You Can Add More Money

Chapter 33: "We Can Add More Money!"

During Potions class on Friday morning, Snape relentlessly taunted Charles, seeming quite pleased with himself.

The class proceeded without incident. After lunch, Charles returned to the Potions classroom to find Snape.

Since some things were inconvenient to discuss in class, Snape immediately began to mock Charles when he showed up: "Heh heh, you were wrong. Your Divination failed."

Charles scratched his head and tentatively asked, "Do you wish for my Divination to succeed?"

Snape shot him a fierce glare and continued fiddling with cauldrons behind the crowded long table, with various tools for processing medicinal ingredients nearby.

Charles pressed on, "Professor, do you happen to have a source for Unicorn Explosive Fluid?"

Snape's expression instantly turned serious. Unicorns were magical beasts from Africa, and the liquid secreted from their horns was explosive. This explosive fluid was quite dangerous.

At the same time, the explosive fluid was a valuable ingredient, and not cheap.

The sign of Hogwarts' Potions professor shone brightly, naturally attracting many people who sought Snape to brew potions for them.

Snape's potions were priced at least twenty percent higher than comparable products on the market. Customers paid for peace of mind; if anything went wrong, Snape could run, but Hogwarts couldn't.

Therefore, Charles believed Snape must know the ingredient merchants. Asking him for help would cut out the middleman's profit. More importantly, Snape could run, but Hogwarts couldn't, so he wouldn't have to worry about Snape absconding with the money.

"What?" Snape asked sternly, "You want your Divination to succeed?"

Charles blinked. He quickly understood that Snape thought he intended to use his own diligent hands to make the Divination succeed.

He certainly wasn't planning to blow up Snape's house. That could wait for later. There were more important things now. He explained the matter of helping the Centaurs eliminate the Acromantulas.

Snape was aware of this. A portion of the unicorn tail hair and Acromantula venom Charles had brought back earlier had ended up in his hands.

The Forbidden Forest held many treasures, and Snape himself often went to collect them. But why collect them himself when it was more convenient to ask the Centaurs?

So, he wrote a list on parchment and handed it to Charles: "Go ask the Centaurs if they have these things. I'll contact them about the Unicorn Explosive Fluid. How much do you want?"

Charles replied, "I want 10 gallons..."

"Idiot!" Snape roared. "Do you want to blow up Hogwarts?"

Ten gallons was equivalent to about 45 liters. A bottle of explosive fluid the size of a bottle of eucalyptus oil could blow up a small house. So much of it exploding within the castle would be no laughing matter.

Snape assumed he would need at most 10 ounces, about 300 milliliters.

Charles said with difficulty, "But there are too many Acromantulas. A single nest has over a hundred spiders. To eliminate them, we have to start by destroying the nest, which requires a lot of explosive fluid."

Just as Voldemort had said, he could handle Acromantulas one-on-one, and even a few at a time wasn't a problem. But to wage war against the entire species, he needed external help.

Snape shook his head, mockingly saying, "Can you concoct the explosive fluid to make it safer? Do you think the Headmaster would allow you to store so much explosive fluid in the castle?"

Charles was stumped. This was clearly not content from the first-year Potions textbook, and the Headmaster would likely not agree to store large quantities of flammable and explosive hazardous materials in the castle.

Setting aside the issue of hazardous materials for now, Charles asked Snape very seriously, "Professor, how much would it cost to hire you to concoct the explosive fluid?"

The classroom door opened by itself. Charles flew out by himself.

After getting up, he shouted through the closed door, "We can add more money!"

A few seconds later, the door opened.

It was like in Gotham City; not everyone was as rich as Wayne. The Joker had to buy groceries and cook dinner for his parents every day after fighting Batman.

Of course, all this had to wait until Dumbledore finished selling the materials, which would likely take some time.

The two talked for a while but couldn't reach an agreement. Snape also prepared the equipment on the long table. The cauldron had water, and the fire was lit. He looked ready to do something.

Snape stopped talking and began to prepare the potion.

Charles remained silent, quite curious, and watched quietly from the side.

Snape didn't chase him away and quietly went about his business.

He placed a small basket of washed comfrey on the cutting board, picked up a knife, and quickly cut it into small pieces, making Charles feel a bit dazed, as if he were in Hogwarts School of Culinary Arts.

The cut comfrey was placed into a large distillation flask, water was added, the stopper was sealed, and it was placed on a stand to be heated. Steam flowed through a tube and passed over a condenser filled with ice and water, finally flowing into a separatory funnel.

Charles was initially a bit curious about the muggle-like equipment used to produce comfrey oil. But then he thought about the connection between chemistry and alchemy, and it might have been introduced by a wizard parent involved in chemistry. It wasn't impossible for wizards to improve ordinary tools.

What was produced at this stage was still comfrey oil; it needed to be purified again to become the comfrey essence used for healing on the market.

Snape, with a blank expression, asked Charles after connecting the tubes, "Did you understand?"

Charles immediately replied, "I understood. It's written in the textbook."

First-year students would learn how to extract comfrey essence, but that was for the second half of the academic year, after their comfrey grown in the greenhouses had matured somewhat, enabling a collaboration between Potions and Herbology.

What was crucial was that the results of this collaborative activity would count towards the final grades in both subjects.

Therefore, Charles had studied the relevant content extensively and felt that, apart from the final purification step, it wasn't very difficult.

Snape pointed to several other distillation setups nearby and took out several baskets of herbs for him, seemingly treating him as free labor.

Charles recognized them all. The purple flowers of the Mandrake had anesthetic effects. The essence extracted from the yellow Marigold flowers could be used as an antidote. The third was fresh nettle leaves; they had used dried nettle in their first Potions class.

As he began to get busy, Snape took a cage from under the table.

This cage had been there that morning. There was some movement inside, but it was covered with a cloth, so no one knew what it was.

Now Charles knew. Inside was a creature the size of a cat, pale pink, with tentacles covering its back.

"Murtlap?" he asked curiously.

But Snape ignored him, concentrating entirely on his work.

Charles didn't bother him anymore. The sap from the Murtlap's tentacles, after being filtered and pickled, could be used to make a potion for healing wounds and relieving pain. If bitten by a Murtlap, one would be poisoned, leading to mild nausea or, in severe cases, fiery anal explosions.

Snape, skilled and bold, didn't wear gloves. If something went wrong, Charles felt that while he might witness a rare spectacle, he'd definitely be silenced.

In that state of social torture, the Avada Kedavra cast to silence someone would likely be unstoppable even if Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and Voldemort were tied together.

Then Snape cast a Stupefy on the Murtlap, gave it a bit of potion to euthanize it, and only then proceeded to the next step.

Charles multitasked, ensuring the water in several distillation flasks didn't boil dry while intently watching Snape extract the Murtlap tentacle sap.

During this time, a house-elf brought food, and Charles realized it was already mealtime.

In the end, Snape mixed the Murtlap sap with several essential oils, then had Charles fetch some more ingredients to add. Finally, they obtained a potion that glowed with its own SSR-level special effects.

"A common healing potion," Snape said calmly. "St. Mungo's Hospital commissioned me to make it. It can heal wounds from certain dark curses."

Charles sighed, "This is far from common!"

Wounds from dark curses were difficult to heal due to magical influence. The method to cure each dark curse differed. A potion that could counter several dark curses simultaneously would undoubtedly be expensive.

Snape suddenly sneered at him, "There's a reason I charge so much."

Charles's mouth twitched, and he gave Snape a thumbs-up with his right hand.

Damn, we're both cunning old foxes.

Now he understood why Snape hadn't kicked him out. It was all preparation for the price negotiation that had just happened, and he had foolishly helped.

Finally, the fever broke.