Potions

Tuesday morning was Charms. The professor who taught it, Professor Flitwick, was an extraordinarily tiny wizard. During class, he had to stand on a stack of books just to reach the lectern.

At the start of the first lesson, he took out the roll call sheet. When he read Harry's name, he let out an excited shriek and fell to the floor out of sight.

Every Wednesday evening, they used telescopes to observe the night sky, learning the names of different stars and the paths of the planets.

Three times a week, they were led by a squat, plump witch named Professor Sprout to the greenhouses behind the castle for Herbology, where they learned how to cultivate strange plants and fungi and understand their uses.

For some reason, this class made Tierra especially excited.

Harry noticed that after every lesson, Tierra chased after Professor Sprout to ask questions.

At first, Professor Sprout answered with a delighted smile, but gradually, Harry could sense a trace of helplessness in the kind, plump witch's voice.

The most tiresome class had to be History of Magic, the only subject taught by a ghost. Back when Professor Binns had fallen asleep by the fireplace in the staff room, he had gone to teach the next morning and forgotten to bring his body with him. That alone showed just how old Professor Binns truly was.

During class, Professor Binns droned on in a monotonous voice while the students scribbled down names and dates, even confusing the evil Morik with the odd Yurik.

Even Tierra was not as attentive in this subject as he was in the others. Sitting beside Harry, he kept reading a book titled Introduction to Alchemy, which made Harry's eyes swim.

The class was simply too boring. Harry had not brought any other books to read, and he could not understand the books Tierra had brought.

So Harry could only turn sideways, lie across his desk, and stare at Tierra.

Tierra was very pretty.

Harry had to admit it. At an age when none of the children cared about cleanliness and were either grubby or messy, Tierra's hair was always impeccably combed, and his face was as clean as a beautiful porcelain doll's.

He looked even more like one when he was reading, Harry thought.

Tierra usually had the corners of his mouth slightly raised in a faint smile.

But when he focused on reading, his face instantly became expressionless, even a little stiff.

Only then did Harry notice Tierra's strange habit when reading.

Besides fixing his eyes on the book, Tierra's hand seemed to trace every line and every word on the page.

"Since you're so bored..." Tierra suddenly looked up, pulled out a neatly folded stack of parchment from his bag, unfolded it, and laid it on Harry's desk.

"Why not memorize these Potions notes?" Tierra said. "They're some basic knowledge I summarized over a month during Summer Vacation. We have Potions on Friday, and since none of us had encountered magic before, we should work harder than the others."

"Bezoar? Cow stomach? What is this stuff?"

Although Tierra's notes were concise and neatly written, with every point on its own line, wide spaces between the lines, and different key points marked in different colors of ink,

Harry still felt dizzy looking at them.

There was some interesting knowledge, though. For instance, powdered asphodel root mixed with wormwood made a powerful sleeping potion called the Draught of Living Death.

Harry considered whether he should give his cousin Dudley a cup and tell him it was a fizzy drink.

Friday soon arrived. Harry and Ron finally found the way to the Great Hall for breakfast without getting lost on the moving staircases along the way.

"What classes do we have today?" Harry asked Ron as he added sugar to his porridge.

"Two Potions lessons with the Slytherin students," Ron said through a mouthful of greasy food. Tierra and Hermione were reading beside them. If Harry and Ron had questions about their schoolwork, they were happy to answer, but they would not answer questions like this.

"Snape is the head of Slytherin House. Everyone says he favors his own students. Now we'll see if it's true."

"I hope Professor McGonagall favors us too," Harry said. Professor McGonagall was the head of Gryffindor House, but she had still assigned them a mountain of homework yesterday.

Just then, the mail arrived.

Harry had gotten used to it by now. But on his first morning at breakfast, the sudden sight of over a hundred owls flying into the Great Hall had given him quite a fright.

The owls swooped around the tables until they found their owners, dropping letters or packages onto their laps.

Tierra silently stuffed the remaining half of his fried egg into his mouth, while Hermione had drained the glass of juice beside her as soon as she heard the first owl hoot, to keep the owls from knocking it over.

So far, Hedwig had not brought Harry anything.

Sometimes she flew in, pecked Harry's ear, begged for a small bite of toast, then flew back to the Owlery to sleep with the other school owls.

But this morning, she fluttered down between the jam dish and the sugar bowl, placing a note on Harry's plate. Harry immediately opened it.

It was written in a very messy hand:

Dear Harry,

I know you don't have classes on Friday afternoon. Could you come have tea with me around three o'clock? I'd really like to hear how your first week has been. Please send Hedwig back with an answer.

Hagrid

Harry borrowed Ron's quill and hurriedly wrote on the back of the note:

"Okay, I'd love to. See you soon."

Then he sent Hedwig off.

Fortunately, Harry had tea with Hagrid to look forward to, because Potions was the class he hated most since coming to Hogwarts.

At the start-of-term feast, Harry had already felt that Professor Snape disliked him, so he behaved especially properly in this class and arrived ten minutes early.

Potions was held in a dark classroom in the Hogwarts dungeon.

It was cold and damp, with rows of glass jars lining the walls, each containing rows of preserved animal specimens.

Like Professor Flitwick, Snape picked up the roll call sheet as soon as class began, and like Flitwick, he always paused when he came to Harry's name.

"Oh, yes," Snape said softly. "Harry Potter. Our new arrival. Such a famous figure."

Harry always felt there was something mocking and insincere in Snape's tone.

"You are here to learn the precise science and exact art of potion-making," Snape said. His voice was barely above a whisper, yet everyone could hear every word clearly.

Like Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape had an effortless authority that kept the classroom perfectly orderly.

"As there is no foolish wand-waving here, many of you will not believe this is magic. I do not expect you to truly understand the beauty of a cauldron simmering over a low flame, white smoke rising from it and fragrant scents drifting out. You will not truly understand the wondrous power of liquids that flow into people's veins, stirring their emotions and clouding their will... I can teach you how to improve your reputation, brew glory, and even stop death—but there is one condition: you must not be the sort of dunderhead fools I so often encounter."

After he finished his captivating opening speech, the entire class was silent.

Harry and Ron raised their eyebrows and exchanged glances.

Hermione Granger had nearly edged to the front of her seat, leaning forward as though eager to prove she was not a dunderhead fool.

Tierra seemed to be the only one unmoved, still as calm and expressionless as a porcelain doll.

"Potter!" Snape suddenly said. "What would I get if I added powdered asphodel root to an infusion of wormwood?"

Today's experiment was quite busy, but fortunately there was a lot of waiting involved, so here was the long-overdue update during the spare time~