If canon Harry Potter had the makings of a Slytherin, as the Sorting Hat convinced us, then it was somewhere very, very deep, making itself felt at most a couple of times over the course of seven years. But what if you give the boy, a little more special than everyone thought, a little prudence and healthy calculation, let him feel like a simple child for a while, and then return him to Privet Street to the Dursleys? Will he turn out to be a hero? Work for a competition from Authors Time. Author's notes: The work was written for the first round of the Authors Time competition. Assignment: apply the features of a randomly selected creature to a character/characters or the plot as a whole. Creature: Explosive Pot. Initially the story was written in one huge part, but here for ease of reading it will be divided into chapters. On my TG: - a short atmospheric animation on motives with a reference to the prod - - animated starter with an excerpt from the draft of the second part -