Snape came inside when Harry opened the door, asked if Harry had all of his belongings in the trunk, and then took his arm.

"See you Harry!" Dudley said enthusiastically, and before Harry could wonder if Dudley was happy to see him gone, or had genuinely started to like him as he claimed, Snape apparated them away, causing a shout of awe from his cousin.

When they reappeared, they were in Snape's flat again.

"Put your things in your room and bring the field guide to the living room."

Just as Harry suspected, the man was planning on testing him, though Harry was confident he'd memorized all of the relevant details in the guide. Snape didn't start quizzing him when he came out of the room with the fungus field guide a minute later however. Instead he said, "We will be spending the next several days collecting fungus in the highlands and moors." He handed Harry a pair of Muggle garden gloves, two small cloth sacks, and a pair of garden snips.

"Do not lose these. These are your tools, which you will care for and keep clean at all times." Snape had his own gloves, snips and bags. His looked used, and Harry's looked new.

He held out his arm and when Harry didn't take it, he glared at him. Harry reached forward and took his arm, and a moment later found himself on a foggy windswept moor with gentle hills rising up on either side of him. There was a rocky stream next to them that was only a few inches deep.

"We are looking for chip cherries and crimson waxcap. Tell me about each."

Harry frowned. So he was getting tested after all. "Chip cherries are orangy red and caplike. They're found growing in wood chips and grassy areas. Crimson waxcap are bright red with a little crown. They're usually found in mown turf later in the summer." Harry looked around the grassy area they were in. It was only July and there was no mown turf on the moor.

"Why are we looking for crimson waxcap here if it only appears in mown areas and from August to September?" Snape asked.

Harry shook his head. He really didn't know. He spied a mushroom a little ways off in the grass that looked sort of like the photo of crimson waxcap, but it wasn't as bright red and it had yellow at the edges.

"Do we need to pick them young for something?" Harry asked.

Snape pursed his lips and said, "This is an area I come to to pick them young. They are best powdered when young. Do not share this location for gathering mushrooms with anyone else."

"Yes sir."

"Use your gloves and do not touch your face or mouth with your gloves on after picking mushrooms. Use one bag for the crimson waxcaps and the other for the chip cherries. You will spoil everything you collect if you mix the bags up."

"Yes sir."

Harry was glad the test was over and got on his hands and knees near the stream to work. At least he was outside, and this wasn't backbreaking labor. He loved being outdoors, and getting to come out to a Scottish moor was a treat, whether Snape meant it to be or not. It turned out that Snape wasn't done quizzing him though. A few minutes after they'd started working, Snape called to him from twenty feet away where he was harvesting a patch of chip cherries, "Tell me the uses of chip cherries in potions."

Harry wasn't too sure about the answer. The fungus guide was vague about potions uses and had spent most of each page describing how they looked and where they could be found as well as detailing which ones were the most poisonous.

"They're edible when cooked," Harry said. That was the only thing he could remember from the fungus guide. "And we used them last year in Potions class for a debriding potion."

"What does a debriding potion do?"

"Removes damaged tissues... cleans a wound out."

"What other medicinal uses might it be used for then?"

"I don't know sir."

The man sighed but must have held back the biting remark Harry was sure was there for him. Instead he said, "I require maximum effort in your potions duties and lessons. That includes putting thought into questions that are asked of you."

"Antiseptic potions?" Harry asked, hoping it was enough of an answer to get the man to leave him alone. He could enjoy being out here collecting mushrooms if Snape wasn't yelling at him all day.

"The gills are used in certain antiseptic potions, and the cap without the gills is used in several household cleaning potions."

Harry repeated the information he'd been given in his head, sure he'd be quizzed about it again later.

"Chip cherries look similar to several other species of mushrooms that produce hallucinogenic effects. Be certain when collecting in areas like New Zealand and Australia that you are collecting chip cherries and not something else."

"Yes sir."

Snape let Harry collect mushrooms in silence for twenty minutes before starting to quiz him again. Harry had moved to the other side of the little stream, and was enjoying the sound of running water. He had filled half of one sack with chip cherries, and had collected a few yellowy crimson waxcaps as well.

"Are crimson waxcaps edible?" Snape asked just as Harry had reached a little patch of them.

"Yes?"

"Are you certain?"

Harry hesitated as he picked one and put it in his waxcap bag.

"No." He was afraid to say yes, have Snape demand he eat one to test it, and have it turn out to be poisonous.

"They will give you an upset stomach. Even if they were edible, they are difficult to identify most of the time and easily confused with other mushrooms which are poisonous."

"How can we be sure these are crimson waxcaps then?" Harry asked.

"Because I planted them here several years ago and come back regularly to harvest them when they are young."

"Oh."

"They don't grow well in a regulated environment. Many have tried, but they are best found in the wild. They're a common enough ingredient in potions, yet difficult to grow. They bring a fair price when sold to the right apothecary. Tell me what they are used for in potions."

"A binding agent," Harry said. He hadn't used crimson waxcap before, but they used other types of waxcap in potions class.

"How do you know?" Snape asked. Harry thought he would have snapped it at him, but he sounded as though he wanted to be certain Harry knew why.

"We use meadow waxcaps and snowy waxcaps in Potions class as binding agents."

"Are they interchangeable? Can you use crimson waxcap instead of snowy waxcap?"

"I don't know," Harry said. They never did anything other than follow the exact ingredients given to them for each potion they were supposed to brew.

"Each type of waxcap lends a different degree of thickening to a potion. Meadow and snowy waxcaps are the easiest to find and therefore the cheapest. They're the most often used. However, crimson waxcaps bind better to most ingredients than snowy and meadow waxcaps do, therefore less of crimson waxcap must be used. Approximately a fifth as much as meadow or snowy waxcap. It is best when substituting waxcap to start out with as little as possible and add more as needed to get the desired thickness."

"Huh." That was actually sort of interesting, and Harry wondered if Hermione knew that. Hermione was very strict about things like following the rules, and in Potions about following the recipe exactly. She might explode if she saw Harry trying to substitute potions ingredients, though crimson waxcap wasn't something in the student supply cupboard so he didn't think he'd have a chance to see if he could make her freak out.

"From what you've just been told, and what you know of using snowy and meadow waxcaps in class, what can you tell me about each of those?"

As he pulled up another chip cherry, Harry said, "I think we use less of meadow waxcap than snowy waxcap." He paused then as he thought about it, and said, "wait, I think it depends on the potion. We were using snowy waxcap in an anti-freezing potion last year, and in first year in a potion we were going to use as a base for a potion that regulates temperature. We don't use snowy waxcap too much in other types of potions. We used it in Polyjuice though and had to use a lot of it... way more than we usually use of meadow waxcap in potions and more than we used in the temperature regulating potions."

"We have never brewed Polyjuice Potter," Snape said.

Harry froze, hand over a clump of grass he was trying to pull up to get at a crimson waxcap. "Oh," he said, "yeah, not sure what I was thinking. There was some other potion that sounds like that, wasn't there?" he asked.

"You are a terrible liar," Snape sneered from somewhere behind him across the stream where he was working up a large patch of chip cherries.

Harry waited for the man to yell at him about illegally brewing potions in the girls loo, but he didn't, and Harry grinned to himself since Snape couldn't see him. Maybe he just didn't believe Harry could brew polyjuice and didn't know what Harry was ‘lying' about, so he had decided to leave him alone. Or maybe Harry would just drop some more hints later on to make Snape think he had a stock of polyjuice on him to use whenever he wanted.

They collected mushrooms until the fog lifted around noon before Snape apparated them back to the flat. He made Harry take his gloves off and then wash his hands (twice), before he pulled out an old copy of the Daily Prophet and spread it out on the counter. Snape took Harry's bags and dumped them into two separate piles on the newspaper, and Harry was glad to see that he hadn't mixed the bags up on accident. Snape also dumped his two bags onto Harry's piles.

He disappeared into his room for a few moments and came back out with two glass containers. Into one he put a handful of crimson waxcaps, and into the other he put a handful of chip cherries. Then he pointed at the pile of waxcaps still on the newspaper and said, "This pile should fetch around forty sickles." He pointed at the chip cherries and said, "This should fetch two galleons."

"Two galleons just for that?" Harry asked, surprised.

"Yes."

Still wearing his gloves, Snape rolled the chip cherries up in one piece of newspaper, folded the ends over to keep them in, and tied it with a piece of twine. Then he did the same in another piece of newspaper with the crimson waxcaps.

Taking his gloves off, he looked across the kitchen counter at Harry. "Do you remember where the apothecary is?"

"At the end of the alley to the left."

"Yes." Snape looked back down to the wrapped mushrooms, and then back up at Harry. His tone dropped and became serious, like Harry was in trouble, though Harry couldn't think what he might be in trouble for.

"You are to take these two bundles to the apothecary, and wait until he has time to see you. Do not barge to the front of the line and demand to be seen." He gave Harry a hard look as he said this, as if certain Harry was a rude little monster. Harry wanted to shrink away from the look, but didn't because he wasn't rude and hadn't done anything wrong.

"Tell him you have ingredients to sell. Do not accept less than 35 sickles for the waxcaps, and do not accept less than a galleon and 40 sickles for the chip cherries. Repeat it back to me."

"35 sickles for the waxcaps, a galleon and 40 sickles for the chip cherries."

"Get more if you can for them," Snape said. Then his tone dropped again to that one he held when Harry was in serious trouble. "It is important that you are not rude. If you are, it will reflect poorly on me as your Potions Master. You could get yourself or the both of us banned not only from this apothecary, but from others as well. The potions community is tight knit and word spreads quickly. There will be swift and severe punishment if I hear that either of us have been banned from any apothecary, or that you have been rude. They won't hesitate to inform me of either."

"I'll be respectful," Harry said.

Snape looked at him as though he seriously doubted it.

"Do not make me regret sending you to do errands on your own. As a potions apprentice it is expected that you will frequently run errands, especially to apothecaries, as that is how you will learn. If I were to go with you for such a simple task, that would also reflect poorly on me, but more poorly on you. You would not be trusted by apothecaries or potions masters anywhere if I were to hold your hand for a simple trip to sell waxcaps and chip cherries. If you prove to me that you cannot be trusted with such a simple task, I will have no other recourse but to accompany you in the future for simple trips."

"I'll get it right," Harry said quietly.

"Go then." He waved towards the door, and Harry gathered the two newspaper bundles and left, feeling nervous now that Snape had threatened to punish him. Harry thought about his bony knuckles again and how much they would hurt if the man hit him. If Harry got the man banned from an apothecary, (or all of them), he would definitely make Harry pay. Harry shuddered as he made his way down the alley to the back end and to the apothecary shop.

Snape almost made it sound as though the potions masters and apothecaries had some sort of network... like any mistake he made would be sent out by owl right away to all the others. Who knew, maybe there was a system like that in place. There must be if Snape was so adamant that Harry be on his best behavior. Though Snape was also certain Harry was a rude kid who bullied others, so maybe not.

Steeling himself, Harry entered the apothecary, a little bell ringing overhead. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust from the bright sunlight outside. There was a woman with a little girl purchasing something at the counter, and an elderly man measuring out a scoop of something he wanted to purchase into a little bag next to the front window.

Harry waited patiently for his turn. The man behind the counter was probably ten years older than Snape and had a stern though not unfriendly look about him. When he was done ringing up the woman and her daughter, he motioned to Harry to come forward, but Harry was eying the elderly man, who was now done gathering his purchase.

"You could go sir, I mean, please go in front of me."

The man gave Harry an appreciative nod and stepped up to the counter with his bag of whatever he had scooped out of the jar. He paid two knuts and left. Now that the shop was empty of customers, Harry stepped up to the counter.

"What have you got there?" the man asked as Harry set the two packages on the counter.

"A package of crimson waxcaps and a package of chip cherries."

"Crimson waxcaps," the man said appreciatively, untying the twine on both newspaper packages to let them fall open. "Quite a large batch. They look fresh. Where did you get them?"

"Professor Snape grew them. I'm not allowed to say where sir."

The man nodded as though he expected such an answer.

"Collect them this morning?" he asked, looking up at Harry.

"Yes sir."

He put on a pair of gloves similar to the ones Harry had worn that morning while harvesting the mushrooms, and scooped the chip cherries onto a scale. Onto a separate scale he scooped the crimson waxcaps.

"One galleon, twenty five sickles for the chip cherries, and 35 sickles for the crimson waxcaps."

Harry bit his lip for a moment. That was far less than he was supposed to get for the chip cherries.

"The chip cherries are hard to find," Harry said. "This is from a batch that was planted three years ago and have been harvested carefully for years."

"You think they're worth more than a galleon twenty?" the man asked.

"I'd appreciate if I could get two galleons out of them sir."

"Two galleons? Not at this shop."

Harry bit his lip, looked at the chip cherries, and then back up at the man. "A galleon and 45 sickles?"

"Are you asking or telling?"

"Asking sir."

He shook his head. "These are your ingredients. You harvested them," he explained. "If you have to get more out of them, then you have to. I can tell you what I'll pay for them, but you're the one that determines what they're worth, do you understand? Don't ask me what they're worth, tell me."

"They're worth two galleons sir. I couldn't take less than a galleon and 45 sickles." It wasn't quite true, Snape had said a galleon and forty, but he had told Harry they were worth two galleons.

"And what are these crimson waxcaps worth?" the man asked.

"40 sickles," Harry said.

"So I've offered you far below what you need for the chip cherries, and five sickles below what you need for the crimson waxcaps. What will you do?" The man didn't seem like he was trying to cheat Harry out of money. He seemed like he was trying to teach him how he was supposed to conduct business. Harry had never sold potion ingredients before. He'd only been into the apothecary on Diagon Alley a handful of times to buy his student potions kit, and that had a set price. There was no haggling for student potion supplies.

When Harry didn't answer, the man said, "How about you tell me about the chip cherries and crimson waxcaps? Maybe if I know how important they are, I'll have to pay full price."

Harry looked back up at him. "Chip cherries are hard to come by. They're used in debriding potions, antiseptic potions, and many household cleaning potions. We've picked these ones young so they can be powdered, because young chip cherries work best when powdering them. These are high quality and took a lot of time to grow and collect. Crimson waxcaps are a better binding agent than other waxcaps because you have to use less in a potion to thicken it, and they're rarer to find than meadow and snowy waxcaps." Was this why Snape had made him learn all of this while they collected mushrooms that morning? Did he know Harry was going to get quizzed at the apothecary? Maybe it was another test and he had set this up just to see if Harry would be rude and demand a higher price, or maybe he knew the man that ran the apothecary on Camden Alley would try to test his knowledge.

The man leaned across the counter, gave Harry a close looking over, and said, "what part of the chip cherries is used in antiseptic potions?"

Harry froze. It was the cap or the gills, but now he couldn't remember which. One was used for antiseptic potions, and the other for cleaning potions. He had a fifty fifty chance of getting it right, but worried he'd wreck the deal if he got it wrong. Uncle Vernon always talked about how important business deals were, and went out of his way to impress potential clients, and his boss. Harry would neither impress Snape or this man if he got the answer wrong.

"I'm not sure sir," he said, deciding to tell him the truth. "The gills are used either for cleaning potions or antiseptic potions, and the cap is used for either cleaning or antiseptic potions, but I don't remember which is which."

The man studied him and then said in a friendly voice, "The gills are for antiseptic potions. The cap for cleaning potions. Don't forget. If you try to throw the caps into an antiseptic potion you'll end up with a mess."

"Yes sir. I won't forget. The gills are for antiseptic."

The man scooped the mushrooms off the scales and into two separate glass containers, setting them on the counter behind him.

"I'll give you a galleon forty for the chip cherries, but only 35 for the crimson waxcaps."

"Thank you."

"Thank you young apprentice. Tell Severus I'm low on fluted bird's nest if he has a good place to find some."

"Yes sir."

He opened the till and counted out coins, which he dropped into Harry's hand. "I didn't realize Severus had taken on an apprentice." His eyes flickered up to Harry's scar, though he didn't mention it, and his eyes didn't linger overlong there.

Harry didn't know what to say to that. Somehow, ‘my relatives wanted to get rid of me and pushed me off on Snape' didn't sound appropriate, especially if what Snape said about reputation in the potions community was true. Instead Harry said, "I needed the help."

"I see. I'll be seeing you soon," the man said. Harry gave him a nod, thanked him again, and left the apothecary, hurrying back to Snape's third floor flat, though he wished he could explore the alley instead.

Snape seemed to be a ball of stress when Harry returned to the flat. His eyes snapped over to Harry from the kitchen and he practically demanded to hear how the encounter had gone at the apothecary.

Harry handed him the coins and described what he could, as well as passed the message along about the fluted bird's nest.

"And what did he say when you left?"

Harry frowned. "I think he said he'd see me again or something like that. I'll see you soon, I think he said."

Snape finally relaxed, the tension leaving his shoulders and posture.

He turned to the money on the counter and said, "Apprentices do not always get paid. However," he paused, looked like he regretted whatever he was going to say, and said, "I do not hold with not paying an apprentice for work." He pushed twenty sickles towards Harry and then swept the rest of the money off the counter and into his pocket. "You will not be paid for every task, and the wage is non-negotiable. You may however spend your money how you wish."

"Thanks," Harry said quietly, feeling like the encounter was awkward. Snape shot him a glare however, and Harry added, "sir."

Snape instructed Harry to use several specific spells on the inside and outside of the two fungus bags and his gloves and garden snips, and told him he had to use those spells on all of his harvesting equipment whenever he was done with them. Then he gave Harry a small wooden box and told him to keep his harvesting equipment in the box when not in use, and not to lose it. "The box will stay here when you are with your relatives."

"Yes sir."

Harry took the box to his room and put it on the floor just under the edge of his bed. He had two library books with him to read this time, but his mind was too busy with the events of the day and was racing back through collecting mushrooms, which hadn't been terrible, and then his first trip to the apothecary to sell ingredients. He decided to venture into the living room to talk to Snape. So far during his time there he'd tried to keep to himself in his room, and Snape had seemed glad for it, but Harry wanted to know why the apothecary had taught him instead of trying to haggle down for a lower price.

"Sir?"

Snape stiffened, the tension from earlier coming back into his body. He was still in the kitchen, this time writing something down in what looked like a journal or ledger.

"What is it?" He didn't look at Harry when he came around to sit on the stool he usually used when he ate meals at the counter.

"Why did the apothecary try to teach me instead of trying to haggle me down to a lower price? He could have just refused to buy from me."

Snape stopped writing and looked up at him, his black eyes piercing Harry. Harry wanted to flinch away. He didn't like making eye contact if he could avoid it. Years of punishments at the Dursleys demanded he look away, or look down at his hands or feet.

"Because you're an apprentice. You must have mentioned my name to him or said you were an apprentice for him to have come to that conclusion."

"But that doesn't explain why he was teaching me."

"I told you already, the Potions community is tight knit. Apprentices enjoy a certain position in the community. While he may have tried to drive a harder bargain if I had gone in, or if a regular person selling ingredients went in, he saw it as his duty to educate you as an apprentice. Apprentices are seen as the future of the potions community, so every potions master, every apothecary will see it as their duty to educate you. That is why it is so important to be respectful. If you anger one of them, the entire community could shut you out, and me as well for failing to teach you how things are."

He looked back up at Harry from the ledger he'd been writing the transaction in. "The same cannot be said of all apprentices. There is some amount of competition between apprentices. Some serve two years with one master, then go on to serve another two years with another, and then two more years with another. Apprentices try to distinguish themselves in the eyes of their masters and the community to secure better opportunities for themselves, and to make a name for themselves before they gain their mastery. Not all apprentices are... cut-throat," he said, eyes narrowed at Harry as though he was one of the bad ones, "but you would be wise to scrutinize everything other potions apprentices tell you instead of blindly taking them at their word. You are one of the youngest currently apprenticed. Many are older than you, but will not hesitate to feed you mis-information."

"Yes sir."

Harry went back to his room and spent the afternoon thinking over all the new information. He'd had no idea that there was this sub-community in the wizarding world that had its own rules and codes. He wondered if it was the same with auror apprentices, or with apprentices in other fields. He didn't know any aurors he could ask though. He'd never even met a potions apprentice before, and he couldn't imagine some other kid like him trying to get him in trouble or giving him information that could. An image of Draco Malfoy flashed through his mind just then, and Harry sincerely hoped that Draco would never get an apprenticeship in potions, or that if he did it would be long after Harry was done with his two year apprenticeship. The only consoling thought Harry could come up with in regards to Draco, was that he had a mother and father who wanted him, so Draco would never get signed over to some random Potions Master unless he set up the apprenticeship himself after he was 17.

* * *

For the next two days Snape took Harry to different highlands and moors in Scotland looking for a variety of fungus. They collected three sacks of spindly white fairy fingers one morning, and later that afternoon miles away found a huge beefsteak polypore that Snape said was worth three galleons all by itself. The next morning Harry was knee deep in a bog trying to search through the fog for rosy bonnet and after dark that night they went to a muggle park in the east searching for white angel's wings. Snape kept some of each of their finds except the beefsteak polypore, and sent Harry to the apothecary with the rest and an approximate price he should get for each.

Harry didn't always get the amount Snape wanted, but he must have done well enough because Snape only grouched at him a little when he came back with less than he should have. And each time Harry went to the apothecary over the next few days, the apothecary owner always asked him about each of the fungi Harry was selling and their uses. Harry thought that by the end of that three days he'd spent with Snape, he could write a paper about fungi that was several feet long. Between the field guide, Snape teaching him as they collected mushrooms, and the apothecary asking him to tell him about each item he was selling, Harry was certain the information was firmly rooted in his brain. It was only too bad that Snape rarely asked for essays about mushrooms in class.