Unlucky Guy

He maintained a certain restraint, making his tone seem polite, but Snape's expression grew increasingly livid with his words, and everyone in the classroom—even the Slytherins—felt a cold sweat break out for him.

Hermione's nasal soreness instantly dissipated, and her tears stopped welling up as she anxiously poked Li Mu in the back a few times. Harry and Ron were also giving him frantic winks from the side.

But Li Mu still said calmly, "They haven't violated any school rules. If you really want to deduct points, you should deduct points from every student who didn't prepare and every student who actively answers questions—otherwise, we have reason to believe that you are deliberately making things difficult."

Snape was truly annoyed. In his class—in the ten years since he had been teaching—no one had dared to question him like this. It was almost a direct challenge to him.

"Li Mu, for arguing with a teacher, Hufflepuff loses ten points!"

Li Mu stood up with a "Whoosh." Snape's arm twitched, but he forcibly restrained himself.

Li Mu's companions were startled, stunned by the sudden, intense aura he had just released. The people in the classroom gasped, each one astonished. They watched in horror as Li Mu glared, coldly confronting Snape.

Judging by the look of it, it would have been normal for the two of them to pull out their wands and fight to the death in the next second.

The atmosphere in the entire classroom completely froze. This time, no one dared to speak, or even breathe deeply. At this moment, the air had solidified.

Snape's eyes gradually narrowed, a cold glint flashing in his pupils. The moment Li Mu stood up, his heart actually trembled involuntarily. The aura on this student was somewhat similar to that person's.

Fortunately, it was only for a moment. The burst of aura was immediately suppressed deliberately, and gradually receded.

"That's right, you are the teacher!" Li Mu actually smiled again, his expression relaxed and radiant, as if the angry outburst just now was just an illusion.

He leisurely sat back down, even taking the time to look back at Hermione, giving her a reassuring look.

Since he stood up just now, only Hermione had endured her fear and tried to tug on Li Mu's sleeve to make him sit down. And now, Hermione looked at him with a worried expression, her eyes even redder than before.

Snape glanced at Li Mu deeply again, but unconsciously breathed a sigh of relief. Only he knew how terrifying Li Mu's eyes were just now, how frightening his aura was. At that time, he even wanted to retreat immediately and draw his wand to defend himself.

Because he instinctively felt danger, he found it hard to imagine that such a thin Celestial Dynasty boy could have such a chilling look in his eyes, as if possessed by a ferocious beast.

With a cold snort, Snape shook his robes again, shifting his gaze away from Li Mu, also acting as if nothing had happened just now. He said, "Today is just a basic demonstration class. Next, I will divide all the students into groups of four, and you will prepare... Malfoy! What are you laughing at? Slytherin loses five points!"

Halfway through his words, Snape inadvertently glanced over and happened to see Malfoy making faces at Li Mu and others, mocking them greatly. An unnamed fire rose in his heart, and he roared again directly.

Malfoy was stunned, lowering his head with a depressed expression. He never expected that Snape would deduct points from him—didn't the older students say that Snape, as the head of Slytherin, was the most protective and biased?

In this way, the classroom was much quieter. Only the solution in the cauldron was churning, with a continuous stream of bubbles forming, growing, and bursting. Apart from the "glug" sound of the potion boiling, there was only the sound of Snape moving through the students like a bat.

The students, in groups of four, began their first attempt at brewing potions in this solemn atmosphere. They had plenty of time, as the entire afternoon was potions class.

Then, Snape's gloomy voice scolding students for their mistakes also echoed throughout the afternoon, reverberating in everyone's ears—which perhaps proved that his teaching attitude was still serious, although most of those scolded were Gryffindor students.

The only ones who were not criticized were Malfoy's group and Li Mu's group. Snape showed everyone how Malfoy performed a series of treatments when the Slug Horn began to emit green smoke, which made Malfoy happy—the teacher was still biased towards them after all.

As for Li Mu... because of Snape's requirement that he "must be grouped according to his house," he had to leave Harry and the others and find his roommates among nearly a hundred people. His group included Ernie Macmillan, Justin Finch-Fletchley, and Hannah Abbott.

Li Mu's position should have belonged to that girl named Susan Bones. But when she saw Li Mu coming over, she smiled at him with her round face and quickly gave up her seat to run to another group—she seemed very friendly, with a hint of fear mixed in.

Snape circled around Li Mu and his three companions several times, and finally simply stopped looking at their operations. Hufflepuff students were naturally more sensitive to various plants and animals, and this talent was fully revealed in this introductory potions class. The cooperation of Li Mu's four people was really hard to fault.

In contrast, Hinata and her three classmates were in a mess. Obviously, courses like potions, which were easy to understand but difficult to master and focused on practical operation, were a huge challenge for the Ravenclaw "bookworms" in everyone's impression.

Originally, Hermione should have been able to avoid being scolded as well. She had already previewed the relevant courses, and her hands-on ability was also very strong. But unfortunately, she was in a group with Ron and Neville.

As a result, from the beginning, the three people, including Harry, heard Hermione whispering, "No, Neville, you should put the Zha Ling in first..."

"Oh, Ron! Why are you doing that? You should cut the Fu Dan Grass into such thin strips..."

So Ron, with a face ashen, clumsily worked, accidentally reversing the order of the ingredients, turning what should have been a tan broth into a bizarre blood red.

"What are you doing?!" Hermione's eyebrows furrowed together. Snape would sneer at them every time he passed by, and now she had a premonition that because of Ron's mistake, Snape would have even more reason to give them a good scolding.

Thinking of this, Hermione felt even more anxious and irritable: "Pay attention to the order of the ingredients! Isn't it clear enough in the book?..."

Unfortunately, before she could finish blaming Ron, she suddenly heard a cracking sound, followed by the sound of rushing water. By the time she finally realized something was wrong and came back to her senses, she almost cried out: "Oh, no!"

It was Neville. Just as she was reprimanding Ron, Neville threw something into the cauldron, actually burning a large hole in the thick bottom of the pot. The highly dangerous potion juice poured down like a torrential rain, flowing all over the floor, instantly burning holes in the leather shoes of the surrounding students.

February ends here, I hope friends who read the book will leave more comments.

Good luck in March, continue to strive.

(End of this chapter)