He maintained a certain restraint throughout, keeping his tone polite and courteous, but Snape's expression still grew darker and darker with his words. Everyone in the classroom—even the Slytherins—broke out in a cold sweat for him.
The sting in Hermione's nose vanished at once, and her tears stopped welling up. Anxiously, she poked Li Mu several times from behind. Harry and Ron kept shooting him meaningful looks from beside him.
But Li Mu continued calmly, "They haven't broken any school rules. If you really want to deduct points, then you should deduct points from every student who didn't prepare beforehand and every student who actively answered questions—otherwise, we have reason to believe that you're deliberately making things difficult for us."
Snape was truly furious. In all ten years since he had begun teaching, no one had ever dared question him like this. It was practically a direct challenge.
"Li Mu has talked back to a teacher. Ten points from Hufflepuff!"
Li Mu sprang to his feet. Snape's arm twitched, but he forcibly held himself back.
Li Mu's companions were all startled, intimidated by the fierce aura that had suddenly burst from him. Everyone else in the classroom sucked in a breath, utterly astonished. They watched in horror as Li Mu glared wide-eyed at Snape, confronting him coldly.
Judging by the way they looked, it would not have been strange if they had both pulled out their wands and fought for their lives the next second.
The atmosphere in the entire classroom completely froze. Now, no one truly dared to speak, and no one even dared breathe too loudly. At that moment, the air itself seemed solid.
Snape's eyes gradually narrowed, and a cold gleam flashed through them. The instant Li Mu stood up, Snape's heart had actually trembled without his realizing it. The aura around this student bore a faint resemblance to that person's.
Fortunately, it had lasted only an instant. The erupting aura was immediately and deliberately suppressed, slowly withdrawing again.
"That's right, you're the teacher!" Li Mu unexpectedly smiled again, his expression relaxed and pleasant, as though the furious glare and outburst from moments ago had been nothing more than an illusion.
He leisurely sat back down, even finding the time to turn and look at Hermione, giving her a reassuring glance.
Ever since he had stood up, Hermione had been the only one who, despite her terror, kept tugging hard at Li Mu's sleeve in an attempt to make him sit down. Now, she looked at him with worry written all over her face, her eyes even redder than before.
Snape gave Li Mu another long, deep look, yet he unconsciously relaxed as well. Only he knew how terrifying Li Mu's gaze had been just now, how frightening his presence had felt. At the time, Snape had even wanted to step back immediately and draw his wand in defense.
Because he had instinctively sensed danger. It was hard for him to imagine that such a thin, frail Chinese boy could possess such a heart-stopping gaze, as though a savage beast had possessed him.
With a cold snort, Snape shook out his robes again and shifted his gaze away from Li Mu, acting as though nothing had happened at all. He said, "Today is only a basic demonstration class. Next, I will divide all students into groups of four, and you will prepare potions at your cauldrons... Malfoy! What are you laughing at? Five points from Slytherin!"
Halfway through speaking, Snape happened to glance over and see Malfoy making faces at Li Mu and the others, mocking them openly. A burst of inexplicable anger rose within him, and he immediately roared again.
Malfoy froze, lowering his head with a gloomy expression. He never would have imagined that Snape would deduct points from him—hadn't the older students said that Snape, as Slytherin's Head of House, was the most protective and biased toward his own?
With that, the classroom became much quieter. Only the solutions in the cauldrons churned, bubbles constantly forming, swelling, and bursting. Apart from the gurgling of boiling potions, there was only the sound of Snape prowling among the students like a bat.
The students formed groups of four and, amid the solemn atmosphere, began their first attempts at brewing potions. They had the entire afternoon for Potions, so they had plenty of time.
Then Snape's gloomy voice scolding students for their mistakes rang out all afternoon, echoing in everyone's ears. Perhaps that proved he took teaching fairly seriously, although most of those being scolded were Gryffindor students.
The only groups that escaped criticism were Malfoy's group and Li Mu's group. Snape showed everyone how Malfoy handled the situation when green smoke began rising from the Slug Horn, which cheered Malfoy up—after all, the teacher was still biased toward them.
As for Li Mu... because Snape had insisted that students "must group according to their Houses," he had no choice but to leave Harry and the others and find his own dormmates among the nearly hundred students. His group included Ernie Macmillan, Justin Finch-Fletchley, and Hannah Abbott.
Li Mu's spot should originally have belonged to a girl named Susan Bones. But when she saw Li Mu approaching, she puffed out her round cheeks and smiled at him, then quickly gave up her seat and ran to another group. She seemed very friendly, though there also appeared to be a trace of fear mixed in.
Snape circled Li Mu's group of four several times, but eventually he simply stopped watching their work. Hufflepuff students were naturally more sensitive to all kinds of plants and animals, and that talent showed itself vividly in this introductory Potions class. The coordination among Li Mu's group of four was truly difficult to fault.
By comparison, Hinata and her three classmates were in a complete flurry. Clearly, a course like Potions—easy to understand but difficult to perform, with great emphasis on hands-on skill—was a tremendous challenge for the "bookworms" everyone associated with Ravenclaw.
Hermione should originally have been able to avoid being scolded as well. She had already prepared for the relevant lessons, and she was quite capable when it came to practical work. Unfortunately, she had been grouped with Ron and Neville.
As a result, from the very beginning, the three of them—including Harry—kept hearing Hermione mutter softly, "No, Neville, you should add the Zha Ling first..."
"Oh, Ron! Why are you doing it like that? You should cut the Fu Dan Grass into strips this thin..."
Ron worked clumsily with a dark expression, and he accidentally reversed the order in which the ingredients were added. The mixture, which should have been yellowish-brown, turned a bizarre blood-red.
"What are you doing!?" Hermione's brows were drawn tightly together. Every time Snape passed by them, he would sneer at them a few times, and now she had a feeling that Ron's mistake would give Snape even more reason to thoroughly berate them.
Thinking of this made Hermione even more anxious and irritated. "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 crack, followed by the sound of rushing liquid. By the time she finally realized something was wrong and came back to herself, she was almost crying. "Oh, no!"
It was Neville. While she had been lecturing Ron, Neville had thrown something into the cauldron and somehow burned a huge hole straight through its thick bottom. The highly dangerous potion poured out in a flood, covering the floor and instantly burning pits into the shoes of the students nearby.
And so February came to an end. I hope those who enjoy reading will leave more comments.
May March treat you well. Keep striving.
(End of Chapter)
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