My eyes are dry and sore, so I'm sorry. I should be able to write 2000 words by tomorrow, and I'll add the other 2000 tomorrow, as usual, in this chapter.
[And everyone, please rest assured, the machine should return to normal starting tomorrow.]
Slughorn stared at James's sizzling, green-smoking... unidentified leather item that could be called a shoe, his beard trembling like a toy spring in a toy shop owner's hand.
"So... Mr. Potter stepped into... the last pot of failed Swelling Solution?" He brought his nose close to the corroded pit and sniffed, his eyes rolling back from the pungent smell, unsure whether it was the smell of Potions or James Potter's signature pie.
"Obviously," Sirius said, playfully poking James Potter's already unsteady waist with his hand. "We tested the effects of the drug for you, Professor."
"Then Mr. Heath's bow and arrow..." Slughorn looked again at the arrow nailed to the ceiling.
"Misfire." Kayson snapped the bow in his hand. "Now it's chopsticks, Professor... well, I love knitting, that's definitely not a bowstring."
Slughorn opened his mouth, but swallowed his roar and turned it into a gurgling sound, "Boo hoo hoo... each deduct ten! Now! Turn to page 7 of the Magical Drafts and Potions, we'll learn Cure for Boils, it's the simplest one!" He flicked his robe to avoid the bubbling crater on the ground and said in a low voice.
Professor Slughorn's lectures were very fast-paced, and soon it was time for practical exercises.
In the smoke from boiling the Cure for Boils, Lily's crucible was the first to emit a mist with a pearly sheen.
"Perfect! Miss Evans!" Slughorn's chubby face squeezed into the steam. "The timing of crushing the mint leaves is an art! Gryffindor masterpiece!"
Snape wasn't about to be outdone. He wasn't even looking at the book; his left hand sliced through the snake's fangs with such speed that it was almost a blur. To Kayson, watching from the side, it looked like he wasn't slicing snake fangs, but rather some random part from Sirius or James Potter.
His right hand controlled the flame, keeping the blue flame at the bottom of the cauldron as steady as if it had solidified. When the potion turned a translucent pale green, Slughorn never hesitated to praise it, " Merlin! Mr. Snape! This control of the fire... you were born to soak in Potions! Ravenclaw, you're amazing!"
When it was Kayson's turn, Slughorn's smile froze a little. Kayson was trying to use the pixelated glass rod as a condenser, but perhaps Kayson was too young, and the glass rod wasn't strong enough yet. It melted when heated and dripped into the crucible, instantly solidifying the pot of liquid into a bubbling, asphalt-like substance.
"Uh...very creative, Mr. Heath!" Slughorn poked the hard ointment with his dagger, the tip snapping off with a snap. He glanced at Kayson, recalling how Heath had talked about Kayson non-stop at lunch, making everyone think Kayson was Heath's son...
etc...
Heath was never married, but he was quite the ladies' man at Hogwarts, while Kayson Heath came from Muggle orphanage...
Slughorn pondered the two things together... and immediately forced an even brighter smile, "Failure is the foundation of success, oh right, the cornerstone! Hufflepuff's encouragement award!"
As soon as the bell rang, Slughorn pounced on Kayson and shoved a can of Cockroach Clusters into his hands. "Take this to Professor Thorne! Just say... just say I praised you for having the air of an alchemist!" He turned and ran off faster than the Flash.
Snape looked at the wriggling candy jar with some curiosity. "Alchemist's Style? Isn't that an elective course? We can only take it in our third year."
Lily also asked Yu, "And when did you meet Professor Heath?"
"Last night was my first time going out at night, and I ran into him once. I just ran into him once."
"And what about this can of croaker frog?" Snape then asked.
"... Time for lunch." Kayson said, turning to leave the classroom, and Snape followed him out.
Lily stayed where she was, poking at Kayson's solidified crucible, dipping her fingertip in the black solid and smelling it. "Actually... it would make good shoe polish?"
He pried the whole piece out, stuffed it into a metal box, and carried it away in his pocket.
The three of them first filled their respective college dining tables with enough food, then found another secluded corner and sat down to eat.
As for why it wasn't the stairwell at noon...
Because of Kayson's last careless remark, he offended Myrtle. If he goes over now, he might get another water-splashing incident.
Actually, splashing a little water isn't a big deal; at worst, you can use a sponge to attack.
But the problem is they're eating right now.
The lunchboxes will be filled with toilet water.
How to eat it?
Cosplaying as Lao Ba?
In the Great Hall, Slughorn was looking at Heath when he coughed softly.
"Hey, Heath."
Heath, who was eating, turned to look at him. "What's wrong?"
"I was in class just now, a first-year student class, and I saw that student named Kayson Heath," Slughorn said slowly.
"Hmm, how is he?" Heath asked, intrigued.
" His Potions talent... has a very abstract style. I think he's more suited to alchemy. He can refine Cure for Boils into petroleum, which I think is a very rare talent. What do you think?"
"At that time, I directly pointed him in the right direction. I gave him a bucket of Cockroach Clusters and said, 'You are more suited to learning alchemy. Now, take this bucket of Cockroach Clusters and go to Thorne Heath to become his apprentice.'"
Heath listened with beaming eyes. "Oh my! Slughorn, I knew you were so good to me when I was in school, and now that we're colleagues, you're still so good to me. You're practically my father! How about this, after dinner, shall we go to the Forbidden Forest? How about we become sworn brothers?"
Slughorn shook his head. "No, no, I'm old enough to be your grandfather, how can we be brothers? Anyway, don't go out wandering around lately, who knows when Kayson will come looking for you with Cockroach Clusters to become his apprentice? Don't let him lose track of you."
Heath nodded. "No problem, no problem."
Meanwhile...
In a corner of a corridor in the upper floors of Hogwarts, Kayson and his two companions simultaneously burped...
The last acrylic cockroach was also wiped out by them.
If you say it's a meal... then it's a meal!
Kayson used a pixelated stick to pick at the cockroach leg scraps stuck between his teeth, while Snape tapped the empty can upside down on the windowsill. "If Professor Slughorn knew that his gift, which he had offered to us, had been eaten by us, would he cry himself to death in the Potions storeroom?"
"No way," Kayson snapped the glass rod in half, the broken end melting into a tiny hook for picking his ear. "At most, Filch can mop the floor for a couple more days. If he's crying himself unconscious, someone has to drag him away, right?"
Lily stuffed the last piece of mashed potato into her mouth and mumbled, "Where to now? The dorm or...?"
"How did you spend your night?" Kayson asked.
"Sleep, what else can we do? Look at the stars?" Lily tilted her head and said.
"You can even go out at night!" Kayson and Snape exclaimed in unison.
One was simply too restless to sit still, while the other wanted to find a clean and comfortable place without Myrtle as their dining room after sex.
After all, sitting on the steps is freezing cold.
late at night...
The fireplace in the Alchemy office crackled and popped.
Heath rearranged the pile of metal parts on the table for the twelfth time—on the left was a parchment scroll depicting the flesh-and-blood mech concept, on the right stood a Winky brass crucible, and in the middle was a perfectly square tabletop, waiting to hold the Cockroach Clusters jar as a gift for apprenticeship.
"Is this Slughorn reliable or not...?" He twirled a lock of his hair around his finger, the bubbling purple liquid in the cauldron making his face look pale. "It's curfew! Shouldn't the little brat be crawling around by now?"
He sprang up abruptly, pressing his ear against the oak door. The corridor was as quiet as if it had been Muffliato. Only the image of a Fat Friar in a portrait seemed to be grinding his teeth.
"Tsk!" Heath kicked the doorframe, sending a dust cloud falling from the ceiling. "Does this brat even know how to respect his teacher? Don't you know you should seize the opportunity to become an apprentice while it's still fresh in your mind!"
On the other side.
In the abandoned armor display room on the fifth floor, Kayson was putting a pixelated night vision goggle made of fluorite and green glass onto Snape's head. "See that? All green! Just like the look in Slughorn's eyes when he saw you brewing medicine!"
Snape ripped off his glasses. "I'd rather be blind, and this thing is useless anyway. Everything looks green when I wear it." The frame pressed a square mark onto his bald head.
Lily crouched in the corner, examining a set of rusty chainmail. "You guys think... why wizards wear armor? And could you melt this thing down and make a sword?"
"Brother, you can do it, and shouldn't you be wondering why wizards need something like swords?" Kayson said, and with a clang, he released a square furnace.
Then Kayson stuffed the rusty chainmail into the room, placed coal on the ground, and the dim old storage room became warm and lit.
"What is this?" Snape asked.
"The furnace, huh? Lily asked if we could melt down chainmail to make a sword, and I thought... of course we could." Kayson shrugged, and soon two Iron Ingot were smelted out.
Then another square Crafting Table was put out, with two Iron Ingot and a wooden stick, and a clang.
"Here you go." Kayson handed the Winky Iron Sword to Lily.
"Wow, this thing is so cool! I'm going to put it by my bedside!" Lily exclaimed excitedly, waving the Iron Sword.
"But speaking of which, that chainmail should be an antique, right... If we melt it down and make it into a sword, wouldn't there be some minor issues?" Snape suddenly asked.
"Yes, I'm also curious about this question." Filch's strong voice came from afar.
The three of them turned their heads in unison. At the end of the corridor, the warden Filch's oil lamp flickered, and Mrs. Norris's green eyes flashed in the shadows.
"Holy crap? What do we do now?" Lily asked in a low voice, bewildered. "Kill him?"
"Run!" Kayson grabbed one of them with each hand, and the three of them darted behind an empty suit of armor. Through the gaps in the metal, six eyes slowly approached, watching the oil lamp, searching the entire storage room again and again.
"Could it be some kind of invisibility magic? To possess such talent, yet not use it, but instead wander at night... Unforgivable!" Filch picked up a stick from the ground and began to wield it in the entire storage room with a posture of drawing a sword and looking around in bewilderment.
The three people hiding behind the armor kept lowering their voices and moved towards the door, creating an atmosphere of life-or-death crisis as they waited for the monster to slowly move away.
Suddenly, Snape lowered his voice. "When I passed that door covered in rivets just now... was there any light there?"
His meaning was very clear: if they tried to turn back, they would easily be discovered by the people inside.
"The alchemy office," Lily gasped, "Wafted a yellow light from under the door, and there was a... burnt licorice smell coming from it?"
Kayson peeked out from under his armor. "Whatever, we can't expect Slughorn to be squatting there waiting to Cockroach Clusters, can we?"
"Let's charge! No one in any of those offices might be able to spot us. If we just stay here, Filch will definitely find us!"
Inside the office, with his ear pressed against the door, Heath suddenly sneezed with a tremendous force.
Achoo!
The door vibrated and hummed, while the Goblin tooth badges hanging on the wall jingled and bounced around.
He rubbed his nose and muttered, "Who's cursing me?"
Outside in the hallway, three dark figures were stealthily crawling through the gleaming crack in the door.
Snape was startled by the sneeze and stepped on the hem of Lily's robe.
Sizzle!
The sound of tearing fabric exploded like firecrackers in the silence.
The room fell into a deathly silence.
The three people outside the door stood frozen like stone statues.
A few seconds later, Heath's ecstatic roar echoed from the office:
"They're here! They've finally come! The door's unlocked! Push it in by itself!"
Kayson stared at the shadows swaying wildly under the door crack, then grabbed Lily, who was still feeling sorry for her robes, and Snape, whose pupils were shaking.
"Get out of here when the wind gets strong!"
Three pairs of feet pounded on the stairs, running away faster than Niffler would spot gold Galleons.
Heath opened the door from inside.
The corridor was empty, with only a torn corner of a robe lying on the floor in front of me, before it was blown away by the wind.
He bent down and picked it up. The fabric was still stained with suspicious green slime and... the remains of a chocolate cockroach?
The Alchemy Professor, clutching the tattered cloth, slowly raised his head.
From the shadows on the ceiling, one could almost hear the suppressed chuckles of someone, or perhaps three little rascals.
"**" Heath uttered the two words through gritted teeth, and a puff of smoke rose from the cloth in his hand.
"I waited all night... but it didn't work out!"
[Requesting a gift]
[Submission area]
[Oh, right, there's another really fitting picture, the one of the trio where Kayson is messing around. I'll save that picture for when I'm writing that plot point!]
Finally found the image insertion window! [Cosplaying a corpse in a mass grave]