Anonymous Gift

During the Christmas Holiday, the Anderson family won the lottery again, and with this windfall, they enjoyed a delicious France meal at an upscale restaurant.

Herb was used to Albert using the British National Lottery pounds for family meals, since family meals were infrequent anyway, and enjoying a meal in a fine restaurant was undoubtedly a pleasant experience.

To cover it up, Herb and Daisy would spend a little money each month to buy a few national lottery tickets; otherwise, winning every time would seem suspicious.

The day before school started, Albert went to King's Cross Station to catch the Hogwarts Express and return to school with the other students.

Inside the carriage, Lee Jordan couldn't help but complain about Snape giving Albert a Christmas present.

Albert had already seen the parchment in the package Snape sent; it was indeed a Potions recipe.

The jar of cockroaches in the package was real, probably farmed. It needed to be specially treated before use. You can buy treated cockroaches at the pharmacy. There were also other Potions, none of which were particularly precious, but they were all ingredients used in Potions recipes. Put them together with a few common herbs and you can make a potion called "Balderdash Potion". Drinking it will make people talk nonsense uncontrollably.

Merlin's beard! If anyone knew that these were the ingredients for the Balderdash Potion, no one would dare touch it.

To be honest, Albert was very impressed with Snape's expertise in Potions; he had actually managed to find such Potions recipe. It was perfectly reasonable for a Potions Professor to give his star pupil a Christmas gift related to Potions.

Was Albert Snape's protégé? In some ways, yes.

Moreover, the recipe for that Balderdash Potion was one that Snape himself had modified, making it a rather precious gift.

However, Albert guessed that Snape probably just wanted to give him a surprise.

After listening to Albert's analysis, Lee Jordan disagreed with Snape's perverse tastes and bluntly stated that if Albert ever dared to give him such disgusting stuff to drink, they would break off all ties.

Especially after seeing the recipe for the Balderdash Potion on the parchment, Lee Jordan said his fragile heart was severely damaged and he needed Albert's holiday homework to calm him down, so he planned to copy it... to learn from it.

The professors at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry always like to assign them a ton of homework during the holidays, which is really annoying.

Lee Jordan frantically tried to finish his holiday homework yesterday, but still couldn't complete it all, so he had to make an excuse to ask Albert for help.

After discussions, Albert finally agreed to give Lee Jordan the paper on the Shrinking Potion for reference.

Unfortunately, ever since the Yeti incident, life has become increasingly difficult for Albert's three friends. Snape couldn't really cause trouble for Albert, but he could occasionally cause trouble for Fred, George, and Lee Jordan. Snape didn't even need to do anything special; just keeping an eye on the three of them was enough to make them miserable.

Lee Jordan would be in big trouble if he didn't do his holiday homework, Snape was just looking for an excuse to cause them trouble.

"I bet Fred and George didn't finish it either." With Albert's help, Lee Jordan began haphazardly concocting his own paper on the Shrinking Potion.

In fact, Lee Jordan was right; the Weasley Twins had lost most of their focus on studying and were instead working on making jokes.

After the two returned to Hogwarts Castle in a night carriage, Fred and George unexpectedly appeared to welcome them, offering them some candy and asking to see Albert's holiday homework.

"You guys haven't made some weird stuff again, have you?!"

Lee Jordan eyed the candies warily, showing no intention of touching them; he hadn't forgotten how these two had tricked him.

"Candy made with Flobberworm Syrup will make you feel sad when you put it in your mouth."

Seeing that neither of them intended to try it, George simply tore open the candy wrapper and popped it into his mouth.

The Sadness Sweets worked very well. In no time, the smile on George's face disappeared, replaced by a sad expression. He even started sobbing softly and soon burst into tears.

The astonishing change in George's face left Lee Jordan speechless; he had never imagined that the Sadness Sweets would be so effective.

"We added a large amount of syrup produced by Glumbumble," George explained sadly, adding that it was a completely unprofitable business.

"Perhaps we can produce a small amount of Sadness Sweets, but never expect to mass-produce it, or we'll drain every Galleon from our pockets."

"It's a really sad thing." Albert chuckled and patted George on the shoulder; the candy was working much better than he had expected.

"Yes, that's roughly the situation."

Fred forced himself not to laugh and handed a candy to George. After George ate it, the sadness on George's face was immediately replaced by a smile, though the smile looked a little silly.

"The antidote is almost ready, but it's not enough to completely eliminate the effects of the drug."

Fred pointed to the silly grin on George's face and explained with a helpless expression, "That's a side effect of Alioto's Leaves. Of course, it won't be long, well, about ten seconds, before this slight side effect completely disappears."

"A good start!" Albert comforted the two of them for a few moments, then changed the subject. "Did you open the package without a sender's name?"

Fred and George looked at each other and shook their heads in unison, saying, "We think this kind of interesting thing should be shared with everyone, so we've left the unnamed package for now, and we'll open it together when you get back to school."

"Let's open it now. I'm also a little curious about which guy sent me this Christmas present anonymously," Albert muttered to himself. "I have a feeling it's not going to be anything good."

"We tested it with the Honesty Detector, and there was no reaction to the Dark Curse, but..." Fred hesitated for a moment, then added, "I think it's best to be careful when opening the package."

There's nothing we can do; given Snape's case, who knows what might be in the package?

They took the package to the Common Room, but since no one was willing to open it, Albert had to use a spell from a distance to open it.

Under everyone's watchful eyes, a yellowish-green liquid suddenly sprayed out the moment the package was opened, like a grenade exploding. The liquid splashed everywhere, and a pungent gasoline smell instantly filled the entire Common Room.

"Luckily I was far enough away, I almost got hit. That's really insidious!" Fred cursed under his breath, having almost been splashed by the unknown liquid.