Harry Potter was mad clear through. It was the end of the first week of school, and Severus had promised him that if he did all his homework and cleaned his room, he would take him to the park to play with some of his friends. But instead Harry was stuck at home while Severus spoke with Uncle Matt about patients and surgery. This always seemed to happen right before Sev was supposed to do something fun with Harry, and the six-year-old was sick of it.

Sometimes I wish my daddy wasn't such a good doctor, then maybe people would leave him alone on the weekends like they do other dad's. Harry sulked, kicking a chair leg in the kitchen. It wasn't fair. They were supposed to go to the park before twelve and now it was one o'clock. But he didn't dare go back into his father's office and pester him again about leaving.

When he'd done that the first time, bursting into the room singing, "This Old Man," which was a song he'd learned from Lily as a toddler, at the top of his lungs, Severus had snapped, "For the love of Merlin, Harry, can't you see I'm talking here?" He waved the two-way magic mirror pointedly at his son. "Uncle Matt and I are discussing a patient, now quit making a racket and go into the den."

"But D-a-a-d," his son whined. "You promised we could go to the park after I finished my room."

"Yes, I know that, Harry, but right now I'm busy with a patient and I can't hear myself think with the way you were shouting."

"Wasn't shouting. I was singing!"

"It sounded more like screeching from where I'm sitting," Severus commented. "Now, please go and wait for me outside, I should be finished shortly."

"But why?"

"Because this is a private conversation not for a little boy's ears. Now go away and go play, color, watch TV, read, anything but disturb me for the next hour or so!" Severus ordered, pointing towards the door.

"But that's too long, Daddy! I wanna go to the park now!"

Severus set down the mirror, ignoring Matthew's chuckle. "Harry, if you don't leave me in peace right this minute, we won't be going to the park at all and you'll be spending twenty minutes in the corner for not listening. Is that what you want?"

"No sir."

"Then do as I tell you, Mr. Potter."

So Harry had left, pouting and dragging his feet and slamming the door behind him in a temper. This day was turning out to be the most boring and disappointing day ever.

He was mad at the stupid patients his daddy had to discuss. Why couldn't they go and see another Healer? There were lots of them at St. Mungos, it wasn't like his dad was the only doctor there. He was also mad at his dad for not telling Uncle Matt to wait until he got back from the park to discuss medical stuff. He'd promised Harry first, after all. It wasn't fair! Why were grown-ups more important than kids? Harry had been good all day and going to the park was supposed to be his treat.

But now it looked like it would be wasted.

Harry kicked the table leg again, not caring if Severus heard and yelled at him for attacking the furniture. He kicked the chair legs too for good measure, then he stomped into his playroom and knocked over the tower of blocks he'd been building as well. It felt good to stomp things sometimes. He wished he could stomp on the magic mirror, then nobody would be able to call his daddy and they could be left alone in peace to enjoy the weekend.

He tried to do what Severus had said and just read a book or draw until the Master Healer had finished with his conversation, but he'd already read all of his books, even the new ones Tobias had bought him, over and over. He tried to draw, but it came out terrible, and he threw his crayon down in disgust after coloring for only five minutes. This sucks! He thought rebelliously. I'm so bored it'd be fun watching the grass grow or flobberworms move.

Thinking of the flobberworms made him recall the one time he was in Severus's lab and had helped his dad prepare flobberworms for a potion, cutting them into equal pieces. It had been fun then. Not like today.

The sulky boy left the playroom and headed back down the hall to the office, wondering if his father were done yet. But no, he could still hear Severus talking. Harry felt like singing another rendition of "This Old Man" and then adding in "Hey Diddle Diddle" for variety.

Huffing in annoyance, Harry headed back up the hallway, passing the potions lab as he did so. Normally, he wouldn't even have considered going in there, he knew the lab was forbidden territory, unless Severus were in it with him. His father had told him many times while brewing that there were dangerous substances in here and he could get badly hurt, maybe even killed, if he were to touch or play with them. Therefore, he was never to enter the lab without an adult.

But today, he was so bored and so angry at Severus that he chose to forget that rule and he pushed open the door to the lab.

As soon as he entered, a set Lumos spell brightened up the room. It was spotless, almost like the exam rooms in Severus's medical office. The Master Healer was obsessed with cleanliness and organization. The stainless steel lab table used to chop ingredients was so shiny you could see your face in it. It had a small sink built into it which would run hot or cold water on command. Knives and small scrapers and other tools to cut, pound, and dice were in the drawer on the table. On top of it rested several mortars and pestles. There was even a stand with different sizes of stirrers, measuring spoons, and cups and beakers.

Along the back and sides were several large cabinets, some were locked and some weren't. Those contained all the potion ingredients. There was another large shelf that held various sizes and types of cauldrons, from a tiny thimble sized gold one to a huge wrought iron black one.

Next to the lab table was a large blackened holder for the big cauldrons. Harry knew there were matches somewhere and small blocks of wood starter, which were all Sev needed to start a fire, or he could use magic and usually did, unless he needed the fire to be a wood burning one.

Harry walked quickly over to the shelf of cauldrons and chose a rather small one, large enough to carry without dropping it. He lugged it over to the long table and set it down. Then he dragged over a padded stool as well. If his dad were so busy, he'd just go to work too and show his father that he could make his own potion. How hard could it be, after all?

There was a bookshelf behind the desk where Severus kept mostly all of his potions texts and Harry trotted over to it, glanced briefly at the titles, chose one at random, something about excellent elixirs, and brought it to the table. Then he flipped through it, found a recipe for creating a potion that would make you fly and started reading the list of ingredients.

The list was long and had many things on it Harry couldn't read, or didn't know what they were, so he skipped those. Once he'd recalled most of the ingredients-did it really matter if he had them all?-he walked over to the cabinets and tried to find them.

Now Severus, neat freak that he was, had organized all of his potion ingredients according to type and alphabetized them, making it easy for him to find or summon them. So Harry didn't have a problem finding most of them, though some things were in cabinets that were locked tight (the dangerous and poisonous ones) and he couldn't open them.

But he gathered what he could find, and brought them over to the table. Then he started to chop everything that looked like it needed to be chopped, like the hawk's liver and the marigold stems and he ground the blue sylph wings up. He threw all of it into the cauldron, measured out some water and added it, then began to stir it lazily. He let the potion, it looked awful nasty, sit for a few minutes while he ground up some weird looking roots and chopped some green acanthus. He had just about finished that and was adding them to the cauldron, stirring away and humming, when he heard his daddy calling.

"Oh no! It must be time to go!" he thought in a panic, and went to jump off the stool. His arm knocked over several jars though and a glass beaker, which rolled off the table and shattered on the floor.

The sound of breaking glass was like a lodestone, and before Harry could move, he was still half on the stool, the door to the lab opened.

"What the devil was that?" Severus demanded, coming into the lab. He stopped dead upon catching his son red-handed, playing about with his potion ingredients, glass scattered all over the floor at his feet, and a sharp little knife in one hand.

The Master Healer's eyes blazed and he gave his intrepid and disobedient child a look that would've frightened a Hungarian Horntail.

"Harry James Severus Potter! What the bloody blazes are you doing in here touching my potions?" he said in an exceedingly soft but deadly tone.

Harry froze, trembling, and started to stammer a reply, but no words came out. He knew he was in serious trouble.

"Well?" Severus demanded, advancing on him. "Answer me!"