Аннотация: Harry is learning fifth grade math from a Muggle school textbook.
Chapter 11.1 Muggle mathematics on potions.
The next day, Harry put the invisibility cloak in his suitcase.
"You see, Dumbledore was right when he said that this mirror could drive you crazy," I said when Harry told me that he had nightmares. Why are you sitting there hungry? Take your oatmeal with cherry jam and eat. I pushed a bowl of porridge and his favorite jam towards him.
Hermione, who returned from vacation the day before the start of the semester and to whom Harry and I told absolutely everything - because she was our friend - looked at things differently. She was torn between horror at the thought of Harry wandering around the school for three nights in a row ("Just think what would happen if Filch caught you!" she kept exclaiming) and disappointment that Harry hadn't been able to find out who Nicholas Flamel. She was sitting next to us now, frowning at the jam that Harry had reached for.
A friend took the toasts and spread them with jam. After that, he pulled the porridge towards him and began to eat, washing it down with cocoa.
We had almost given up hope of finding Flamel's name in one of the library books. To tell the truth, I wasn't really looking for him. That's how I read about the magical world and famous travelers. There were quite a lot of books about the same Alshan mountains and their foothills. When the semester started, we started running back to the library between classes and spent ten minutes feverishly flipping through the first books we could find. I became interested in creating potions and antidotes in the field.
I even overcame myself and approached Professor Snape with questions about antidotes, to which he rather informed me that this topic would be in the first half of the year in the fourth year. But he recommended the list of books, warning that there are very complex calculations.
Of course, it would have been possible to go to the library after class, but Hermione devoted all her free time to homework and extracurricular reading, and Harry had almost no free time at all because Quidditch practice resumed. I was playing chess and doing my homework, reading the poison literature recommended by Snape. I had to repeat the movements many times with my wand, otherwise it wouldn't work. Damn, I definitely need to buy a new one. Okay, that's a good workout.
***
I'm sitting doing calculations on poisons and antidotes to them in the Gryffindor common room. Outside the windows is the snow-covered courtyard of Hogwarts. I borrowed a third-year arithmancy textbook from the library and am going through the formulas and calculations. A fire is crackling in the fireplace, students are sitting around: someone is doing homework, someone is playing spit stones and exploding cards. Harry is frowning at his potions textbook, with parchment, a quill, and a table of proportions spread out in front of him.
I'm idly flipping through an arithmancy textbook, but I keep an eye on a friend out of the corner of my eye. I always check his calculations on potions, there are still a lot of mistakes, but there is progress. As Harry recently admitted, he just learns the proportions, like the multiplication table in elementary school. And we cook according to my calculations. No, I learned the basics, and I just calculate the rest by reducing them into fractions and into columns, as Dad showed at home. Hermione is carefully arranging her books on the table, preparing for her transfiguration homework.
- Harry, you've been staring at the same line for an hour now. Are you trying to learn everything again? - my friend is stuck on fractions again.
Harry sighs.
"Proportions. The recipe for the boil potion says: "Add three drops of wormwood tincture for every 2 ounces of decoction of mandrake root." And I only have 36 ounces of broth. How many drops do I need?"
I'm counting quickly on a piece of parchment. So... 18 and 3 drops for a total of 30 plus 24 for a total of 54 drops.
Harry looks gloomily at my calculations.
"What if it's 57 ml? Or 83 like last time? Snape won't give me time to calculate."
"Hermione, find Harry a math textbook for cooking. He lived with Muggles, they teach it at school. I said decisively."
"math for chefs? Are you serious?" Hermione raises her eyebrows in surprise.
"Of course! Let him learn the proportions. Then he won't mess with potions. And I won't have to count for him every time - Snape is already yelling at us like we're deliberately making him angry. And Harry enjoys cooking. He said himself that his aunt went to culinary school."
Harry is grumpy.
"I can make potions anyway. It's just... sometimes I get lost."
I'm strict.
""I get lost" is when I added two drops instead of three. And when it's fifteen instead of three, it's already an explosion in your boiler. Do you remember the last lesson when I entrusted you with the calculations on Snape's orders and boiled them in a separate cauldron?
Harry blushes.
"Remember. Snape yelled at me for about five minutes."
Hermione looked thoughtful.
"You know, Ron's right. Mathematics is the basis of many magical calculations. I'll write to my mom and ask her to send me a textbook for the first year of the culinary college. They're just repeating high school there. Don't you cook soups and like to cook in general?"
Harry nods.
"well here. You'll like it."
Harry hesitates.
"No need, I'll figure it out myself.... I'll just learn the whole table for the ingredient mix."
"Harry, don't be stubborn. It will help you not only in potions, but also in astronomy and divination, if you choose it in your third year."
"And in Quidditch! To calculate the flight path of the snitch." I added. "Fred told his brother that the trajectory of bludgers and players is calculated in their minds."
Harry said, raising his hands in surrender.
"Okay, okay. I'll read it. But just so that Snape doesn't find out that I'm practicing counting. Otherwise, he'll take me for an ignoramus at all. He's always grumbling that I'm being a jerk to my dad. I'm sick of listening to him."
"He won't know. We'll study in the evenings when he's chasing Slytherin through the dungeons." We laughed. I remember Draco complaining to me during the morning duel that it was very difficult to get out in the evening, saying that their dean was watching the passage in the living room and catching latecomers through the dungeons.
***
Three days later
An owl flies into the living room with a package. Hermione opens it and takes out a thick hardcover textbook - Advanced Mathematics. 5th grade. A textbook for educational institutions with a culinary bias."
Hermione is happy.
"He's here! Look, Harry, everything is clear here: fractions, proportions, problems with practical examples."
Harry picks up a book and flips through it. For him, everything looks... complicated, but the tasks fascinate him with their practical application.
Harry smiles.
"Okay. Thanks guys."
Hermione answers grumpily.
"No problem. The main thing is, don't be shy about asking for help. We're friends."
***
Later, in the bedroom, Harry is lying on the bed, flipping through a textbook. Memories pop up in my head: a dark closet under the stairs, a locked door, Uncle Vernon's screams: "No textbooks - you're too smart as it is! You did a better test than Dudley!"
They won't understand, Harry thinks. - They won't understand why I'm confused about prime numbers. Why am I afraid to make a mistake - as if I will find myself back in that closet, without light and hope. But now... now I have friends. And math. Maybe at least this will help me not let them down in Snape's next class."
***
After 2 weeks of studying the textbook and solving puzzles, Harry decided to try calculating the proportions of the potion again. A potions lesson in the dungeons of Hogwarts, a dimly lit classroom with stone walls, the smell of herbs. Harry is standing by the cauldron, staring intently at a textbook and a parchment with calculations.
I cut the valerian root into neat cubes, stirring the potion with a long wooden spoon. Snape, at Harry's request, allowed us to cook in separate cauldrons, as did Hermione in a separate cauldron. Draco and Nott have also been cooking separately for a long time.
Snape, at Harry's request, allowed us to cook in separate cauldrons, as did Hermione in a separate cauldron. Draco and Nott have also been cooking separately for a long time.
Hermione is working at the next desk and looks after Neville, but she casts worried glances at Harry.
Professor Snape - slowly walks around the classroom, meticulously checks the students' work.
"Are you ready, Harry?" - I broke away from my potion by throwing in the valerian and stirring it 3 times counterclockwise. Now let it brew.
Harry rechecks the calculations.
"Yes... I think so. For 3 liters of the base, you need 12 drops of aconite tincture for every 4 liters. So, in total: 12 divided by 4, 3 in total and 3 multiplied by 3, we get nine drops."
"Add and mix. And don't forget to calculate the rest of the ingredients."
Harry puts the ingredients in the pot and stirs it.
Snape comes over to our desk, leans over Harry's cauldron. His black eyes study the potion carefully.
"The color is... acceptable. The consistency is... not quite uniform, but tolerable. The smell... does not trigger a gag reflex. What was cooked?"
Harry, trying to sound confident.
"A sleep potion, Professor. The base is a decoction of valerian, tincture of monkshood, a pinch of moon dust..."
Snape interrupts.
"Proportions."
"12 drops of monkshood tincture, 1 pinch of moon dust for every 100 ml, that is, a total of 40 pinches. Valerian root - 20 g per 500 ml, total 160 g."
I give him a surreptitious thumbs-up. Hermione smiles.
Snape after a pause, sparingly.
"Not perfect. But... noticeably better than before. At least you didn't add twice as much monkshood and cause an explosion."
Harry holds back a smile.
"Thank you, Professor."
Snape is grumpy.
"There's nothing to thank you for. You should have mastered the basic calculations before you entered Hogwarts. A hero of the magical world, but confused in proportions, like a first-year student from a family of typical magicians in the first generations. He looks like his father's bully. He was also constantly confused in calculations, although your paternal grandfather Fleamont Potter is an outstanding potion maker, like your mother."
The class freezes. Hermione clenches her fists, and I frown, preparing to defend my friend. Although in the end, Snape praised him.
"I'm working on it, Professor." Harry was already used to Snape's teasing.
Snape narrows his eyes.
"See. Five points for Gryffindor. But only because the potion didn't explode. Maybe you have something of Lily in you. Take your mother's example, she did her calculations very well. And you don't have any problems slicing the ingredients anyway.
Snape inspects my cauldron.
"What was cooked?"
"Sleepiness potion, a modified recipe for a longer sleep duration. Professor, can I keep the potion if it succeeds? Harry has nightmares, but he doesn't want to go to the hospital wing."
"A cauldron made of what?"
"Inert metal, sir."
"Weasley, let the potion brew and you can pour it into vials. I have a bottle for the night, no more. 2 points to Gryffindor and contact Madam Pomfrey after all. And show me the calculations of the proportions of the ingredients."
I handed over the parchment with the calculations I had made in Gryphindr's living room that evening.
"Good. Yes, one bottle should be enough until morning."
He moves to another desk. There is a sigh of relief from the class.
"Why did you tell him about my nightmares? Now the whole Slytherin will laugh at me."
"Harry, he's brewing all the potions for Madam Pomfrey in the hospital wing anyway. He would have found out anyway."
"But not in front of the students."
"Harry knows Snape, Malfoy knows. They are old friends with his father. They say he's even Draco's godfather. And Nott suffers from nightmares too, no one laughs at him."
"Boys, don't quarrel, let's celebrate a perfectly brewed potion with a molasses pie for Harry?" Hermione suggests quietly.