't anything.

Suddenly, without a warning, Professor Snape summoned some glass items, which under closer inspection were a jar and a vial. Kevin had nothing to compare the next course of action to, so he took a careful step forward and grabbed the two items, stuffing them into his pocket. The Slytherin presumed that he did a good job, if not good then at least passable.

Kevin scrambled quickly after the professor when he left the office and led him to the nearby Potions classroom. The sight that greeted Kevin was that of dirty cauldrons on a bench and the boy got an idea what his next task would be. His thinking was confirmed when he caught some of the Professor Snape's words that instructed him to clean the cauldrons, but without any magic.

'Yes, sir,' Kevin replied and took a few moments to just gaze at the cauldrons. He briefly wrinkled his nose in distaste, not so much at the task itself, but at the thought that he would be once again dirty. At least this time, there were no aquatic horrors watching him from the shadowy water.

It wasn’t unlike cleaning at home, what with his parents being Muggles, so with a quiet sigh, Kevin rolled up his sleeves and moved towards the cleaning supplies. With a trance-like repetitiveness to it, Kevin started to clean the cauldron, zoning out as he made sure to also scrub out any grooves and tricky-to-get indentations.