December cloaked Hogwarts in a blanket of silver. The Black Lake had frozen solid, and the snow in the courtyard was deep enough to cover one's ankles. With Christmas holiday approaching, the castle was once again filled with festive cheer and the clamor of parting. Most students eagerly discussed their holiday plans, looking forward to reuniting with their families.
Snape showed no reaction to any of it. He still wore that well-fitted new black robe and kept to himself, as though the joy around him existed in a world entirely separate from his own. Through the contract, Lin Yanqing could clearly sense that as the holiday drew nearer, the emotional undertone coming from Spinner's End grew increasingly gloomy and cold, even carrying a barely perceptible... tension beyond the usual. It was a state of preparation, mixed with disgust and endurance, for facing a known source of pain.
Lin Yanqing also chose to remain at school. The "distant relatives" arranged by the system had no real familial affection to speak of, and staying at Hogwarts made it easier for him to study magic and deal with any "necessary" contact that might arise.
During the final Potions class before the holiday, Professor Slughorn assigned an interesting holiday task—independent study. He encouraged the students to try brewing a potion they had learned that term and were personally interested in, recording the process and their insights for a presentation at the start of the next term.
"Use your creativity, children!" Slughorn said with a genial smile, his belly sticking out. "Perhaps the inspiration of the next Potions master will be born during this Christmas holiday!"
The students buzzed with discussion, most choosing relatively simple potions with easily obtainable ingredients. Lin Yanqing noticed that when Snape heard the assignment requirements, an exceptionally bright glint flashed through his black eyes. It was the excitement of a researcher encountering a challenge, pure and fleeting, but Lin Yanqing caught it clearly through the contract.
He could almost immediately guess that Snape would never be satisfied with brewing an ordinary boil cure or invigorating potion. He would certainly choose something complicated, obscure, perhaps even somewhat dangerous.
Sure enough, over the following days, Lin Yanqing could continuously sense Snape's prolonged, intensely focused state of thought, as well as the faint irritation that occasionally arose whenever his deductions hit a bottleneck. He seemed to be consulting vast amounts of material, often lingering at the edge of the library's Restricted Section, with the books piled before him growing ever thicker and more obscure.
One evening, while Lin Yanqing was researching ancient protective magic in a secluded corner of the library, he happened to glimpse Snape staring at an open, weighty tome with a strange dark-red cover. His brows were tightly furrowed, his fingers unconsciously tapping against the tabletop, and a dense air of confusion surrounded him.
Almost at the same moment, a clear fragment of thought passed through the contract—a problem concerning how to preserve the spore activity of a rare fungus that bloomed beneath moonlight. Snape had encountered a technical bottleneck. The potion he was researching seemed to require the spores of an exceptionally delicate and difficult-to-handle magical fungus.
Lin Yanqing's heart stirred. He recalled seeing a related record while leafing through a notebook on the distribution of rare magical plants. It had mentioned that pretreating such spores with a solution mixed from unicorn hair ash and morning dew could greatly stabilize their activity.
This was an opportunity to provide information. But after the earlier note incident in History of Magic, he knew that directly giving Snape the answer would only provoke a stronger backlash. What Snape needed was "inspiration," not "charity."
After pondering for a moment, he did not write down the exact formula. Instead, he went to the section containing books on magical biology and found a somewhat worn copy of <Compendium of Rare Magical Fungi and Preliminary Study of Their Properties>, turning to the page that recorded that moonlight fungus. He made no marks. He simply left the book open on an empty shelf near where Snape usually sat, in a conspicuous spot that did not seem overly deliberate.
Then he left with his own books in his arms.
When Lin Yanqing returned to the library the next day, he found that the Compendium of Rare Magical Fungi was gone. Through the contract, he could feel that Snape's confusion had dissipated, replaced by a more focused and invested state of research after a sudden realization. He could even faintly sense an extremely slight, almost satisfied emotional ripple.
He had found the answer. And he did not feel offended by having been "helped," because this time, he had "discovered" the solution himself.
Christmas holiday officially began, and the castle instantly became empty, with only a few dozen students remaining. Quiet replaced the usual bustle, and even the portraits in the corridors seemed to be dozing off.
In this tranquil atmosphere, the silent "collaboration" between Lin Yanqing and Snape seemed to flow more smoothly. Snape had clearly thrown himself into developing that complicated potion. Lin Yanqing could often feel the fatigue caused by prolonged magical manipulation from the other side, as well as the brief but genuine excitement whenever he successfully broke through a minor step.
However, under the calm surface, dark currents stirred.
Late at night, two days before Christmas, Lin Yanqing was jolted awake by the System Cub's urgent alarm in his mind.
"Warning! Detected a sharp instability in the bound target's magical output! Accompanied by a mild mental resistance response! (;?Д?i|!)"
Lin Yanqing was instantly awake, his heart tightening. He immediately focused his mind on sensing the other end of the contract. Sure enough, Snape's magic churned like boiling water, fluctuating violently and carrying a trace of painful resistance, as though he were forcibly suppressing something—or perhaps resisting some backlash caused by the potion itself.
What potion was he making?
There was no time to hesitate. Lin Yanqing immediately sat up in bed and tried to steadily and continuously send the mental state of "absolute calm" and "emotional detachment" that he entered during deep meditation through the contractual bond. This was not comfort, but the provision of a pure "mental anchor" to help the other person resist the inner chaos.
He could feel a powerful rejection coming from Snape at first, trying to refuse this outside interference. But the magical rampage seemed to have exceeded his ability to control it alone. After more than ten seconds of deadlock, that rejection gradually weakened. Snape seemed to have compromised and began passively—perhaps even unconsciously—drawing in the cold "sense of order" Lin Yanqing was transmitting.
Like boiling water restrained by an invisible dam, the rampaging magic began to return to control slowly and with difficulty.
The entire process lasted nearly half an hour. By the time Snape's magic finally settled completely, Lin Yanqing felt mentally drained as well, as though he had just endured an intense tug-of-war.
What came through the other end of the contract was profound exhaustion and a silence like someone who had narrowly escaped death. There was no thanks, no communication.
But the next day, Lin Yanqing found a small crystal vial outside the door to his dormitory. It contained several ounces of potion that gleamed with a soft silver radiance like liquid moonlight. Beneath the vial was a tiny, thin slip of paper bearing only two words, the ink slightly blurred as though they had been written with force:
"Sedative. External use."
Lin Yanqing picked up the crystal vial and could feel the powerful yet gentle calming magic contained within. This was clearly the finished potion Snape had risked making the previous night, perhaps some highly effective mental tranquilizer or a remedy for magical burns.
He did not say, "Thank you for your help," nor did he explain the potion's exact purpose.
He had merely given him a portion of the result of his efforts—perhaps the most valuable "thing" he could offer. In this way, he completed another cold "settlement," and... perhaps it was also a silent promise? A declaration that he had not brewed this potion entirely for himself.
Lin Yanqing carefully put away the small crystal vial.
He knew that this potion meant far more than the previous Mistletoe Berries or counterspell notes. It was the closest Severus Snape had come to expressing "recognition," after their cooperation at the brink of life and death.
The bells of Christmas were about to ring, and Hogwarts slept amid the ice and snow. Somewhere in a corner of the castle, two boys bound by fate were quietly weaving an even stronger connection beneath the ice, in their own unique way.
Before you continue