Gateway 6

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It took a while for my laughter to stop and, when it did, I was faced with an apoplectic professor and a highly amused Luna.

“Sorry, sorry!” I started, lifting my hands in a placating manner. “It’s just that, Luna has been teaching me potions for the last week, and in every single lesson she insists on acting just like you.”

“And this is, funny, to you?” He said in a deceptively calm tone, the kind that belies danger in case it receives the wrong answer.

“You know her! Look at her!” I exclaimed, pointing at Luna. “Can you even imagine how hilarious it is for a little girl with such a sunny disposition to act exactly like you without breaking character once!?”

“I can see the comedy in such,” He conceded with a nod before lifting one of his eyebrows in a challenging look. “But that doesn’t explain your reaction to seeing me.”

He finished his line with a forceful tone and an intense look.

I lifted an eyebrow right back at him.

“Just picture it, Luna dressed like you in all black with dyed black hair, acting all grave and somber one moment and like her normal self the next.” I can barely contain my amusement describing it. “Like a goth girl obsessed with the Victorian Era.”

It was just a fraction of a second, most people wouldn’t ever notice, but I’m a Campione, so I saw his lips quirking in a smile as clear as day.

‘Victory.’

My thoughts must have been obvious, because he rolled his eyes at me and turned to Luna.

“You were showing me your interactions chart?” 

Luna gave him the chart and went back to explaining what we’d managed to come up with, all the while he questioned her on how she reached her conclusions and what she believed the next step was.

After a few minutes, he was satisfied with her answers.

“Well done Miss Lovegood, it is nice to see a 3rd-year student already taking my subject seriously, especially when you had the presence of mind to have already started your interactions chart.” He said while giving the chart a last look before giving it back to Luna.

“I can’t take the credit for that, sir. Alex is the one who infected me with his interest! I just taught him what I knew and during it, we figured that having a chart would make our lives easier.” She cheerfully replied.

“Oh?” He said, turning his attention to me and lifting a questioning eyebrow in my direction.

I internally debated if I should tell him the truth or not, because out of all the magic I’ve seen since coming here, potions is the only subject we don’t really have back home.

Every other school of magic can be replicated with enough effort back home, but potions? They are completely different and a game changer in several areas.

Bone regrowth, blood replenishing, a cure for the common cold. Those are just the tip of the iceberg. The more advanced ones are downright ridiculous from what Xeno told me

So, when I meet the one person directly responsible for teaching it in one of the most prestigious schools on the continent? What can I do but want him on the payroll?

But first, I need to know if he is worth the investment.

“Professor, how good are you at potions?” I ask in a conversational tone while giving him a faux innocent look.

“I am a Potions Master, as is required to teach at Hogwarts.” He responds while giving me a confused look.

“Yes but, how good is that?”

He starts to open his mouth to answer but aborts the motion, his brows furrowing as he starts to actually think about it.

‘Good, an instinctual answer might have been acceptable but a thought-out response is much better.’

It takes a few moments, but he finally turns to me.

“Being a Potions Master is about understanding. You need to understand your ingredients, their reactions, and the best way to achieve those reactions, be it from extraction methods, stirring, order of addition, temperature, or even exoteric ones such as the phase of the moon.” He stops, staring at me. “It’s about advancing the craft to new heights: new effects, efficiency, potency, cost, and difficulty; while maintaining an instinct for how to best deal with all those variables to obtain your desired result.”

This is exactly what I wanted to see, passion. This is a man who dedicated his life to the craft, now to see if it paid off.

“And where do you stand, in the ranks of Potions Masters?” I ask seriously.

He probably already figured out that I’m leading up to something going by his previous answer, so better stop playing games and get on with it.

“I am the youngest Potions Master to ever teach at Hogwarts and one of the youngest professors in Hogwarts' history. I completed my mastery in two years out of the normal five. My students achieve their OWLs and NEWTs at higher rates than seen in the last 300 years, and the ones that do are of such higher quality that there have been talks of creating specialization programs for the different jobs that require it so the best can specialize further.” He finished his rant pridefully, looking down on me while standing tall.

“Have you finished your shopping?” I asked, matching his intensity.

“Yes.” He nods before blinking and realizing my questioning of him is over.

While he snaps back to reality, I look at the back of the shop where the counter is, there, I see Xeno finishing his purchases so I quickly approach him.

“Xeno! Can I invite someone over?” I asked while nodding in the direction of the professor, who was being held up by Luna, who was gushing over his rant.

“Sure Alex, but why?” He asked back.

“Well,” I said, smirking at him. “I have to tell him a story.”

“Oh!” He responded, his eyes lighting up in glee.

___

Since his curiosity was already piqued, the professor agreed to come with us and, after we situated ourselves in the living room, I told him my story.

It was not nearly as long as I would have hoped. Luna, who was sitting beside me on the couch, added a few details she noticed since I got here such as my strength, and Xeno, who was on his armchair facing the professor, noted my improved senses.

Even though it was obvious he had questions, the professor held them until I finished.

“Can you prove any of your claims?” He asked.

“Well,” I started, getting up from the couch and moving a few feet away. “I am immune to mortal magic, so cast anything you like on me. Although try not to ruin my clothes please.”

He pulled out his wand and wordlessly sent a red spell at me and, upon seeing it washing over me harmlessly, did it again.

“Hmm,” He hummed, furrowing his brows before pointing his wand at me again.

“Stupefy!” He exclaimed, the spell that came at me was now much brighter and at a deeper shade of red, but it was still harmless.

“Well then!” Xeno said, his wide eyes staring at me. “It was one thing to hear you say it, but seeing it is an entirely new experience.”

“Indeed,” The professor agreed before turning back to me. “Did you feel anything at all? Sonolence? Drowsiness?”

“I’d say it tickled,” I started. “But that’d require me to actually feel anything but my clothes being a little bit ruffled.”

He nodded while putting his wand away.

“I only have one more question before you can tell me why you wanted me here.” He said.

I nodded at him to go on while I sat back down on the couch.

“How did you kill a God!?” He asked in an exasperated tone.

“I knew I was forgetting something!” Xeno exclaimed. “Pumpkin, could you?”

He didn’t even need to say it, Luna already had parchment and quill in hand.

I snorted at the scene before turning to the professor.

“The quick and easy answer is luck. But at such heights that the Gods themselves can’t help but fall before it.” I barely finished when Luna started to lightly slap my arm, I turned to see her pouting at me as if challenging me to just leave it at that.

“The way I killed a God,” I started back while rolling my eyes at her return to writing. “Is that, during a convoluted mess of a Colosseum visit, Janus decided that making all doorways and gateways in it lead to different time periods was a great idea. I found him about to kill one of the members of my tourist group, so I stabbed him in the back with a sword I found. That did nothing to him, by the way. But, what I didn’t notice because his back was turned to me, is that he had a key hanging around a necklace around his neck, a necklace that my sword broke when I stabbed him.

Anyway, he threw me around and started blasting some kind of magic at me, so while he was distracted trying to kill me, the guy he was trying to kill previously found and threw the key at me and, since Janus had a very obvious keyhole in his chest, I just did what came naturally and he died.”

Seeing Xeno start to open his mouth I decided to preempt the question.

“I have no idea why that killed him. The best theory the Association came up with is that it either locked his divinity away or unlocked his mortality so the damage I’d given him could take hold.”

Xeno nodded, accepting that I didn’t know it either.

After a few moments to digest that information, the professor nodded to me to finally tell him why I wanted him here.

“My world has no potions.” I stated. “Maybe some elixirs and such, but nothing that comes even close to the most basic potions I’ve seen here.”

His slowly widening eyes tell me he knows exactly where this is going.

“I need someone, a Potions Master with experience teaching to revolutionize my world.” I looked at him straight in the eyes. “And I want you to do it.”