And as it turned out, some readers had never seen the large household boxes of matches that were very common in the 90s. So, you should know that there were even such boxes in which there were 700 matches (and this is not only in Russia, but also abroad).

Part 1. Chapter 8. It's a Magic, Magic, Magic, Magic World

August 12, 1988

England, Cokworth, Spinners' Cul-de-sac, Severus Snape's house

On the fourth day of my stay at Snape-sensei's house, I discovered something else about wizards and magic. The beginning of the "discovery" was my discovery of the fuin refrigerator, which I looked into for revision and an attempt to understand how this magical household appliance works. And out of surprise, he almost burst into the strongest curses. I clearly remembered that many products had run out yesterday. I saw Sensei open the refrigerator wide and rummage for food for dinner. Now I saw shelves full of three dozen eggs, several bottles of milk, meatloaf, bread, cheese, raw meat, herbs, vegetables, jam in jars and much, much more. I took a step back and rubbed my eyes, just in case. What is this wonderful miracle that every person dreams of? Or is there something wrong with my eyesight?

"What's wrong, Harry?" that's what Snape-sensei found me doing.

"I'm thinking about how the food got into the cupboard", I said thoughtfully. "In general, I wanted to look at and make a list of products so that I would know what to buy in the store."

"oh..." said Sensei. "The fact is that I order products from magic catalogs, and once a week, on Fridays, the main purchases appear in the refrigerator, of course, I have to buy something extra, but it's enough to send an owl with the order."

"An owl with an order," I echoed. "So, food and groceries come naturally to magicians, right?" I giggled, and I burst into hysterical laughter. "Like magic, huh?"

Now it's clear why no one thought about what the Golden Chosen Boy should eat. What for? Magicians don't think about their daily bread, they get everything by themselves. My magical guardian, if there is one, probably never had any problems with food, which you need to earn money for, and then go to the store, bring everything home and sort it into shelves. Everything is ordered by itself, debited through invoices, and magically appears in the refrigerator. Beauty!..

"Actually, according to Gamp's Law of Elementary Transfiguration, food is one of the five fundamental exceptions, and it cannot be created or transfigured," Sensei completely misunderstood my amusement.

"Five exceptions?" I asked, and chuckled. "I guess the other four, besides food, are money, artifacts, blood or organs, and other people, right?"

Shadow cloning and ninjutsu have the same limitations. You can't get enough of shady food. It is forbidden to forge money, and in the end, when the chakra runs out, they will turn into what you made them out of. With artifacts— of course, even Uchiha with their super-eyes that copy all the techniques in a row will not be able to create a shadow sword artifact like the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist. Except for the similarity without their artifact properties, such as absorbing blood and restoring oneself due to the iron in it. I learned about organs from Sakura, she's a cool doctor. Well, it's also clear with a person — just like with an artifact, you can only make a temporary likeness in the form of a shadow clone. You can revive a person with a technique like "unholy resurrection," but it's disgusting. And this is not real: it's just the binding of the soul to someone else's corpse, which is given the semblance of a resurrected person. They don't sleep, they don't eat, they don't feel pain... in general, they are no longer people, and such a thing is burdensome for souls pulled out of the Pure World.

"You guessed it surprisingly quickly," Snape-sensei raised an eyebrow, which meant he was almost amazed.

"It makes sense," I shrugged. "If you turn a chair into a fried chicken, then it's probably not very pleasant to poo with sawdust later, when the magic of transformation dissipates."

Sensei snorted at my unappetizing comparison.

"Yes, you're right. Pooping with sawdust is still a pleasure. Ahem. And what about the rest?"

"I think you can make money, but it will still be fake, hence the problems with the law. No one wants to be deceived. Don't magicians have police?"

In principle, I paid with shadow money once during my last stay in this world, but then, when Harry and I exchanged their gold for pounds, I paid everything honestly. However, it seems to me that the magical police turn a blind eye to such trifles, and it is quite possible that "deceiving Muggles" is not considered shameful, unlike the punishable deception of the same magicians.

"Um, yes, there is something like a police force." Sensei nodded, but somehow grimaced. "But in general, they don't do such things, because in many stores there are detectors and there are a couple of spells that help to expose counterfeit money."

"So if you were deceived, is it your own fault?" I asked.

"Something like that," he chuckled. "Of course, most wizards are honest people... but..."

"I understand, sir. We have to be vigilant," I nodded. He chuckled, but somehow a little sad. Yes, it is necessary to keep your ears on top of your head in the world of magicians all the time. While I'm making breakfast, I'd like to hear some thoughts about the other exceptions," said Sensei. We'll make an omelet and roast pork sausages. And toasts. Jam appeared.

"I'll cut some bread," I volunteered.

The mention of toast and jam made saliva stand out by itself. I just love sweets, like any child. In England, perhaps, the only thing that really fascinates me is the toaster. He toasts the bread, and then it flies out so cool. Hot, crunchy and delicious. Sensei has a semi-magical toaster at home, so the bread cools down more slowly than the ones Aunt Petunia makes for breakfast. Snape-sensei said that toasts are purely English food, and then many nations adopted such yummy food from the British. And the electric toaster was invented by Muggles almost a hundred years ago, then the magicians adapted it for themselves. Indeed, the one at Sensei's looked older than the Dursleys', but it looked so powerful that it seemed like it could still be used for a hundred years.

Sensei looked expressively, waiting for a further answer, and I continued:

"Copying magical items and artifacts is also hardly possible, otherwise there would be no legendary items or everyone would have them. I think it's only possible to copy the appearance of an object or weapon, but not its magical properties. They are tied to the interaction of materials or their combination, and, probably, a whole complex of some kind of magic charms."

"You're right, magical artifacts, as well as the artefactors who make them, are quite valuable and rare. By the way, the "artifacts" in this exception include magic potions."

"Well, yes," I nodded. "Potions use a combination of materials, their influence on each other, and, probably, the magical properties of individual ingredients. Real art."

"You're right about that," Sensei replied, and I heard a hint of self-satisfaction in his voice. I figured out that since he studied with Harry's mom, and she gave birth to him when he was twenty, he couldn't be more than thirty, and he looked much younger now than in the newspaper photos Harry had shown me. But he's already that coolest Potion Master. So there is a reason to be proud.

"And with blood or organs, it seems to me, it is also quite obvious. Moreover, you said that blood is the conductor of magic, which means that it will not be possible to create it. Well, if you suddenly want, for example, to make a hand out of a stick and sew it on to someone whose arm was torn off, and after a while a stick will appear from the hand, and what to do about it?! Besides, it's not that simple. Organs consist of many cells, there are all kinds of blood vessels, nerves, bones and tendons, in general, a lot of things...."

"How interesting you sound," the teacher chuckled. "And you can't say that you're only eight years old. Not all of my final year students can boast of having such mental abilities."

"I'm not saying that I'm very smart, sir," I modestly lowered my eyes and, sighing, continued But it's just common sense... I would really like to resurrect my parents, but I understand that they are no more. And this is final. And if it were possible in the magical world, they would be resurrected and no one would die. That's the fifth exception to your law...."

"Gamp," Snape-sensei prompted, putting a pan with an omelet and sausages on the table.

"Yeah, this is the Gamp," I repeated this name to myself to remember, at the same time putting the last batch of toasts into the miracle machine.

We had breakfast in silence.

I continued experimenting with matches and controlling them through levitation for three days, and yesterday I stopped at three boxes. I can control three hundred at once — the number does not matter for a "single impulse", but individually I can only manipulate two circuits, and then "brains creak and smoke", and my hands tremble because I "help" with them. Today I decided to check levitation for the maximum weight that I can lift, and whether there is a limit. Does the speed depend on the mass of the object and its volume? My distance from the subject and everything like that. And also how to fly yourself.

"If you're interested, I can let you into my lab, brew a couple of potions and show you what it is," the teacher's voice interrupted my thoughts.

"Eh? Is that true?" I stared at him. Is he really going to let the kid into the "holy of holies"?

"But you'll help me cut the ingredients," he said sternly. "... some of them may cause rejection at first glance," but this is doubtful.

"If we don't try, we won't find out, sir," I cheerfully reported, quickly washing the dishes after our breakfast. "But I'm not exactly squeamish."

"Well, okay," Snape-sensei sighed, as if surprised at himself. "Let's go then..."

"I won't touch anything without permission, sir." I promised, seeing his doubts again as we approached the enchanted door.

He grunted and led the way into the lab.

Part 1. Chapter 9. The Puncture

August 16, 1988

England, Cokworth, Spinners' Cul-de-sac, Severus Snape's house

On Tuesday morning, I was entrusted with stirring the potion. Snape-sensei boiled it in a small copper pot. A wound-healing agent, which for some reason was called "Rowan broth" and was acid-green in color. However, besides the very bark of the mountain ash, and also some kind of its magical variety, there were seventeen ingredients in it.

I was promised a vial of this potion if I didn't mess up. So I was as focused as possible. The motivation is very serious.

When Snape-sensei showed me some of the effects of his potions, I told him that it was incredibly cool. Potions are very useful. Especially when you consider that, in principle, most of them do not require any kind of super-skill, a special gift of blood, dojutsu, hijutsu, or the ability, like iryenin's, to split their chakra into pure components.

For intermediate-level potions, which does not cross the line of mastery, like Sensei's, attentiveness, accuracy and clarity of following recipes are rather needed. And most of the ingredients, as I immediately clarified, did not necessarily need to be prepared myself — you could buy them in special shops.

However, Sensei did not buy everything, only what he could not prepare or exchange himself. But this is understandable — something depends on money, and some components are also extremely rare. I remember looking for unique herbs for the same Teuchi-san as a seasoning, so that he could cook the coolest ramen in the world, or to make medicine for Hinata to recover.... Rare — it also grows in "weird" places or runs in "weird" corners, somewhere on the wrong side of the world. But I've always been "lucky" to accidentally pick up something "mythical": a virus, a furry creature on my back, or a super bug....

Waving a wand is, of course, also useful in life, but potions... It seems that the wizards didn't understand even half of what could be done with them and how to use them. Judging by the potions handbook that sensei allowed me to look through, most of them were aimed simply at jokes and minor dirty tricks to others. But there were also extremely useful ones, like the same "Rowan broth". You can instantly heal small cuts, abrasions and scratches when applied to the skin, and if you are severely injured, and even in a vital organ, drinking a vial can save a life.

"Bright green. As expected," Sensei looked into the cauldron, from which I had moved away after completing a series of final stirrings. Not bad. Give me the vials number three. We need to pour it before it gets cold.

I darted to a special cabinet in which various potion jars were laid out. As far as I understood, all the phials had their own shape, and they were also divided into types according to it. The number three was for various medicinal potions and looked ordinary — dark brown glass with smooth, pot-bellied walls, with a volume of about thirty-five milliliters*. Special pieces of paper were attached to them: it was written down completely independently what kind of brew was inside and the name of the master manufacturer. However, most of the potions had quite distinct smells, and over the past few days I have memorized about forty of those that could either be useful or they can be poisoned. (Most likely, the volume of these potion bottles is 10 English "liquid drachmas", equal to 35.5163 ml.)

The potion was brewed in cauldron number two, which is two pints, a local unit of measurement equal to about five hundred and seventy milliliters. The boiler is a little less than two-thirds full, plus the density and residue on the walls, which means... I took twenty vials, put them in a box, and presented them to Sensei.

Almost no magic is used in potions, as it destabilizes many of them, so everything from cutting ingredients to bottling and washing the cauldron must be done manually. No levitation, charms, or other magical tricks.

And yet, as delicately as possible, without wasting a drop, Sensei poured the contents of the cauldron, which was enough for just twenty vials. One of them is mine! The walls can no longer be assembled into a bottle, but I had another idea.

"Tell me, sir, and if the remains from the cauldron are mixed, say, with fat, then the potion, like an ointment, will lose its properties, or can it be used at least for external wounds that are not fatal?"