Harry James Potter was a wizard, a boy, fifteen, and the carrier of a secret. A deep, dark, scary, terrifying secret. Harry James Potter had a secret affinity for none other than potion making. You would think that after years of laboring under Snape's horrible teaching method, his hatred of the great bat would transform into a hatred for the subject. In fact, it almost had, until Hermione got her nose into another book about the history of Hogwarts and promptly informed Harry that his mother, the former Lily Evans, had won a potion-making competition at the school in her fifth year at Hogwarts, a feat previously unheard of.

Harry grew curious. What would his mother possibly find appealing about a subject Snape taught. He decided to looked into it, but then decided Quiddich was more important and Hermione could do It instead because she'd get much more enjoyment out of digging through old school records. Her findings were just barely interesting enough that Harry was able to remain focused throughout almost half of her report. He gathered this:

His mother had been very interested in potions and had received a perfect score on her OWLs and NEWTs in the subject. Also, in all the old Hogwarts yearbooks, she was often photographed with one Severus Snape up until her seventh year, in which she was glued to a mister James Potter and Snape, no longer accompanied by a beautiful redhead girl, had been deemed unworthy of having a photo make it onto a single page except one, in which he was seen with the likes of a young Lucius Malfoy.

Harry, using his bludger-beaten brain of his, concluded that Snape was probably a slimy git to Harry because his mother had dumped (as his only friend) him for his father (as her much more attractive and talented husband). He also concluded that Snape's interest in potions from youth might have had a little more to do with Lily than it had with the sexy figure of a standard cauldron.

Curiosity ablaze, Harry stole down to the dungeons under the cover of his invisibility cloak one night in September of his fifth year. As he moved past what he knew to be Snape's private quarters, a sort of thrill went through him. That same sort of thrill he often had when breaking other serious Hogwart's rules. Hermione had said, once when Harry had confided this in her, that he was, quite possibly, an "adrenaline junkie." Harry could care less; he enjoyed the thrill.

He could have easily just stole ingredients from the store room and returned to Gryffindor tower to brew in the safety of the common room or his dorm room, but something about the continuous thrill and deceptive act of brewing against the rules right under Snape's nose inclined Harry to brew right there in Snape's dungeon classroom.

It only took him one night to realize he actually did have a talent for potion making when he wasn't under Snape's hawkish scrutiny. Things worked out well that night. A potion he had botched in class earlier that day turned out perfectly that night. He was interrupted only once by a group of house elves who waited until he was finished brewing to clean the room (and, in addition, the mess Harry had made) and they promised, when Harry asked, that they would say nothing to anyone of his midnight activities.

He returned again the next night to brew the next three potions in his potion's text book, preparing himself for his next three lessons. They were more difficult without any of Snape's guidance in class to back him up, but he began to get the hang of it and by two in the morning, he had three perfect potions. The elves came and cleaned up after him while Harry returned to his dorm room and crawled into bed.

He was too ambitious to expect that he would get off scot free three nights in a row, though, because the following morning, over breakfast, Ron managed to form words around all the food he had shoved in his mouth. "So, where were you last night?"

Hermione's eyes widened. "You snuck out again?" She demanded, no doubt referring to all the other times Harry had snuck out after dark. However, most of those times Hermione had been in on the scheme, so she really had no room to talk.

"It wasn't like I was breaking any rules well, actually, I was, but not any of your rules, 'Mione." Harry defended himself, smiling sheepishly at her.

"My rules?" She asked, raising an eyebrow and crossing her arms.

"Yeah, you're rules. Like no sneaking out to prank Slytherin's. I think you'd approve, actually." Harry said, giving her a look he knew she couldn't resist. It had made her to write his essays for years.

"What, exactly, have you been up to?" She asked crossly.

Harry rolled his eyes at her diminished glare, no longer fearing for his safety now that she'd calmed down somewhat. "Nothing of consequence, just studying "

"Studying?" Ron looked appalled, so shocked that he began gagging on the excess food he's been smacking between his gums.

"Studying?" Hermione was curious. Since when did Harry study or even show any interest in academics whatsoever? "What have you been studying?"

"Potion making," Harry confessed, hanging his head in shame and whispering to her now.

Ron was so surprised that he actually fainted, falling off of his bench and right onto the slate floor of the great hall just as Neville was walking by. Neville was unprepared for this sudden obstruction and trod right upon Ron's face, breaking his nose. As blood gushed out both nostrils, Argus Filch grudgingly picked him up and took him to Madam Pomfrey.

As soon as the commotion died down, Hermione leaned across the table to whisper skeptically "Potion making?"

Harry shrugged. "It's easier than I thought."

"Harry," Hermione's voice was imploring. "I'm thrilled that you've taken such an unexpected interest in school, but it's still against the rules to sneak out. Can't you just brew in the common room?"

"The common room doesn't have everything I need to make potions, 'Mione." Harry told her, hoping to bring her over to his side where breaking every school rule before graduation was a valid goal. "You know how bad I am at potions, even without Snape's bias towards failing me."

"School rules are more important. Your grade is not going to matter when you're expelled." Hermione insisted.

Harry settled back into his seat and raised his hands in defeat. "Alright, alright, I'll stop. I'll practice in the dorms instead. Happy now?"

Hermione smiled brilliantly. "You promise?"

Harry nodded. "Promise." He vowed.

And, then, late that night, he snuck out. Earlier, during lunch, he'd brewed a quick sleeping potion and fed it to Ron (whose nose had been speedily healed) during dinner just in case Hermione had enlisted him to spy on Harry. Invisibility cloak in one hand, wand and potion book in the other, he tip toed down the stairs, across the common room, out the portrait door, down the hall and six flights of stairs, down another hall, and into Snape's dungeon class room under the cover of darkness.

Once safely inside, Harry gave himself a pat on the back for being such a good ninja and wizard. He lit the candles and pulled a bundle of food out of the pocket in his cloak, setting it down on the desk for later. He set up his cauldron, opened his potion book, collected his ingredients from the store cupboard, and set himself to work. He zipped though the first potion and the next. He failed twice on the third potion, but the third time was the charm. After several hours, he smiled in satisfaction, and left, telling the waiting house elves on the way out to clean up after him.

He had hardly laid back down in his bed before the sun came up and he rose for the day. Over breakfast, Hermione asked him if he'd kept his promise and kept to his rooms last night.

"Of course," Harry vowed, smiling his Hermione-seducing smile and taking a sip from his goblet which was filled with coffee.

Hermione smiled gratefully at him.

In potions class, Snape was in a particularly foul mood. Apparently, his ingredients were going missing again. Without giving them any instructions, he pointed his wand at the chalkboard where a replica of the procedure for the potion in the book appeared. It was, of course, one Harry had already done, since he was now six potions ahead of the class.

He was the first to finish with aid from the notes he'd scribbled down two nights previously in his book. Hermione saw his vandalism and gaped with indignation. "You defaced a book?" She asked as if it were more serious a crime than breaking all the Hogwarts rules in one night.

"I improved a book." Harry corrected her, humming cheerfully to himself as he sped ahead of her, completing his perfect potion before her.

Snape was so upset by his success that he assigned an essay on what ingredients one would assume to use in a potion that would make the victim of it turn blue and grow a tail. It was to be at least a meter (3.3 feet) long and due in two weeks. Even with his goody-two-shoes potion preparation, Harry didn't know how to make someone blue or make them grow a tail.

That night, after once again drugging Ron, he snuck down to the dungeons, his newest second home, and quickly flipped through his potion book, looking for something, anything, that might be helpful. There wasn't anything, though. Not a single potion listed could turn one blue or make someone grow a tail and there were no reading section about it. He looked in the store cupboard and found at least one used copy of potion books that were used by the older class. However, he grew tired. Even if he had the elves bring him some coffee, there was no way he could muddle through all the books for essay hints before dawn.

"Coffee, please," He snapped his fingers at one of the house elves in the corner anyway, figuring he might as well try.

The house elf hopped off her stool where she usually waited for Harry to finish his activities each night, and scurried away, returning with a steaming mug of coffee. "Thanks," Harry muttered, before taking a sip. He didn't like it black, but he drank it anyway. It would keep him up longer that way, at least.

He flipped open the sixth year's potion book and began flipping the pages, looking for the buzzwords: blue and tail. Twenty pages and a full mug of coffee into it, he felt himself fading. He was going too long without sufficient sleep. On the twenty-first page, however, he found something quite helpful. It was called Rhender's Draught. It automatically made one's mind function at one hundred times the normal rate for as long as the user wanted. The length of this productivity could be extended for more than 24 hours before death would become a risk and its longevity was directly proportional to how much the user took: one tablespoon gave you an hour of super brain speed.

However, as always, even the smallest mistake could turn the potion wrong and, if too potent, could instantly kill the user.

Harry, as usual, couldn't care less. He was thrilled. Another cup of coffee later, he had created a small batch that would only fill a small vial. With a small dropper, he drew some of it up.

He threw his head up and opened his mouth wide and held the dropper over his tongue. He squeezed the end until a single drop fell and, from there, it was cake.

A single drop was about fifteen minutes of effect, which was about 1500 minutes of productive thought. That was 25 hours. In fifteen minutes, he had put the rest of Rhender's Draught in a small vial and hidden it in his robes. He had read and memorized his entire potion book, which, as it turns out, really doesn't have anything in it about how to turn someone blue or grow a tail. He read it over again anyway, just to make sure, and took notes on what ingredients were used in each potion, drawing conclusions about their effects.

He then started on the sixth year's book, and took notes again. Here, he found how to turn someone blue. And, later, towards the very end of the book, how to make someone grow a tail. Trust Snape to assign fifth years something only advanced sixth years would know.

After that, Harry wanted to brew some more, but potions are time sensitive and he knew he wouldn't be able to do anything properly going 100 times faster than the potion so he pulled out some parchment and began his essay. Even after detailed paragraphs and spectacular foot notes and the largest handwriting he could bring himself to do, he couldn't stretch it out to a meter long. He was short at least twenty centimeters.

He edited what he had written anyway before pulling out a new piece of parchment and starting over, adding what the individual ingredients would be doing to contribute to turning a person blue and forcing a tail upon them. Finally, it was two centimeters longer than Snape had asked for. Harry fist pumped the air and danced around the room with joy for what felt like thirty minutes but only took him really .3 seconds. The house elves in the corner were in awe.

After finishing his dance routine of joy, Harry didn't much feel like more potion making, so he wore off his last hour of super speedy productivity by cleaning up for the house elves. They moved to help him, but Harry thought they were so slow that he just picked them up and set them back on their stools so quickly that they were terrified and remained there, watching Harry zip around the room, putting away cauldrons and books and ingredients and killing a rat in the corner before putting it in the top drawer of Snape's desk.

Finally, it wore off, and Harry was so happy with his success that he skipped up to his dorm and was just in time to sleep for six hours instead of six minutes.

In the morning, he was still pumped with his success but he was also mentally exhausted. It was torture not to be able to rub Hermione's nose in his sick potion skills, but he knew it's be worse if she found out what he did. Over lunch she ranted about how she read the potions book all night and couldn't find a single thing about blue, tailed people. Harry had nodded sympathetically. He couldn't tell her, but he'd have to when she asked how he was the only one able to complete the assignment two weeks from now.

Lucky for him, though, a Ravenclaw seventh year was passing by at the time, able to tell Hermione, who appeared to be her sort of friend, that, in fact, she had learned something similar to that during her sixth year and if Hermione wanted to, she'd happily lend Hermione her old book. Hermione let out a squeal of joy at the same time Harry let out a sigh of relief.

"Hey, 'Mione, you'll let me see your essay after your done with it, right?" Ron asked, trying to look charming but only looking more and more like a deranged mix between Neanderthal and orangutan.

Hermione gave him her disapproving look and the Ravenclaw girl looked positively shocked that anybody in Hogwarts would ever try to cheat. "Do your own essay, Ron." Hermione huffed, sticking her nose in the air and refusing to look at him for the rest of the meal.

Harry, for once, agreed with her unwillingness to share. Even at super speed, writing that essay had been hard work. Why should Ron get off so easily while she does all the work? He suddenly felt guilty for asking Hermione for her homework all the time.

"C'mon, Harry, don't you think it's unfair Hermione's not going to share the wealth?" He asked, pawing Harry's arm.

"It's her work, Ron. She deserves the perfect grade she's sure to get and if you can't even put forth a little effort, you deserve your zero." Harry said, uncharacteristically cold. But, hell, after all the work, Ron should feel a little of the pain that studying is. Suddenly, Harry realized something: this must be how all nerds feel. Are all nerds sadists?

Ron was speechless.

"Thank you, Harry," Hermione said primly, smiling at him although her face was still cold, still offended by Ron. How dare he embarrass her in front of a Ravenclaw? I mean, really.

Besides, she was getting sick of having to buy their friendship with homework help.

Harry smiled at her, but he still didn't feel guilty about breaking his promise to her.

He wanted to sneak out that night, but the potion put too much stress on the body and could only be used every few days if one didn't want to rip their body to shreds from the inside out.

During the next potions lesson, Snape took a break from brewing to lecture them for a full hour on ingredients. It was odd, but Harry was able to recognize what would have helped him on his essay if he hadn't already finished. As it turned out, he realized that, when he was actually paying attention, Snape was a very good teacher. He was cold and cruel and to the untrained ear, seemed utterly unhelpful, but he was smart and he knew what he was talking about. If Harry didn't know better, he probably wouldn't have realized that Snape's lecture accounted for almost half of what one could put in their essay.

In fact, he realized Hermione would probably write her essay tonight and realize it wasn't long enough before realizing the notes she was, at the moment, scribbling down so furiously, were the only missing piece.

Two days after his first night with Rhender's Draught, Harry snuck out again. He took less than a drop, not wanting to exhaust himself as much as he had the last time.

He kept up this habit for several weeks. Snape had grudgingly handed him back his essay with a perfect score and a sneer. Hermione had done perfectly as well, but that wasn't nearly as surprising. For once, she had resisted giving up her essay since she normally only gave in when Harry gave her his special look and since he hadn't, she hadn't caved, and Ron had been so stumped by the essay that he hadn't even written one and received a zero.

Before Halloween, Harry had mastered every potion he could find in every book in Hogwarts and moved on to other subjects. Charms were monumentally easier to perform on the Rhender's Draught that potions, since they weren't time sensitive. He'd blown past his whole class but grew bored, skipping a head to seventh year charms that he found interesting, skipping the mundane charms he's found in the sixth year texts.

His transfiguration was amazing. He wanted to get started on apparition, but he couldn't inside Hogwarts so he turned to trying to become and animagus like his father. However, Harry was sometimes even flashier than his father, and he wasn't going to settle on being a stag. Oh no, Harry wanted to be a dragon. Several times, he wanted to ask Professor McGonagall questions, but he couldn't risk it. For some reason, he didn't want to have to list himself on the Ministry's animagus registry when he succeeded.

He grew over eager. He began using the potion every other night instead of waiting two nights. It showed in class, with his perfect grades, but it also showed on his face. He was exhausted. The strain on his body was beyond what he expected. However, he couldn't bring himself to stop. Maybe, all nerds were actually masochists?

He was in an empty class room in the dungeons one night. As it turned out, Slytherins were such wussies that of all the houses, they were the least likely to sneak out after dark. He only ever caught sight of Crab and Goyle sneaking to the kitchens or Draco and Pansy tip toeing about like they were such bad asses. Otherwise, it was all teachers, ghosts, and Mrs. Norris. Luckily, Harry had an epic invisibility cloak.

In the dungeon classroom, unused for years, Harry was reading some books he'd nicked from the restricted session. He shut the last one with a few seconds left on his watch before Rhender wore off. He zipped up to the library to return the books and realized he'd left his snack in the classroom. By now, he'd realized he shouldn't be anywhere but in a bed when the potion wore off, because he always fell asleep immediately. He didn't have much time left, though.

He shelved the books and flit back to the classroom, scooping up his snack, and out into the hallway, ready to return to his dorm when he heard voices. They sounded so slow to him that he couldn't understand them, but he could tell they were close. He threw his invisibility cloak back on and hid behind a corner where they wouldn't have a chance to bump into him or he into them.

He allowed himself to peer his head out to see the visitors and saw, to his surprise, Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape walking in slow motion towards him. Harry almost spat at the sight of Lucius but quickly forgot about that when he heard their voices get faster, closer to normal speed. The potion was wearing off. He tried to fight the instant fatigue, but his eyesight was already getting fuzzy and, before he knew it, Snape and Malfoy appeared to be walking on the wall as his cheek met the slate floor.

"Did you hear that?" Lucius asked suddenly, cutting Snape off in the middle of his sentence.

"Hear what?" Snape asked.

Lucius looked about wildly for the source of the noise. "A thump."

Snape followed his gaze, but saw nothing but an empty corridor. "Do you think there's a student out of bed around here."

Lucius seemed curious. "In the dungeons? It has to be a Slytherin."

Snape nodded. "Most likely your son, running around with Parkinson again."

"WHO?" Lucius asked, shocked. He knew nothing of a snot nosed little wench like a Parkinson child running around corrupting his son.

Snape would have laughed, if he laughed, but he doesn't so he didn't. "Would have thought he told you," he shrugged nonchalantly.

"He told me no such th-" Lucius was cut off rather rudely when he tripped over something invisible.

Snape bent down suspiciously and felt around until he found something solid but invisible. Pulling off the cloak, he found none other than Harry Potter, sleeping soundly. "What the ?"

Lucius looked just as shocked. "Snape, my friend, our lives just got a lot better."

"What do you mean?" Snape asked, squatting down and poking Harry's cheek with his wand. Harry twitched but otherwise didn't react.

Lucius was surprised Snape didn't realize. "We're going to take him to our Lord, of course. He's just fallen into our laps!"

"I actually think you fell into his lap." Snape pointed out.

"Did you just make a joke?" With all the surprises in the past two minutes, Lucius probably lost five years of his lifespan.

"We can't just take him. The old coot will know it was me if I suddenly disappear with him." Snape stood back up to look at Lucius.

Lucius smiled. "Then don't disappear with him. I'll apparate out with one of my house elves like always, but I'll take the boy with me. Then I'll deliver him to the Dark Lord, crediting you, of course. He'll be overjoyed. He'll reward us." Lucius' greed began to shine in his eyes as he imagined the rewards Voldemort would bestow upon him.

Snape couldn't protest. If he did, his position as a spy would be deeply compromised. "Alright," He agreed. "Go quickly," He said, tossing Harry's cloak to Lucius.

Lucius nodded. He called a house elf and, with Harry, they apparated away.

When Harry woke up, everything was dark.