Precision Minefield

Potions Class continued under an atmosphere of extreme oppression and tension. Professor Snape moved silently through the classroom like a volcano that could erupt at any moment. Wherever he went, the students held their breath, terrified that the slightest mistake might ignite the professor's wrath.

Silas, too, unusually reined himself in and obediently brewed his Scabbers Potion according to the prescribed steps. Although countless ideas for optimizing the process and improving the potion's effectiveness filled his mind, he wisely chose the most standard, least error-prone method—after all, he had no desire to provoke the Potions professor, who was already on the verge of losing control.

At last, class was nearly over. The students began bottling their finished potions and bringing them to Professor Snape for grading.

When it was Silas's turn, he carefully placed a bottle of Scabbers Potion before Snape. Its color and clarity were both flawless. Silas thought he had done an impeccable job this time, perhaps even slightly better than the textbook standard sample.

Snape picked up the bottle, examined it closely against the dim light, then brought his long nose near the opening to smell it. The movement was extremely slight, as though he feared being overwhelmed by the scent of his own hair. His face revealed nothing, but a faint flicker of surprise seemed to pass through his eyes—the quality of this potion was unexpectedly high.

Yet that surprise was instantly replaced by his pent-up anger and an obsession that he absolutely had to crush this boy's arrogance. He set down the bottle and, in his distinctive icy tone capable of reducing someone to dust, delivered his merciless assessment:

"T. Troll—the worst grade. Mr. Kirill, your work was full of pointless caution and rigidity, like a troll trying to embroider with a club. No flair, no creativity. Ravenclaw loses another five points for wasting such standard ingredients only to produce such mediocre results."

The grade and the comment were clearly unfair, nothing more than spite driven by personal emotion. Several nearby students who had heard the evaluation looked utterly incredulous. That potion had clearly looked excellent.

Silas froze for a moment when he heard the assessment, then his face showed understanding—and a trace of displeasure. Rather than lowering his head and silently enduring it like the other students, he did something no one expected.

He loudly and theatrically sniffed, as though carefully detecting some scent in the air. Then he swiftly raised his hand and tightly pinched his nose between two fingers. His brow knotted, and his face took on an expression of intense disgust, as though he had caught the smell of something unbearably foul.

The timing and target of his gesture were far too obvious—Professor Snape had just finished criticizing him and was standing so close! It was practically a silent protest through action.

"You—!" Professor Snape's face instantly changed from ashen to liver-colored. His grip around his wand tightened sharply, his knuckles turning white. A violent surge of magic nearly burst uncontrollably from him! In that instant, several Unforgivable Curses even flashed through his mind!

The classroom fell deathly silent. Everyone was terrified out of their wits, forgetting even to breathe. Justin Finch-Fletchley had already shut his eyes in despair, preparing himself for Professor Snape's thunderous rage—perhaps even a teacher-student duel right there in the classroom.

Yet Snape was Snape, after all. At the last moment, his formidable self-control forcibly suppressed the fury and dark curses that were about to erupt. He took a deep, violent breath, making him look even more like an inflated bat, then forced out a sentence through clenched teeth in a nearly hoarse voice filled with danger pushed to its limit:

"Get... out..."

Silas looked as though he had been granted a pardon—or perhaps he simply had not realized he had just walked past death's door. He immediately released his nose, returned to a normal expression, and even gave a polite nod. "Yes, Professor."

Then he turned and slipped out of the dungeon classroom with light footsteps—though to everyone else, it looked more like a desperate flight for his life—as if some monstrous flood or beast were chasing him from behind.

The moment he left, the frozen air in the classroom seemed to begin flowing again. Snape stood where he was, his chest heaving several times before he swept his cold gaze across the remaining students, who were silent as cicadas in winter. "Next!" he hissed.

That silent protest and swift escape seemed to drain the last trace of oxygen from the dungeon classroom. The remaining students, especially the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws who had yet to be graded, had gone pale as death and barely dared breathe. They felt as though they were standing at the edge of an erupting volcano, while Professor Snape was that volcano, suppressing a towering fury within.

The grading that followed turned into a one-sided, cold-blooded slaughter.

Professor Snape clearly poured all his anger into the grading. He barely inspected the potions anymore. He merely swept each trembling student holding out a bottle with an icy glance, then spoke one letter after another in that emotionless voice, like a funeral bell:

"T."—to a Hufflepuff girl whose potion was merely a little too dark.

"T."—to a Ravenclaw boy whose potion's clarity was nearly perfect.

"T."—another Hufflepuff.

"T."

"T."

"T..."

Like a cold, mechanical recording, he repeated the lowest possible grade over and over. Every "T" landed like a heavy hammer on the students' hearts. The Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw hourglasses, though still empty for now, seemed as if they could already hear the frantic rustling of points being deducted.

The badgers and eagles felt like dying. They wanted to cry but had no tears left, their hearts filled with despair and grievance. They knew this was not because they had done poorly; they had simply been dragged down by that audacious Silas! They bitterly regretted attending Potions Class today, and regretted even more being assigned to the same class as Silas.

Justin Finch-Fletchley handed over his bottle as though he were about to cry. Snape did not even look at it before forcing out a single word through his teeth: "T."

Justin nearly fainted on the spot.

The entire grading process ended beneath an atmosphere of extreme oppression and terror. When Snape finally announced, "Class dismissed," in a voice cold enough to freeze someone to death, the students felt as though they had been pardoned. They practically crawled and stumbled out of the suffocating dungeon classroom, as though Dementors were pursuing them from behind.

As for Snape, he stood alone in the empty classroom, thick with the strange stench of various potions, his face dark enough to drip water. He stared fixedly at the workstation where Silas had just stood, his black robes stirring without wind. He knew his grading today had been unfair, but he did not care. All he could think about now was how, in the next Potions Class and the one after that, he would make that ignorant brat... pay the true price.

"Silas Cyril..." he murmured the name, the chill in his voice more piercing than the coldest dungeon.

This Potions Class was destined to become the eternal nightmare beginning for Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw students of the class of 1991. And Silas, the culprit behind it all, was probably lounging somewhere in the castle under the sun, or planning to cook something tasty in his cauldron again... completely unaware that he had become a "jinx" in the eyes of first-years from two houses.