After the Transfiguration class that had left Ezio wanting more came to an end, the afternoon belonged to Slytherin and Gryffindor.
Potions Class was next.
Compared to the tension in Transfiguration, the atmosphere in Potions Class was even worse.
The students walked through a gloomy corridor and arrived at a doorway glowing with a faint, sickly green light. As soon as they entered, they saw two rows of display cases flanking the aisle. Dissected corpses had been stuffed into jars, and the internal organs of various magical creatures floated in glass bottles that reflected the ominous green glow. They bobbed slowly up and down, as if whispering into the students' ears about the terrible things that had happened to them.
Some of the girls were so frightened that tears welled in their eyes. Even the bolder boys couldn't help feeling uneasy. An oppressive, fearful atmosphere had already filled the classroom as soon as they stepped inside.
When it came to being a villain, Snape was a consummate professional.
But...
Ezio was quite interested in the parts that had been removed with such impressive expertise.
"What... is that thing's brain?" Harry was a little unnerved, too, but seeing how intently Ezio was studying it made him curious.
"Oh, a Troll's brain." Ezio turned his gaze away from the glass jar. "I always thought 'potato-head' was just a way to describe Trolls. I didn't realize it was literally true. These stupid brutes are at least three meters tall, but their brains are actually the size of a potato. No wonder they're all so dim. With such a small brain and shallow furrows, it's hard to be clever."
"What's it used for?"
"Troll brains are an important ingredient in a magical potion. They may not be very bright, but, surprisingly, Trolls have good instincts. Maybe if they didn't, they'd starve in the wild. Super-Sensing Potion uses an extract from a Troll's brain."
"That potion sounds disgusting." Harry felt like he might gag. He even wanted to wash out his ears.
"But it's powerful and useful. The Super-Sensing Charm lets a wizard heighten his senses and perceive everything within three meters of himself, even with his eyes closed. But Super-Sensing Potion not only avoids the Charm's side effect of making you oversensitive, it also extends your range of perception to eight or ten meters. Drink it, and you can become a master eavesdropper without any training. For example, you could listen to the girl next door taking a bath. You could even picture the scene just from the sounds, and the simulation would be almost one hundred percent accurate."
"All right..." Harry's expression stiffened, but he couldn't help imagining it anyway. He didn't have a pretty girl living next door right now, but what if he did someday? "But we won't be learning this potion yet, will we?"
"It's not too difficult. It's in the sixth-year textbook, Advanced Potion Making. I haven't tried it yet, but it shouldn't be too hard. The ingredients just aren't easy to buy."
Ezio shrugged, then took his seat beside Harry.
"Your idea of 'not too difficult' only applies to you..." Harry was a little speechless, though he was used to it by now. "Just looking at One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi makes my eyes glaze over. There's far too much to memorize."
"There are 1,332 potions, but the school only uses a little over two hundred of them regularly. If you categorize them and make a chart of their properties and effects, they're much easier to remember. The Wizarding World desperately needs a standardized classification system. There isn't even anything like kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. Wizards' attitude toward research is terrible—below elementary-school level."
Ezio had long had plenty of complaints about the Wizarding World. It wasn't just Potions; Charms was the same. Everything was a complete mess.
Class time soon arrived. The classroom was silent, and everyone waited nervously. The door slid open without a sound, and a black-robed figure glided in like a ghost. As he passed through the green-lit corridor, the top of the Black Phantom's head glimmered faintly, as if some reflective substance were making it seem to light up.
Ezio struggled to hold back a laugh. Perhaps because shampoo had been invented by the Potter Family, Snape despised washing his hair. But right now, his greasy hair was a little ridiculous.
"Silence."
Snape glided to the podium like a ghost and said something entirely unnecessary. Then he took out a piece of parchment and began calling roll.
It felt like they were standing in line while the Shinigami watched and called out their names. The already-nervous young wizards were terrified. Anyone would imagine their life was nearly over when a gloomy-looking fellow with a chilling presence and a dead expression read out their name.
Fortunately, there was one person in class—no, two people—who drew all the hostility.
"It seems we have a celebrity among us."
Snape narrowed his eyes slightly and looked at Harry, whom he had just called. His gaze was stern and searching, as though he wanted to look through Harry and see what shape his heart was.
Harry looked a little nervous, but someone in Slytherin had told him Snape was a teacher who looked after his own students. He wasn't too worried that Snape would give him a hard time. Draco, who had told him that, had sounded completely confident.
Harry tried to calm himself, then met Snape's gaze.
When Snape saw those beautiful emerald-green eyes, he seemed to pause for a moment. For an instant, even the lines of his face appeared to soften.
But almost no one noticed the subtle change.
"Sit down," Snape said coldly, then continued calling the next name.
His gaze returned to the same cold emptiness it had held when he entered, like two pitch-black tunnels stretching on forever.
"You are here to learn the precise science and strict art of potion-making." Snape's voice was barely above a whisper, yet it reached everyone's ears clearly. It was as if a clammy, damp, cold worm were rubbing against your ear, sending a chill down your spine and making you want to slap it away.
"Since you won't be foolishly waving your wands, many of you will refuse to believe this is magic. I don't expect you to truly appreciate the wonder of a cauldron simmering over a low flame, giving off white smoke and a sweet aroma. You won't understand the marvelous magic in a potion flowing through your veins, filling you with ecstasy and clouding your will..."
Snape's slightly distant voice rose, his murmur tinged with a dark temptation that seemed capable of dragging people into the abyss.
"I can teach you how to enhance your reputation, brew glory, and even prevent death—" Snape paused, his icy gaze sweeping the room. "But only if you are not the kind of stupid idiot I so often encounter."
Snape looked at everyone as if they were stupid idiots.
"Potter." In the silence, Snape suddenly spoke. "What would I get if I added Asphodel root powder to an Infusion of Wormwood?"
"A simple Draught of Living Death?" Harry had prepared and done his reading, so he only paused for a moment before standing to answer. It wasn't a potion they would study in first year, but anyone who had carefully read One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi would find that fact mentioned in the entry on Asphodel root.
"If I asked you to find a Bezoar, where would you look?"
"In a cow's stomach. A Bezoar is a powerful antidote."
Snape's gaze darkened, then he gave an almost imperceptible nod.
"Then what is the difference between Monkshood and Wolfsbane?"
"They're both types of aconite, just different varieties, but their effects are almost the same. Their roots are highly poisonous, and they have some effect against Werewolves."
"It seems your fame hasn't gone to your head." Snape gave a slight nod and said expressionlessly. For a moment, a flicker of approval seemed to pass through his eyes. Harry's reflection lay in them, along with those emerald-green eyes.
"Very good, Harry. Ten points to Slytherin."
With a single sentence, Snape showed everyone how "generous" he could be. But right after that, his gaze fixed on the man sitting beside Harry.
"I hope you'll all remember this humility. Now—"
"If I asked you to brew a Draught of Living Death—the complete version—how would you do it, Mr. Auditore?"
Snape's malicious gaze settled on Ezio. A sneer seemed to curl his lips. "I hear you have extraordinary talent. Is that true?"
"Simply put, you grind the Asphodel root, add it to an Infusion of Wormwood, heat it, and stir. Then add Moon-dew flower pollen and Valerian root. When the potion turns tea-brown, add Soporific bean juice drop by drop and stir counterclockwise. Once it turns pale snow-blue, keep stirring until it becomes pale pink. Let it sit, then stir it again until the potion is transparent and colorless. That's basically how you brew a Draught of Living Death."
That was the simple version, of course. Brewing potions depended heavily on precise timing and ingredient ratios. This simply brewed Draught of Living Death had a strong bitter taste, so more ingredients would need to be added afterward to remove the bitterness.
"In fact, I've already tried brewing it. Compared to other advanced potions, the Draught of Living Death isn't very difficult, apart from taking a little longer. Could you tell me what you think of the quality of my potion?"
Ezio reached into his pouch and took out a bottle containing about two hundred milliliters of clear potion.
Snape's gaze turned icy. Without a word, he stepped forward and picked up the potion that had been placed on the desk. He unscrewed the lid, then fanned the air over the bottle with his hand and took a small sniff.
"The ratio of Asphodel root to Wormwood is wrong. You used too little Soporific bean juice, and you heated it for too long. This Draught of Living Death will only remain effective for a week. It has already expired."
Like a dog with a keen nose, Snape had detected the brewing mistakes with a single sniff, even though the Draught of Living Death should have been colorless and odorless. His face held a hint of mockery and disdain.
"You can't even follow a recipe properly. This shoddy brew is worthless."
"Is it possible," Ezio said coolly, looking at Snape, "that the reason I made such an inferior product was that I followed the instructions in the book?"
Ezio narrowed his eyes slightly and gave Snape a challenging look.
"You just said—"
"In class, you will call me 'sir' or 'Professor,'" Snape interrupted without the slightest courtesy.
"All right, Professor Snape." Ezio didn't mind that. "You just told everyone that Potions is a precise science and a strict art. Then you must be able to answer my question: why can't I find any of this supposed precision or rigor in the Potions textbook or any other book on Potions?"
"What are the exact proportions of Asphodel root powder and Infusion of Wormwood? How much Moon-dew flower pollen is needed? Should Valerian root be ground into powder or chopped up, and why is the amount given as a handful or a single root? Doesn't the juice from each Soporific bean vary?"
"If Potions is precise, why are there no exact measurements in these published recipes? Wizards rely on experience and instinct to brew potions from beginning to end. They've never quantified any of it."
"Even if experience tells us how much of each ingredient to use, will different-quality ingredients produce the same results in the same quantities?"
"Maybe you want to say, 'Just do it more often. Practice and you'll learn.' But is that precise? Is that rigorous?"
"You just mentioned science, but I'm telling you that this isn't science. None of it is rigorous."
"In my view, Potions is the most scientific form of magic. If you set aside the low skill of certain wizards, then anyone should be able to make a potion and reproduce the same results, again and again, simply by following the correct proportions and steps. They shouldn't have to guess based on instinct or estimate from experience."
"How much is a drop? One milliliter or two? What temperature range do you mean when you say to heat something? Without measurements, Potions can't be called precise or rigorous."
"Would you like to see what real precision and rigor look like?"
Ezio took another clear potion out of his pouch. "Draught of Living Death. I worked out the proportions myself and precisely quantified them. As long as you're not a clumsy fool who can't remember the instructions, you'll make a potion exactly like this one by following the steps."
"Asphodel root powder can be extracted using ethanol as a solvent. After purification, we get high-purity crystals with a grayish-white color. The ratio of Asphodel root powder to Infusion of Wormwood is 1:115. The Infusion of Wormwood is purified by distillation, then diluted with eighty parts water. Heat it to 75 degrees. The Moon-dew flower pollen and Valerian root can also be extracted using solvents; their ratios to the Asphodel root powder are 1:0.4 and 1:25. After mixing, heat the solution to its critical boiling point of 115 degrees. Soporific beans don't release their juice easily, so I use supercritical fluid extraction. By applying heat and pressure, I bring carbon dioxide to a supercritical state and dissolve the target compounds. The average yield from one Soporific bean is 3.3 milliliters, and the optimal amount is 3 milliliters. A centrifuge can replace stirring in the later stages, and it works better and faster: 1,500 RPM, in four six-second cycles, followed by thirty seconds of rest. Magic must be applied throughout the entire process. That's the biggest challenge at present."
"Just ten milliliters will reliably put an adult man into a deathlike, ultra-deep sleep for sixteen hours. Compared with the top-grade Draught of Living Death I bought from the best apothecary in Diagon Alley, my potion has a more consistent effect. And after multiple tests, I've found that different batches of Draught of Living Death from the same Potions Master, when taken in a fixed dose, cause deep sleep lasting anywhere from seventeen to twenty-one hours."
"Perhaps I don't need to tell you the name of that Potions Master, Professor."
"This is science. This is precision. Even if my recipe isn't the most effective possible formula, it can produce potions that are consistent from batch to batch."
"Modern Potions is nothing more than a crude way of boiling pig slop in a huge cauldron. I can't see a trace of the so-called precision or rigor. From the ingredients to the techniques, all you rely on is your so-called instinct. How is that any different from monkeys brewing wine by hiding fruit in hollow tree trunks?"
"So this thing is a piece of trash." Ezio pointed at the first bottle of Draught of Living Death he had taken out. "Is this what you're going to teach me to make?"
The little snakes and little lions had been completely bewildered. They stared blankly at the boy facing Snape. Their heads were buzzing. They understood most of the words individually, but put together, they couldn't make sense of any of it.
"The times are always moving forward. We're about to enter a glorious third millennium, and I don't want to stand still and wait for others to step on me. So, Professor Snape, will you lead by example and help us embrace progress?"
"Out!"
Snape's face had gone as black as the bottom of a cauldron. He pointed at the classroom door and glared at Ezio through clenched teeth. No wonder he had recently received several lucrative orders for Draught of Living Death. So that was where it had all started!
"Getting angry won't solve anything, Professor Snape." Ezio gave a slight bow. "I'll wait for you outside your office after class."
"Come on, Harry." Ezio beckoned to him.
"Oh... okay!"
Harry didn't understand what was going on, but he still got up and followed Ezio without thinking.
"What are you planning to do?" Snape narrowed his eyes dangerously. His murderous aura was practically spilling into the room.
"Teach him how to brew potions scientifically. I can teach him everything up to fifth year, and sixth-year material, too. He's clever. Clever people shouldn't learn stupid methods; they'll waste their talent and make him stupid."
Snape watched helplessly as that bastard Ezio led Harry out of the classroom, his voice dying in his throat.
"If any of you would like to leave as well, I'll give you the opportunity."
His eyes swept coldly across the room, dark enough to drip. Everyone stiffened in their seats.
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