July 30th, 1893 - Harry's Lab
Henry Berkwood

Nigel didn't have many haunts outside of his desk at work and his office at home, but sometimes, just sometimes, he could be lured elsewhere when it was necessary. A friend who happened to be a potioneer was just such an occasion. It wasn't often Nigel had spare dragon parts (that sounded wrong, just some scales and blood) from an injury one of the Greens had suffered and he knew his schoolmate could use. These were the expensive ingredients and he always hated seeing them go to waste (or somebody make an abnormally large profit off of them,) so he nicked a little to bring to his friend.

The trek to Harry's lab (Nigel always found the term amusing, it sounded like a muggle scientist) with everything neatly labeled and packaged, wasn't so bad from the ministry itself, but Nigel had left later than he meant to. Not that he was in any rush to get home, but he had something he was working on and wanted to get back to it. Still, it had been a while since he'd actually socialized and this counted right?

Knocking on the door, he thought he heard an affirmative to come in, so stepped through the door slowly. "Berkwood?" He called, unable to see the potioneer right away.

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Harry was doubled over his notes next to his cauldron, looking back and forth between his own chicken scratch writing and the potion he was currently attempting to brew. It was not meant to be a complicated potion, just a draught for a neighbor with a persistent head cold, but clearly something had gone terribly wrong. It wasn't the first time Harry had brewed the potion, which confused him even more as to why it was emitting a sickly green glow. Evidently, he'd committed a misstep somewhere.

He barely registered the knock on the door, calling out "Come in!" automatically as he scanned his notes again. Was that number a one or a seven? That might have been his problem right there.

At the sound of his name, Harry finally tore his gaze away from his work and stepped out to see who had arrived. "Oh, Yarwood! What brings you by?"

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"Ingredients haul," He held up the brown satchel in his hands. "We had a green get injured, she's alright, but I was able to collect some scales and a little blood before she was patched up." He stepped further into the lab, watching with mixed amusement and curiosity over whatever it was Harry was puzzling over.

"Didn't mean to interrupt though, I can leave them and head out of you're busy?" Truthfully he wasn't expecting to stay too long, but a little chat wouldn't hurt. The potions world had always eluded Nigel, it had never been a particularly good subject of his, though with Berkwood's help it had gone better than it could have.

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"Oh, great! Thanks." Harry had turned back to his cauldron, so it was several seconds before he thought through calling an injured dragon "great." "Er... oh, you know what I mean."

Harry gestured at his cauldron. "Not busy," he said. "Just trying to work out where I went wrong with this draught for a head cold." The potion in question was currently the color of buttermilk, and smelled a bit sour.

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Snorting slightly, Nigel set the satchel down on the nearest counter and watched Harry for a moment. "I knew what you meant," his friend was clearly concentrating and Nigel felt only slightly guilty for interrupting. "You were always better at this than I was, clearly." Though Nigel had done well enough in Potions, it had likely been Harrys' good influence that kept him from screwing up too badly.

"Not supposed to be that color though, if I remember right?" It had been a long time since he'd brewed a draught like that, but he had taken one last spring and it hadn't been that color. "Do you have the recipe?" It felt sort of like a stupid question, Harry could probably do these things without the instructions, but maybe something would jog Nigel's memory if he looked at it.

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""No, 'fraid it's not right at all," Harry said, shaking his head. "Smell seems like it would have the opposite effect, too, doesn't it?" He wrinkled his nose, leaning away from his cauldron. Harry was hardly a stranger to terrible smelling potions, but that didn't mean he enjoyed it.

At Nigel's question, Harry held out the notes he was working from. "I dug out my notes from..." He squinted at the date he'd written in the top corner. "Six years ago." Thank Merlin for being a selective hoarder.

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Nigel grimaced when the smell was mentioned. He carefully wafted the steam toward himself, and agreed with a face. "That is certainly off too." It really had been a while, but he rarely remembered working with potions that had such a foul smell to them. They weren't always good, but rather innocuous at best.

Taking the notes, Nigel skimmed the ingredients before taking a better look at the directions. It seemed fairly straightforward, but he assumed it all made much more sense to Harry. "You have a little addition here," Nigel pointed to a small insert between directions. "Do you need that?" It was hard to tell if the potion was beyond fixing or not, but Nigel had always been good at reading between the lines (only literally) and doing research so maybe that was it?

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Harry read the line Nigel pointed to. "Aha!" he cried out, retrieving his quill to strike it out and edit his notes.

"I really ought to get an assistant," he said with some amusement. "It's so easy to miss things sometimes when it's just me." Such was the misfortune of having a solitary career. The main reason Harry hadn't moved into his own bachelor accommodations was that if he didn't live with his family, there would probably be days when he didn't see another soul. That might send Harry from just eccentric into true mad scientist territory.

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Well, Nigel hadn't any idea of he'd been on the right track, but it looked like Harry saw something in the small note he'd seen. "Happy to be of assistance." He chuckled. "Will you be able to salvage it?" Nigel had needed far too much of Harry's help in school to really know, but he still found the whole process of brewing potions fascinating.

"I can get like that as well. Too focused and you miss the details you need." For him it only happened doing research but the both of them could easily get hyper-focused and drown in their work.

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"I don't think so," Harry said with a sigh. "It's too far gone at this point, unfortunately." A pity, but at least Harry knew what he'd done wrong now.

"I like to think it's what makes us good at our jobs," Harry said, smiling. "Though I admit to being biased."

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"Perhaps," being detail-oriented wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Nigel just always assumed he was too focused and then somehow missed something else that was important and therefore needed to double, or even triple check. It was fine. He had a system and it worked and he rarely needed to go back and fix anything, especially at work.

"Hopefully you'll get the next one done without problem then." Now that Harry knew what went awry, certainly things could only go up from here.

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"Hopefully," Harry agreed, though in all honesty, he was positive that he had it right now. He made a few more notes before tossing down his quill and turning to Yarwood. "That said, it might be time to give myself a break." It was, admittedly, always easier to remember that was something he ought to do when other people were present. "Join me for dinner? Unless you have something else to be getting to, of course."

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wrap?

  

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