The Potions Teacher (Part One)

After Charms class, on the way to the Great Hall, Jon kept thinking about this.

Wizards in the world of Harry Potter were not, in essence, scholarly mages like those in the D&D setting. They were sorcerers born with the ability to cast spells... It was the same old problem: Wizards' spellcasting depended on their emotions!

This was Jon Hart's greatest flaw as a wizard.

As a scholar with more than ten years of research experience, a fine young man who had received over twenty years of modern education, and a mature man with a psychological age approaching forty... Rational thought had long since taken root in him. That was a fact difficult to change!

So Jon had no way of freely changing his emotions and letting them rule his mind like his classmates, whose thoughts were as blank as sheets of paper.

Unless a powerful wizard cast a Memory Charm on him...

But that was something he would never allow!

Eighty to ninety percent of magic—including, but not limited to, Transfiguration, Charms, Dark magic and its defenses—depended heavily on a wizard's emotions. Jon suspected that, in those areas, he would need to expend several times more effort than others to achieve the same results.

Fortunately, his outstanding memory could narrow that gap somewhat and keep him from falling too far behind.

The remaining ten to twenty percent of magic did not depend on emotions. Those seemingly rigid spells were Jon's advantage.

For example, the Petrifying Spell. If a qualified Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher saw Jon Hart use it... they would probably conclude that Mr. Hart's mastery and understanding of the Petrifying Spell surpassed even that of most sixth- and seventh-year students.

Jon suddenly remembered that, during yesterday's Sorting Ceremony, the Sorting Hat had wanted to place him in Gryffindor rather than Ravenclaw...

At first, he had thought the Sorting Hat had made a mistake. But the real reason was that he lacked sufficient talent within the conventional scope of wizardry, and did not have the qualifications to become a true "Ravenclaw."

What a discouraging fact!

At lunch.

Eloise Midgen and Zacharias Smith came over... Like Jon, they were both first-year Hufflepuff students.

Eloise was a girl with a face full of acne, the sort who made people instinctively want to keep their distance. Zacharias was a tall, skinny boy with an upturned nose.

"Jon, you were amazing in Transfiguration class! You were the only Hufflepuff student who made your match change..." Eloise said enviously.

"Uh... I just read the book a few more times..." Jon pursed his lips.

"Professor McGonagall is way too biased... Why did she only give Ginny Weasley points and not you?" Zacharias shouted, opening his large mouth.

Jon quickly gestured for him to be quiet, then changed the subject... Fortunately, he did not attract the attention of the other students.

Zacharias grabbed a drumstick and stuffed it into his mouth. "By the way, do you know Ron Weasley? Harry Potter's little sidekick!"

"Uh... sidekick... What happened to him?"

"This morning at breakfast, his mother sent him a Howler. Hahaha, we nearly died laughing."

"So Weasley and Harry Potter came to school in a flying car yesterday!" Eloise whispered. "That sounds pretty cool..."

Jon ate as he listened to his two classmates bragging.

"By the way, what class do we have this afternoon?" Jon asked casually as he set down his utensils.

"Herbology, with Ravenclaw. Professor Sprout is teaching us... She's the head of Hufflepuff House, but I haven't met her yet!" Zacharias said, his mouth stuffed full of food and his words somewhat unclear.

Eloise added, "Hannah told me Professor Sprout is really nice to us..."

At two o'clock in the afternoon, Jon left the castle, crossed the vegetable patch, and arrived at the Hogwarts Greenhouse.

Professor Sprout had a great many bandages wrapped around her arms. At the same time, Jon saw from afar that many branches of the Whomping Willow in the distance had been tightly bound in bandages.

"Two naughty students injured a very precious Whomping Willow. I spent the entire morning treating it!" Professor Sprout's voice was gentle. She was a short, plump witch in patched clothes covered in dirt.

"I hope none of you do anything like that in the future!"

"All right... Follow me to Greenhouse One!" She led the way, with the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw first-years following behind her.

Jon did not see Mandrakes as he had imagined... Perhaps those plants were somewhat dangerous and unsuitable for first-year students like them.

Professor Sprout introduced them to eighteen kinds of mushrooms. Jon took only fifteen minutes to identify every one of them and successfully sort them into two categories: poisonous and non-poisonous.

"Well done, Mr. Hart!" Professor Sprout praised him with a beaming smile and awarded Hufflepuff five points.

At the end of class, she even gave Jon a precious Matsutake specimen. This fungus had considerable value in Potions.

The final class of the first day of term gave Jon a bit of trouble.

That final class was Professor Severus Snape's Potions class, shared by Hufflepuff and Slytherin.

Because he had followed Professor Sprout to collect the Matsutake specimen and then put it in the Hufflepuff common room, he had wasted quite a bit of time... By the time he hurried to the Potions classroom, he was already three minutes late.

"...Even stop death—but there must be one condition: you must not be the sort of dunderheads I so often encounter." Snape's distinctive greasy voice came from inside the door.

"I'm sorry, Professor!" Jon pushed the door open despite himself.

"Jon Hart?" Snape glanced at the roll in his hand, then gave him a cold look.

Snape's eyes were cold and hollow, reminding one of two pitch-black tunnels.

"Yes, Professor." Jon nodded.

"Late for the very first Potions class of term. I believe this is the first time I have seen such a thing in more than ten years of teaching!" Snape said contemptuously. "Even Mr. Potter, who has always taken pride in breaking school rules, has never done anything like this!"